We have been anxious to bring forward this sad account of the conduct of the Turks in the insurrection distinctly, as there is a danger, at the present moment, of the Turkish military virtue being overrated. No man who knew that nation ever doubted that they could defend a fort well in the present war, as they have ever done where they happened to have a good commander, and acted under encouraging circumstances. This is the secret of the recent successful defence of Silistria, for which we feel all respect. With the English and French fleet to guard their flank, and all Europe as spectators of their mettle, with the very existence of their empire perhaps at stake, and with the choice of their own battlefield—that is, the defence of forts—the Turks would have been dull truly, never to be roused, if the old heroism had not flamed out with more than wonted fierceness. But the successful defence of this fort affords no proof that the people who made it possess a spirit and an organisation able to cope in a continued campaign with some Paskiewitch or Diebitch of the next generation. Let us look to the history of the Greek Revolution, and not believe that the Turks are great masters in the art of war till they have successfully conducted a great campaign. Above all things, matters must be so arranged at the next pacification that the preservation of the peace of Europe may not be left to depend on them. Our third question has reference to the Greeks. Their conduct in the great revolt by which their independence was ultimately achieved, deserves to be noted with the greater care at the present moment, because there are not a few persons in this country who are only too ready, in the unhappy blunder of 1854, to forget the glorious heroism of 1821–26. Sir A. Alison, we are happy to say, with that large spirit of appreciation for which he is remarkable, has shown no tendency to chime in with this vulgar cry. He is not surprised that the brigands of Thessaly and Epirus should not possess all the virtues of Pericles and Aristides; and therefore he is not offended. The Greeks, in fact, in 1821, were the authors of their own liberty, as much as the Turks now are the authors of the retreat of the Russians from Silistria. Most true it is, that without the intervention of the Allied Powers, notwithstanding their utmost efforts, their cause was lost; so also will the defence of Silistria have proved in vain, if England and France, in the proceedings that are yet waited for, show weakness or vacillation. But the Greeks, in 1821, had this decided moral vantage-ground over the Turks of the present day, that the intervention would never have taken place had it not been forced upon the great Powers by the popular sympathy which the heroism of the Greeks had excited. We may say, upon a review of the whole five years’ struggle, that the Greeks displayed on that occasion all the weakness, and indeed all the vices, that belonged