RUSSIA AND TURKEY.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume V, Issue 420, 11 August 1849, Page 3

RUSSIA AND TURKEY.

For some time reports have been current in Paris and London that Russia bad demanded of the Porte liberty to pass a fleet from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean ; that Turkey had demurred to granting the passage of the Dardanelles and that Russia had threatened to force it. The military restlessness of Russia in the Danubian proviuces has before been noticed. A paper in the Times of the 19th imparts weight to the anxiety respecting these movements. It appears that that the Emperor has peremptorily demanded of the Porte a change in the mode of appointing the Hospodars of Moldavia and Wallachia ; and being thwarted, he has declared that " the next time he makes a campaign across the Balkan, it will terminate at Adrianople." The Times intimates that the British Ambassador at Constantinople has been instructed manfully to defend the integrity and independence of the Ottoman empire. The journalist also reviews the improved state of the Turkish forces by sea and land, and calculates that the Porte would now prove no contemptible antagonist even for Russia. Propositions have been made within the last few days on the part of the Turkish Government to the Polish officers now in Paris, offering them the lame rank in the service of

the Sultan that they held in the Polish army ; and in case they accept the offer, they are requested to proceed immediately to Constantinople. A Vienna paper gives an account of a grand review at St. Petersburg, where the Czar addressed 40,000 of his troops in the following style : — " In the present aspect of affairs in Austria, I hold you bound to assist my friend the Emperor of Austria, should he stand in need of further aid." Loud vivats for the Emperor of Austria rent the air at the conclusion of his speech. The Borsenhalle states that a Russian fleet has been ordered to sail for the Ostee. The Deutche Zeitung has news from Konigsberg of the 14th instant, to the effect that the placing the whole of the Russian army on the footing of war has been ordered by an Imperial ukase of the 4th instant. An army of observation is at this moment forming close to the Prussian frontier at Kowno, while the body of the enormous Russian forces is being concentrated at Sandomir, on the frontiers ot Galicia. — Home News, March 24.