tottoro to go nitor.
THE EVICTION OF THE BARBARIANS FROM EUROPE. 1 Adam Street, Adelphi. Sin—The course of events has once more brought civilization in contact with barbarism ; civilization being represented by England and France, barbarism by Russia, of which, probably, her despotic ruler is but the expo- nent. We are engaged in a war of necessity to move the landmarks of free- dom further East and North, and the question is how to do it most effec- tually—in the most business manner, and at the least cost. To do this, we must look at the general condition of Europe, and not merely at Russia. Wealth and power in these days belong to those who have the command of the ocean—not a nominal but a real command—a power of growth by commerce, not a mere collection of ships at the command of a despot. If the maritime nations be banded together, they can at all times isolate the inland nations. The maritime nations are England and her Colonies, the United States, France, Russian Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Bel- gium, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece. Other nations may possess ships— as Egypt, Turkey, Morocco, China, and the countries of the East ; but we cannot call them maritime powers. Only where sailors grow indigenously out of natural circumstances can we recognize the term.
The Russian Government, aware of this truth, has sought to become a ma- ritime power. For this purpose, they stole Finland from Sweden and seized the coasts of the Black Sea. But Finnish seamen love not enforced service, and supplementary soldiers do not make up for the want of seamen. They come under the category of what the sailors call "horse-marines." The policy of England and the maritime states is to form an alliance offensive and defensive in favour of universal commerce—in other words, of universal freedom; for commerce cannot well exist without freedom, i . commerce of the most prosperous kind. What, then, are the obstacles to such an alliance ?
The main obstacle has been removed by the abolition of the English Navi- gation-laws, which kept alive commercial jealousies; which sought to exclude other nations and deprive them of trade, as though the poverty of the ge- neral world could add to the wealth of an individual nation, as though a mer- chant would thrive best by the depressed condition of his customers. The Squabble with China, ending in England insisting on the whole world being benefited by the trade as well as herself, was one of the earliest symptoms of our enlarged views.
Beginning at the North Sea, the coast of Europe is formed by the penin- sula constituting Norway and Sweden, and hemming in the Baltic and its twin gulfs. Its inhabitants are a race of hardy seamen, the earliest teachers of freedom to the world ; and their King is the son of a French Marshal of the Empire, one of the breakers down of despotic power who grew into a constitutional king. At the back of these countries, between the twin gulfs, lies Finland, also inhabited by a race of bold seamen, stolen, together with their country, by Russia some forty years back, and pacified for a while by privileges while overwhelmed by her power, in order to man her navy. Not willingly can the Fins remain an adjunct of Russia, of a nation of land- lubbers." On the South lies Denmark, closing the entrance to the Baltic, and closely hugging the Hanse Towne, the old abodes of free trade. A King with despotic tendencies and Russ leanings can do but little against the blood relationship between Englishmen and Danes, even though the deed of Nelson be considered more than a counterbalance for the old invasions of Ragnar Lodbrog and his vikings. "Bluid is thicker than water." Next comes Hanover; whose squabbles with the Lutheran Duke, we gave the people back as payment for our first George, marks surely that their leanings are not with despotism. Holland follows, with a brave people whose navy once swept the English Channel, with the famed broom of Van Tromp at the mast-head, in defiance even of England herself. The love of her King for tyranny is a leas strong thing than the love of his people for freedom. And close beside Holland is Belgium, whose people broke into revolution while witnessing .3fosaniello at the opera, and, expelling the Dutch King, up. built a constitutional monarchy, whom head is reputed wise, and whose throne were not worth an hour's purchase if convicted of aiding Russia. These six states, rounded in by England, and united for a common object with her, would be competent to defy the whole power of Russia, and, taking hold of St. Petersburg and the surrounding waters, drive the barbarian Czar to his aboriginal Moscow. The strength of Russia in the Baltic lies only in the imperfect union between seven morally cognate nations, all capable of the freest water locomotion, in direct opposition to the soil-attached Russ, whose instinctive mode of defence against a foe is the burning down of his own village ; a mere gravitating power, without the elastic vitality of the sailor races, the wealth-winning sea-kings, whose battle-shout would now as of old win the sea world from the land riders.
