/Mfrs in tiff Rita.
Sni—As the Spectator is above doing an intentional injustice to any one, however widely he may differ from it, I do not anticipate that you will re- fuse to receive my friendly remonstrance against a passage contained in your article entitled "Suicide of France by her Own Jiarrnals." In fact as there have been moments when you have appeared to be on the very point of accepting, as the only clue which could guide you through the labyrinth of modern history, and explain the career and conduct of Lord Palmerston, the views which at the close of that article are placed on the same level with " calumny" and " sedition," I feel that I have almost a claim upon your space. I venture to assume that you agree with Lord Palmerston's accusers in recognizing-
lst. That Russia has been for many years successfully carrying out de- signs dangerous to the liberties, the interests, and the independence of other states.
2d. That wherever she seta her foot, she throws hinderances in the way of British commerce, and creates a moral and intellectual desert, the very re- verse of that " progress " which you hold to be desirable. 3d. That her conquests are achieved less by force of arms than by a system of bribery, fraud, and other kinds of wickedness, habitually carried on through male and female agents, (not exclusively Russian,) who are carefully selected and admirably trained for her purposes.
It is true that you stop at this point; which possibly you would not yet have reached but for the unremitting efforts of those (I spare you the hated name) who advance a step further, and declare Lord Palmerston to be one of the chief amongst Russia s well-trained agents, and who support their asser- tions by what you justly describe as " elaborate circumstantial evidence," resting their case upon facts patent to all, and upon official documents within every man's reach. They may be wrong, but they can scarcely be deemed guilty of extravagance when they accuse an English Minister of treason, since only a few days ago the Globe and the Times advanced a pre- cisely similar accusation against two French Ministers ; and the British public, from John o' Groat's to the Land's End, is convinced of their guilt, and ready to do battle with any one who may be rash enough to express a doubt on the subject. The manifest incorrectness of the opinions which have been current re- specting Lord Palmerston, might in itself be sufficient to fix attention on the accusations so perseveringly brought against him. He has been in a first-rate Ministerial position for more than a quarter of a century, and during that period helms been reputed by the public to be the champion of England and liberty against Russia and despotism. This he clearly is not, nor has he ever been ; and if his career be one of mystery it may have been one of crime. It is impossible to show where he has foiled or tried to foil Russia. Certainly he did not do so when in 1831 he refused to cooperate with Talleyrand and Bernadotte in order to save Poland. He did not do so on the Circassian coast, at Cracow, or in Hungary; nor yet in the Baltic, in 1855, when he upset the arrangement by which King Oscar and the French Emperor had, with the consent of Denmark, agreed to land 160,000 French and Swedish troops in Finland ; nor yet in Denmark, since in 1852 he embodied the wishes of Nicholas in the treaty of London, in which, by reviving sOnle indistinct and obsolete claims of the Czar to the possible inheritance of a part of Holstein, he secured to Russia not only the Crown of Denmark, but also a .footing in Germany ; nor in Persia, where successive British Envoys have been commanded by him to act in concert with the Russian Ambassador ; nor in Affghanistan, where he and Lord Broughton made a fatal war against our Mende, regardless of the re- monstrances of their own agents, and of every person of importance connected with India; nor in China, where his Opium War gave Russia the Amoor and the , Gulf of Tartary ; nor in the late war, in which Russia and her trade were spared to the uttermost ; nor in the Conferences of Paris, where no indemnity was demanded from Russia, and where England's means of coercing linssia through her trade were illegally sacrificed under an empty pretence. It seems tome that the accusers of Lord Palmerston have done good ser- vice, by forcing upon an unwilling people some little knowledge of the most inntortant of their worldly concerns; and that they are entitled to respect for the open and fearless manner in which they have brought forward their charges. They have striven to prevent war with the United States, with
France, with Russia, with Naples, and with Persia. They have tried to benefit our commerce, by endeavouring to obtain reductions of duties on English goods in France, Turkey, Persia, Austria, and Naples. They have striven to make Ministers amenable to the law, and not merely nominally responsible to the House which appoints them. They have laboured against the centralization of all power in the hands of the Go- vernment; and they have aimed at making justice and law once more the rule of our conduct towards foreign nations, by struggling against the new Palinerstonian practice of entering into secret negotiations for purposes un- suspected by the country, and then keeping the country in the dark not only while negotiations are pending, but also after they are concluded. They have unmasked the schemes and processes of Russia, and have by that means given Europe and England yet another chance of escape from the blighting " protection " which is impending over them. In all this I can find no trace of " calumny " or "sedition" ; and if these views have been rejected by those of high degree, and adopted chiefly by men in a humbler position, it is not the first time in the world's history that truth has met with such a fate.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant, F. Meas.
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