Now there were two courses open to Ministers. The one was to have intimated at once, without any circumlocution or compliment, that Great Britain would not submit to any invasion of the Turkish territories on the part of a European power, but would be prepared, by force of arms, to resist any such attempt. That would have been a manly and honourable course; and we are satisfied that, if adopted, the Czar would not have had the temerity to provoke a crisis. Unfortunately no declaration was made. A faint dissuasive, accompanied by an immense deal of complimentary sugar, was all that our Ministers ventured to tender; and the Czar was accordingly allowed to proceed, under the evident impression that Great Britain would not actively interfere to prevent his designs upon Turkey, any more than she interfered to prevent those of his ancestress upon Poland. The other course was to have maintained a strict neutrality, and to have treated the Eastern question as an affair entirely between Russia and Turkey. To that, however, it is more than doubtful whether the people of this country would have submitted. The appetite of Russia for territorial aggrandisement is so insatiable, and her advances have been pushed so far, that the virtual cession to her of so fair and fertile a country as Turkey, and the entire command of the entrance to the Black Sea, would, very justly, have been deemed an act of culpable cowardice. Setting aside the position of India, and the facilities which the occupation of Turkey would afford for any hostile demonstration upon that part of our dominions, we have now, in consequence of Free Trade, a direct interest in the Danubian Principalities, as so many granaries for our home consumption. Since we ceased to act upon the principle of growing corn for our own population, and made ourselves dependent upon foreign supplies, it would be suicidal to give Russia the power of cutting us short both in the north and on the south—in the Baltic and the Black Seas. Still that was the only other course which Ministers could consistently have adopted, if they wished to avoid or postpone the terrible calamity of a war.