In abstaining from taking part in this guarantee, the Cabinet of London would presume too much on their good nature, in pretending that its consti. tution was an obstacle. The Constitution and the Parliament admit of guarantees, when they are judged useful, and the king of Great Britain does not hesitate more than any other monarch to contract such obligations, whenever he finds them conformable to his interests. Witness the guarantee of Portugal, which menaces to become to-day the cause of a pretext of setting the world on fire.

If in the actual case the English Ministry abstains from guaranteeing, it is because having to be a principal party to the arrangement, it acquires by that alone the right of intervention; England therefore would wish to reserve to itself the faculty of acting, without contracting the obligation to do so, and thus prepare for herself the advantages, without incurring the charges of the transaction. This truth is evident, and it has not escaped the penetration of France.*

* This represents the form in which the diffidence of England to involve herself in the engagements in which Russia wished to lead her, for convulsing the Ottoman Empire, is to be made use of with the French Government, to bring France into the same engagements, through suspicions awakened respecting the motives of England.

In spite of these considerations, the actual state of the question dispenses us from dealing with this point at present. It may be re-produced and discussed, when, the arrangement being made, it will be better understood what has to be guaranteed, and under what form. We are at this moment so far from that desirable conclusion, and the course which Mr. Canning has indicated, in his letter of 7th (19th) Nov., appears so undecided, so complicated-I will even add so timid, that the mind. does not dare even to seek the issue to which it tends, and at what period, and through what accumulation of unforeseen events that issue will be obtained.

I have imposed upon myself, also, M. Le Compte, to bring to the knowledge of the Imperial Cabinet the facts that belong to this important affair, and that have taken place on the occasion, of the communication addressed to France, and to submit to you these observations which have appeared to me to flow from it. Your Excellency will have received at the same time from Prince Lieven information exact, relative to the views of the Cabinet of London, and as to the causes which have influenced the direction which it has given to this negociation. The replies of Austria and of Prussia are equally

before you. In anticipation of results, I will apply myself to cultivating the favourable dispositions of the French Ministry, and I will await the ulterior orders which will reach me, to receive them with submission, and to execute them with the most scrupulous punctuality.

I have the honour to be,

&c. &c. &c.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE DIPLOMACY OF RUSSIA.

He

By the despatch published in this number it will be seen that France had no deliberative voice in the treaty of the 6th July. The idea of M. Villèle was to assure the independence of the Ottoman Empire, by a treaty which placed it under the safeguard of the common laws of Europe, and then to have proceeded to the pacification of Greece. is arrested by the very demeanour of Count Pozzo di Borgo in the exposition of his views, and is coldly told that the matter is already taking its course, and that discussions of this kind are irrelevant, England and Russia having united to act. Then the European minister, unable intellectually

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to cope with the Russian representative, and fearing to be excluded or left behind, rushes immediately to give his consent to the execution where he had no voice in the deliberation, and where that execution was at direct variance with the general proposition which he had to submit. The conversation here detailed, is in itself sufficient to make any man understand the causes of Russia's progress and of Europe's embarrassments. She qualifies men for conducting international affairs; they do not. She causes them to pass through a course of study, which to the other nations is as that of a dead language; she then propounds to them riddles which they cannot solve.

The

M. Villèle, evidently suspicious of Russia, with the double view of rendering easy the arrangements with respect to the Ottoman Empire, and preventing the possibility of Russia's taking advantage of the acts of the Powers of Europe for her own behoof, proposed this general guarantee of the Ottoman Empire. He meets by this proposal the special propositions that came to him from England and France to interfere in the affairs of Greece. Russian ambassador then gets rid of the English representative; and he uses with the French minister arguments against his project, which arguments were convincing ones for the necessity of its adoption, and he succeeds. He shews to M. Villèle the anxiety of Russia to resist a guarantee of the Ottoman Empire. What argument could more clearly shew its necessity? He tells M. Villèle that the

guarantee of the independence of the Ottoman Empire would wound the rights which Russia had acquired, and the principle upon which those rights were based. This establishes Russia to be engaged in the subversion of that independence, which M. Villèle felt it essential to preserve; and the result is, that M. Villèle is satisfied that his proposition is inadmissible. Then the proposition of Count Pozzo di Borgo is beneficial; and arrested in attempting to walk to the East, he straight applies himself to walking to the West. Thus, by propounding to the Powers of Europe enigmas which they cannot solve, does she make use of them to solve for her difficulties which alone she could not overcome. Count Pozzo di Borgo does not leave this reason unsupported. His first objection to a guarantee of the independence of the Ottoman Empire is, that it would be an interference with the rights of Russia. His second argument is, (and this is one which may be well worthy of the consideration of Lord Aber. deen at the present moment), that a guarantee of the Ottoman Empire would lead to disagreement between the Powers of Europe, as a necessary consequence of their intervention in the internal affairs of Turkey. The object of such a general guarantee as this proposed by M. Villèle was, as the effect must have been, to prevent the interference of any State in the internal affairs of Turkey. But Russia had already involved England in the protocol of the 23rd March, by which she had engaged to interfere in the affairs of one province of Turkey; so that at