There is no doubt that Russia is deeply interested in the possession of Constantinople. It is equally certain that, whenever she becomes mistress of both shores of the Bosphorus, she will, in an incredibly short time, add to her present pre-eminent military character that of a first-rate commercial and maritime power. The populations that would then acknowledge the supremacy of the _Knout_ would be over eighty millions; and the seventy millions of Christians professing the Greek faith would bow their necks to the political and religious autocrat. Russia would then indeed hold at her girdle the keys of the Caspian Sea, the lake of Azof, the Black Sea, and the Mediterranean. The possession of Syria and Egypt would before long follow, as a matter of course, that of Turkey in Europe; and soon the fairest regions in the world, the most fertile shores of that inland sea, would fall under her rule. A single glance at the map will enable us to comprehend the magnificence, the vast extent, of such an acquisition; and the mind may dwell with wonder on the immensity of the new Russian Empire in Europe and Asia, and anticipate the supremacy she would gain by the conquest of Constantinople, which opens to her a path to the very heart of civilised Europe. That Russia should make gigantic efforts, and risk, as she is now risking, her rank as a first-rate Power, if not her existence, to attain such an object, is not astonishing. The fair capital that stands on the Bosphorus is the guarantee of the empire of the world. It is more than the ambition of Alexander, of Charlemagne, or of Napoleon, ever dreamed the realisation of; and if treachery or violence ever gives it to Russia, the irresistible and universal domination of Rome over the rest of the world, after the fall of Carthage, alone furnishes an example of what Russia would then become.