lor of the Court and the State, the Duke of Wellington was to undertake the task as regards France, and to guide her to his ends, while the former was to be answerable for Prussia."

And, after enumerating the various steps taken by Metternich to achieve this object, Pozzo di Borgo concludes

"Such is, M. le Comte, a faithful recital of all that I have gathered upon this new attempt of Prince Metternich, and upon the mode and the expressions. My opinion is, that, seeing the intimacy which exists between the Cabinets of England and Vienna, Prince Ester. hazy has concealed nothing from the Duke of Wellington and Lord Aberdeen, but that both have felt the inconvenience and impossibility of carrying such a plan into practice when France has declared that she will not concur in it."

Austria, however, was not discouraged; and it was entirely in consequence of the formidable military preparations of that power, joined to the energetic remonstrances of England under the Duke of Wellington's Administration, that the conquest of Constantinople by the Russians was prevented after they had crossed the Balkan. It appears by a note presented by Count Krasinsky, the French Envoy, to Metternich, dated 6th June, 1829, that the military preparations of Austria at that period were of the most formidable description. He stated: :

"The Landwehr is revived, the number of individuals exempted from this service restricted, and that it is assembled during two months in autumn. In the course of last year each regiment of cavalry has received from 250 to 400 additional horses; this year orders have been given to purchase horses for artillery and waggons. Even in the capital, workmen of every kind are rigorously enlisted, in order to complete equipments and saddlery for the military magazines. In the arsenals, and in the manufactories for arms, reigns an extraordinary activity. Artillery and ammunition are continually being sent by the Danube into Hungary; they are always embarked by night. Since last year, when these successive transmissions commenced, the fortresses of Hungary must be amply provided with necessaries. It would ap

pear, then, that these objects have another destination. The greater part of the general officers have been assembled at Vienna for several weeks back, and have had conferences. The same thing took place in 1809, before the opening of the campaign. This shows the intention of taking some very important military measures."

Every one knows what was the result of these demonstrations. Russia was arrested in her career of conquest; and, notwithstanding the passage of the Balkan, real independence was preserved to Turkey by the peace of Adrianople. What, then, placed the power of the Porte finally under the dominion of their northern enemy? Nothing but the infatuation of the Whig Government in 1834 led to the point-blank refusal of any assistance to the Grand Seigneur, and to the consequent prostration of Turkey into the arms of her immortal enemy.

And what was the boasted enterprise in which we were engaged at the time when Turkey was thus reduced to extremities, which prevented us from sending a single frigate to extricate Constantinople from the grasp of the Russians? It was the blockading the Scheldt when Antwerp was besieged by Marshal Gerard. And observe what was said of Antwerp, as a point of hostility against Great Britain, by the person in the world who knew best how it should be attacked. "Napoleon," says Las Cases, "attached the utmost importance to the possession of Antwerp. He had formed for it the most gigantic projects; he was accustomed to say that Antwerp alone was worth a province, a little kingdom He was attached to it as one of the most important of his creations. He had done much for Antwerp, but nothing to what he intended to have done. By sea he wished to have made it a point of mortal attack against England; by land to have made it a point d'appui in case of disaster; a refuge for an army, where it might withstand a year of open trenches. Such was his attachment to it that he repeatedly declared, at St Helena, that Antwerp was one of the chief causes of his being there; for that if he could have prevailed upon himself to part with it he might have obtained peace at Chatillon."*

Thus

is universally known; and if it were less notorious than it is, it would be completely established by the publication of various State Papers in the Portfolio, the authenticity of which has never yet been called in question. Among the rest, in a memoir of the state and projects of the Germanic Confederation, drawn up in 1834, under the direction of a Minister at St Petersburg, it is stated, "the principles upon which every state reposes -the relations of friendship and political alliance-have experienced in our day a remarkable change. France and England, naturally at enmity, are now in alliance with each other. England quits her most ancient and most faithful ally, Holland. Austria abandons Switzerland, and Prussia becomes the ally of Russia. Wonderful political phenomena ! Since, on this account, the States no longer follow the policy which their geographical position and natural interests point out, but are influenced in their alliances by principles of theory, the political balance upon which the European system has for so long reposed has become sensibly weakened, and in its place there has arisen a system of political counterpoise in that which concerns the principles of state. By these means the predominance of one great power has been considerably facilitated."-" To this may be added, that whilst Prussia has gained Russia as her new ally, and France has gained England, Austria has lost her natural ally in England, and, in order not to stand entirely alone, has been herself compelled to join the RussoPrussian alliance. By this, however, the outward political position of Austria has become one of extreme discomfort, and this of itself might call forth the first difference between Austria and Prussia. For in the same manner that England will feel the unnatural policy of Lord Grey in all its disadvantageous consequences, so deeply as to tear to pieces the coil of Talleyrand, and will again separate herself from France; so Austria will assuredly abandon the Russo-Prussian alliance, and reunite herself to England. Notwithstanding this, the greater profit will still accrue to Russia, since Austria will be more easily coerced by Russia than Prussia by England." In truth, as Chateaubriand has well observed, when France and England,

like two enormous battering-rams, began shaking every state in their vicinity with revolutionary doctrines and mercenary attacks, the dangers of French propagandism were revived, with this additional circumstance of terror and aggravation, that England, which formerly stood foremost in the confederacy for the defence of European liberty, now was the leader in the attempt to partition and convulse all the lesser states in her vicinity. She first, under the influence of the liberal mania with which Mr Canning was so powerfully affected, insidiously encouraged, and then openly protected, the revolt of the South American colonies against the mother state-" calling," as he said, " a new world into existence to redress the balance of the old." She next took the Greek provinces under her special protection, and, in conjunction with Russia at the battle of Navarino, destroyed that very Turkish navy which we are now using our utmost efforts to restore and improve, and that, too, without any declaration of war or cause of hostility against the Turkish Government.

