under Ibrahim, fell after a siege of eight months. Ibrahim then pushed forward-routed all the forces opposed to him-passed the defiles of the Taurus in December, 1832-utterly defeated the Turkish army on the plains of Konieh, far in the interior of Asia Minor, and advanced to Kutaya, but a few days' march from Constantinople; and every one must then have seen, as the Porte itself did, that it was no longer a question of the possession of Syria, but of the tenure of the Ottoman throne itself. Let us here pause for a moment to observe that the Turkish empire, in its origin a military power, and which not more than 150 years ago was still the terror of Europe, had gradually fallen-(from obvious causes, the chief of which was, that when a power, whose force is movement and enthusiasm, becomes stationary and tranquil, it loses the mainspring of its strength) -had fallen, we say, almost under the tutelage of its neighbours:—but being in its modern character the least aggressive of nations, though occupying the most important position, political, commercial, and physical, on the face of the globe, it has become a European interest to keep her on her legs, in order that she may maintain the feeble police of the Dardanelles, and occupy with her tranquil and contented ignorance and an empty parade of innocuous force, the station which, in more active hands, would be dangerous to the established equilibrium of Europe. It is well known that Catharine the Great-a great woman is always a very wicked or a very foolish one, and generally both-had set her heart on extending her dominions to Constantinople, and making it the central seat of her empire:-a silly project, which would have ruined St. Petersburgh and injured Moscow, and inevitably produced the division and destruction of the vast empire which it was meant to consolidate; and we incline to believe-in spite of all the routine speculations and declamations of the journalists and pamphleteers of Europe that the successors of Catharine, and their wise and prudent ministers, have been long verging towards the same opinion as to Constantinople and the Turkish provinces that surround it. Nor does the notorious and admitted anxiety of the successive administrations of Russia to extend themselves first to the Black and Caspian Seas, and subsequently along them, invalidate this hypothesis: all the great rivers of central Russia-the arteries of the empire-run to the Black and the Caspian Seas; and without a safe and secure entrance and exit for its wants and its productions, that large portion of the globe-that greatest and most important part of the Russian empire-must necessarily remain in a state of isolated barbarism. We beg our readers to recollect that the waters on which Moscow itself stands fall ultimately into-the Black Sea? No, not even into the Black Sea! Sea! but-into the Caspian; and can any one be so prejudiced as to deny that it was the natural right, nay, the bounden duty, of Russia, to secure for the vast regions washed by these magnificent waters a free passage to the great highways of mankind. Let us be fair-let us be rational. Can any man in his senses contemplate a state of things in this island of Britain, in which, after the introduction of civilisation and commerce, a barbarous tribe of Trinobantes, possessing the mouth of the Thames, should have had the power of closing that great estuary against the interior of England?-Who objected to the American acquisition of the mouths of the Mississipi?-Who can reasonably complain that Russia feels the same want, and adopts the same principle? Russia, if she has common sense and the instinct of her own security, ought not to desire the possession of Constantinople. She approached it in the war of 1829, and she had a fair belligerent right to do so: but not less, we believe, from her own moderation than from the general feeling of the powers of Europe to preserve as long as possible the integrity of the Turkish empire, her victorious advance was arrested by the treaty of Adrianople, and the Mussulman was left, and is now maintained-like Switzerland-an impotent but plausible stop-gap against more formidable candidates for his commanding position. The treaty of Adrianople had scarcely relieved Turkey from the danger of the northern invasion when she found herself still more formidably assailed by her own vassal from the south. We say more formidably, because Russian invasion could only have occupied the European provinces, and that subject to European discussion, and, probably, to a successful veto; while the success of Mehemet Ali affected the whole Asiatic as well as the European empire, and without affording the same grounds for European opposition. It may be very plausibly argued, and the theory has some striking points, that, the general object being the strengthening the Turkish empire, the best policy would have been to have allowed Mehemet Ali 'the strong man' to have placed himself on that throne, in whose powerful and experienced hands the whole empire-Egypt, Syria, Arabia, Asia Minor, and Turkey-would have been re-united, and the Mahometan name and power would have been restored to its pristine vigour and ancient limits. The Ottoman throne,' it may be further said, was founded by armsthe right of succession has been always vague and irregular, and generally decided by military force. Of what importance was it whether the Moslem who should occupy that throne spelled his name Mahmoud or Mehemet? There would therefore have been no serious, and, above all, no unusual infraction of the Ottoman practice practice of succession, and we should then have had a real and effective Turkish empire, and a powerful barrier to all European ambition in that quarter.' All this is, as we have suggested, plausible-but it is no more. In the first place, such an arrangement would have wanted the main and most essential conditions of stability-right and justice: but, moreover, Mehemet Ali was not of the class within which, even by the latitude of the Turkish practice of succession, a sultan could be chosen. We need not trouble our readers with details of Mussulman law-but the fact is notorious, the adventurer Mehemet Ali never could have been legitimated in the eyes of the Turkish people. Besides, he was a mere adventurer, and now an aged one: what was to happen after him? What he himself had done his vassals might do; and we should perhaps have had pretenders from every province; and the result would probably have been the dissolution and eventual partition of the empire from internal discord. But suppose this could have been otherwise; suppose the strong man' enthroned at Constantinople, and the empire restored under his auspices to all its pristine strength-would the chances of tranquillity in Europe be much improved by such a neighbour? -a bold, ambitious, powerful, and barbarous people, which might have again subjugated Greece-again hermetically closed the