Russia has, by the tolerance or apathy of Europe, been singularly favoured since the seventeenth century; and she whose name was not even mentioned in the Treaty of Westphalia, which defined the limits of the great European states, has risen to gigantic proportions since then. She has invariably availed herself, as she is now ready to do, of the dissensions of the Western kingdoms; she has absorbed provinces and nations of various tongues, religions, and races; and has opened her way, through the territories of her neighbours, to the shores of two seas. Her hand it was that put an end to the existence of Poland. It was she that paralysed Sweden and Denmark; and it is by her that Persia and Turkey have been pushed on to their ruin. The history of her crimes in Poland is the same as that of her plunder in Turkey, Georgia, and Persia; and the partition of the ancient northern kingdom is now to be repeated with the Ottoman Empire. The means she employs are ever the same;—menaces and caresses by turns;—attempts at exclusive intervention;—a slow but steady system of dismemberment;—pretensions and claims, as impudently advanced as they are unfounded; then apparently withdrawn, postponed, placed in abeyance, seemingly forgotten, but never finally abandoned; revived with hypocritical humility, or with arrogance, according to circumstances; pretexts of quarrel of the most imaginary and untenable kind; intimidation mingled with seduction. Nothing is too bold, too base for her selfishness. Her princes and nobles are spies; her princesses—worse. No profligacy is too gross, no crime is too enormous, that advances by one inch the influence of “Holy Russia.” War is undertaken for no other object than to arrive at conventions ruinous to the conquered. Such is the hereditary policy of Russia; such it has been since she first assumed a standing in Europe; and we say it to our shame, that her unexampled success is in great part owing to the selfishness of some, the exaggerated fears of others, and the indifference and apathy of all the states of Europe. If England and France had but pronounced a _veto_ in 1774, Poland might, with a reformed constitution, and an improved administration, still be an independent kingdom, and stand the barrier between the barbarism of the north and the civilisation of the west. If the Western Powers had directed their attention a little more frequently, and more earnestly to Turkey, the events against which we are now preparing might not have taken place. Even now, it is not too late; and we firmly believe that it is in the power, as we have little doubt it is the desire, of Europe, to arrest for many years the aggressive policy of Russia.