The week appeared to be closing without any decisive or
new intelligence from the several seats of war, when we had the brief report of Omar Pasha's victory over the Russians in Mingrelia. We had already been able to report the success of General Wil- liams and his coadjutors in maintaining their position at Kars, and in repulsing the Russians. To effect a diversion in his favour, Omar was hastening by forced marches ; on the river Ingour ho encountered a Russian force, considerably superior in numbers ; he gave battle, defeated the enemy after a combat of five hours, and then pushed on. We have as yet too little information to estimate this success very exactly ; but it is remarkable that throughout the war, Russia seems to have been unable to make a stand against her antagonists : from the White Sea round West- wards to the Black Sea, and beyond into Asia, she has had no vic- tories except negative successes in maintaining her position here and there, with a very positive failure wherever she has been vigorously encountered.
The public has become naturally impatient, if not to see the termination of the war, at least to see progress marked. The ob- ject of the contest always has been, not "the four points," which only embodied it for negotiation, but the submission of Russia to the restraint of public law ; and towards that object we have as yet made no certain progress. We have taken away territory upon which Russia had encroached.; wo have driven her back within the bounds of her own empire ; we have rescued from her grasp the Moldo-Wallachian province. Yet we have not returned the Principalities to Turkey. There are loud complaints against the occupation of Austria. She professes to hold the province only as an auxiliary of the Allies: her occupation has answered its purpose, and should cease. A longer continuance of provi- sional occupation would render local disorders chronic, would give to Austrian subjects a charter of oppression, and would greatly complicate questions, already delicate enough, between Austria and her Allies. She should now be released from a duty which she can no longer perform with advantage to the object.
