The guiding line of thought that influenced the statesmen of the two Powers, interested in curbing the aggression of St. Petersburg, was the conviction that Russia was at that time overwhelmingly powerful, and that the Ottoman Empire was in the last gasp of impotence and decrepitude. The Emperor Nicholas had for long fostered this idea, and had carefully instilled it into our Government. With this object, he made a journey to this country as early as 1844, and he pressed it upon our Ambassador at his Court, in secret communications held in the spring of 1853, before the actual crisis had taken place. We were then told that Turkey was “a sick man—a very sick man” who might at any moment “die upon our hands,” and that it was therefore advisable to divide his inheritance; and our cupidity was tempted by the offer of Egypt, and even of the island of Crete, if we would take these bribes, and give Russia a free hand. We believed these assertions of omnipotence on the one hand, and of prostration on the other, though needless to say we had no desire to share in the spoils. Our minds instantly recurred to the campaigns of 1828-29, when the Russians crossed the Balkans, and forced a disastrous treaty upon the Sultan at Adrianople. We dwelt upon these results, showing only Russian victories and Turkish defeat, and we drew our conclusions therefrom. But we forgot a few historical facts connected with that war. We forgot that the Russians could only undertake a successful invasion of Turkey, when they had the command of the Black Sea, and that we ourselves had secured this for them, in 1828, by annihilating the Turkish fleet the year before (August, 1827), at the unfortunate victory of Navarino. We forgot, also, that the Balkans do not form the last line of defence, but that the difficulties of an invader increase materially as he approaches the Sea of Marmora. In 1829, the Russian army had achieved a great deal, but it had not attained to victory. It was exhausted, and unable to maintain itself at the end of a long line of communications; while Turkey, on the other hand, was gathering her forces together. We surely, then, failed to recollect, that we seized the opportunity at that very critical moment to force the Sultan to make a shameful peace; thereby saving the aggressor from disaster, and securing to him advantages which otherwise he could never have hoped to gain.