We mentioned in a part of our impression last week,
that ships of war were fitting out at Chatham, Portsmouth, and Plymouth, and that our fleet in the Mediterranean was to be reinforced with ten sail of the line. The French Government are also on the alert, and the dockyards at Toulon are full of bustle and preparation.' These measures are intended to demonstrate, to the dissatisfaction of the Russian Autocrat, that France and England are determined to oppose the projected seizure and dismemberment of the Turkish empire. How far they will answer the purpose, and prevent the necessity of actual warfare, remains to be seen. A contest with Russia on the shores of the Black Sea would be bloody and expen- sive ; and yet if the Czar persists in the designs imputed to him, strong arguments for its necessity might be urged. The Times suggests a cheap mode of doing the work ; and thinks that the vigorous old Pacha of Egypt would be just the man for the job.
" The newly.created empire of Mehemet Ali is a mighty engine of defence against Russia, which it would be utter madness in Great Britain to repel from her, or superciliously to despise. Mehemet has 100,000 brave and disciplined soldiers, tinder an able chief; a good fleet ; an unobstructed path to the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus ; and would, if seated on the throne of Con- stantinople, present a different front to Czar Nicholas from that of the unfortu- nate and irredeemably fallen Mahmoud. Mehemet Ali is attached to England ; he knows that her interests and policy are far from irreconcilable to his own ; he has long courted her countenance and friendship. ; and William the Fourth's Ministers have but to speak the word, which will rivet the Egyptian conqueror to this country."
Upon this the Courier remarks, that it would not be consistent with good faith to stir up a rebellion against the Sultan, with 'Whom we profess to be on terms of amity ; and that this would be pre- cisely imitating the intrigues we condemn in Russia. The obser- vation is just—that must be allowed—but verily the temptation in our way is great. Those, at least, who justified the seizure of the Danish fleet in the late war, would be precluded from con- demning the questionable measure of placing Constantinople in treacherous, but to us, of necessity, friendly hands.
