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 FEW WORDS ON OUR 
 RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN 

 
 A FEW WORDS 
 
 ON OUR 
 
 RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA 
 
 INCLUDING SOME REMARKS 
 
 ON A 
 
 RECENT PUBLICATION 
 
 BY 
 
 COLONEL DE LACY EVANS, 
 
 ENTITLED 
 
 « DESIGNS OF RUSSIA.' 
 
 BY A NON-ALARMIST. 
 
 LONDON: 
 PUBLISHED BY BALDWIN AND CRADOCK, 
 
 PATERNOSTER 110"'. 
 
 1828.
 
 C. Baldwin, Printer, 
 New Bridge-Street, London.
 
 v 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Reasons for writing — Semi-hostile disposition of the Mi- 
 nistry towards the Russians 1 
 
 Conduct of the present Ministry in the affairs of the east 
 of Europe contrasted with that of Mr. Canning 4. 
 
 The manifestation of a design on the part of Russia to 
 make permanent conquests from the Turks would, ac- 
 cording to Lord Aberdeen, endanger the balance of 
 power, and demand the interference of this country— 
 That, although that design is probably entertained, the 
 necessity of such interference may be called in question, 12 
 
 Peculiar evil of a war with Russia, with respect to our 
 trade 16 
 
 In what consists the balance of power — Three conditions 
 must be realized before a war in its behalf can be justi- 
 fied. — That these conditions would not be realized in 
 the case of Russia making permanent conquests from 
 Turkey 20 
 
 1 . Because, even if territorial acquisitions should increase the 
 power of Russia to a degree inconsistent with the balance 
 of power, it would not be expedient to resort imme- 
 diately to force to compel her to abandon them — Pro- 
 bable separation of the constituent parts of the Russian 
 empire 23 
 
 2. Because, although Russia should take possession of the 
 Danubian provinces of Turkey, and even of Constan- 
 tinople itself, such conquest would increase neither her 
 offensive nor defensive power , . . . , 27 
 
 '-'^^D /d
 
 iv CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 
 3. Because, although the power of Russia were to he ex- 
 tended with its territory, the power of the nations of 
 Western Europe has the intrinsical elements of still 
 greater increase 34: 
 
 Some Remarks on the exaggeration of the military force 
 of Russia 39 
 
 Conclusion, on comparing the moral force existing in the 
 Russian nation with that in the principal nations of 
 Western Europe 53 
 
 The apprehension of a Russian invasion of India without 
 foundation , 55
 
 A FEW WORDS 
 
 ON OUR 
 
 RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA. 
 
 Reasons for writing — Semi-hostile disposition of the 
 Ministry towards the Russians. 
 
 For some time past, a considerable number of 
 persons, some politicians who tremble for the fall of 
 the old idol in politics- — the balance of power,* or 
 resent the insult to the nation, supposed to be im- 
 plied in the blockade of the Dardanelles ; some mer- 
 chants who trade with the Turks ; and some editors 
 of journals, who trade in incense to current preju- 
 dices, have been working to push this country into a 
 quarrel with Russia. Hitherto, if they have not 
 
 * Amongst others, Colonel Evans, in his recent publication, 
 entitled " The Designs of Russia.'' The propositions in that 
 work, though possessing some novelty in point of form, are 
 essentially little different from those of many previous writers, 
 upon a general review of which the present paper was drawn 
 up. It will not, therefore, be necessary to make a running 
 commentary on Colonel Evans's pages. It will be sufficient to 
 extract passages which serve for samples of the sort of reasoning 
 which the alarmists employ, and of the contradictions into which 
 they are constantly betrayed. I shall also occasionally men- 
 tion his arguments in a note, when, inserted and examined in the 
 text, they would break the chain of my own. 
 
 R
 
 2 
 
 procured general concurrence, they have certainly 
 met with little opposition. I am fearful, that if 
 they remain longer unanswered, they should lead 
 the public to think them unanswerable. I shall 
 perhaps be told, that " this is nothing worth writing 
 about : — let those persons work on ; the public is too 
 much possessed with the love of peace, or, at all 
 events, with the hatred of taxes, to be acted upon 
 by the empty phrases which had formerly such a 
 war-stirring effect." 
 
 I must answer that, although the public be as 
 cool-headed about the matter as is here represented, 
 yet it may still be a good service to examine the 
 reasons which those enemies of the Russians, or 
 friends of the Turks (for they are now pretty nearly 
 convertible designations), have to give for their alarm 
 and indignation. Otherwise the noise which their 
 tocsin makes might, at length, be taken for evidence 
 of a real danger, and mere teasing drive men from 
 their better judgment. 
 
 Some who love not pamphleteers will reply, that 
 my work is still one of supererogation ; " for all 
 men who wish for the maintenance of peace may 
 safely rely on the pacific intentions of the Duke of 
 Wellington's Ministry." 
 
 But are the intentions of the Duke of Wellington's 
 Ministry pacific? Because they are not actually 
 known to have sent orders to their Mediterranean fleet 
 to beat off the Russian blockade, are they therefore 
 in amicable relation with the Russian Government? 
 This is what may be not only doubted but denied. 
 If the views and disposition of the Duke of Wel- 
 lington's Ministry, since their first installation into
 
 power, had been any thing but the reverse of har- 
 monious with those of the Russian Government, we 
 could not possibly have heard the battle of Nava- 
 rino condemned, and seen Sir Edward Codrington 
 half disgraced. It was the measure not only not of 
 allies, but of hostile-neutrals, (the word is expressive, 
 in spite of its Hibernicism), to require that Russia 
 should surrender her rights as a belligerent in the 
 Mediterranean ; for it is not so certain that Russia did 
 surrender them, although our Ministry thought fit, in 
 the King's Speech, to say so.* If our Government 
 had not, in fact, taken up its part against the Rus- 
 sians, on what ground could it interfere between 
 them and their enemies in the Mediterranean, rather 
 than on the Danube, or in any other quarter? The 
 Treaty of the 6th of July neither demanded nor 
 justified such interference. The Russians had de- 
 clared war against the Turks on their own account ; 
 they had ceased, therefore, to be in the situation iu 
 which the Treaty of the 6th of July placed them ; 
 and, by consequence, the other parties to the alliance 
 ceased to have any right of controul over their con- 
 duct. The demand, therefore, on the part of our 
 Government, that the Russians should surrender 
 
 * It is very possible that the celebrated " waiver" applied 
 only to the squadron of Admiral von Heyden, which had fought 
 at Navarino, and not to that of Admiral Ricord, which came 
 round from the Baltic this summer; and that our Government 
 thought, or wanted to make the Russians believe that they 
 thought, it applied generally, as they stated. There has been 
 bad faith or blundering on one side or the other, but it seems to 
 have occurred to no one that either might lie on the side of our 
 own Government as well as on that of the Russian. 
 
 B 2
 
 their belligerent rights, eannot be regarded but as 
 indicating its semi-hostile disposition towards that 
 power. 
 
 Of the purpose of Lord Heytesbury's mission, the 
 public, of course, is not informed; but, from all 
 appearances, it may be well presumed, that he is the 
 organ of demands for explanations of the past, and 
 guarantees for the future, which the Russians are 
 unwilling to give. 
 
 Official men indeed, may affect to contemn the 
 impertinence of inquiring into state negotiations, 
 of which they have taken care to keep the public 
 ignorant. But when the best information is not 
 granted to the public regarding affairs so nearly 
 affecting their interests as those which may ulti- 
 mately involve the question of a war, they may 
 choose to doubt whether those interests are so 
 securely trusted to the unchecked self-sufficiency of 
 the Cabinet, and seek for what information they can 
 get from hints and inferences. 
 
 Conduct of the present Ministry in the affairs of 
 the east of Europe contrasted with thai of 
 Mr. Canning. 
 
 ■t>' 
 
 Nothing can be more void of sense than the talk 
 about the " energy" of the Duke of Wellington. 
 Seldom has want of a distinct plan of action or 
 vacillation between two contrary objects been more 
 remarkably displayed, than in the affairs of the East
 
 :> 
 
 (to say nothing of affairs nearer home) by his Mi- 
 ll istry. 
 
 Mr. Canning left him a line of policy which, 
 though equally based upon a causeless jealousy of 
 Russian aggrandizement, was at all events intelli- 
 gible, and promised to be successful up to a certain 
 point, without entailing the danger of a rupture 
 with Russia. The " policy of Mr. Canning " is so 
 hacknied, and at the same time so vague an expres- 
 sion, that we may well be called upon to explain 
 what we mean by it. Some persons, indeed, seeing 
 what a confused account of the matter Mr. Can- 
 ning's adherents have usually put forth, have thought 
 that his " policy " never had any other existence 
 than in the shape of a party phrase. I believe, 
 however, that his policy really was a tangible plan 
 of proceeding, and that the reason why his partizans 
 have never explained it clearly, is, that they have a 
 secret conviction that, to do so. would be to show it in 
 another guise than that in which they wish it to 
 be seen. 
 
 The Treaty of the 6th of July bore upon the 
 face of it the desire to protect the interests of hu- 
 manity in Greece, and also to check the piracies 
 of the Greek vessels equipped under pretence of the 
 war. If, however, the sympathy professed for the 
 Greeks had been real, they would hardly have been 
 left for so long a time exposed to the ferocity of the 
 Turks and Egyptians, who, by butchering, or by 
 starving, had already cut off the better half of the 
 population. The suppression of piracy in the Levant 
 might have been compassed, as in any other sea, 
 by sending a number, not of line-of-battle ships and 
 frigates, but of armed brigs, cutters, and steam-boats,
 
 to keep the main passage clear from the pirate vessels ; 
 and by refusing to either of the flags of the con- 
 tending parties, the right of search, which had given 
 occasion to so many captures. 
 
 The other, and the far more probable, (we may 
 say now almost certainly correct) interpretation of 
 the Treaty, in so far as Great Britain was made a 
 party to it, is, that it was intended to subserve a 
 maxim of British Ministers, to wit, to hinder Russia 
 from meddling with Greek affairs if possible ; but 
 when that should not be possible, to take a merit in 
 co-operating in such measures as could no longer be 
 prevented. 
 
 Mr. Canning seems to have judged that Russia 
 intended to make an attack upon Turkey under 
 the pretext of liberating Greece, and that it would 
 be expedient to anticipate her, ' by giving the assent 
 and assistance of Great Britain to the furtherance 
 of the assumed object ; that thus he would meet 
 with stronger moral support from the rest of the na- 
 tions of Europe in arresting what might afterwards 
 appear the ulterior ambition of an ally, whom, so 
 far as justice and humanity demanded, he had as- 
 sisted, than if he were to maintain, after the example 
 of Mr. Pitt in 1791, what would be now generally 
 regarded as the cause of barbarism against the cause 
 of civilization ; or even to refuse to concur in the 
 relief of a people with whom European sympathies 
 are so peculiarly associated as with the Greeks. 
 Such, so far as those can judge who are seldom in- 
 formed of the reasons for treaties before it is too late 
 to weigh their validity, were the views of Mr. Can- 
 ning in agreeing to the Protocol of St. Petersburg}! 
 as the basis o£ the Treaty of the Oth of July.
 
