THE POWER OF RUSSIA.

IN our newspapers and periodicals there has been of late a great deal of rhodomontade on this subject. From the character of the government and people, Russia is naturally the enemy of the liberties of Europe-; and were she as capable of mischief as she is sasalined to its these wauld be sufficient ground for apprehension. But the reetions of civilized 'Europe are not the degenerate sub- jects of Ancanius and HONORIUS; nor the Russians. in enter- prise, courage, or capacity for conquest, Goths and Vandals in relatson to them. The Russians, because they are poor and semi- barlearous, and inhabit a poor, cold, distant, and not very accessible country, are strong for defensive, but, for the same reasons, weak foe offensive warfare. The parties who would have us believe that Europe is in danger of being overrun and enslaved by Russia, seem for a moment to forget, that during the last four centuries such discoveries have been made as the mariner's compass, the art of printing, gunpowder, fire-arms, artillery, America, and the steam-engine; and that the risk now is not to those who can make the best use of the modern discoveries, but to those whose poverty and semi-barbarism disqualify them from using them skil- fully ; and of the latter number are the Russians.

Those who apprehend danger from the power of the Russians- argue pretty much after the following fashion. Russia is an im- mense empire of a million and a half of square miles in extent; with sixty millions of inhabitants, a fleet of fifty sail of the line, and a standing army of near a million of men : therefore, Russia is irresistible. From this imposing statement of Russian strength, serious deductions, however, must be made, which will reduce her offensive power to within very narrow limits indeed. The whole population is so scattered, that there are barely forty inhabitants to the square mile. Then this population, again, is prodigiously diversified, by language, religion, manners, and de- • grees of civilization. The substantial strength of Russia lies in the Muscovite nation—in the people speaking the Russian lan- guage; and these amount to about three-and-twenty millions,— a population smaller than that of the United Kingdom, and not within nine millions of the population of France,—scattered, moreover, over half a million of square miles. The rest of the population of the empire, thirty-seven millions, consist at the very least of forty different nations or tribes,—Poles, Lithuanians. Finns, Swedes, Turks, Tartars, Persians, Greeks, Circassians, Georgians, Armenians, &c. &c. These, for the most part, are united to Russia by no bond save the exercise of the right of con- quest. They not only, in general, da not strengthen the power of Russia, but very much tend to weaken it. Instead of going abroad to seek new conquests in distant countries and amongst civilized nations, it is quite obvious that the three-and-twenty millions of genuine Russians have more than enough to do at home in keep- ing their conquered subjects in subjection. In fact, the vast army of Russia is chiefly employed in garrisoning its conquered pro- vinces; two-thirds of which, it is well known, in consequence of the hostility of the people and the rudeness and corruption of the Russian financiers, do not pay the expense of maintaining them, but, on the contrary, are a heavy charge to the Russian treasury. Then, as to the Russian military power, roughly estimated at a million, including the navy,—a good portion of it is well known to be confined to the paper muster-rolls ; while a great deal is composed of conscripts, who have as yet received no military or- ganization. Indeed, for that matter, some of the military colonies are inscribed in the list of the army. Of the soldiery, the best portion consists of serfs or slaves. The regimental officers, but especially the subalterns, are in condition and intellect not much raised beyond the soldiery ; and since the time of PETER the Great, the Russians have been obliged to resort to foreigners for the best of their naval and military commanders. The commis- sariat has always been execrable : witness the other day, when the Imperial Guard were brought out at Kalisch to be paraded, and were nearly starved for want of common rations, in the country of an ally. Wherever the Russian armies, for a century and a half, have encountered an European enemy upon equal terms, they have been disgracefully defeated, whether that enemy has con-

sisted of Swedes, Poles, Germans, or French. Their victories—

and not very easy ones either—have been chiefly over the Turks, an Asiatic people who have been four centuries encamped in Europe without changing their Asiatic manners or making any material improvement.

