The evacuation of Silistria, if it fails to prove the absence of the designs which have been imputed to Russia, does prove the reality of the alarms she entertains lest we should frustrate those designs. So far, therefore, we have reason for congratulation. But, on the other hand, as is natural in a question so complicated as this, there are grounds for apprehensions of the most serious character. It is notorious that during the last few months a great excitement has prevailed amongst the Turks, and great expectations have been raised of seeing some step taken by England, which will relieve them from the constant menace of the occupation or destruction of their capital. This excitement, unsupported in any degree, must in the nature of things be followed by reaction; and on the one hand the neglect of our interests, and on the other the contemptuous tone assumed by Russia towards us, and assumed with impunity, must gradually introduce a lower and a lower estimate of the capacity and intelligence of our country. Now it may be perfectly true that the attitude taken by England has forced Russia to this double concession of position and money. But will the Turks think of that? Will they not rather eagerly avail themselves of

such a pretext for closing their eyes against a danger which it requires no small degree of intellectual enlightenment to unravel and of moral courage to look steadily in the face. The advantageous position prepared for England, at a very recent period, by a combination of circumstances truly extraordinary, has not been occupied by her; whilst Russia proceeds by varying means but with an unchangeable mind, and with that firmness of purpose which always renders itself great, imposing, and successful, by the appropriation of every favourable chance that is offered by the mutability of fortune.

But after all, is Silistria evacuated? What means the term of five months? Why the accumulation of troops towards the very point from which a retreat is to be effected? What means the quarantine establishment at the mouths of the Danube? What means the visit of the Emperor to Odessa? What means the nomination of Paskewitz Erivansky to the command of the army in Bessarabia? What means the nomination of Mouravieff to the command of Silistria ? If these things have any meaning, what does the evacuation of Silistria mean?

Perhaps that fortress will be evacuated in the same guise that the Principalities were evacuated,

viz. by the retreat of the general and the staff, while the troops remain. But General Mouravieff takes care to relieve us from all doubt on that head, and repeats to whoever will listen to him, that the military frontiers of Russia are not the Danube but the Egean, not Silistria but the Dardanelles.

The talk about the evacuation of Silistria is intelligible enough as regards the opinion of England, as regards opinion at Constantinople, as regards the obtaining of eighty millions of piastres from the Sultan. So far we understand it, and therefore so far do we believe it. We also can perfectly believe the evacuation of Silistria in the month of August, if the Dardanelles have by that time received a Russian garrison. We should also think that moment well calculated for such an operation, both from the season, which would then be too far advanced for military operations against her, and because the news of the event would arrive in England subsequent to the first of September, when the Commons of England, and His Majesty's responsible advisers will be engaged partridge shooting.

LETTER FROM ST. PETERSBURGH.

a

April 24.

THE orders given by the Emperor for the assembling in the port of Revel of all the ships of war in the Baltic begin to advance in their execution, which had been retarded by the badness of the weather. Every ship capable of being put into commission will repair to Revel during the month of May, excepting those which may be indispensable elsewhere as stationary guard-ships, or charged with correspondence. The sailors and artillery will be definitively organized there, and divided into separate crews, according to the arrangement proposed by Admiral Meller, which is already in active operation in the arsenals of the Black Sea, and from which the best results are expected. No one can flatter himself with knowing the object of the Emperor with regard to these two fleets, which at the present moment are stronger than they have perhaps ever been; but it is easy to comprehend, whatever may be the projects of the Emperor, that whether they be offensive or defensive will depend

on many events.

An Aide-de-camp of his Majesty and other general officers have set out on missions relative to the army of the South, towards which nearly 30,000 men have been directed from the other governments. This arrangement especially refers to the line of the Pruth and that of the Dneister, and it is not supposed that it has any connexion with Ekaterinoslaw. It is certain at least that the cantonments and the garrisons of Bender, Kherson, Ismaïl are considerably augmented.

That which cannot be concealed by all the dissimulation of diplomacy and the employment of the means of which the Emperor alone really holds the thread, is the efforts to detach one by one from English policy all the secondary powers. The forms of government in Sweden, Denmark, and Holland are not those of this place; nothing there is so concentrated, and besides the spies of the Cabinet of London serve as well as those of the Cabinet of Petersburgh. It is consequently known that the neutrality of France has been promised to these three Courts, in the event of a conflict taking place between England and Russia, and that, whilst making every effort to guarantee it, it is insinuated in terms sufficiently intelligible, "that