 I am far from intending to assert, that the policy 
 of Mr. Canning, in as far as it proceeded on jea- 
 lousy of Russian aggrandisement, proceeded upon 
 sound principles, (I shall attempt to show the contrary 
 presently) or even that he fully contemplated the 
 consequence of his own measure. It seems pretty 
 certain that he was not prepared for the alternative 
 of using force to compel the Turks to accede to the 
 pacification of Greece. 
 
 The symptoms of alarm and vacillation which the 
 news of the battle of Navarino excited in the 
 Government of Lord Goderich, are well known. 
 All the members, except one, of that Government 
 were also members little more than three months 
 before of the Government of Mr. Canning ; and 
 if their late chief had expected any resort to force as 
 the consequence of the armed interference of the 
 Allies, they could hardly have failed to regard the 
 battle of Navarino as a most happy event for us, for 
 Greece, and for Europe.* 
 
 * But upon this point we are not reduced to conjecture. 
 In the debate in the Lords of the 16th of July, on Lord 
 Holland's motion on foreign affairs, the Duke of Wellington 
 distinctly said, in reference to the part which he took in the 
 negotiation with the Russian Court, preliminary to the Treaty 
 of the 6th of July, — " That in the instructions which he had 
 received, the preservation of peace was not only the great 
 object specified, but it was, in point of fact, laid down as ths 
 sine qua non of any engagement which might be entered into. 
 He was absolutely forbidden to make any arrangements with 
 respect to Greece, if measures of force or violence were the 
 means by which that object was to be carried into execution." 
 
 Lord Goderich himself in the same debate stated — " The 
 principle on which the English Government took a part in the 
 affairs of Greece (and by the way that Government abstained
 
 8 
 
 But although Mr. Canning did not expect a col- 
 lision like that at Navarino, yet the tact with which 
 he was wont to follow events which he had not 
 enough of forecast to anticipate, warrants the sup- 
 position that he would have taken advantage of the 
 impression which it was calculated to produce among 
 the Turks of the determination of the British 
 Government to press the pacification of Greece 
 
 from doing so as long as it could, and in his opinion had wisely 
 adopted that course), previous to the signature of the Protocol 
 by the noble Duke opposite, was not founded on an abstract 
 desire to see Greece freed from the tyranny of Turkey, but to 
 put an end to a state of things which had continued for many 
 years, and which seemed likely to lead to consequences the 
 most disastrous to Europe." The Ex-Minister further said — 
 " That the great object of the Treaty of July, 1827, was to 
 settle the affairs of Greece without the necessity of going to war." 
 The dilemma put by Lord Holland in his opening speech re- 
 mained without an attempt to remove it. " Was it not understood 
 and most distinctly laid down, (in the Protocol of St.Petersburgh) 
 that in case Turkey refused to comply with the terms there 
 mentioned, the Powers were to unite in measures of coercion ? 
 What was the meaning of all we had done, if that were not 
 the intention? What would their Lordships think, if some 
 dog of a Christian were to prostrate himself at the feet of the 
 Porte, and addressing him, say — ' Most Sublime Star cf the 
 Porte,' or whatever other title he might choose to give him, 
 • I shall feel much obliged to you if you will emancipate those 
 Greek rebels — if you will allow them to choose a governor of 
 their own— if you will permit them to sell Turkish property — 
 and let them have all the advantages of a free trade : but if 
 you do not please to do any of those things, why, I will go 
 home with my tail between my legs, because I am determined 
 not to take any ulterior measure on your non-compliance.' 
 W T ou!d not such conduct justly draw down upon the party 
 adopting it the contempt of ad to whom it was known ? 
 Would it not betray at once weakness and meanness? " — Times, 
 17 July.
 
 9 
 
 with renewed vigour. It is even not improbable 
 that, in this view, he would have immediately taken 
 measures to send an expedition to the Morea in 
 conjunction with the French. Thus he would, 
 under altered circumstances, have pursued the ori- 
 ginal view which dictated the treaty of 6th July, and, 
 in cordial alliance with the French, have controlled 
 still more effectually the self- regarding designs of 
 
 Russia. 
 
 We have traced these probabilities, not for the 
 sake of mere hypothetical speculation, but in order 
 to exhibit the different conduct of Mr. Canning's suc- 
 cessors in stronger relief The Duke and his party 
 held in such thorough contempt the idea of support 
 from public opinion, and in such peculiar esteem the 
 stupid system of intriguing, which they called an 
 alliance with the Turks, and above all things so hated 
 what had proceeded from Mr. Canning, that they 
 immediately sought to nullify, while they professed to 
 pursue, the objects of the Treaty of 6th of July; and 
 in endeavouring to dupe the world overreached none 
 but themselves. 
 
 By their very first step, in using the language 
 which they did in the King's Speech, respecting the 
 battle of Navarino, they contrived to disgust alike the 
 interested Russians and the disinterested French, with- 
 out succeeding in bringing the obstinacy of the Porte 
 to listen to reason. 
 
 The recent proceedings of the French Government 
 must have tended not a little to embarrass their posi- 
 tion. We can hardly doubt that they are extremely 
 disconcerted by the occupation of the Morea, for two 
 reasons : the one, that it sets their conduct, in respect 
 of the execution of the Treaty of 6th July, in more
 
 10 
 
 disadvantageous contrast with that of their Allies,-— 
 the other, that it excites the old ministerial jealousy of 
 French acquisitions in the Mediterranean. Yet they 
 can take no steps to show their displeasure, for fear of 
 driving the French to make common cause with the 
 Russians. Ridiculous indeed, if it only regarded 
 themselves, would he the dilemma in which the Duke's 
 "energy" has placed them. But subject for an ex- 
 pression, far other than that of ridicule, is the loss of 
 moral consideration, which he and his party have 
 entailed upon their country in the public opinion of 
 Europe. This loss of consideration is not merely 
 what that party would affect to call it, a mere affair 
 of " Liberal " spite. Every one who has paid the 
 slightest attention to what has been passing in 
 France for these few years past is aware that, not 
 influenced, like too many among ourselves, by re- 
 collections of Greek pirates or apprehensions of 
 Russian liberators, the great mass of the French 
 nation has pronounced, through every organ by which 
 a national feeling can be made manifest, its strong 
 sympathy for the Greek cause. 
 
 If the French Government share (as their lan- 
 guage in the Chamber of Deputies, when they de- 
 manded authority to make a loan of 80,000,000 
 francs against the contingencies of foreign affairs, 
 seemed to indicate) the jealousy which possesses 
 ours of Russian aggrandizement, certainly the 
 French public shows little disposition to re-echo 
 their sentiments, regarding the Russians as the 
 selfish, but not therefore less useful, agents in the 
 expulsion of barbarian power from the pale of 
 civilization. Even our supercilious rulers cannot 
 but know that the French Government cannot now,
 
 11 
 
 if so willing, act wholly independently of " Liberal" 
 opinion, and that this is an obstacle not to be dis- 
 regarded in the way of their desire to succour their 
 " ancient allies." * 
 
 * For what the good sense of the French nation would have 
 to say in answer to those who would excite their fears for the 
 consequences of the Russian invasion of Turkey, I may refer 
 my readers to the extracts subjoined, of a speech, delivered by 
 M. Bignon, in the Chamber of Deputies against the projet de lot, 
 for enabling the Minister of Finance to make a loan of 80,000,000 
 francs. 
 
 Referring to what had fallen from those who had preceded 
 him in the debate, with respect to Russia, he says : — " On ob- 
 jecte que l'Europe n'en sera que plus expose aux usurpations 
 d'une puissance si gigantesque. Messieurs, une grande et re- 
 cente experience nous a fait connaitre ce que deviennent les 
 etats qui ont depasse toutes les limites. La ou ils ne suc- 
 combent pas, ils se divisent. Lorsqu'on a dit qu'il valait mieux 
 voir des turbans que des chapeaux a Constantinople, on parlait 
 d'un principe errone, on regardent comme possible qu'un meme 
 prince regne jamais a Constantinople et a Petersbourg. A sup- 
 poser qu'un petit-fils des Dues d'Holstein parvint a remplacer 
 les htritiers d'Othman, combien d'annees ne faudrait il pas pour 
 asseoir un empire nouveau, pour vaincre toutes les resistances 
 physiques, morales, et religieuses, qui s'opposeraient a son aifer- 
 missement? Combien de sacrifices seraient imposes a l'empire 
 Russe, et par combien de combats il aura a payer des triomphes 
 qui, apres tout, ne contribueraient ni a sa prosperity, ni a sa 
 force rcelle ! Le sucees meme de l'expedition consomme, com- 
 bien d'annees, combien de mois les cabinets de Petersbourg et 
 de Constantinople, quoique diriges par les princes d'un meme 
 sang, demeureroientils d'accord, lorsque leur position respective 
 developperait des lelendemain une contradiction manifeste entre 
 les intcrC-ts de l'un de l'autre ? Napoleon, apres avoir couronne 
 ses freres, etoit oblige de les detroner pour soumettre a sa poli- 
 tique les etats qu'ils tenaient de lui." — Vide Constitutionnel, 
 14r Mai.
 
 12 
 
 The manifestation of a design on the part of 
 Russia, to make permanent conquests from the 
 Turks, would, according to Lord Aberdeen, en- 
 danger the balance of power, and demand the 
 interference of this country. — That although 
 that design is probably entertained, the necessity 
 of such interference may be called in question. 
 
 To come then to the main point, which it is im- 
 portant for the public to ascertain, to wit, whether the 
 .Ministry are not in the course of committing this 
 country to a line of policy, in regard to the affairs of 
 the East of Europe, very different from the one 
 which wisdom would dictate. 
 
 The language of the Ministry, so far as they have 
 thought lit to give forth any tiling upon the subject, 
 has been, that their disposition is extremely pacific- 
 pacific equally towards the Russians and the Turks. 
 As to the Turks, no one doubts that their profession 
 is sincere ; and they might have used a stronger term 
 than " pacific " with strict adherence to the truth. 
 But their assurances of a perfectly good understand- 
 ing with the Russians are involved in, or coupled 
 with, expressions marked with a peculiar emphasis, of 
 their confidence in the sincerity of the Emperor's 
 disclaimer of the intention of making conquests. (See 
 the Reports of the debate in the Lords, on Lord Hol- 
 land's motion on foreign affairs, on the 16th of July 
 last.) Lord Aberdeen, at the same time, took occasion 
 to say, that, " In his opinion, the existence of 
 Turkey, as an independent power, as a pozver of 
 weight and considerable influence in the affairs of
 
 13 
 
 Europe, was essential to the preservation of that 
 balance which it had always been the policy of 
 this country to preserve." In his opinion, " If 
 any very material diminution in the power of Turkey 
 took place, it would be felt by all the great powers 
 of Europe ; and if that were the case, it would be 
 our duty to preserve it as entire as possible. — Times, 
 17th Julv. 
 
 Now it seems highly probable that the Russian 
 court does contemplate permanent conquests from the 
 Turks. If this opinion were not suggested by a 
 view of the uniform policy of that court towards 
 Turkey since the time of Peter, it would be by the 
 consideration that, in the absence of such a design, 
 there is no apparently sufficient motive to have en- 
 gaged it in the present contest. 
 
