To be a first-rate power, to have been so blessed and favoured by Providence as to become one, and have risen to that height by the industry, courage, hardihood, and resolution of the English race—to be all this, and yet shirk its manifest duties, is impossible. For who will say that that position has not entailed upon us duties, duties to ourselves and our present interests, to our race and past name, to Europe, and to the world? To be a first-rate nation, and yet profess indifference to the balance and distribution of power, or indifference to the fate of such nations as are emerging from barbarism and struggling for independence, this, we repeat, is as impossible for a proud and a just nation, as it is impolitic for a provident and foreseeing one. Such a view of our duties as a first rate power is not the less just, because a sense of such duties may have been so strained on former occasions as to fling the country into a war of principles. The great struggle between France and England occupied a quarter of a century, and exhausted both the countries that were foremost in civilisation. It was this that created opportunities for countries the youngest and best advanced of the European race to step forth before their time, and assume an ascendance which now menaces even to thrust back civilisation itself. Our mistake was to have quarrelled for mere opinion with a country that stood beside us in the foremost rank, and which, so closely our equal, maintained an almost interminable struggle. The duty now imposed, and the interests appealing to England and to France together for protection, involve no mere preferences of opinion. Considerations of democracy or despotism have nothing to do with them. It is the great material question whether one power shall be allowed to become so preponderant on the confines of Europe and Asia, as virtually, if it succeeds, to dominate the two continents. It is a question not merely of government or its principles, but of self-conservation, of national existence. Whatever forbearance we may suppose to mark the politics of Russia, or whatever fabulous magnanimity we may impute to its Emperor, we can judge by his present tone and demands, while the Pruth yet bounds his empire, what would be his requirements and his policy were his eagles hoisted upon Saint Sophia. The Czar now, from his stronghold at the extremity of the Black Sea, ordains the closing of the Dardanelles against us—an order, forsooth, which our marvellously prudent statesmen think it advisable already to obey. Enthrone the Czar at Constantinople, and could he do less than close the straits of Gibraltar? The stretch of authority would really not be greater than in proportion to his advanced empire and improved position. The position of Constantinople, we well know, confers on him who grasps it the first maritime position in the world, an inexpugnable position, behind which navies to any extent could be prepared and manned. Had Napoleon, crushed as his naval strength was, possessed such a resource as Constantinople, he could have renewed with us ten times over the struggle for maritime superiority. Suppose Russia in that position, and Greeks and Slavonians would then have no choice but to adopt the Russian uniform. The wild races on either side of the Straits demand but a great military power which will give them pay and a fair chance of success. Mahommedanism, humbled in the person of the Prophet’s descendant and in the fall of his empire, would enlist its remaining energies in the service of the Russian Sultan. And we should soon find England, its colonial possessions, and world-wide trade, not only menaced and interrupted throughout Asia and Africa, but its naval power disputed on the Mediterranean. But the result of such augmented might on the part of Russia, of the swelling of her armed masses from hundreds of thousands, to tens of hundreds of thousands, would be even more fatal to the continent of Europe than to the maritime powers. As it is, the Slavonians and Germans groan under her impending weight, which forbids to every remnant of the races either national or representative institutions; and jeopardised as we already find the latter in France, we could scarcely hope other than to see them utterly extinguished on the continent of Europe, if Russian influence should be able now to strengthen and extend itself. It is indeed needless to dilate on such a theme, or to depict the too manifest consequence of a Russian occupation of Constantinople. That war would be obviated by allowing the Russians unresisted to establish themselves on the Bosphorus is an argument too absurd for even a Peace Society. Such an event would not only necessitate war in order to extricate ourselves, our trade, shipping, the sea, India, and Europe, from a yoke more universal than Napoleon ever dreamed of imposing, but would involve a quarter of a century’s war of the civilised and industrious West against the despotic and military East in order to get back a full emancipation. We do not believe that Russia will risk a war with us. We are convinced that at present what we see of boldness and decision on the part of Russia, of hesitation and doubt on the part of the maritime powers, has been owing altogether to the Russian Emperor’s thorough acquaintance with our weak points; too natural in a constitutional government like ours, and which oftener enables enemies to take advantage of our weakness, than friends to put confidence in our strength. Russia, in fact, knows the carte du pays, and has marched across the Pruth, solely because of the conviction that Lord Aberdeen would not resent it. In this, however, the Czar may find himself mistaken. Great forbearance may not preclude resolute action at last. —The News of the World.

* * *

“It is now a settled opinion of many of the most thoughtful of New Englanders, that the assertion of the independence of each separate congregation was as great a step toward freedom of conscience as all that had been previously gained by Luther’s reformation.”—Visit to U.S. by Sir C. Lyell.

* * *