From Belgium to Spain sweep the shores of France—the land of the Frank—along the English Channel and the coasts of the Bay of Biscay. Good mariners there be wherever the Norsemen landed and settled ; as our ancesters found when the fleet from Dane brought the changer of our dy- nasty. Well have they fought and bravely at all times ; and why should they not ? They are of the same race as ourselves ; and though the Gallic cock is but an awkward bird on salt water, the tricolor will no more quail to the Russ on the wave than on the land. France is essentially the land of freedom. Whether under a Bourbon of the elder or the younger branch, under a Republic or a Bonaparte, whatever may be the external form or the apparent repression, there can be no permanent despotism in France. She must be ever the enemy of all the Continental despotisms, and henceforth the continual friend of England, now that, for the first time, the red cross and the tricolor float side by side, pregnant with more meaning than the "van and the ban and the orittamme" of the olden time.
From France to Cape Finisterre along the Southern shore of the Bay of Bis-
cay is the land of the Spanish mariners, Guipuscoa, Santander, the Asturias, and Galicia; a land of minerals and of hardy men, brave and industrious. That few vessels sail from their ports is not the fault of the staple manhood, but owing to far other reasons. From Finisterre to Cape St. Vincent is the land of Albuquerque and De Gama, the sea discoverer of India, the preceder of Columbus ; inhabited by a people whom we are accustomed to scorn, but who could be again what they once were, give them but fitting chiefs and lead- ers—a people who at once rose to bravery by the side of British soldiers, and earned the respect of their allies. The term "Portuguese man-o'-war" is one of the choice terms of contempt in an English sailor's vocabulary ; but what would be our own ships and sailors under such chieftainship as Portugal is afflicted with ? From Cape St. Vincent to Cadiz lies the land of the mariners who sailed with Columbus, when the queenly Isa- bella furnished the funds denied by our narrow-souled Henry the Seventh for the discovery of America ; and onward we stretch to Gib- raltar, rife with the memory of its founder, our earlier Nelson—Rooke; a pledge held for centuries of the coming alliance between England and Spain. Around sweeps the coast to Barcelona and the Pyrenees, along Mediterranean France to the Alps, and thence to Genoa, the birthplace of Columbus, the seat of the old Republican merchants and the port of free Pied- mont. Around the Adriatic Gulf and through the islands and mainland of Greece still swarm the sea-born races, wavering between huxtering and pi- racy, only for lack of a national and federal banner to raise them to ancient manhood.
Before such a maritime league, embracing all the coasts of Europe, what could be the resistance of Russia, Austria, Prussia, Naples, Bavaria, and the small fry, even backed by the despotisms of the East, and leaving out of the i account n the general forces of the world America, Africa, and Australia, whose freedom has grown and is growing ? It is not a struggle between despotism and freedom that is in the issue, but simply a question how long ignorant despotism seeking only to repress progress shall be permitted to exist. The joint power of Russia, Prussia, and Austria, is but a bugbear to England and France alone. To doubt for a moment the successful result of the combined war-ships and armies of England and France in the Black Sea and the Baltic, unless we imagine the commanders fools, is to be ignorant of the principles of human nature and the condition of human art. The likelihood is, that a French army will mount guard in St. Petersburg,—as it would have done under the elder Napoleon if allied with England,—unless the Russians burn it down, after their usual version of the "noble science of defence." We may take Cronstadt and Sebastopol when we will ; but we ought to take them without loss of English or French life. There is no need for a bull-dog contest. It is a chess game, as much so as when the French shelled Chasse out of Antwerp. It is analogous to "drawing a badger " ; in which process people do not put their hands into the hole to be bitten, but send in dogs. If existing Russian guns at Cronatadt can reach the attacking vessels, it would be a notice that our artillery is inefficient, as in truth it is, compared with what is practically possible. Our present great guns, with all their improvements are still as far behind what they us should and might be as a common musket t is to a Mini4 rifle.
With the shores of Russia in our power, and with a hedge of adverse free nations raised up. on all her frontiers, her Lure struggles must be confined to those directions inland where the tribes are more savage and the chiefs as unscrupulous as the Czar himself. As an European power Russia may then be considered extinct, and France and England may indicate to Austria and Prussia the course they must pursue in the progress of civilization. There are people who doubt the permanent union of England and France. I will endeavour to point out in another communication why their union is now far more probable than their antagonism. I am, Sir, yours faithfully, W. BRIDGES ADAMS.
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