 To prove that the protection of the Servians is not 
 a sufficient motive, is not worth the trouble of 
 penning a sentence. The claim to the free navigation 
 of the Dardanelles, although important to the Russian 
 trade in the Black Sea. would alone hardlv have 
 brought on a war, which must cause a greater ex- 
 penditure than the extension of their trade would 
 compensate to their revenue in half a century; and 
 that question might have been permitted to train on 
 unsettled, and so far in favour of Russia, as it had been 
 ever since the Treaty of Akkermann. The alleged 
 disregard of the stipulations of the Treat)' of Akker- 
 mann on the part of the Turks is another of the ma- 
 terial points in the Russian manifesto. Jiut it may 
 be doubted whether the expressions relating to the 
 Treaty of Akkermann in the Turkish hatti scheriff; 
 winch werp resented by the Russians, fullv bear out
 
 14 
 
 the construction, which the manifesto put upon them. 
 But allowing that they do, few people would contend 
 it would have heen difficult to bring back the Turks 
 by mere remonstrance to any terms which they had 
 once admitted, if they had not in fact disavowed the 
 imputed meaning of the hatti scheriff. Add to which, 
 that the Treaty of Akkermann itself relates princi- 
 pally to the two objects above cited as insufficient to 
 precipitate hostilities. The Russians profess to ex* 
 pect to be reimbursed for all the expenses of the war 
 by the defeated Turks. But a sum of such magni- 
 tude they must know that the Turks, if at any time, 
 could not possibly pay at the close of an exhausting 
 struggle. They must therefore intend to demand 
 securities for the fulfilment of the conditions of peace 
 which they prescribe. But what securities will be 
 so good as garrisons in the principal fortresses of 
 European Turkey as far as the Balkan, and especially 
 on the line of the Danube ? Have not the French 
 until lately held Cadiz as a security against re- 
 volution ? have not the Austrians within these few 
 years held Naples on the same pretence ? and do 
 not we at this moment hold the Ionian Islands 
 as a security either against France or Russia ? and 
 on what other plea do we keep Malta ? Assuredly, 
 the Russians will make these analogies available 
 now if ever. It would be quite in accordance with 
 their policy, the usual policy of military govern- 
 ments, to occupy those provinces under one pretext 
 or another until occasion serves to annex them to 
 the empire as protected or incorporated states, like 
 the kingdom of Poland. Then would come the 
 time for assuming such a military attitude towards
 
 15 
 
 the remainder of the Turkish dominions as would 
 threaten their independent existence on this side the 
 Straits, and at all events annihilate their importance 
 in the political chart of Europe. 
 
 Here would be the state of things realized which 
 Lord Aberdeen says that it is the duty of this country 
 to prevent. Such a course of proceeding, on the part 
 of Russia as is here shown to be probable, Lord 
 Aberdeen and his colleagues would therefore feel 
 themselves bound to oppose. It is not necessary to 
 suppose that the manifestation of the designs of 
 Russia, would immediately induce the Ministry to 
 come to a rupture with that power. The Russians 
 would be seeking to preserve their acquisitions, and 
 our Government would be seeking to compel them to 
 retire to their previous frontier. Negotiation would 
 of course be tried, but the point of the argument in 
 all negotiation which is not meant to be mere 
 chicane or bravado, and in which the contending in- 
 terests, real or supposed, are important and irrecon- 
 cileable, is an implied reference to hostilities. If the 
 elements of a quarrel between the two countries then 
 evidently exist, there is a cloud in the political ho- 
 rizon which it is well to point out. 
 
 And surely it is worth a little more pains to as- 
 certain whether it is constantly necessary to involve 
 ourselves in a labyrinth of diplomatic discussions, and 
 even to prepare for a war whenever Russia conquers 
 a province from the Turks ; in short, to make our- 
 selves the protectors of that savage horde, and (for 
 it is the same thing) the oppressors of all the Euro- 
 pean people whom they rule, because it is alleged the 
 aggrandizement of Ruma threatens to disturb the 
 balance of power.
 
 16 
 
 Peculiar evil of a war with Russia, with respect to 
 
 our trade.* 
 
 But before we enter upon the probable advantages, 
 if any, of resorting, under the circumstances supposed, 
 to hostilities with Russia, let us gain some distinct 
 conception of the certain disadvantages, which I am 
 
 * It is curious to observe the inconsistencies into which people 
 fall, when they use arguments not for their own intrinsic value, 
 but to make weight for some other object. In his chapter on 
 " Foreign Commerce," Colonel Evans attaches the highest pos- 
 sible importance to our external trade, which, he says is 
 threatened by Russ.ia'.(Aoa', he does not show). But when the 
 preservation of a most valuable branch of that external trade, its 
 urged as one of the considerations which ought to be taken into 
 account in deciding upon the expediency of peace or war with 
 Russia, Colonel Evans assumes quite a different tone. Speaking 
 of the opposition which obliged Mr. Pitt to stop his armament 
 against Russia in 1791, he stigmatizes " the mercenary clamour 
 of the manufacturers and merchants trading to St. Petershurgh s " 
 p. 85. Again, anticipating the moment when his own views 
 would be acted upon, he contemptuously observes, " The tram- 
 mels of well-meaning arithmeticians who may have too long un- 
 consciously imposed their partial and limited views upon the 
 country, under the garb of science ; the devices of the mer- 
 chants and manufacturers connected with the Levant, the Baltic, 
 and the Western Archipelago; and the deprecations of the 
 short-sighted and nervous fund-holder, will be disregarded or 
 broken through," p. 167. 
 
 After what is stated above, respecting the importance of our 
 trade with Russia, it will not be necessary to remark on the 
 very erroneous conception which Colonel Evans entertains of 
 it, pp. 197, 198. 
 
 The " Times" journal has also taken extraordinary pains to 
 alarm the country about the danger to which our commerce h 
 exposed, from the aggressions of Russia, and to excite a cry for
 
 17 
 
 apt to think are often left out of the account. We shall 
 then look at the warlike side, prepared with some 
 reasons for cool reflection. All I desire is, that we 
 should not he led, by any petulant pretensions to 
 supreme arbitration in the affairs of Europe, to forget 
 the important interests which would be injured by 
 quarrelling. 
 
 Certainly I should not be averse to a war with the 
 Russians, from fear of its issue ; for I am well aware 
 that we could distress them more than they could 
 distress us. We might excite the Persians to break 
 in again upon their Georgian frontier. We might 
 support their enemies on the Bosphorus, and act 
 against the line of their communications by sea. We 
 could make a still more severe impression upon 
 them, by choking the principal channels of their 
 foreign trade, by blockading at once Petersburgh, 
 Riga, and Archangel, in the north, and Odessa and 
 Taganrog, and the entrance to the sea of Azoph in 
 the south. Thus we should pretty certainly check 
 their advance on Constantinople, and throw them 
 back on the Danube. The contest in Turkey would 
 be prolonged, while, by the stoppage of their foreign 
 trade, their means of meeting their war expenditure 
 would be diminished. Thus, in the end, we should 
 probably compel them by mere exhaustion to submit 
 to terms. 
 
 war against that power. (See particularly its furious leading 
 article of the 10th of October.) It would be waste of time to 
 answer it in detail. I would only ask those from whom 
 that journal gets its mercantile information, whether the whole of 
 our trade with Turkey is of one-half the value of our trade with 
 Russia ?
 
 18 
 
 But by the plan of operations thus chalked out, 
 should we inflict no injury on ourselves? I leave 
 out of consideration the general expenses of the war, 
 looking at it only in its specific effects. We should, 
 by the supposition, cut off the foreign trade of Russia; 
 but considerably' more than one half of the foreign 
 trade of Russia is also our own. The value of our 
 imports from Russia, according to the official ac- 
 counts, amounts to nearly one-twelfth of that of our 
 total imports.* But the official value gives only a 
 vague proportion. The true value of four articles 
 alone of our imports from Russia, calculated upon 
 the actual quantities given in the Custom House 
 returns,! amounted last year to upwards of 3,500,000/. 
 exclusive of freight and all charges on this side. Every 
 tyro in political economy knows that the value of the 
 
 * See an account of the official value of imports into Great 
 Britain from foreign parts for the year ending 5 Jan. 1827 ; also 
 of the official value of exports from Great Britain to foreign 
 parts for the same year, returned from the office of the Inspec- 
 tor-general of Customs to an order of the House of Commons, 
 14- April, 1828. A note in the same states that the proportinal 
 value of the trade carried on with each country during the year 
 ending 5 Jan. 1828 (which the order of the House of Commons 
 required) could not be made out, but an abstract was subjoined 
 of the total official value of the imports and exports of that 
 year, by which it appears that the amounts were respectively 
 about one-fifth greater than in the former year. To this in- 
 crease there is reason to believe that the trade with Russia will 
 be found to have contributed more than its previous proportion. 
 
 -J- See an account of the quantity of foreign tallow, flax, 
 hemp, hides, and seeds, imported into each port in the king- 
 dom, and the "countries imported from, in years ending 5 Jan. 
 1827 and 1828, &c. from the office of the Inspector-general of 
 customs, returned to an order of the House of Commons, 
 6 June, 1828.
 
 19 
 
 imports from any country, must be approximately 
 balanced by the value of the exports to that or to 
 some third country. That half of a branch of trade by 
 which men usually and absurdly estimate the benefit 
 of the whole, may, therefore, be measured by the other. 
 Thus, although the official value of our exports to 
 Russia stands in a much less proportion than the 
 official value of our imports from thence to the totals 
 respectively, we may safely correct the former by the 
 ascertained standard of the latter. 
 
 To many persons the importance of our intercourse 
 with Russia may be more clearly exemplified by the ex- 
 tent of employment which it gives to British shipping. 
 In the trade with the four great Russian ports, 
 Petersburgh, Archangel, Riga, and Odessa alone, 
 are employed about 1,900 British vessels, or, in round 
 numbers, about 323,000 tons, taking the average 
 burthen of such ships at 170 tons.* 
 
 
 
 
 
 British 
 
 Ships. 
 
 In the 
 
 year 
 
 1827, 
 
 cleared out from St. Petersburgh, 
 
 
 
 
 do. 
 
 - 
 
 - Kiga 
 
 724 
 
 
 
 do- 
 
 - 
 
 - Archangel 
 
 338 
 
 
 
 do. 
 
 from 
 
 Constantinople for Odessa, 
 Total . 
 
 88 
 1903 
 
 The first three of these statements are extracted from the com- 
 mercial lists made up at the respective ports. In the Archangel 
 lists the flag is not distinguished, but only the countiy to which 
 the vessels cleared ; I find that 323 cleared for ports in Great 
 Britain, which I assume to be all British. Of 60 others for 
 foreign ports, probably one-fourth were British ; these numbers 
 make up the one given above. 
 
 To show the shipping employed in the Odessa trade, I have 
 taken the clearances of British vessels at Constantinople for 
 Odessa, from the letters filed at Lloyd's, the lists published at 
 
 C 2
 
 20 
 
 If we take into the account the lesser ports of 
 Wyborg and Revel in the Baltic, Tanganrog, Eupa- 
 toria, Theodosia, Restch, and some others of small 
 note in the Black Sea, we may reckon fully 100 
 British ship, or 17,000 tons more, making in all 
 2,000 ships, or 340,000 tons, employed in the 
 Russia trade. 
 
