The greater part of these papers were not found on the person of Conseil, but on that of Bertola.

"The whole of the passport of the 15th of November, 1835, is written in the same hand, instead of being only signed by the secretary."

But every day, from twelve o'clock till two, when the clerks go to dinner, there is a secretary to deliver and fill up the passports.

"Whilst all the passports delivered by M. de Belleval bear the signature on the right: Pour l'Ambassadeur de France, the Chargé d'Affaires,'" &c.

It is false; when there is no Ambassador at Berne, one cannot put pour l'Ambassadeur. It very often happens that, M. de Montigny not being at the Chancellerie, his signature is not affixed.

"Conseil was not at Berne the 15th of November, 1835." But that does not prove that Conseil, or some one else, could not have bought a passport delivered in November 1835 to a M. Hermann.

"The passport of the 25th of November, 1835, belongs to a new form, of which the stone impression could not have existed in 1835."

This is incorrect; for ever since the Embassy of M. de Rumigny, the form of the passports has remained the same.

"One requires no one to believe any thing to be true, because Conseil may have asserted it; one must say pretty nearly as much of the four other Italians."

It is impossible to judge this whole affair better than the report does itself in this sentence.

CORRESPONDENCE

RELATIVE TO THE

NEGOCIATIONS ON THE GREEK QUESTION.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE PROTOCOL OF APRIL THE 4TH.

THE period has arrived when we conceive it our duty to lay before the public the series of Diplomatic documents which illustrate the policy of Russia during the negotiations respecting the pacification of the East. It was our original intention to have commenced our analysis of the proceedings of the Russian Cabinet with the events of 1791, and to have traced in succession the marvellous results of her diplomacy in all her treaties with England, down to the signature of that most remarkable document-the Protocol of April the 4th, 1826. We should have been thus enabled to explain, by incontrovertible evidence, that the gradual but astonishing progress of that Power is to be attributed to her early acquisition of a science, the rudiments of which, and even the knowledge that it is a science, have yet to be

VOL. IV.-NO. XXXIII.

PP

learnt in this country. We should have shown that, in every Treaty concluded with England, Russia has contrived to put forth ostensible motives with such consummate art as to have entirely blinded the most distinguished of our statesmen to her real designs, and that her European and Asiatic ascendency has been acquired, and could only have been acquired, by a dexterous use of the influence and support of England.

But the time which would be requisite for producing any beneficial result on public opinion by so interesting a revelation is unfortunately made use of by Russia with such restless energy for the accomplishment of her immediate ends, that we deem it more advisable to hasten the exposure of her projects on the theatre of her present exertions, feeling perfectly convinced that the possession of Constantinople, by fraud or by force, is the aim of all her efforts, and that upon her success or defeat in that object depend not alone the vital interests of England, but those of the whole civilized world.

We have thought it advisable to prefix a copy of the Protocol of April the 4th, as it will be frequently referred to in the Despatches

and notes which will appear in our following Numbers.

The circumstances which led the Embassy of the Duke of Wellington to St. Petersburgh, on the accession of the Emperor Nicholas, are truly remarkable.

At the Congress of Verona, Lord Strangford had been entrusted by the Emperor of Russia with the adjustment, at Constantinople, of the differences between Russia and the Porte-differences. the origin of which we ascribe to the perfidious incitement of the Greek Revolution by Russian emissaries, and by the non-fulfilment, by Russia, of the Treaty of Bucharest. The whole series of Lord Strangford's negotiations exhibit the most persevering efforts to compel the Turks to make a sacrifice of every point at issue with Russia; and the result of his Lordship's endeavours, as might naturally have been expected, when the preservation of peace was put forward as the object of them, was the constant recurrence of still further demands on the part of Russia, when she found so convenient and powerful an advocate of her claims in the person of a British ambassador. It is inconceivable that it should not have oc

curred to an English statesman that Russia would never feel inclined to stop in so advantageous a career, when the longer we continued to advocate her interests, the more did we necessarily contribute to the advancement of her power by ruining

our own.

As might have been expected from so extraordinary a line of policy, Russia derived from British simplicity a fresh incitement to aggression against Turkey, and at the period of the Emperor Alexander's death it became known in England that he had intended immediately to declare war against the Sultan to obtain the redress of those very grievances which Lord Strangford professed to have already settled.

In the meanwhile, Mr. Stratford Canning, who had set out for Constantinople as the new Ambassador to the Porte, had been invited by the Greeks to mediate for their reconciliation with the Sultan. Their invitation was transmitted to England.

On the accession of the Emperor Nicholas, the Duke of Wellington went to St. Petersburg to offer the mediation of England between Russia and the Porte, and the joint mediation of Eng