The great danger to us from the Russian power is supposed to lie in its possible conquest of the British dominions in India. A disordered and terrified imagination never conjured up a wilder phantom. From the Arras, on the western shore of the Caspian, the nearest point at which Russia could assemble an army for the invasion of India, to Ludeeanna, on the Sutulege, the nearest point of the British dominions, by whatever route you proceed, is a distance of not less than three thousand miles ; and from Lu- deeanna to Calcutta is about fifteen hundred miles more. Ha Russian army, then, were to march without intermission, inter- ruption, or resistance, it would take almost a year to reach the great stronghold of the English power. The Russian army would first have to cross the Caspian Sea, and prepare a fleet for this purpose. By one route it would have to cross the kingdom of Persia,—an elevated table-land, remarkable for its bare, arid, and rocky surface,—remarkable also for its scarcity of fuel, water, forage, and food, and with a population so hostile to Russia that the country must be completely conquered before it is crossed. If the route were further to the North, the Russian army would have to encounter a country for the most part of still greater sterility, very mountainous, full of difficult defiles, covered with snow in winter, and a dry desert without a drop of water or a blade of grass in summer ; inhabited by a scattered population of warlike Tureoman shepherds, fierce Usbeeks, and Afghans. But suppose a Russian army to reach the banks of the Sutulege, m order to make the conquest of India at all feasible to it, the 00111•• later ; and it does not appear to us that France and England, the bined force must amount to fifty or sixty thousand men, after con-

quering and garrisoning every mile of three thousand in its rear, nations supposed to be chiefly interested. are in the least degree so as to be able to maintain its communication with Russia—or, interested in preventing this consummation. On the contrary, we think that the attempt to prevent it—and it can never amount more correctly, with the distant conquered provinces of Russia. On its arrival in India, supposing England to lend no additional as-

sistance to her great dependency, it will have to contend with the needless expense and great embarrassment. As long as the well-organized military power of British India,—that is, a punc- Turks.are Mahomedans and retain their present manners,—and tually-paid and well-disciplined army, consisting of about forty this will probably be the case for several centuries to come,—a thousand English troops and an hundred and sixty thousand Russian conquest will never amount to any thing more than a regular Sepoys, as well officered, by English gentlemen, as any military occupation of Turkey. It will be the substitution of a army in the world. But, if there were the slightest approach of less barbarous, for a more barbarous military government. It danger, England would afford prompt assistance for maintaining will be the substitution of a dominant nation more civilized, for her Indian conquests. In eight months time, a lamer English oue that is less civilized. It will be the substitution of a nation. army than the Russian might be sent from the banks of the which has shown itself capable of some improvement, for one Thames to the banks of the Sutulege; within which same time, which, in occupation of some of the finest parts of Europe, has if the Russian army ever assembled at all on the Arras, it would stood stock-still for four hundred years. have scarcely crossed the Caspian. The English army that would But then, it is said, that in the event of a Russian conquest, meet the Russians would be well equipped, well paid, and well we shall lose our valuable trade with Turkey. Let us see fed; in the inclement season it would be in comfortable canton- what is the amount of this valuable trade. In 1833, the total ments. In the hot and rainy seasons, which extend from March value of British produce and manufactures exported to Turkey, to October inclusive, during which no military operations can be including continental Greece, little exceeded a million sterling_ conducted,—for the thermometer is often at a hundred, or deluges (1,019,604/.); even this little had within three years fallen off of rain pour down incessantly, and the country is impassable,—the more than ten per cent. The Russians, having possession of Russian army would have to bivouac; and this alone, without a Turkey, would preserve order, and therefore encourage industry blow from their opponents, would destroy them. To whom such somewhat better than the Turks do,—which is not setting up an an enterprise would be pleasant, we know not, unless to the extravagant claim for them ; and our trade therefore, by the British officers of the Indian army, who, having had nothing change, ought to increase instead of diminish. Our trade with material in band for the last ten years, are no doubt anxious Turkey is the freest on both sides of any commerce which we

enough for a little fighting and a little promotion. maintain with any European nation, whilst our trade with the

The extreme absurdity of pretending danger to British India Russians is one of the most restricted on both sides. Before we from Russian ambition and aggression, will be seen at once if we placed the latter under restraints, by our absurd and injurious consider tha position in which Russia stands in regard to China. regulations, it was more than seven-fold greater in value than the Their territories are separated only by an imaginary line, instead Turkish trade ; and, even at the present moment, it exceeds it in of being three thousand miles distant as is the British territory. the ratio of one half. It will be entirely our own fault, then, if China is the easiest country in all the world to conquer; and, on our trade with European Turkey under Russian dominion be not account of its riches, of all the countries of Asia by far the best greater than it is under Turkish dominion. worth conquering. Yet Russia, with all her ambition, does notImminent danger is appprehended to our trade and posses- attempt it ; for she cannot transport an army equal to the under- sions in the Mediterranean, from the possibility of Russia

taking even through her own territories. mising a great naval power in the Black Sea and the Sea of