 All that is here stated concerning the importance 
 of a free intercourse with Russia would not, indeed, 
 be of an atom's weight, if it were placed against 
 considerations involving the general safety and wel- 
 fare of the empire, as connected with the political 
 system of Europe. But, if we should find that the 
 appeal to these considerations is dictated by the 
 axioms of an antiquated policy, or by fears resulting 
 from half information and small foresight, we may 
 boldly and earnestly insist on every plea which in- 
 dustry urges for the continuance of a pacific policy. 
 
 In what consists the balance of poWer- — Three con- 
 ditions must be realized before a war in its behalf 
 can be justified — That these conditions would not 
 be realized in the case of Russia making perma- 
 nent conquests from Turkey. 
 
 I do not wish to be thought to treat the celebrated 
 political doctrine designated by " the balance of 
 power," with the contempt which the use made 
 
 Odessa not always distinguishing the flag. But the year 1S27 
 does not give a fair view of the trade between this country 
 and Odessa, political occurrence? having cramped, and at 
 length stopped ihe intercourse.
 
 of it by Lord Aberdeen and other statesmen of his 
 order might provoke. Opinions so widely diffused 
 and sincerely upheld as that has been, have usually 
 their origin in truth, however much the ambition of 
 some men, and the fears of others, the changing cir- 
 cumstances of society, and the abuse of words, have 
 removed them from their first foundation. 
 
 Men have observed, and, having observed, have 
 justly dreaded the evils which result from conquest; and 
 not from actual conquest only, but from its threatening- 
 proximity. Besides those more palpable mischiefs, 
 which spring from the subjection of one country to 
 the arms of another, there is reason to apprehend one 
 less glaring, yet not less real, to wit, foreign influ- 
 ence, causing a nation to be governed in the interest of 
 some individual or party within it, or of some border- 
 ing people, in some interest, in short, different from its 
 own. But this influence may be established by the 
 fear of force, as well as bv force itself. It is not 
 enough, therefore, to be prepared to resist violence 
 when offered ; it is necessary to prevent the accretion 
 of such a power, as, the terror alone which it 
 inspires may be sufficient to dispense with its actual 
 exertion. It will, consequently, be wise policy to 
 anticipate the period of an unavoidable contest, 
 and to attack a latent enemv before his strength 
 is fully confirmed. 
 
 Such is the argument stated as fully and strongly 
 as possible in favour of the principle of preventing 
 a preponderating power in any society of nations, and 
 with certain implied conditions it is perfectly valid. 
 But these conditions have seldom or never been 
 fully --stated ; and many propositions, which, taken
 
 in conjunction with them, are unassailable, have in 
 their absence led to the most mischievous conse- 
 quences. 
 
 To the justification of any armament or active 
 measures of hostility, to maintain the balance of 
 power, it is necessary, 1st. That, allowing every ac- 
 quisition of territory by any state to be an acquisition 
 of power to that state, and in so far dangerous to 
 it's neighbours, the moment of such acquisition is 
 the fitting moment for their interference to compel 
 restitution. 2d. That in fact every conquest of 
 new territory does bring a corresponding increase of 
 power to the conquerors. 3d. That the acquisition 
 of new territory by any state, granting it to be 
 identical with an increase of power, has been greater 
 within any given time, than the increase of the power 
 of other neighbouring states, derived from the dis- 
 covery of new sources of production, of new instru- 
 ments of industry, of new improvements in science, 
 and, generally, from advancement in civilization. 
 
 I conceive that it may be shown that, in the 
 case of Russia, considered relatively to the other 
 nations of Europe, none of the preceding conditions 
 are realized.
 
 M 
 
 1st. Because, even if territorial acquisitions should 
 increase the power of Russia to a degree incon- 
 sistent with the balance of power, it would not 
 be expedient to resort immediately to force to 
 compel her to abandon tltem< — Probable sepa- 
 ration of the constituent parts of the Russian 
 empire. 
 
 § 1. The impatience of some people in this coun- 
 try to prompt interference in favour of the balance of 
 power, if it may not be at once set down to the 
 account of a groundless apprehension, has, at all 
 events, no warrant in the experience of the past. 
 The history of Europe, ever since solicitude for the 
 balance of power has influenced, professedly at least, 
 the measures of its statesmen, shows that when that 
 balance has been disturbed, the opportunity of restor- 
 ing it has seldom occurred till some time afterwards. 
 Before the interference of a third party can be 
 efficient, the nation which has suffered the invasion 
 of its stronger neighbour, must feel deeply the griev- 
 ances of conquest, and be acted on by a general 
 enthusiasm to redress them. Without the concur- 
 rence of such a feeling, the offers of allies will be 
 regarded with just suspicions of selfish views and 
 accepted, if at all, without cordiality. 
 
 If we go back as far as the times of Charles V. 
 we find that all the combinations and efforts against 
 him were vain when detached territories or frontier 
 fortresses were alone in question. But when that 
 monarch threatened France itself with conquest, 
 his design ended in total discomfiture. At one 
 moment all Germany seemed to be subject and
 
 24 
 
 shaekled at his feet. Charles made the Germans feel 
 the weight of a tyrannical sceptre; and the moment 
 of their complete prostration immediately preceded 
 that sudden and effectual resistance which finally 
 shattered his hope of general dominion. 
 
 The combinations of the European powers against 
 Louis XIV. were without effect while his conquests 
 were confined to provinces, which, having long been 
 the appanage of foreign sovereigns, cared little for 
 a change of masters, or rather thought that their 
 interests would be more consulted as integral portions 
 of a kindred country than under the proconsular rule 
 of distant strangers. But when he threatened the 
 subjugation of Holland, the case was widely different : 
 the spirit of the Dutch first raised a barrier against 
 his progress which he never passed, and national 
 resistance formed the nucleus of the armies, which 
 subsequently drove him back to the ancient limits of 
 his kingdom. 
 
 Charles XII., while his enemies were the aggres- 
 sors, broke through, like cobwebs, the leagues which 
 they had formed against him ; but when he in his 
 turn became the attacking party, he beat the Russians, 
 without conquering their resistance, till at length 
 repeated defeats forced the nation to second the 
 genius of its chief, and the defeat of Pultowa closed 
 the chain of consequences which followed the triumph 
 of Narva. 
 
 In later times, the coalitions against the French 
 people (which, if they had been successful, would 
 really have destroyed all that was good in the prin- 
 ciple of the balance of power) were scattered before 
 a people who, to defend their independence, ranged
 
 «25 
 
 on their frontier at one effort near five hundred 
 thousand soldiers. At length, the defenders of 
 France were converted into the legionaries of a chief, 
 whose delirious ambition constantly goaded him to 
 conquest. For a time the neighbouring countries 
 yielded to the arms of Bonaparte, and ineffectual 
 were the efforts of the English Government, as the 
 champion of the balance of power ; but when the na- 
 tions of Europe were wrung by his yoke, his first 
 military reverse raised, not armies only, but armed 
 nations against him ; and then only, when allied with 
 men fighting for relief from actual oppression, were 
 those victorious, who fought, or said they fought, to 
 maintain a fancied political system. 
 
 So, in the event of the Russians subjecting the 
 provinces of Northern Turkey to their dominion, the 
 moment of their making the acquisition, when the 
 mass of the inhabitants, Walachians, Bulgarians, and 
 Greeks, look upon them as deliverers, is not the mo- 
 ment for attempting to wrest it from them. Wait 
 rather for the time when Russian administration, en- 
 forcing more of order, and protecting property better 
 than the senseless rapacity of an Oriental court, shall 
 have left some scope to industry, permitted some accu- 
 mulation of wealth, and some springing up of public 
 intelligence ; in short, given some social consistence 
 to the poor, divided, semi-barbarous nations who 
 inhabit those countries. They will be apt to gain 
 those means of power, civil and military, which their 
 new masters will have brought amongst them, but they 
 will not be the less careful of national distinctions. 
 
 Trust the ruling powers of a sovereign country for 
 sacrificing: the interests of their vassal dominions to
 
 26 
 
 their own— trust the insolence of its official agents 
 for wounding the pride of the provincials ; they will 
 take care that the conquered people shall not cease 
 to entertain the feeling of separate existence, and to 
 nourish the hope of independence. Difference of 
 language alone* will be a sufficient dissolvent when 
 political necessity ceases to act as a cement between 
 the old territories of Russia and its new acquisitions. 
 These causes may be of slow, but they are of certain 
 operation, and they are at work among all the con- 
 quered nations which surround Russia Proper. 
 
 Seeing the immense space over which, in the Rus- 
 sian Empire, the functions of government are already 
 with more or less efficiency exercised, I have not 
 asserted, with some, that a small relative extension 
 of its territories would alone necessitate their ultimate 
 division. The essential principles of dissolution in 
 such a heterogeneous whole, are the irreconcilable 
 diversity of interests in the parts, and the inevitable 
 alternation of weakness and tyranny in a distant and 
 ill-informed administration. The action of these 
 principles will hereafter afford ample opportunity, if 
 it should be deemed the interest of England or 
 France, to w 7 rest her conquests from Russia. 
 
 Colonel Evans treats the idea, that the extension 
 of the Russian dominions is constantly tending to 
 their dissolution, with some display of contempt. 
 He devotes more time than the reader's patience 
 would allow me to follow him, to show from his- 
 tory, that the Russian Empire is not similar to other 
 
 * The different languages spoken in the Russian empire are 
 reckoned at upwards of 40.
 
 great empires which a few generations have seen 
 accrete and fall to pieces ; hut rather to those which 
 have longest preserved an unbroken sceptre. I might, 
 perhaps, be able to show more than one defective 
 link in the chain of his analogies ; but it is super- 
 fluous to deal with a lower order of arguments while 
 a higher can be advanced. The elements of my 
 reasoning on the consistency of the Russian Empire 
 are drawn from the constant workings of human 
 nature in the direction of modern civilization. In 
 omitting to anticipate these, Colonel Evans has shown 
 that he had not apprehended the whole force of the 
 position which he had set himself to attack. 
 
 2. Because, although Russia should take possession 
 of the Danubian Provinces of Turkey, and even of 
 Constantinople itself such conquest would increase 
 neither her offensive nor defensive pozver. 
 
 § 2. It has been already shewn that there is suffi- 
 cient reason to believe that it is the intention of the 
 Russians to make themselves masters of the Danubian 
 principalities, under the middle term of protected or 
 tributary governments, perhaps to take military pos- 
 session of as much of Turkey beyond the Danube as 
 the extent of their resources will permit them to con- 
 quer and to garrison. The conquest of Constan- 
 tinople itself may ultimately follow, although most 
 probably not during the present war. We will, how- 
 ever, take the extreme case, and suppose that they 
 should actually gain possession of that city during the 
 next or the fallowing year.
 
