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sia, we place against it the most unqualified denial. Our hostility is to the policy of the Russian Government, not to the prosperity of the Russian people. We seek not to disturb the repose of Russia, but to prevent Russia from disturbing the repose of Europe. We would say with Prince Metternich, to the Emperor Nicolas, that he has "greater and more useful conquests to make in his own empire than elsewhere ;" and we feel convinced, that in labouring to counteract the projects of foreign growth, which have struck such deep root into the Cabinet of St. Petersburgh, and which have converted the mighty Sclavonic race into a great and unhappy instrument, we are rendering not less essential service to the Russian people, than to the nations threatened with destruction by this combination of refined policy and brute force.

Having had occasion thus to allude to our own position, we cannot help, in justice to the Government and to ourselves, taking this opportunity of contradicting the assertion, that any documents contained in this publication have been commuIt is nicated to us by the British Government. not generally the part of governments to desire the publication of documents like these, which

may place them, as it does in this case, in so embarrassing, we had almost said so ridiculous a predicament, and deprives them of the great advantage of the exclusive possession of such secrets. From the hands into which these papers have fallen, no consideration which the government of any country can offer, can obtain their suppression, and no authority which the government of Great Britain possesses can legally prevent their publication.

The motives of this resolution have been sufficiently exposed in these pages. They are briefly these: A deep and matured conviction, founded not alone upon the means of information which have been published, or yet remain, of the approaching dissolution of the Turkish Empire-its appropriation more or less by Russia, and her occupation of Constantinople and the Dardanelles. Our conviction is not less profound, that when such an event does take place, not even the ultimate means of arms, in the actual state of European combinations, will be had recourse to. That event we consider destructive of the maritime supremacy of Great Britain, and the commencement of a progression of circumstances tending towards the ruin of the commerce and the Colonial Empire of Great Britain.

At the same time we believe, that it is a thing of the utmost facility at this present moment, to maintain the Ottoman Empire against Russia, and therefore to prevent the commencement of that progression, which to our eyes ends in the destruction of our country's greatness and prosperity.

There is but one means by which the Government can purchase our silence; and that is, by the adoption of a line of policy less unworthy and less fatal. It is by seizing the present favourable conjuncture for arresting the accomplishment of the forebodings, and the realization of the projects of sixty years!

To those who coincide with us in conviction and apprehension, we pledge ourselves to be deterred or restrained by no consideration whatever from persevering in the prosecution of the great task which we have undertaken, and from using, to the best of our abilities, the materials thus providentially placed at our disposal. We consider this declaration to be necessary, because we feel that the uncertainty prevailing as to our real position, paralyses the support which otherwise would be afforded to us by the opinion of our country, and which, very naturally impressed with the belief that the Govern

ment cannot be in reality indifferent to the dangers that threaten, desists from the expression of that interest and alarm which, if expressed, would render impossible the continuance of the present apathy and inaction.

EXTRACTED FROM THE

Blätter für Literarische Unterhaltung.

"THE PORTFOLIO, No. I. To V."

HERE then are the mysterious Papers, so pompously announced, whose contents have incessantly occupied foreign Journals, and have excited the curiosity of the Germans, especially since it was announced that they would treat also of Germany. Their exterior at once distinguishes them from all other periodicals, inasmuch as they announce themselves by their form and by their title as intended to become a work, and each Number stalks abroad in a deep-blue cover with a simple title in gold letters. The Editors still persist in their incognito, which is perhaps not so difficult to see through, and in their silence on the

question, much more difficult of solution, whence these documents were procured. The more we are accustomed in our days to see every period of modern history elucidated from archives by the fortunate industry of inquirers, the more are we surprised at this exposure of events which are passing almost before our eyes. No small astonishment was excited last year when Klüber in a supplementary volume of the acts of the Congress of Vienna, furnished us with the secret Triple Alliance between England, Austria, and France, of Jan. 3, 1815. But this document was already historically known, and the authenticity of it was guaranteed by the well known and respected name of one of the oldest among the German political writers. Of another kind was the communication, which surprised the world last autumn, viz. the copy of the Secret Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, which had found its way, we know not how, into the pages of an amusing, tattling and harmless book, "A Steam Voyage down the Danube by Michael Quin." And now this "Portfolio!" It will remind the German reader of the fate of the Bulletins of Kotzebue, or more forcibly of those Despatches which the penury of a Saxon Secretary once betrayed to a Prussian

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