Let us see, however, what have been the recent achievements of Marmora, and possessing herself of the Bosphorus and the the Russian nation, which cause it to be imagined capable of the Dardanelles. The ground for this is, that there are harbours and miraculous conquest of British India; implying, in fact, a victory forests of oak on the shores of the Black Sea, and that Russia over the power of Great Britain, and the subjugation of eighty or produces plenty of hemp and iron. These are no doubt part of ninety millions of people, which it has taken England, under the rude materials of a military navy; but every small part indeed; very favourable circumstances, the better part of a century to and in the case of Russia it would be just as idle to talk of subjugate. A few years ago, the Russians attacked Persia, a constructing a powerful and efficient fleet with them. as it would neighbouring nation; and it was the difficult and precarious work be to speak of raising a great and prosperous city among a semi- of a whole campaign to wrest from it two small provinces. In barbarous people, because their country yielded abundance of 1828, they attacked Turkey, in attempting the conquest of which clay, limestone, timber, and iron ore—the rude materials of- they have been engaged for more than a century ; and which, at house-building. The people of India or the serfs of Russia, or the time of the attack, scarcely had a population of ten mil- any other rude people with a tolerable share of animal courage lions, rude, miscellaneous, and divided. All Europe looked on and docility, will, with the assistance of a few officers, form without interfering. Yet it required two difficult campaigns to a good army ; but an extensive and active maritime corn- penetrate three hundred miles beyond the Russian frontier; and, merce alone can yield the raw material of a powerful military when the achievement was accomplished, the effective Russian navy. Except with the possessors of such a commerce, no na- force, which arrived at Adrianople under Marshal DIEBITSCH, tion has ever had or ever will have an efficient military navy.

amounted to but ten thousand men. It is only free nations that can acquire such a commerce, and

Shortly afterwards, an insurrection broke out in Poland,--a consequently such a navy : witness the naval superiority of the- conquered province of Russia, with scarcely four millions of in- Dutch, the English, and the Americans. When the Russians habitants. This also, although Poland had been forty years sub- become free, they will give protection to national industry—they jugated, it required two campaigns to put down ; and indeed, after will have a great commerce and a powerful navy ; but not until many disgraceful defeats, the achievement was only finally ac- then shall Britain have any ground of apprehension from their complished through the secret and perfidious assistance of an rivalry. It will be several centuries before Russia is in so-

European ally, favourable a position.

Some croakers have carried their apprehension of Russia so far One periodical, the British and Foreign Quarterly Review, has as to fear her naval power. She has, they say, thirty sail of the been proposing to subsidize Persia, and to give her armies an line in the Baltic, and may if she please have thirty more in the European organization, in order to prepare against a Russian inva-- Black Sea : she may conquer Constantinople; and, some day or sion of India. We had subsidized Persia for some years, and given other, she may land fifty thousand men on the shores of the her army an European military organization. It was just this British Channel !—If she should go to the expense of building six very circumstance which made the Persians so easy a victim of hundred instead of sixty sail of the line, so much the worse for Russian invasion. It inspired them with a temerity which se- herself and the better for her enemies. It is out of her power to duced them to meet the Russian armies in the field; and the corn- man, and still more to officer, a fleet capable of contending with parative superiority of the Russian bayonet and discipline quickly any even of the second-rate of the maritime powers of Europe. settled the matter. Our excellent contemporary the Morning The building of ships, under such circumstances, would only Chronicle, in a recent number, expressed an opinion that it was cripple the resources of a poor country, burdened with a debt of time for us to raise four or five thousand additional sailors, in order sixty-three millions and a revenue of no more than seventeen to be prepared against the great naval power which the Russians millions. For six months of the year the Baltic is not navigable are raising in the Baltic : and for this suggestion it quoted the for ice ; and the Russian fleet, with unskilful officers, and manned professional authority of the highest individual in the empire. for the most part by serfs, who are landsmen, in military uni- Notwithstanding the opinion of the Chronicle, backed by the form, ventures out of port but once a year, for a summer cruise highest authority in the empire, we are of opinion that it will be of six weeks or two months. Is this a fleet to land fifty thousand better to save our money and husband our strength against some men on the shores of Britain ? When, in 1809, the combined real danger,—more particularly when it is remembered that our Swedish and British fleet appeared in the Baltic, the Russian Navy is already in numerical strength, and still more in efficiency,. fleet, thrice their number, sneaked into Cronstadt, after losing superior to that of all the other nations of Europe put together.

