“Your Lordship will pardon me if I remark that, after reflecting attentively upon my conversation with the Emperor, it appears to me that this, and any overture of the kind which may be made, tends to establish a dilemma by which it is very desirable that Her Majesty’s Government should not allow themselves to be fettered. The dilemma seems to be this:—If her Majesty’s Government do not come to an understanding with Russia as to what is to happen in the event of the sudden downfall of Turkey, they will have the less reason for complaining if results displeasing to England should be prepared. If, on the contrary, Her Majesty’s Government should enter into the consideration of such eventualities, they make themselves in some degree consenting parties to a catastrophe which they have so much interest in warding off as long as possible. The sum is probably this:—That England has to desire a close concert with Russia, with a view to preventing the downfall of Turkey; while Russia would be well pleased that the concert should apply to the events by which this downfall is to be followed.” In a postscript to this despatch, we learn that the Emperor had communicated _to the Austrian Minister_ the tenor of the above conversation. That circumstance is, to say the least of it, significant. Five days afterwards, Sir Hamilton Seymour waited upon the Emperor, at the request of the latter, and was favoured from the imperial lips with a remarkably choice specimen of what our Irish friends denominate _blarney_. The Czar began by asseverating that he had not the least intention of increasing the extent of his territorial dominions. The only danger, he said, which he could foresee to Russia would arise from an extension given to an empire already too large. From this general statement he presently condescended to particulars. “Close to us lies Turkey, and, in our present condition, nothing better for our interests can be desired; the times have gone by when we had anything to fear from the fanatical spirit or the military enterprise of the Turks, and yet the country is strong enough, or has hitherto been strong enough, to preserve its independence, and to insure respectful treatment from other countries.” These were, we venture to think, injudicious premises on the part of the Emperor, for they are tantamount to an admission that Turkey, if left alone, was quite able to maintain its own position. We are not quite sure that the same could be said of Austria, which, but a few years ago, owed its integrity to the intervention of Russian bayonets. Be that as it may, the Emperor went on to state that he had the right of surveillance over some millions of Christians in the Ottoman empire—a right which he regarded as a duty, but used sparingly, because it was “attended with obligations occasionally very inconvenient.” And then we arrive at a statement, quite inconsistent, we think, with what had gone before.