Dardanelles and the whole Levant against European influence of all sorts-which might again have buccaneered the Mediterranean, and attacked Russia at Odessa and in the Crimeawhich might have again besieged Vienna-purchasing the connivance or even the assistance of France in all these enterprises by the cession of the-as it would then be-distant and comparatively unimportant province of EGYPT! But though we believe that the general ambition of Russia, and particularly her immediate designs on Turkey, have been much exaggerated, we have on more than one occasion shown that her position is such as to justify a jealous, though not offensive, vigilance-for the purpose of anticipating and preventing every opportunity of aggression on her part; but particularly such as might constitute, not only in her own eyes but in those of unbiassed judges, a plausible casus interventionis—forced, as it were, upon her by her own interests, as well as those of Europe in general. Now, the probability of such a casus was obvious from the moment Mehemet had invaded Syria-it became certain when he passed the Taurus-imminent after the battle of Konieh, and was fully accomplished when Ibrahim had advanced to Kutaya on his march to Constantinople. Could it be expected that Russia, with her fleets and her armies at hand, should look calmly on, and allow the rebel to seize the imperial city? Then indeed, indeed, would journalists and pamphleteers have charged-and even soberer statesmen might have suspected-her of having instigated the original revolt, and of having destroyed the Turkish empire for the immediate aggrandisement of the Pacha, but ultimately and certainly for her own. Here, therefore, was a case clear in its ultimate tendencies, though gradual in its steps, which invited--which imperiously required-as the designs of Mehemet successively developed themselves—the guardian influence of the Western powers. What did the English ministry?-We, assuredly, do not, like the Urquhart sect, impute to Lord Palmerston anything like corrupt contrivance, or even connivance, with Russia; and the secrecy of diplomatic communications leaves us in the dark as to what he may have said or writtenbut we know that he did-nothing! And we collect from the scanty papers which he laid before Parliament in 1839-seven years after-that our minister at Constantinople had no instructions either towards averting or alleviating the danger of the Porte, and that the pressing representations of the Sultan met in him a cold and impotent auditor, who professed his own 'private' and personal sympathies, but who had no official authority to interfere. But Lord Palmerston's quiescence was not the mere apathy of ignorance. It appears that in the preceding October-before the passage of the Taurus, and long before the fatal fight of Konieh -the Sultan had distinctly apprised England of his danger, and solicited her assistance towards arresting the irruption of the Pacha. These are Lord Palmerston's own admissions. 'Viscount Palmerston said "it was true that such a demand had been made in the course of last August [a misprint for autumn] by the Porte, before it had applied to Russia for assistance. The application that had been made to this country on the part of the Porte was for maritime assistance, and his Majesty's government, from the nature of circumstances, had not thought fit to grant the application."-Puri. Deb., Aug. 1833. What the nature of those circumstances' were his Lordship did not explain; it certainly could not have been anything like a principle of non-intervention-for in a subsequent debate his Lordship added the following surprising explanation: 'He was reported to have said on a late occasion that that request had been made in the month of August of last year-he said, however, in autumn last year. In fact it was in the month of October that the application was made. Without giving any very detailed explanation of the matter, he would only remind the House, that when we were embarking in naval operations in the North Sea, and on the coast of Holland, and were under the necessity of keeping up another naval VOL. LXVII. NO. CXXXIII. T force force on the coast of Portugal, it would have been impossible to have sent to the Mediterranean such a squadron as would have served the purpose of the Porte, and at the same time would have comported with the naval dignity of Great Britain; and as Parliament was not then stiting, Government could not acquiesce in the request made by the Sultan.'-Parl. Deb., 28 Aug., 1833. We have already given our opinion that the intervention in Holland and Portugal was as unjust and mischievous as an interference for Turkey would have been proper and salutary; but we need not insist on that, because Lord Palmerston does not ground his refusal on the principle of non-intervention :-that would have been, at the moment, rather too bad—but on the impossibility, from the want of naval means, of compliance,an excuse, we are sorry to say, disgraceful, if it had been true, but more so as it was not. We need hardly refer to what has been since done to show that it was not impossible for the first maritime power in the world to have shown a squadron on the coast of Syria-even then we had eighteen or twenty pendants in the Mediterranean-and the operations in the North Sea' were terminated before Ibrahim had advanced to Kutaya. The Sultan, moreover, had a large fleet; Mehemet Ali but a small one: and what was wanted was therefore, not mere material force, but the moral effect of the English flag, to have told Mehemet Ali by that awful signal which he could not have misunderstood, and durst not have disobeyed, Thou shalt come no further! The grounds, therefore, on which Lord Palmerston rested his defence on this point are, we are sorry to be obliged to say, worse than frivolous. Nor can we suppose any secret difficulty arising out of the feeling of foreign powers. Lord Palmerston's explanation does not mention any such obstacle; besides, France was at that time (autumn, 1832) in no condition, and, we believe, in no disposition, to have taken an open part with Mehemet Ali, or to have quarrelled with an interference on our part to save Constantinople from the Pacha on the one hand, or from Russia on the other. But even if she had then shown the wayward temper which she has since exhibited, it would have been only an additional reason why this menacing crisis should have been terminated as soon as possible. From Russia, Lord Palmerston would have received not opposition, but, as he himself fairly confessed, encouragement and support: ་ 'He (Lord Palmerston) could assure the honourable member that, if any persons imagined that among other motives which influenced the conduct of his Majesty's government there was anything like a threat on the part of Russia, they were entirely mistaken. On the contrary, it was but justice that he should state that, so far from Russia having expressed |