two of its largest ships in a twenty minutes' action. Then, a two

Inonths voyage would scarcely suffice to enable the fleets of the No fewer than two hundred plans for the erection of the New Houses Baltic and Black Sea to effect a junction. A Russian Armada in of Parliament have been submitted to the Committee appointed to the Channel would be a pleasant sight to the mariners of old consider the subject. Some of them, accompanied with the artists' England. We should have FROBISHERS and DRAKES in abun- names, have been rejected as informal, on that account alone. dance to give a speedy account of it,—if the fresh-water navy The new Conservative Club-house in Pall Mall is so far advanced were spared by the elements. There would be nothing wanting, towards completion, that it will be ready for the reception of the Mem • but danger and dollars, to remind us of the days of ELIZABETH. bers in January next. Russia will possess herself of Constantinople, and conquer Beranger is now living in great seclusion at Fontainbleau. Two later ; and it does not appear to us that France and England, the bined force must amount to fifty or sixty thousand men, after con-

quering and garrisoning every mile of three thousand in its rear, nations supposed to be chiefly interested. are in the least degree so as to be able to maintain its communication with Russia—or, interested in preventing this consummation. On the contrary, we think that the attempt to prevent it—and it can never amount more correctly, with the distant conquered provinces of Russia.

to any thing more than an attempt—will involve themselves in a sistance to her great dependency, it will have to contend with the needless expense and great embarrassment. As long as the well-organized military power of British India,—that is, a punc- Turks.are Mahomedans and retain their present manners,—and tually-paid and well-disciplined army, consisting of about forty this will probably be the case for several centuries to come,—a thousand English troops and an hundred and sixty thousand Russian conquest will never amount to any thing more than a regular Sepoys, as well officered, by English gentlemen, as any military occupation of Turkey. It will be the substitution of a army in the world. But, if there were the slightest approach of less barbarous, for a more barbarous military government. It danger, England would afford prompt assistance for maintaining will be the substitution of a dominant nation more civilized, for her Indian conquests. In eight months time, a lamer English oue that is less civilized. It will be the substitution of a nation. army than the Russian might be sent from the banks of the which has shown itself capable of some improvement, for one Thames to the banks of the Sutulege; within which same time, which, in occupation of some of the finest parts of Europe, has if the Russian army ever assembled at all on the Arras, it would stood stock-still for four hundred years. have scarcely crossed the Caspian. The English army that would But then, it is said, that in the event of a Russian conquest, meet the Russians would be well equipped, well paid, and well we shall lose our valuable trade with Turkey. Let us see fed; in the inclement season it would be in comfortable canton- what is the amount of this valuable trade. In 1833, the total ments. In the hot and rainy seasons, which extend from March value of British produce and manufactures exported to Turkey, to October inclusive, during which no military operations can be including continental Greece, little exceeded a million sterling_ conducted,—for the thermometer is often at a hundred, or deluges (1,019,604/.); even this little had within three years fallen off of rain pour down incessantly, and the country is impassable,—the more than ten per cent. The Russians, having possession of Russian army would have to bivouac; and this alone, without a Turkey, would preserve order, and therefore encourage industry blow from their opponents, would destroy them. To whom such somewhat better than the Turks do,—which is not setting up an an enterprise would be pleasant, we know not, unless to the extravagant claim for them ; and our trade therefore, by the British officers of the Indian army, who, having had nothing change, ought to increase instead of diminish. Our trade with material in band for the last ten years, are no doubt anxious Turkey is the freest on both sides of any commerce which we

enough for a little fighting and a little promotion. maintain with any European nation, whilst our trade with the

The extreme absurdity of pretending danger to British India Russians is one of the most restricted on both sides. Before we from Russian ambition and aggression, will be seen at once if we placed the latter under restraints, by our absurd and injurious consider tha position in which Russia stands in regard to China. regulations, it was more than seven-fold greater in value than the Their territories are separated only by an imaginary line, instead Turkish trade ; and, even at the present moment, it exceeds it in of being three thousand miles distant as is the British territory. the ratio of one half. It will be entirely our own fault, then, if China is the easiest country in all the world to conquer; and, on our trade with European Turkey under Russian dominion be not account of its riches, of all the countries of Asia by far the best greater than it is under Turkish dominion. worth conquering. Yet Russia, with all her ambition, does notImminent danger is appprehended to our trade and posses- attempt it ; for she cannot transport an army equal to the under- sions in the Mediterranean, from the possibility of Russia

taking even through her own territories. mising a great naval power in the Black Sea and the Sea of