 S8 
 
 This extension of Russian dominion would not, 
 for the better part of a century at least, if after 
 that time, add any thing to its power of aggression, 
 and might very considerably weaken it by lengthening 
 its line of defence. In the first place, although no 
 great disasters, or even severe checks, like those they 
 have already experienced, should hereafter stop the 
 march of the Russian army, yet, owing to the num- 
 bers of the forces employed, the nature of the country, 
 and the distance of the scene of action from the 
 source of their supplies, the most prosperous course of 
 conquest would be enormously costly. The burden 
 which such a war must lay on the Russian finances 
 will be more than Moldavian and Wallachian con- 
 tributions or compensations from the Turks could 
 possibly relieve for a very long time to come. The 
 war concluded, a large military force must be main- 
 tained to establish Russian government in the pro- 
 vinces which Russian arms will have subjected. It 
 is a truth too familiar to need to be illustrated, that 
 of all innovations that which a people changing 
 masters will least patiently bear is an increase of 
 taxation. The Russians must be admirable tax- 
 gatherers if they can levy from those impoverished pro- 
 vinces enough to pay and subsist the troops required 
 to secure their obedience. But, suppose all this ef- 
 fected, the Russians have only pushed their frontier 
 further from their resources ; and a nominal increase 
 of their military force is accompanied by a more than 
 corresponding increase of the circumference to be 
 guarded.* 
 
 * Sometimes Colonel Evans's intermediate arguments are 
 perfectly sound, and in these cases they lead to any thing but 
 his conclusions. For instance, when he has to show that the
 
 29 
 
 Colonel Evans himself has quoted a passage from 
 Klaproth (whom he cites as the best authority in 
 these matters), which strikingly illustrates the cl 
 priori conclusion, that an extension of the dominion 
 of Russia, over the rude nations, its neighbours, is not 
 so much an increase of resources as a channel for 
 draining them. 
 
 " Pepuis que la Russie a etendu ses possessions 
 au dela du Caucase, elle est obligee d'entretenir 
 unc armee nombreuse dans les provinces nouvelle- 
 ment conquises. Cette armee ne trouvant pas dans les 
 contrees qu'clle occupe les vivres dont elle a besoin, 
 on est oblige de les expedier en grande partie par la 
 Mer Noire a travers le Caucase, par un chemin ou 
 les voitures ne pen vent passer que rarement. 
 Tous les autres objets necessaires a l'equipement 
 de l'armement dcs troupes arrivent de la meme 
 maniere en Georgie ; on pent done juger que la 
 possession de cette contree doit etre onereuse pour la 
 Russie." * pp. 203,204. 
 
 But a systematic military government sometimes 
 
 territories of Russia are not invulnerable to an attack conducted 
 by a coalition of the other great powers, principally of Great 
 Britain and France, he justly remarks that "it is the circumference 
 of Russia which is most disaffected, and most invites an enemy; 
 and of this, the portions most remote from each other would, 
 of course, require the most distressing efforts for defence. Thus 
 also would she be in a great degree deprived of the benefit of 
 acting on a centre, which belongs to lesser nations when assailed 
 by different lines of approach," p. 191. 
 
 * The following fact may serve better than a volume, to show 
 what sort of subjects the Russians have gained in Georgia : — 
 " The letter post, or what we may call the mail, from Mosdock 
 to Tcflis, and from Teflis to Mosdock", is carried on horseback, 
 and is well guarded and escorted by jnfcmtfy and Cossach,
 
 30 
 
 works good, even by plans purely selfish. The 
 ever-craving desire of extended dominion in the 
 sovereign, the double stimulus of present profit 
 and future reputation in the military chiefs, alike 
 prompt to conquest, which is always disguised, and 
 sometimes justified, by the necessity of checking 
 the inroads of plundering neighbours. The equal 
 despotism of a rational (we need not suppose a well- 
 intentioned) government, which, from its own re- 
 sources, can pay and equip a regular army, coerces 
 with a strong hand the stupid violence of a barba- 
 rian aristocracy ; and the people, at once conquered 
 and protected, are allowed to labour in peace. Thus, 
 in expending her wealth on military expeditions and 
 distant garrisons, Russia spreads the elements of civil 
 security, and the germs of national prosperity around 
 her. Having no apprehensions for the safety of the 
 civilized west, I mark with pleasure the Russian 
 frontier line constantly advancing in the barbarous 
 east ; I anticipate the time, not with fear but with 
 hope, when the presence of their bayonets shall 
 force the rapacious Pacha, and his brutal agents, to 
 respect the property of the peasant ; and I rejoice 
 to think that it is not necessary for the welfare of 
 one quarter of the globe that another should always 
 be subject to the savage tyranny of its present 
 lords. 
 
 So much for what is said of the territorial aggran- 
 disement of Russia ; but her maritime aggrandisement 
 
 and the latter part of the way with a field piece." Vide A 
 Journey from India to England through Persia, Georgia, Russia, 
 &c in the year 1817, by Col. John Johnson, C- B. P. 263. 
 
 The same military precautions for the same object are also 
 noticed in Dr. Lyail's Travels,
 
 n 
 
 is also looked forward to with apprehension. Cer- 
 tainly, among the causes of the jealousy with both 
 the French Government and our own, regarding the 
 probability of the Russians becoming dominant in 
 the Bosphorus, is their apprehension of losing what 
 each calls its naval superiority in the Levant. But 
 this fear is as groundless as the former. What is 
 the meaning of a nation's naval superiority in any 
 sea, but that it has a greater force of ships afloat 
 in that sea than any other nation ? And what is to 
 prevent the nation which possesses the greatest 
 number of ships from showing the greatest force 
 in whatever waters it desires to show a superiority ? 
 If it is for any reason deemed expedient to main- 
 tain a considerable fleet constantly in any particular 
 sea, it will indeed be necessary for the convenience of 
 replenishing stores, repairing, refitting &c, that it 
 should have a port or dockyard, on the neighbouring 
 shores. Now, in the Mediterranean, this is what the 
 English have at Malta, and the French at Toulon. 
 
 Colonel Evans asserts, that " Toulon can never 
 send forth the fleets that may be prepared in the 
 Marmora"— and again, " there can be very little 
 doubt that at Constantinople ships of war may be built, 
 fitted out, and provisioned at about one-third of the 
 expense necessary to be incurred at Toulon," p. 16. 
 For authority for his statements respecting naval 
 matters, he refers principally to Captain Jones's 
 Travels in Russia, * but I cannot find that Captain 
 Jones bears them out. In fact, granting every 
 thing that Colonel Evans says of the facility of pro- 
 Travels in Russia, &c, by G. M. Jones, Capt. R. N. 
 London, ] 827 .
 
 >J 
 
 2 
 
 curing the materials of ship building in the Bosphorus, 
 pp. 151, 152, it is looking at less than one-half of 
 the question, to neglect the consideration of good 
 arsenals and docks already built, efficient establish- 
 ments already formed, and a highly scientific ad- 
 ministration already practised in the exercise of its 
 functions. Now all these requisites for a great and 
 powerful marine, the French as well as the English 
 possess to a greater extent than the Russians can for 
 centuries to come, even if the latter were masters of 
 Constantinople. The difference which Colonel Evans 
 supposes in the necessary expense of building ships at 
 Toulon compared with Constantinople, is obviously 
 quite wide of the mark. If such a difference were 
 likely to exist under any circumstances, I should 
 for the reasons just indicated reckon it in favour of 
 Toulon. 
 
 Captain Jones gives a very interesting account of 
 the rise, progress, and actual state of the Russian 
 naval establishments on shore and a-float in the Black 
 Sea- — (See his work already referred to, vol. ii. 
 Letters xviii, xix, and xx) — and from this account 
 I am induced to think rather less than more highly 
 than we had previously done of the naval force in 
 those waters. He shews to what a remarkable de- 
 gree an injudicious choice of situation for docks and 
 arsenals, and defects in the administration, produc- 
 ing derangement in the inferior departments, have 
 hitherto obstructed the growth of a good marine in 
 the Black Sea. 
 
 Captain Jones, indeed, anticipates that if Russia 
 were to abandon entirely her present ill-chosen 
 maritime stations, Chcrson, Nicolayev, Sevastopol, 
 and Odessa, in favour of other situations more ad-
 
 1W> 
 
 vantageous, both for the extension of commerce and 
 of a military marine ; if moreover the institution of 
 slavery, which at present opposes an obstacle to the 
 formation of a body of seamen for a merchant navy, 
 were abolished,* Russia would become a great 
 naval and commercial power. Assuming the same 
 conditions, I should share Capt. Jones's expecta- 
 tion. But not within any period which it can con- 
 cern men of the present or the next generation to 
 contemplate, are these conditions likely to be real- 
 ized.! 
 
 * The system of obliging the owners of ships to give security 
 fur the return of eveiy one of the crew is so vexatious, and so 
 impossible to be fulfilled, that of itself it will ever operate as an 
 insuperable bar to commercial prosperity ; and this will pro- 
 bably be the case in Russia, as long as the peasants on estates 
 continue to be the property of the owner ; for few sailors would 
 ever return to pay a heavy obrok. Capt. Jones, vol. ii. p. 385. 
 
 f The events which Colonel Evans traces as the possible 
 consequences of the Russians getting possession of Constanti- 
 nople are nothing less than, — the loss of the greatest part of In- 
 dia,— the defeat of our squadrons in the Arciiipelago and the 
 Mediterranean, — the occupation of the Morea, — the invasion of 
 the Ionian Islands from the main land, — Russian domination in 
 Naples and Sicily, — an attack on Malta, — the investment of 
 Gibraltar, — a body of Russians sent as a royal guard to Ma- 
 drid, and possibly even to Lisbon, — Russians in the Spanish 
 and Portuguese ports, co-operating with the Americans in de- 
 spatching emissaries with arms and ammunition, in order to 
 raise an insurrection in Ireland, — and finally, a complete sub- 
 jection of the public mind in Great Britain itself to the power 
 of the Autocrat. — See pp. 168 — 170, et seq. ; apprehensions 
 so perfectly extravagant, that I think them less likely to 
 excite than to allay alarm by caricaturing ti*em, 
 
 J)
 
 84 
 
 3. Because, although the power of Russia were 
 to be extended with its territory, the power oj 
 the nations of Western Europe has the intrinsical 
 elements of still greater increase. 
 
 J 3. But if it were granted that the power of 
 Russia has constantly increased in the ratio of the 
 increase of its territory since the partition of Poland, 
 since its south-western boundary was pushed to 
 Ochakov and the Pruth, and its Georgian frontier 
 to Tefflis and Erivan, is it proved that the power of 
 the other principal European states has remained 
 stationary, or not increased in an equal proportion ? 
 Assuredly not. Nowhere has the world, except 
 only in North America, witnessed such a great ex- 
 tension of already great resources as has taken 
 place contemporaneously in the countries of Western 
 Europe. 
 
 As to the power of France, it is too trite a subject 
 to dilate upon : its extent, fertility, situation, popu- 
 lousness, and civilization, render it far, very far the 
 most powerful of the states of the Continent, aud so our 
 government thought when other motives allied them 
 with Russia, and nearly the whole of the rest of 
 Europe, against that country alone. If other evidence 
 were wanting that France is equal to contend with 
 the armies of Russia on the Vistula, able to de- 
 feat them on the Oder or the Elbe, and to destroy 
 them on the Rhine, the history of the campaigns of 
 Napoleon in the first fourteen years of this century, 
 notwithstanding his tremendous miscalculations in
 
 85 
 
 the latter end of his career, sufficiently demonstrates. 
 Colonel Evans seems to hold nearly the same opinion, 
 although its inconsistency with his whole argument 
 seems to have escaped him. 
 
