RUSSIA AND TURKEY. [From the Times, July 1.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 852, 1 October 1853, Page 3

RUSSIA AND TURKEY. [From the Times, July I.]

The last intelligence which has reached us from St. Petersburg holds out no fresh grounds for the hope that the Emperor of Rus&ia is dis posed to modify the determination in which ho has thus far perse\ored. It is known that the coui'bo he has thought fit to pursue — injurious as it is to the tranquillity of the East, to his relations with Europe, and to his own character for moderation and good faith — has encountered as much opposition from the old est and wisest counsellors of the Empire as from the Ministers of foreign States ; and the remonstrances of the venerable Count Nesselrode himself have received neither courtesy nor consideration from his Imperial master. It is said that a sense of the embarrassment of the position in which he stands weighs heavily upon the Emperor Nicholas, and that the contending passions of prido, vexation.and resentment agitate to an unwonted extent a mind intoxicated with absolute power. His moral responsibility is, in truth, tremendous, for it is in proportion to the unlimited authority he wields ; and, if no legal barrier is inteiposed between his path and the precipice before him, the greater is his need of a clear head and upright conscience to direct his steps. He stands alone, for he stands against the public opinion of Europe and the rights of nations. The fanaticism of the Russian people, or the enthusiasm of his army, to which he may appeal, only increases the difficulties and perils of his" position ; for if he persuades his subjects that he can dictate conditions beyond his own dominions as absolutely as within their boundaries jhose pretensions will be annihilated, if ever

they are brought into collision with the laws recognized by the rest of the woiid. We still hesitate to employ the terms which Europe would apply to a \iolatiT of the peace which she enj->\s, and a trans jre.s-.or of> the treaties she respects ; but, if am thing could heighten the public indignation at the commission of such actions, it would be the fact that this outrage is contemplated by a sovereign who has hitherto invested every legal obligation with despotic authority, and professed his intolerance of the slightest infraction of existing rights. The frequent reports of the passage of the Pruth which have been spread over the conti nent, and have again and again affected the fluctuating Bourse of Paris, are probably all premature. The Russian Government had already given a distinct assurance, some time ago, to the Great Powers of Europe that no final resolution respecting the occupation of the Principalities would be taken by the Emperor until the return to St. Petersburg of the last messenger sent with Count Nesselrode's despatch of the 31st of May to the Porte. As that messenger could not return to St. Petersburg before the 'Mth. of June, the decision of the Imperial Court can even now scarcely have been received by the army on the Pruth, and it has not yet reached this country. There is, however, as we have already stated, no* fresh reason to expect that the menaces which have been addressed to the Porte will not be realized. Throughout the month of June the concentration of Russian troops on the frontier has been going on. An intimation of unparalleled arrogance has been conveyed to the Hospodar of Moldavia to prepare for the reception of those unwelcome guests, already too well known to the people of the Principalities, whom they reduced to want and poverty by their last occupation. It even appears that some measures have been taken to impede the navigation of the principal mouth of the Danube, which would be a matter of complaint to the general commercial interests of Europe, and some light armed vessels have been sent up the river, the Russians having a right, under the Treaty of Adrianojjie, to navigate the Danube with ships of war from the confluence of the Pruth to the sea. The imperious language of the last Russian note to the Porte, which we publish in the original, distinctly intimates that, although " the Russian army is to cross the frontier of the empire in some weeks, not to make war;" yet that the maintenance of peace depends on an act of submission. Such documents deserve to be stigmatized by Lord Lyndhurst's epithets of "offensive, illogical, and insulting :" and they have this double evil, that, while they defy one party to yield, they render it more difficult to the other party to recede. If, as we must assume, the Emperor of Russia commands his armies to cross the Pruth, he v»ill place himself in a fresh dilemma. The territory of the Principalities must either be regarded as Turkish territory, or as the territory of a semi-independent Prince called " the Hospodar." If it be Turkish territory in the full sense of the word, then the entry of the troops is an act of invasion, an act of war, which gives rise to the incidents of war, and in particular, in this case, suspends the operation of the Convention of the Straits, and opens them, with the concurrence of the Porte, to the ships-of-war of foreign Powers. If the Principalities be not strictly Turkish territory, but the dominions of a Christian vassal of the Porte, then the invasion which is intended to coerce the Porte falls with all its weight on the heads of another people. What renders such a proceeding more illogical and absurd is, that the Emperor of Russia, having put forward a claim to the protection of the Greek Christians in the Ottoman Empire, makes these identical Greek Christians his first victims. The Principalities are altogether Christian ; they have a distinct administration under a Christian Prince, they require no further protection ; they are ahead}' virtually dissevered and emancipated from Turkey ; yet this is the territory and this the people which the Emper of Russia threatens to seize, , by way of establishing his preponderating authority over a Mahomedan ernpiie ! Turkey will protest against that act, and she would be entitled to regai-d it as a commencement j;of hostilities, because she is bound to endeavour to protect her Christian subjects in the Principalities from foreign invasion. But, in reality, the occupation of the Principalities, through a flagrant act of violence and injustice, would leave the case just where it was before in relation to the essential interests of the Ottoman empire. Those unfortunate provinces would simply receive the blow aimed at Constantinople, and the Emperor of Russia would have gained absolutely nothing of his spiritual demands. Unfortunately the occupation of the Principalities ends nothing and settles nothing. Onthe contrary, it opens a fresh and very serious grievance ; it sets the example of a direct infraction of a territorial treaty, and it brings two States, already much excited against one another, to a point which cannot be distinguished without extreme subtelty from actual war. Russia, we are told, will negotiate when she has devoured this first mouthful.. - We hope She may ; but it will be a singular departure from the ordinary course of affairs if the assailant chooses to display his moderation over the weaker party at the veiy moment when he has obtained his first success, and if the Emperor Nicholas recedes in consequence of the very measures by which he threatens to compel Turkey to yield. The Turkish Government has already done its part, by the promulgation of the last edict of toleration, to the Christians. Nothing legitimate or reasonable remains to be asked. The " deep affront" of which the Emperor complains is a fiction of his own invention ; and, if he perseveres under these circumstances against the uni versal opinion of Europe, we must conclude that he is governed by motives and passions which nothing will satisfy or control but the chances and the penalties of war.