Let us see, however, what have been the recent achievements of Marmora, and possessing herself of the Bosphorus and the the Russian nation, which cause it to be imagined capable of the Dardanelles. The ground for this is, that there are harbours and miraculous conquest of British India; implying, in fact, a victory forests of oak on the shores of the Black Sea, and that Russia over the power of Great Britain, and the subjugation of eighty or produces plenty of hemp and iron. These are no doubt part of ninety millions of people, which it has taken England, under the rude materials of a military navy; but every small part indeed; very favourable circumstances, the better part of a century to and in the case of Russia it would be just as idle to talk of subjugate. A few years ago, the Russians attacked Persia, a constructing a powerful and efficient fleet with them. as it would neighbouring nation; and it was the difficult and precarious work be to speak of raising a great and prosperous city among a semi- of a whole campaign to wrest from it two small provinces. In barbarous people, because their country yielded abundance of 1828, they attacked Turkey, in attempting the conquest of which clay, limestone, timber, and iron ore—the rude materials of- they have been engaged for more than a century ; and which, at house-building. The people of India or the serfs of Russia, or the time of the attack, scarcely had a population of ten mil- any other rude people with a tolerable share of animal courage lions, rude, miscellaneous, and divided. All Europe looked on and docility, will, with the assistance of a few officers, form without interfering. Yet it required two difficult campaigns to a good army ; but an extensive and active maritime corn- penetrate three hundred miles beyond the Russian frontier; and, merce alone can yield the raw material of a powerful military when the achievement was accomplished, the effective Russian navy. Except with the possessors of such a commerce, no na- force, which arrived at Adrianople under Marshal DIEBITSCH, tion has ever had or ever will have an efficient military navy.

Shortly afterwards, an insurrection broke out in Poland,--a consequently such a navy : witness the naval superiority of the- conquered province of Russia, with scarcely four millions of in- Dutch, the English, and the Americans. When the Russians habitants. This also, although Poland had been forty years sub- become free, they will give protection to national industry—they jugated, it required two campaigns to put down ; and indeed, after will have a great commerce and a powerful navy ; but not until many disgraceful defeats, the achievement was only finally ac- then shall Britain have any ground of apprehension from their complished through the secret and perfidious assistance of an rivalry. It will be several centuries before Russia is in so- Some croakers have carried their apprehension of Russia so far One periodical, the British and Foreign Quarterly Review, has as to fear her naval power. She has, they say, thirty sail of the been proposing to subsidize Persia, and to give her armies an line in the Baltic, and may if she please have thirty more in the European organization, in order to prepare against a Russian inva-- Black Sea : she may conquer Constantinople; and, some day or sion of India. We had subsidized Persia for some years, and given other, she may land fifty thousand men on the shores of the her army an European military organization. It was just this British Channel !—If she should go to the expense of building six very circumstance which made the Persians so easy a victim of hundred instead of sixty sail of the line, so much the worse for Russian invasion. It inspired them with a temerity which se- herself and the better for her enemies. It is out of her power to duced them to meet the Russian armies in the field; and the corn- man, and still more to officer, a fleet capable of contending with parative superiority of the Russian bayonet and discipline quickly any even of the second-rate of the maritime powers of Europe. settled the matter. Our excellent contemporary the Morning The building of ships, under such circumstances, would only Chronicle, in a recent number, expressed an opinion that it was cripple the resources of a poor country, burdened with a debt of time for us to raise four or five thousand additional sailors, in order sixty-three millions and a revenue of no more than seventeen to be prepared against the great naval power which the Russians millions. For six months of the year the Baltic is not navigable are raising in the Baltic : and for this suggestion it quoted the for ice ; and the Russian fleet, with unskilful officers, and manned professional authority of the highest individual in the empire. for the most part by serfs, who are landsmen, in military uni- Notwithstanding the opinion of the Chronicle, backed by the form, ventures out of port but once a year, for a summer cruise highest authority in the empire, we are of opinion that it will be of six weeks or two months. Is this a fleet to land fifty thousand better to save our money and husband our strength against some men on the shores of Britain ? When, in 1809, the combined real danger,—more particularly when it is remembered that our Swedish and British fleet appeared in the Baltic, the Russian Navy is already in numerical strength, and still more in efficiency,. fleet, thrice their number, sneaked into Cronstadt, after losing superior to that of all the other nations of Europe put together.