We must not, therefore, blind ourselves to consequences, which, in so far as human judgment can go, appear to be inevitable. We may be able to disperse or even to annihilate the Russian fleets in the Baltic and the Black seas—we may be able to prevent the colossal northern power from crossing the Danube, or even beat it back from the Principalities—but the contest will not end there. We are on the verge of a general European embroilment, in which there will not only be wars, but bloody revolutions; and as we have been the first to enter, so we must be the last to withdraw. We do not say this for the purpose of checking enthusiasm—God forbid! We are already committed to the struggle; and if in the minds of any there has lingered a doubt as to the propriety of Christian intervention for the maintenance of a Mahometan power in Europe, that ought to be dispelled by the revelations recently made of the objects of the Russian ambition. The Czar is no crusader; nor is he influenced by any tender regard for the religious liberties of the Christian population dwelling beneath the government of the Sultan. He has set his eyes upon Turkey, just as Catherine in 1772 fixed hers upon Poland, and he has had the astounding effrontery to propose that Great Britain should take part in the spoliation. Here is his own proposition, as communicated to Lord John Russell, by Sir G. H. Seymour, in his despatch of 22d February 1853:— “The Emperor went on to say that, in the event of the dissolution of the Ottoman empire, he thought it might be less difficult to arrive at a satisfactory territorial arrangement than was commonly believed. ‘The Principalities are,’ he said, ‘in fact an independent state under my protection; this might so continue. Servia might receive the same form of government. So again with Bulgaria. There seems to be no reason this province should not form an independent state. As to Egypt, I quite understand the importance to England of that territory. _I can then only say that if, in the event of a distribution of the Ottoman succession upon the fall of the empire, you should take possession of Egypt, I shall have no objections to offer. I would say the same thing of Candia: that island might suit you, and I do not know why it should not become an English possession._’” Such was the language used by the Emperor of Russia to the British minister at the Court of St Petersburg, and we really cannot imagine anything more absolutely infamous. It was a bribe, tendered evidently in the belief that it would be accepted; and the offer ought to have been at once most indignantly repelled. Was it so? We shall see presently—for the correspondence recently published is far too remarkable and momentous to be passed over with a single extract from its contents.