 Concerning Prussia, I may take the words of Mr. 
 Jacob: — " The most extraordinary instance of in- 
 crease of population," says that gentleman (Second 
 Report on the Agriculture and Trade in Corn of the 
 Continental States of Northern Europe, p. 61) " that 
 is to be seen in any old settled country, or that has 
 been even actually recorded in past periods, is that ex- 
 hibited in the dominions of the King of Prussia. It 
 would hardly be credible, without such clear accounts 
 as allow no room for hesitation, when emanating from 
 a government whose systematic order, and whose 
 accuracy in its statistical communications are not 
 equalled by any other in Europe. By the official 
 papers it appears that, in ten years, from 1817 to 
 1827, the increase amounted to 1,849,561, at which 
 rate the inhabitants would double themselves in little 
 more than thirty- six years." Allowing that the increase 
 of the population in Prussia has somewhat exceeded 
 the increase of capital, still there is no evidence of 
 such deterioration in their condition, as to prevent us 
 from regarding that increase as the sign of an exten- 
 sion of general resources. 
 
 The military system of Prussia makes the popula- 
 tion in the highest degree available for national 
 defence. The severe experience of the last war 
 has taught the Prussian Government the wise policy 
 of fortifying its exposed dominions by the dis- 
 ciplined strength of the whole people. The army 
 
 d 2
 
 36 
 
 is a great military school, through which, by means 
 of an equal conscription, almost all the males in the 
 nation pass in succession. Its embodied force, I be- 
 lieve, amounts to considerably more than 200,000 
 men, while the landwchr, composed of the men who 
 have served their time (three years) in the standing 
 army, is trained for a fortnight in every year, being 
 liable to be called on to serve as regulars in case of 
 invasion. Thus an effective reserve of perhaps twice 
 the force of the standing army is always ready to swell 
 its ranks upon the shortest notice. 
 
 Last of the great Continental states, may be 
 placed the extensive, though disjointed, Empire of 
 Austria. In its present situation, burthened by 
 the necessity ol garrisoning Italy, not able to rely 
 on the affection of the Hungarians, and subjected 
 to a system of government far more narrow and 
 stupid than that of Russia, it must yield to the 
 latter in a comparison of aggressive force. But it 
 would be weaker onlv in a contest for a foreign ter- 
 ritory. If ever an invasion of its own German 
 territory were threatened, and it became a question of 
 its independence, the very shock would rouse the 
 national spirit, and necessitate the infusion of new 
 energy into the government. For, while in Russia 
 the government is above the level of the people, in 
 Austria it is below it. The military capabilities of 
 Austria were displayed to an extraordinary extent 
 during the last war. Even under such a govern- 
 ment as theirs is, peace and tolerable security of 
 property must be working good effects upon the 
 numbers, the wealth, and the character of the people.
 
 87 
 
 Its present military establishment is within one- 
 third as large as the effective of that of Russia. 
 
 Nor should we leave out of the account the 
 power of the secondary states of Continental Europe. 
 The resources of these, in the numbers, in the 
 wealth, and, above all, in the moral energy of their 
 population, combined for any common purpose (and 
 the aggression of Russia would surely supply that 
 common purpose), especially of the States north and 
 east of the Rhine, including Switzerland to Holland, 
 are enormous ; and those resources are increasing 
 rapidly under the influence of a civilization second 
 only to that of England and France. Colonel Evans 
 apprehends that the secondary states would be 
 brought within the vortex of Russia, and be forced 
 to swell her legions if she were to march to the 
 conquest of Western Europe. To my mind it ap- 
 pears perfectly certain, that they would be compelled, 
 as in the last general war, to range themselves under 
 the banners of their more immediate neighbours, 
 the French, even if their interests and their inclina- 
 tions did not determine them to that side. 
 
 As to this country, I may assert, without fear of 
 contradiction, that, since the period of the great terri- 
 torial acquisitions of Russia, since the Turks were 
 compelled to cede Bessarabia and half of Moldavia* 
 since the second partition of Poland, and the conquest 
 of Georgia, Great Britain has, notwithstanding the 
 enormous dilapidation of capital occasioned by the 
 intervening war of the French Revolution, made 
 strides in wealth, and in power the consequence of 
 wealth, previously unexampled, i What measure of
 
 :J8 
 
 progress shall we take ? The extension of surface 
 under the plough, or the general improvement in 
 the arts of tillage ; the growth of our commerce 
 in every sea and every port of the world where com- 
 modities can be exchanged for commodities ; the pro- 
 digious increase of the quantity of manufactured 
 produce, and of mechanical inventions, yearly accele- 
 rating the ratio of that increase ; the progress of 
 building in every direction; the constant additions 
 to enjoyment and convenience ; former luxuries now 
 become ordinary comforts, and the class of those en- 
 joying them increased beyond precedent. Our public 
 establishments arc nearly twice as large as they were 
 before the period referred to — larger far than public 
 safety or the service of the State demands ; yet they 
 are supported with an effort but little greater, and 
 prove, by their very wastefulness, the extent of re- 
 sources which could be displayed in a case of real 
 necessity. 
 
 Many persons, both at home and abroad, believe 
 that Great Britain is sinking under the load of her 
 debt. But, misled by similarity in the expressions 
 where no similarity exists in the things expressed, 
 they confound the character of a national debt with 
 that of a private debt. They forget that, while the 
 individual pays his debt to another, the nation pays 
 to itself. They forget that, deduction allowed for 
 expense of collection and the disturbance of capital 
 accompanying the requisite taxation, the payment 
 of interest on the national debt is nothing more than 
 a transferrence of revenue from one set of individuals 
 to another, by which the nation, as a whole, neither
 
 m 
 
 gains nor loses. The evil of a national debt, and 
 an enormous one it is, consists in the destruction 
 of the national capital which the Government ob- 
 tains in the shape of the loans. When our capital 
 was buried in fortified lines, rotted in ships, eaten in 
 rations, given in subsidies, blown away in gunpowder, 
 — then was the real subtraction made from the na- 
 tional wealth. 
 
 Russia has not, because she could not, have con- 
 tracted so large a debt as ours, We have been 
 enabled to contract a larger debt, that is, to spend a 
 larger capital, because we have had greater credit to 
 borrow upon ; and we have had, and still have, greater 
 credit, because we have greater wealth, and because, 
 in the place of a despotic Government, we have an 
 enlightened public opinion to guarantee the national 
 faith. 
 
 Some Remains on the exaggeration of the military 
 force of Russia. 
 
 Next to the extension of the territories of Russia, the 
 enormous nominal amount of her military establish- 
 ment has excited the apprehensions of AVestern Europe. 
 The retreat from Moscow ; the subsequent defeats of 
 the French by armies of which the Russians formed a 
 portion ; the two occupations of Paris by those same 
 armies ; the actual bivouack of the Cossacks, Bash- 
 kirs, and Calmoucks in the gardens of that civilized
 
 40 
 
 capital, were events which, in their rapid and tremen- 
 dous succession, were enough to lead the French 
 people, in their then depressed condition, to excite 
 the fears, or reproach the indifference, of the rest of 
 Europe, by representing themselves as the first victims 
 of a general Tartar invasion. But apprehension na- 
 turally continued for some time after the immediate 
 occasion for it had been removed. When anti-Gallic 
 feeling had somewhat subsided, the contagion spread 
 to this side of the channel ; and Sir R. Wilson, in his 
 " Sketch of the Military and Political Power of 
 Russia in the year 1817," warned Great Britain and 
 Europe of what he considered the growing prepon- 
 derance of the military power of Russia. 
 
 Napoleon, in the " Memoirs of St. Helena," and 
 Messrs. de Pradt and Dupin, in pamphlets, at Paris, 
 although each differed much from the other upon 
 other points, continued to sound the trumpet of 
 alarm at the same gigantic apparition. M. Dupin, 
 whose subsequent publications have proved him to be 
 more accurate and judicious than he would appear, if 
 he were judged by his - Observations sur la Puissance 
 de l'Angleterre, and sur celle de la Russie au sujet 
 du Parallele etabli par M. de Pradt entre ces Puis- 
 sances, Paris, 1824," exaggerates, beyond all bounds, 
 the extent and power of the military colonies in 
 Russia. I quote M. Dupin, not because his autho- 
 rity on this point is worth the pains of disputing, but 
 because his exaggerations have served for the basis, 
 or may serve for the type of dozens of others. 
 
 " Le monarque prend sur les domaines de la cou- 
 roinie les terres necessaires a 1'etablissement et a la
 
 41 
 
 subsistence des regimens colonises. En recompense 
 des terres ainsi concedees, les guerriers qni les ha- 
 bitent et les eultivent devront se nourrir et s'entrete- 
 nir eux-memes, ainsi que leurs chevaux, tant qu'ils 
 ne seront pas commanded pour des expeditions qui 
 leur fassent quitter leur pays. A ce moyen des 
 armees entieres, des armees innombrables, seront 
 tenues sur pied, durant la paix, sans entrainer le 
 tresor public dans aucune depense." p. 59. 
 
 Ill Dnpin must have forgotten, or been ignorant, 
 when he wrote this passage, that the colonized troops 
 were clothed and armed, and that the horses of the 
 cavalry were purchased by the government. In the 
 sentence next following, " La solde de ces troupes 
 commencera seulement quand elles seront appelees 
 hors de leurs colonics respectives," he again falls into 
 a gross mistake in supposing that the colonized 
 soldiers receive no pay, evidently confounding the 
 colonized soldiers with the peasants (called master co- 
 lonists) on whom they are colonized or quartered, for 
 the system amounts to quartering, and to little more. 
 
 M. Dupin goes on to say : — " Quand le projet dont 
 nous expliquons le systeme aura recu son execution, 
 l'empire comptera trois millions de males, dans ses 
 colonies militaires. C'est done parmi ces trois mil- 
 lions que l'Autocrate de toutes les Russies pourra 
 faire marcher, par un simple ukase, comme un Sul- 
 tan par un firman, tous les individus depuis quinze 
 ans jusqu'a soixante ; c'est a. dire, ail moins quinze 
 cent mlLle combatlans" 
 
 It is astonishing that an instructed man does not 
 perceive that, if this project could possibly be realized
 
 12 
 
 to the extent here indicated, it would not increase 
 but reduce the power of the empire. It has surely 
 escaped him that the chief advantage of the present 
 European system of standing armies is to relieve the 
 industrious portion of the community from the fre- 
 quent and harassing duty of military service, to 
 which, among uncivilized nations they are exposed. 
 The tendency of military colonization, if it were really 
 in principle any thing more than a scheme of free 
 quartering, would be to spoil the Russian farmers 
 for agricultural purposes by the interruption of drilling 
 and still more by military dissipation, and to spoil 
 soldiers for active service by the local attachments and 
 insubordination generated by industrious occupations. 
 
 To refute the extravagant assertions of M. Dupin 
 as to numbers, it is almost superfluous to quote upon 
 this point the much better informed Dr. Lyall (him- 
 self not disinclined to overrate the military power of 
 Russia), who states that, according to the latest in- 
 telligence which he had received (1824), the total 
 number of colonized troops in Russia did not exceed 
 80,000 men * 
 
 But without entering into further details, I need 
 only add that the whole colonization system is fast 
 working its own destruction. " Among other 
 sources of opposition to the scheme," says Dr. 
 Lyall, " its general unpopularity is likely very soon 
 
 * Vide "Account of the Military Colonies of Russia,'' Ap- 
 pendix, No. 1. Dr. Lyall seems to have taken some pains to 
 collect accurate information relative to this celebrated institu* 
 tion. M. Dupin merely repeats vague reports without stopping 
 to examine them.
 
