of his power, and to involve us in a more complicated and vacillating policy than we shall be now tempted to adopt in the future disputes between France and Russia.

To this more favourable picture of the present state and future prospects of Europe, we are only aware of three objectious which may be made. The first concerns this country alone, which is called on to anticipate from Russia, attacks on our commercial preeminence and our East Indian colonies, in which she would be so far from meeting any effectual opposition from the other continental powers, that, it is probable, they would many of them rejoice in seeing her successful at our expense.-We know there are many in England who entertain such fears as these, and those nations on the continent who believe our territory to consist in nothing else but bales of cotton, and sugar, may reasonably conclude that our greatness essentially depends on what they are pleased to call our monopoly. Let us see, however, in point of fact, what Russia has done, and what it is in her power to do, to prevent our selling a single yard of broad-cloth for which we have now a regular customer; or to prevent our market extending itself with the growing prosperity and luxury of mankind.-It is not, we conclude, apprehended that she will fit out fleets to burn our merchant ships,that she will make a descent on the Commercial Road and send in a horde of Cossacks to our West Indian warehouses.-It is said that she will prohibit our commerce from the ports under her influence. -This experiment she has tried, (not indeed for her own pleasure, but for the amusement of Buonaparte,) and we have a tolerable guarantee that she will not do so again, because after all which has been said of our advantages in that intercourse, the fact is that the balance of trade is now and always has been in favour of Russia: herself, whose landed proprietors can have no vent for their hemp: and tallow, if they do not take some proportion of our marketable commodities in return.-That she will trade with any other nation, in preference to ourselves, is certainly to be expected in every in-. stance (but in those instances only) where other nations can supply her wants cheaper, and offer her a greater reciprocal advantage. And that she will encourage her own manufactures and her own merchants rather than ours, is a measure of which we, certainly, cannot complain, and which, in the present situation of affairs, need not fill us with any great apprehensions.-The worst which can befall us, (and it is an event which is no longer contingent, but has for some time taken place,) is that she will raise as much revenue as possible from the merchandize which we send her, and that the custom-house duties will be only limited by a sense of her own interest; but we are greatly mistaken if this is not a treatment which we may expect from every nation upon

earth,

earth, whether great or small, and for which, therefore, the enormous power of Russia is by no means to be accounted answerable. On the probabilities or possibilities of an Indian invasion, we have already said enough in our remarks on Sir J. Malcolm's History of Persia.-Even, if successful, we have not, we confess, so much of the usual continental prejudices as to believe that the safety of our native land is bound up with the authority of the Honourable Company in Bengal, or to suppose, as Sir Robert Wilson may perhaps have heard from his foreign friends, that (instead of England advancing money for the defence of India) they were the annual millions derived from thence which enabled us to carry on the war. Supposing our armies driven from Bengal and Surat, it is evident that Bombay, Pulo-Penang and Ceylon, would give us the command of the sea and the commerce of the East; the Emperor Alexander's Dutch allies might have some reason to apprehend that we should indemnify ourselves in Batavia; and it would be in our power, if not able to rule ourselves over Hindostan, at least to take good care that no other European power had any firm authority there. But, in good truth, the more is known of our real situation in the East and the difficulties of the intervening country, the less will such an enterprize be contemplated as a party of pleasure,' or as a speculation of pecuniary advantage. It has never, in fact, been seriously contemplated in either of these lights, by those who knew any thing about the matter. It was regarded by Buonaparte as a means whereby an effectual blow might be aimed at our interests, and it was projected by the Emperor Paul in the same spirit of resentment against us. But, whatever may be the anxiety of young and hot, and needy adventurers to enrich themselves with the spoils of Bengal, no wise government can ever meditate an expedition to India for its own sake; and though the attempt, as a war-measure, is certainly not impossible; yet, where no other interests interfere, a war on this account is not to be reasonably apprehended; and, as we shall presently shew, so wide and advantageous a field is opening itself in another quarter to the ambition of Russia, that she will daily have less leisure and less inclination to interfere with us in that heritage which our right hand has won, and which, thank God, is not yet likely to be an easy prey to any invader.

Another objection to the continuance of that European system which was established in the late congress is taken from the present state of the public mind in France. If France,' it is said, were under a stronger and more popular government, it might be possible that she would take the part which we have described in the common defence of Europe. But, it can never be the interest of the present dynasty to awaken her armies from their slumber,

or

or, by uniting her strength to that of Austria, to renew, in the minds of her soldiery, those dangerous recollections which are connected with the younger Napoleon.' On the state of the public mind in France, we have already spoken. It may here be enough to remark, 1st. That he knows little of that which is the peculiar excellence and in some degree, the weakness of the French character, who does not know how mere a trifle with them is domestic faction, or even domestic happiness and freedom, in comparison with the public greatness and foreign renown of their country.-And 2dly, he is still more ignorant of the bent of men's passions and prejudices, if he does not know that the present bias of the disaffected in France is not towards an Emperor but a Republic.The king, then, may with perfect safety, raise an army to any amount in a popular cause, and he may send this army where he will, without the least apprehension that a boy bred up in Austria will ever again become the favourite of the French people and soldiery.