But, strongly as the hostile acts militated against existing treaties and the faith of nations, they had at least the apology of being dictated by a generous spirit, and directed, to appearance at least, to the emancipation of suffering families of the human race. But for those which followed and which were directed under the influence of the Whig Administration, no such apology is to be found. We first aided in the partition of the kingdom of the Netherlands, which we were bound by the treaty of Vienna, in 1815, to support, by immediately recognising the insurgent authority of Belgium, the people of which had not even a pretext for their rebellion, and then prevented the King of the Netherlands from regaining his dominion over his faithless subjects, by interfering, along with France, to stop the advance of the Dutch troops, after they had defeated the "brave Belgians" in two pitched battles, and he was already at the gates of Brussels to put down the revolt and recover his just rights in the next ten days. We then joined our troops to the arms of Louis Philippe to besiege the citadel of Antwerp, the key of the Scheldt; and restored that great stronghold, erected by Napoleon for our subjugation, to the

commission, and 89,000 men, scattered over the world, to defend our possessions. By great exertions, and by the terror of the immediate loss of our transatlantic empire, we have added 7000 men to our army, and three ships of the line to our navy; and by the last returns in October, 1838, we had twenty-four ships of the line, including three guard-ships in commission, and about ninety-six thousand regulars in arms, of whom, about twenty thousand are in India, and twelve thousand on the shores of the St Lawrence.

On the other hand, what have the Russians been doing? There are at Cronstadt, constantly equipped, manned, and exercised at sea, 27 ships of the line and 17 frigates; and at Sebastopol, in the Black sea, 15 ships of the line, and 22 frigates, mostly of 44 guns each. And these great fleets are not distracted by the necessity of protecting distant colonial possessions, but are all massed together at two points, with their troops constantly on board, and daily exercised, in the Baltic, at least, under the personal inspection of the Emperor himself, and capable of sailing in a body at a week's notice, upon any warlike expedition whatever.

Lord Minto says that the navy was never in a more respectable condition, and that we could in a short time, if occasion required it, fit out 20 ships of the line for defence of the British shores. According to the best accounts we have been able to receive, there are 75 ships of the line that could be fitted out, after a long time, for sea, besides 13 building-the poor remains of 244 ships of the line which crowded our harbours thirty years ago. But granting that there are 75 ships of the line in the British harbours which could be fitted out in process of time, are there stores in the arsenal for their equipment, or could MEN BE GOT TO MAN THEM? There is the vital point. The Queen's stores notoriously never were at so low an ebb as at this moment; the Reform Administration having, in order to make a show of economy, and an apparent reduction in their navy estimates, sold off the stores, or ceased to repair them when reduced, by the waste of time, to an unprecedented degree. But supposing the stores got, where are the men?

Will the Reform Parliament lay on the house-tax-a tax on spirits and a five per cent property-tax in order to augment the pay of the navy, and induce merchant seamen to enter into it? Will the ten-pounders re-enact the tax on beer and spirits to save their country? There is the vital point of the case. We cannot get crews for the fleet without money, and we cannot get money, even for the most vital purposes, from the class to whom we have chosen to surrender political

power.

Suppose the men got, and, by the greatest efforts, twenty ships of the line fitted out for sea, what sort of a jumble of crews will be assembled ? Indomitable courage, indeed, will never be awanting to the AngloSaxon race; nautical skill cannot be unknown to those who have navigated from Indus to the Pole; patriotic ardour will burst forth the moment that an enemy's fleet is seen approaching the British shores. But indomitable valour will not give discipline to a man-of-war's crew. Nautical skill will not in battle supply the want of discipline and the habit of acting together. Patriotism will not, in the decisive hour, supply the want of preparation and organization.

All

But Russia will not make this attack alone. Should Nicholas descend from his icy throne to dare the British islands, he will not come without adequate support on both his flanks. He may come supported by Denmark, Prussia, Sweden and Holland. these powers are bound to him by interest, necessity, or the recent aggressions of England. Denmark has the double conflagration of 1800 and 1809 to revenge. Sweden may not be backward to purchase the support of the Czar by uniting to his arms. Prussia is united to Nicholas by ties both of national interest and private connexion. Holland thinks of the partition of the Netherlands, the cruel oppression of England, the bombardment of Antwerp. Who can say that in France, at such a crisis, ancient recollections would not prevail over modern partialities, and the memory of Trafalgar and Waterloo not rise up in irresistible force to induce her to throw her navy into the scale against us?