 43 
 
 to give it a death-blow. It is held in utter abhor- 
 rence by the peasantry ; it is detested by the regular 
 army to such an extent, that the government is 
 obliged to give the officers a higher degree of rank, 
 and additional pay, in order to induce them to at- 
 tach themselves to colonized regiments ; and it is 
 highly disapproved of by all classes of the nobility." 
 p. 41. 
 
 The inhabitants of one of the towns in the govern- 
 ment of Charkof, Tchuguez, when they learnt that 
 a military colony was to be established among them, 
 offered resistance to the troops sent for the purpose, 
 and only yielded to the threat of a cannonade, p. 22. 
 
 " As the Empress and the Dowager Empress went 
 to and returned from Moscow, in the year 1818, 
 hundreds of the peasants collected at the post sta- 
 tions, and, when the imperial carriages stopped, they 
 simultaneously bowed themselves, or completely pros- 
 trated themselves, and, in the language of the deep- 
 est sorrow and distress, entreated their majesties to 
 hear their tales of woe, and to intercede with the 
 Emperor to abandon the new system of colonization." 
 p. 146, et seq. 
 
 That military colonization is unpopular among 
 the peasants, would not alone induce the court to 
 abandon the scheme ; but that it is held in dis- 
 favour among the officer-aristocracy is decisive against, 
 its being much further acted upon. 
 
 It was one of the favorite plans of the Emperor 
 Alexander, suggested and carried on under the super- 
 intendance of his confidant, Count Arakcheyeff ; but 
 this officer has not the same influence with the reign-
 
 44 
 
 ing Sovereign, and the institution is tailing into dis- 
 repute.* Indeed it has been said that the colonized 
 troops have actually cost more, instead of less, than 
 the same number cantoned in the usual way. 
 
 In the Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britan- 
 nica, article " Russian Empire," it is stated that, 
 in the year 1820, the land force of Russia was com- 
 posed of the following descriptions of troops : 
 189 regiments and 565 battalions, in- 
 
 fantrv 613,722 
 
 76 do. and 563 squadrons, ca- 
 
 i _ 118 141 
 
 30 battalions, artillery - - 47,088 
 
 Extra corps - - - 27,632 
 
 Irregular troops (horse and foot) - 105,534 
 Garrison troops ... - 77,000 
 
 989,117 
 
 Since 1820 it is well known that the regular es- 
 tablishment has been gradually reduced by one-third ; 
 still, allowing for that reduction, the above state- 
 ment gives, I suspect, a very exaggerated idea of 
 its effective strength. 
 
 In the first place, it is obvious to remark that 
 the two heads of " Extra Corps " and " Garrison 
 
 * " I was informed," says Capt. Jones, " that during the last 
 two years there had been a mystery about the military colonies, 
 which did not before exist; on the contrary, the Emperor was 
 fond of talking about them, and ArakcheyefF of wishing that 
 people should visit them, but that now they are never mentioned, 
 and visits are prohibited." Vol. i. p. 516.
 
 45 
 
 Troops," including together 104,000 men arc 
 extremely vague. These designations may cover 
 invalid battalions, cadet corps in military colleges, 
 local militia or burgher guards, revenue officers, and 
 even policemen. 
 
 Moreover, it is notoriously the system in Russia 
 to give the officers very small nominal pay, but at the 
 same time to leave very much in their hands the 
 pay, clothing, victualling, the purchasing of horses, 
 forage, &c. and the cantonment of the troops under 
 their command. While from these branches of 
 expenditure they possess facilities for improving their 
 appointments, they are almost compelled to take 
 advantage of them to support the style in which they 
 are expected to appear. Colonels, therefore, making 
 returns to head quarters, may well be supposed to 
 state as high as they can the nominal numbers in 
 their regiments, and to make the real numbers as 
 small as will suffice to keep up appearances, in order 
 that they may receive allowances according to the 
 former, and disburse according to the latter, appro- 
 priating to themselves the difference. Reasons suffi- 
 cient are shown for estimating the force on foot of the 
 regular regiments materially below the force on 
 
 Taking: these several reductions into account, I 
 should, if called upon to give an opinion, fix the 
 effective strength of the Russian army, exclusive of 
 irregular troops, under 400,000 men.* 
 
 * I find that Capt. Jones confirms the result which I had 
 otherwise deduced. " The strength of the Russian armies,"
 
 46 
 
 Nor is such a conclusion unwarranted by previous 
 example. The same authority which makes the 
 Russian army in 1820 amount to 989,000 men 
 makes its force, in 1805, 428,000 men. — (See Art. 
 in Suppl. Encycl. Brit, already referred to.) Now 
 (omitting the argument which might be maintained 
 on the improbability that the resources of Russia 
 should have enabled her to increase an already large 
 army by more than its whole amount in fifteen years); 
 what was the force that Russia actually brought into 
 the field within that period, upon occasions most 
 nearly affecting the security of the empire. 
 
 According to the first of the alarmists, Sir Robert 
 Wilson, who had some personal acquaintance with 
 the Russian armies, " Russia had in the year 1807 
 not more than eighty thousand men to defend both 
 capitals: and in the year 1813, only three hundred 
 thousand on her whole territory after several years' 
 preparation." * 
 
 That Sir R. Wilson afterwards goes on to state the 
 amount of the Russian army at 640,000 men under 
 arms on an establishment of 1,200,000, exclusive of 
 militia, Tartar cavalry, &c. only shows that, while 
 the former statement was derived from a knowledge 
 of the force employed in actual operations, the latter 
 is a computation of mere paper armies. 
 
 says that gentleman, " is variously reported ; but, from the 
 best sources of information, I shall venture to state it at 
 800,000 men of all arms, of whom perhaps not more than 
 400,000 are positively efficient for field duties." 
 
 * A Sketch of the Military and Political Power of Russia in 
 the year 1817. 5th ed. p. 148.
 
 47 
 
 It is notorious that the Russians, in the campaign 
 of 1812, were constantly obliged to retreat before the 
 French, as far as Moscow, from inferiority of force ; 
 though the army which passed the Niemen, under 
 the orders of Napoleon, little exceeded 180,000 men. 
 And the same reason, after the battle of Borodino, 
 again compelled them to abandon Moscow, when the 
 French force in operation against them was barely 
 120,000 men. These figures, truly, are large enough, 
 but they are within moderate conception, and give 
 less pretence for alarm than muster rolls reckoned by 
 half-millions. 
 
 Until the present war, the Russians never moved an 
 army across their frontiers much exceeding 100,000 
 men, seldom one equalling that number ; and now, 
 that they have marched 140,000 to 1.50,000 men into 
 Turkey, the Emperor has been obliged to decree a 
 levy of 100,000 new recruits, a circumstance which 
 Col. Evans considers indicative of their immense 
 resources, but which I regard as a sign of the previous 
 deficit of their embodied force, and of the effort which 
 this contest costs them.* 
 
 Looking back to this, I am afraid tedious, esti- 
 
 * The late military events in Turkey have brought out the 
 real truth that the Russians did not march above half the 
 force across the frontiers which some of ihe leading journalists, 
 and others, who had " the military establishment of 800,000 
 men" working upon their imaginations, had believed. Since 
 the above was written a levy of 4 out of every 500 males (equal 
 in reality to about 250,000 fresh recruits) has been decreed 
 to complete the personnel of the army after the losses of only 
 one campaign. This fact is decisive as to the previous weakness 
 of their regiments.
 
 48 
 
 mate of the amount of the military force of 
 .Russia, and considering* its necessarily scattered- 
 positions, it will be hardly necessary to make de- 
 tailed statements to prove, that any one of the 
 great powers of Europe (putting out of the question 
 their auxiliaries) could, on the occasion of any threat 
 from Russia, range in defence quite as large an 
 army as the latter could put in motion in attack ; — 
 that a coalition of any two would speedily throw the 
 war back upon her own territory. 
 
 Exaggeration has also been at work upon the 
 numbers of the irregular troops in the service of 
 Russia. Under the head of " irregular troops," in the 
 statement before referred to, are probably reckoned 
 the full contingents which all the Tartar as well 
 as Cossack tribes of the empire may, by their capi- 
 tulations, be required to furnish. But probably not 
 two thirds of these contingents could be embodied. 
 I have seen no estimate to lead me to think that 
 so much as one half was actually brought into the 
 field, even in the time of the utmost need of the 
 empire — the campaigns of 181-2, 13, 14. We know 
 that many of the so called Cossacks, serving at that 
 time, were composed, not of the tribes of that name, 
 but of common Russians, men of the lowest de- 
 scription, collected and armed on the spur of the 
 occasion in the Cossack fashion, as requiring least 
 organization, and therefore, least expense.* 
 
 * Vide Journal of a Tour in Germany, Sweden, Russia, 
 Poland, during the years 1813 and 1826, by T. J. James, Esq. 
 Mr. James was in the north of Germany at the moment of the
 
 49 
 
 It is allowed that the Cossack cavalry is of the 
 cheapest sort; but many people seem to have 
 imagined that it costs nothing at all to the Russian 
 Government, forgetting that, although the Cossack 
 tribes are bound to furnish their contingents, mounted 
 and armed at their own expense, yet that the force so 
 furnished receives pay as soon as it enters into actual 
 service. 
 
 The whole of the Cossacks of the Don, who com- 
 prise two-thirds at least of all the Cossacks of the 
 empire, do not exceed 250 or 300,000 souls. The 
 Article " Russian Empire," in the Encycl. Brit. 
 states the population of the country of the Don Cos- 
 sacks is 398,103, but Dr. Lyall, a more recent and 
 better authority, gives the outside computation as 
 318,900, stating, that according to a native writer 
 (Yablovskii), it does not exceed 250,000 souls (Lyall's 
 Travels in Russia, &c. Vol. II. p. 204.) Now, taking 
 the men fit to bear arms to amount to one in six souls, 
 or 50,000, two-thirds of these, or about 33,000, is the 
 utmost number that any nation would send into the 
 field, unless to defend their own homes. I believe 
 that not so many as 15,000 of the Don Cossacks 
 are actually serving in the Russian army. The 
 Tchernomorsky Cossacks and the Cossacks of the 
 Volga may, perhaps, supply 5 to 7,000. About 
 7,000 of the Cossacks are disciplined and organized 
 like regular cavalry ; these may be good troops, but 
 
 actions which took place there between the allied armies and 
 the French, and thus had an opportunity of seeing as well as 
 hearing something of the Cossacks. P. 57. 
 
 E
 
 50 
 
 Jiey, of course, cost as much to the Government 
 as regiments of the line. 
 
 The number of the irregular troops, not Cossacks, 
 reckoned in the general statement of the Russian 
 armies appears, from the detached guesses (for it must 
 be all guess-work when official information, scanty 
 as it is, is also untrustworthy) that I have collected, 
 to be inconsiderable. The Bashkirs, some of the 
 Tartars on the Kooban, and two or three others of 
 the Western Tartar tribes, are bound to furnish cer- 
 tain small contingents, probably to the number of 
 20,000 men in all. These hordes, however, are too 
 thoroughly undisciplined and wild to be made avail- 
 able for general military purposes. 
 