The last objection, and, we will own, by far the most plausible, is that, though the actual strength of Russia may not greatly exceed that proportion which is desirable as a counterpoise to France, yet, from the principles of improvement and increase which are at work in her provinces, and which have a wider field for their development than any other country can shew, except, perhaps, America, this proportion must soon be lost between her and regions which, like France and Austria, are already densely peopled, and whose internal wealth and external commerce must have nearly reached their limit. This is true, and this is what we meant by our admission that the empire of the Czars had not yet attained the eminence to which it is destined. It is not merely probable, it is little less certain than a law of nature, that a few generations more will see the governments of Tobolsk and Irkutsk as well peopled and cultivated as the present governments of Moscow and Kalouga; that Otchotsk will be the seat of an extensive and valuable commerce; that the language of Russia will be spoken along the whole coast of north-west America; that Owhyhee will be her Ceylon, and the Japanese islands her Hindostan. But, while we foresee all this, we foresee it without alarm or envy, since we behold in her the probable instrument of disseminating Christianity and science through regions the farthest removed from their ordinary direction, and since we are convinced that her advances in commerce and colonization are events of all others, the most favourable to the independence of Europe.

We do not mean that this end is to be immediately obtained by the revolt of her colonies. This is an event, indeed, which must in the course of things at length take place, but we wish well enough both to Russia and her colonies to desire that it may be yet

far

far distant. But long before that time arrives, the more the character of Siberia becomes European, the more she rivals the pa rent state in civilization, wealth, and number of inhabitants, the more incessant attention will the management of her affairs require, and the less power, we may say, the less inclination, will her sovereigns possess to extend their frontier on the side of Europe. When the banks of the Amour shall be as well peopled as those of the Don, and the frontier of Kolhyvan be cultivated like that of Poland, the protection of territories so important will require a different force from the Cossacks who now patrole there, and the armies of ancient Russia will be still more called forth, to repress or subdue the predatory hordes of Tartary, to calm the ferments of the Altaian mountaineers, and overawe the wealthy and suspected inhabitants of the plain. The government, which is already on the wing to return from Petersburg to Moscow, will transfer its perch still farther eastward to Nishnei-Novogorod or Casan; and the white Khan,' as his Asiatic subjects call him, will grow more and more detached from the more distant concerns of western Europe. It is a circumstance well worth observing in the history of nations that, when an empire has passed a certain limit, it always ceases to be so formidable to its neighbours as while it was yet in its commencement; that, if it does not fall asunder with its own weight, it becomes at least disjointed and unwieldy; that domestic jealousies begin where foreign dangers end, and that the power which seemed likely to give laws to the universe, concludes very often by soliciting the aid of foreigners, against its own satraps, its own subjects, the children or brethren of its own sovereign. It was not by Persia but by Macedon that the liberties of Greece were overthrown.

In the mean time, however, (for a change like this is not the work of a day,) and while Russia is fulfilling the splendid destiny which nature seems to have appointed her,—it is plain, that the South of Africa, that New Holland and Ceylon, and the Indian islands afford a field if not so extensive, yet by no means less advantageous to our commerce and colonies; and that hers and ours may live and grow together, not only without mutual interference, but with mutual support and countenance. Nor is this all,

the more her colonies on the Pacific Ocean increase in extent and value; the greater and richer the stream of intercourse between the mouth of the Amour and Japan or China; the more obvious will be her interest to cultivate a close friendship with the only power which can assist, or, if provoked, endanger her remote possessions. It is impossible, as Sir Robert Wilson well knows, that, on the strength of the Euxine or the Baltic, a great naval force can be erected or perpetuated. And it is idle to say that this want can be

supplied

supplied by a connexion with the little kingdom of the Netherlands and the permission to take shelter in the Texel or the Scheldt. It is with the lords of the Cape and of New South Wales, with a great nation, with an enormous navy and a vast maritime population that Russia must labour to cement her union; and, so long as that union remains, all Europe is in a string be

tween us.

Nor is it in Europe only that the prosperity of Russia is likely to be thus advantageous to the British monarchy. There is a nation without the limits of Europe, to whom, for the sake of our kindred race and common language, we would gladly wish prosperity; but whose hope of elevation is built on our expected fall, and who even nów do not affect to conceal the bitterness of their hatred towards the land of their progenitors. Already we hear the Americans boasting that the whole continent must be their own, that the Atlantic and the Pacific are alike to wash their empire, and that it depends on their charity what share in either ocean they may allow to our vessels.They unroll their map,' and 'point out the distance between Niagara and the Columbia.'-Let them look to this last point well!— They will find in that neighbourhood a different race from the unfortunate Indians whom it is the system of their government to treat with uniform harshness. They will find certain bearded men with green jackets and bayonets, whose flag already flies triumphant over the coast from California to the Straits of Anian,-who have the faculty, wherever they advance, of conciliating and even civilizing the native tribes to a degree which no other nation has attempted, and whose frontier is more likely to meet theirs in Louisiana, than theirs is to extend to the Pacific.

These are not very distant expectations, and they are unquestionably not unfavourable to England. It only remains to give the moral to our prophecy, and in this we are happy, though on very different grounds, and in terms not quite the same, to agree with Sir Robert Wilson.-He professes, as we have seen, to dissuade us from resisting Russia. We see no necessity to resist, but we ernestly deprecate all yielding to vain alarms or popular clamour, which might induce us to injure or offend her. Let us not, on the mere possibility that she may one day become too powerful, dissolve our union with an ancient ally, from whose greatness we now derive and are likely to derive increasing benefits.-Let not the two nations whose languages (it is no vain boast,) are one day to divide the world, interfere without necessity in each other's harvests, but let the rivalry between them be which shall govern best, and be the instrument of most improvement to the goodly fields which Providence has entrusted to their care!

ART.