fidence and hope in England, the Portfolio has come to excite, to justify, and confirm their worst apprehensions of the one, to awaken new and almost startling expectations from the power of the other. It cannot be questioned that this feeling has arisen from an association, direct or indirect, of the Portfolio with the English Government: and although this popular opinion may not extend to those who are better informed, may not be common to those who are initiated in the secrets of governments and the intricacies of diplomacy; still, even amongst that class of persons, those who have felt and understood the import of the disclosures which have been made, those who have followed and approved the views we have advocated, and the remedies we have suggested-and those are neither few nor uninfluential-have come to the conclusion, that if the Portfolio is not to-day the expression of the views of the British Government, British policy to-morrow will be the expression of the views of the Portfolio.

Without any desire to arrogate to ourselves the importance here forced upon us, incontestably the publication which becomes the channel of such disclosures, must in itself obtain a weight and con

sideration which must increase in proportion as it is removed from its original source, and in proportion as the insignificance of its immediate conductors is lost in the distance.

On the Continent there is a general feeling of distrust in the policy of England, which partly results from observation, and partly from their prejudices. They look with dread on the struggle of parties, and on the incessant changes in our Government; they believe in the impossibility of a popular government either attending to foreign policy or keeping its engagements; they cannot be blind to the manifest neglect, during a long course of years, of all those circumstances which have connected the interests of England with those of Germany more particularly; all these considerations have given consistency to this mistrust of the English Government, whilst at the same time most exaggerated notions prevail of the political character and power of the British nation. No German, therefore, reading the Portfolio, and knowing it published in England, can help arriving at the conviction, that the English people must soon arise from its apathy with regard to the threatening aspect of Northern policy, and having

done so, that it will commence the application of that process of coercion, without which the Government of Great Britain seems incapable of action. We take this opportunity of commenting on two observations that have been made.

1st. That we see Russia in every thing. 2ndly. That we are hostile to Russia.

With regard to the first, we were ridiculed for supposing any designs of Russia on Turkey; we were considered as alarmists in supposing her policy masterly or her influence universal. People did not believe that Russia had exercised a decided influence over France, and they did not believe that she cajoled England, at least in Downing-street; they did not believe in her predominance in Greece, Turkey, Persia, Sweden, Holland; in none of these States were our general assertions, in the commencement of our publication, considered in any degree borne out. Prussia, instead of being deemed the tool of Russia, was considered a barrier against her. The German league was believed to be destructive of her influence in Germany.* With what ridicule was

A Minister of the Crown, in reproving Parliament for adopting our opinions with reference to the German league, informed

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not our first mention of Circassia received? No one credited her exercising any decided influence as regards Spain and Portugal. On all these points, therefore, our opinions were set down as exaggerated and unsound; but unless that opinion had prevailed, the disclosures of these pages would have been useless.

On all these points we differed from those who censured us, merely because we knew what they did not know. We have as yet scarcely done more than touch upon them; and yet our opinions have been re-echoed, not from England alone, but from all those countries which they have reached, and to which they have been addressed.*

As to the second accusation, of hostility to Rus

the House that the Portfolio was a publication "singularly absurd." That Right Honourable Gentleman had had the advantage of minute acquaintance with the details of commerce, and administration of the Russian Empire, and had visited its distant limits, the shores of the Caspian and the heights of the Caucasus. What then must have been the opinions respecting the Portfolio of his colleagues, who did not enjoy such advantages?

* Although this periodical appears in French at Paris, is largely reproduced by the German press, and is more or less translated into Spanish, Italian, Polish, Greek, and Turkish, still our foreign circulation alone amounts to seven hundred and fifty copies, independent of the copies taken by foreign governments, through their agents in this country.

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 communicated to us by the British Government. It is not generally the part of governments to desire the publication of documents like these, which