 Having endeavoured to conjecture the numbers of 
 the Cossack cavalry, I have only a remark or two to 
 make on their character and efficiency. 
 The campaign of 1812-13, which made the Cossacks 
 so formidably known to the French armies, was one 
 peculiarly calculated for the exploits of such cavalry 
 as the Cossacks. The country was every where 
 friendly to them as it was hostile to the French. The 
 latter, having their commissariat completely disor- 
 ganized, were reduced to the necessity for foraging 
 and providing, each company for itself; and the conse- 
 quence was, of course, to scatter their force, and to 
 expose them in an extraordinary degree to the skir- 
 mishing attacks of the Cossacks. The French had 
 moreover lost almost all their cavalry. But from 
 the numerous accounts of that and the subsequent 
 campaigns, of which every one has read more or 
 less, it always appeared that a volley of infantry
 
 51 
 
 in line, or the charge of regular cavalry, the Cos- 
 sacks seldom if ever stood. But if the case were 
 reversed, if the Cossacks were attached to an invading 
 force, where the country was hostile to them, and 
 they were opposed to a regular army, we should then 
 see their real value. Their ability to cope with 
 disciplined troops in the field being* put out of the 
 question, even their activity in scouring the country, 
 in foraging and cutting off outposts and stragglers, 
 would soon be checked by a hostile peasantry. They 
 would either be destroyed in detail, or driven 
 within the shelter of the regular columns of their own 
 army. Their want of discipline, and their predatory 
 disposition, would be pretty sure to provoke the in- 
 vaded population to arms, if it were not previously so 
 disposed. A little longer continuance of the campaign 
 of 1814 in the North of France would have raised the 
 French peasantry against these marauders as the 
 Russian peasantry were raised against the French in 
 1812-13. Even the Prussians, and the other German 
 allies of the Russians, had often reason to complain of 
 the " hordes liberatrices " of their friends.* 
 
 But to conclude on this subject, which is perhaps 
 hardly worth the space bestowed on it. The exist- 
 ence of an equestrian people like the Cossacks, half 
 soldiers, half herdsmen, supporting themselves by 
 their flocks or farms without expense to their supe- 
 rior chief, and ready to follow his standard when 
 pay and plunder allure them, is nothing new among 
 
 * See, among several from other sources, a characteristic 
 anecdote in James's Journal. 
 
 F, 21
 
 52 
 
 rude nations ; nor to neighbours instructed in 
 European discipline are they formidable, excepting 
 as thieves are formidable. Almost every country at 
 one stage or other of its civilization has had its 
 Cossacks. Great Britain had Cossacks when she had 
 borderers ; and, if we could call the men of Annan- 
 dale and Liddesdale, with their lances and their 
 hardy galloways, to our standards, we should match 
 the Russians with irregular cavalry. But, instead of 
 being able to summon bodies of Elliotts, Armstrongs, 
 Scotts, and Johnstones, ready armed and mounted, 
 to join our armies, we can look at the fertile 
 country wasted by those lawless tribes, and see 
 it covered with harvests, studded with populous 
 villages and flourishing towns, exhibiting in every 
 direction the marks of protected industry ; we 
 possess on the same extent of territory a mass of po- 
 pulation and of wealth, sufficing to equip a force, far 
 more numerous, and composed of far better soldiers, 
 than all the ancient borderers arrayed together. 
 
 When Russia is more civilized and better culti- 
 vated than she now is, she will be more powerful 
 than she now is, but she will have fewer Cossacks. 
 These half-reclaimed barbarians will become steady 
 fanners and industrious tradesmen ; they will become 
 rich enough to pay taxes, and too busy to be called 
 on to serve. The name of Cossacks may be pre- 
 served to certain regiments, but it will be with 
 them, as with the Hussars in the rest of Europe, 
 nothing more than the name.
 
 53 
 
 Conclusion* on comparing the moral force existing 
 in the Russian nation with that in the principal 
 nations of Western Euorpe. 
 
 Upon the preceding considerations alone we may 
 fairly dispute that preponderance of the force of 
 Russia over the rest of the European States which is 
 so generally and so unhesitatingly assumed. But, 
 when we go on further to judge it by those attributes, 
 according to which alone the solidity and permanence 
 of a nation's power can be measured, and upon which, 
 as upon first causes, the state of its military re- 
 sources must depend, the ground of our dissent 
 will be more confirmed. 
 
 For, in whatever degree the arts and manners 
 of Western Europe have been adopted by the Russian 
 Court, and, through the Court, rendered fashionable 
 among the aristocracy, more particularly in their mili- 
 tary system ; on the other side of the account it is an 
 item of tremendous importance, that for the people 
 of Russia the institutions of civilization have but just 
 began to exist. 
 
 The Russian people are, at the present moment, 
 hardly so far advanced in social organization as 
 the people of the greater part of Western Europe 
 in the middle ages. Every one is aware that the 
 great mass of the peasantry are serfs ; but it is not 
 perhaps so generally known that many of the shop- 
 keepers and traders arc, in the same condition, only 
 permitted to leave their lords' estates by a license, on 
 the condition of paying a higher tribute (obrok). Sec
 
 54 
 
 S torch's Economic Politique, note xix, sur la Con- 
 dition des Serfs ct des Esclaves en Russie. 
 
 In Russia, the aristocracy is the State ; the people 
 arc not yet deemed a part of the body politic ; and, 
 if the enjoyment of their earnings is secured to them, 
 it is because their masters, advancing one step beyond 
 the maxims of Eastern government, know that secu- 
 rity to their vassals' property insures a larger income 
 to themselves. All the moral and political evils, all 
 the causes of internal divisions and external weakness, 
 through which the other principal nations of Europe 
 have painfully but successfully struggled, lie yet in 
 the career of Russia. 
 
 The brief result of our review of the power of 
 Russia, compared with the principal nations of 
 Western Europe, is, that she has arrived at that stage 
 in policy, at which rulers find that, in protecting their 
 subjects' property from privileged lawlessness, they 
 confirm their own authority, and increase their own 
 splendour ; and that, as usual in despotic Govern- 
 ments, the first use which she has made of in- 
 creased resources, is to extend her military force, 
 and, by consequence, to gain territory from weaker 
 neighbours. 
 
 But, on the other hand, that among such weaker 
 neighbours are not to be ranked the principal nations 
 west of the Vistula ; that in these the abolition of 
 feudality, the progress of industry, and the diffusion 
 of popular instruction, ensure national wealth and 
 moral energy, more than sufficient to cope with a 
 state, which the oppressive privileges of the aristo- 
 cracy, with the numerous abuses of the administration
 
 55 
 
 therewith connected, and the personal sla very of the 
 people, render incapable of such sustained efforts 
 as a high state of civilization can exert in its own 
 defence. 
 
 The apprehension of a Russian invasion of India 
 without foundation. 
 
 Having assigned the reasons for concluding that 
 we have no danger to apprehend from the Russians in 
 this quarter of the world, I ought, in order to leave the 
 alarmists no ground for saying I have not dealt with 
 all their arguments, to show that there is equally 
 little reason to fear them in India. But, seeing that 
 this paper was originally intended to show that the 
 balance of power in Europe is not in danger, it would 
 be departing too far from my plan if I were to load it 
 with the whole of the evidence (the mass of which 
 would be very considerable) necessary to exhibit, in 
 all its bearings, the perfect absurdity of the danger 
 of the apprehension of a Russian invasion of India. 
 In the meantime I venture to make the assertion, 
 that Colonel Evans has neglected altogether some 
 of the most important facts which relate to the 
 question ; and that, in what he has brought for- 
 ward, he has fallen into the most palpable errors. Of 
 the correctness of this assertion, I appeal to any one 
 who has taken the slightest pains in tracing the 
 possible lines of the route of the Russians to India, or
 
 56 
 
 spent one moment in reflecting 011 the difficulties with 
 which they would have to contend in the undertaking, 
 or who has referred to any good authorities for the 
 resources, climate, and character of the population 
 of the countries lying between Russia and India. 
 
 It will be more easily believed, that Colonel Evans 
 can take up the possibility of an expedition on very 
 slight grounds, when the reader is informed that, 
 while that gentleman apprehends an invasion of 
 our Indian possessions by the Russians, he points 
 out (in the plan of operations which he suggests 
 against that nation), their Georgian frontiers as the 
 most vulnerable to foreign attack, and actually re- 
 commends that an army should be sent from India 
 to act by land, in Daghestan and Shirvan, on 
 the line of the Araxes, supported by a flotilla 
 equipped on the Caspian, in order to wrest from 
 them the provinces which they have conquered 
 south of the Caucasus, p. 199 s et seq. Thus, as if 
 to save the Russians the enormous difficulties, sup- 
 posing those difficulties not insuperable, of crossing 
 the immense tracts which separate the two frontiers, 
 he would propose that we should take them all 
 upon ourselves, and meet our enemy on his own 
 ground. 
 
 Indeed, more than half of what we should have 
 to combat under this head would probably, to many 
 of our readers, be so excessively chimerical, that they 
 would not think it worth the pains of refuting. That, 
 because the Russians are of other European nations 
 the least far from India, therefore they are near 
 to it; — that the possession of posts on the great
 
 57 
 
 routes, and the nominal subjection of a few wan- 
 dering tribes, makes the southern part of Asiatic 
 Russia as productive in resources for offensive war, 
 as Russia between the Don and the Neva ; — that, 
 because the vast countries between the Caspian 
 Sea and our Indian frontier are sprinkled here and 
 there with cultivation, and occasionally present some 
 leagues of road not impassable for carriages, there- 
 fore the supply of provisions will be constant and 
 sufficient, and the expence of transporting artillery, 
 ammunition, &c. not incalculably beyond what would 
 be requisite for the same distance in Europe ; — that, 
 because a considerable part of the population in those 
 countries is addicted to plundering, they will sub- 
 mit themselves to Russian orders for a march 
 of several hundred miles with a view to plunder the 
 English, not yet conquered, rather than plunder the 
 Russians themselves, whose baggage and convoys 
 would be already within the reach of their forays, — are 
 among the absurdities which the supposition of a 
 Russian invasion takes for granted. It is unnecessary 
 to add that, even if the Russians were to make their 
 way to India, 30,000 strong, exclusive of the great 
 numbers which they must have left in their rear, to 
 preserve their communications, which Colonel Evans 
 thinks possible, the army of one of our Presidencies 
 alone would be sufficient to hold them in check^ 
 While our troops would be bearing on their own 
 resources, and would be receiving constant rein- 
 forcements ; the Russians, already nearly 1,200 
 miles from the base of their operations, would be 
 weakened as they advanced by the detachments
 
 58 
 
 necessary to collect supplies. Under such circum- 
 stances, it would not be necessary to suppose more 
 than very ordinary military skill on the part of 
 our commanders to ensure, not the retreat merely, 
 but the absolute surrender, of the Russians, as soon as 
 they came to cross fire with our troops. Even success 
 to them would be fruitless : victories would consume 
 the only means of gaining more. A mere check 
 would entail all the consequences of the most ruinous 
 defeat. 
 
 But objections would be endless, those here sug- 
 gested must suffice for the present. I feel convinced 
 that the more those who are not yet satisfied should 
 press the inquiry, the less occasion will there be for 
 me to assist in it. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 C Baldwin, Printer, 
 New Bridge-street, London. 

 
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