greatest service she can do to Russia herself would be to compel her to surrender, as she may still do with an appearance of credit and dignity. PUBLICATION OF OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE. _February 9th._--Nobody now thinks of anything but of the coming war and its vigorous prosecution. The national blood is up, and those who most earnestly deprecated war are all for hitting as hard as we can now that it is forced upon us. The publication of the Blue Books has relieved the Government from a vast amount of prejudice and suspicion. The public judgement of their management of the Eastern Question is generally very favourable, and impartial people applaud their persevering efforts to avert war, and are satisfied that everything was done that the national honour or dignity required. I have read through the thick volumes, and am satisfied that there is on the whole no case to be made against the Government, though there are some things that might perhaps have been better done; but what is there of any sort, or at any time, of which as much may not be said when we have been made wiser by experience and events? These Books are very creditable in the great ability they display. As Lord Ellenborough said in the House of Lords, the case had been most ably conducted, both by Government and its agents. Clarendon's despatches are exceedingly good, and in one respect greatly superior to Palmerston's when he was at the Foreign Office: they are very measured and dignified, and he never descends to the scolding, and the taunts, and sarcasms in which the other delighted. Palmerston always wrote as if his object was to gain a victory in a war of words, and have the best of an argument; Clarendon, on the contrary, keeps steadily in view a great political object, and never says a word but with a view to attain it. Stratford's despatches are very able, and very well written, but they leave the impression (which we know to be the truth), that he has said and done a great deal more than we are informed of; that he is the real cause of this war, and that he might have prevented it, if he had chosen to do so, I have no doubt whatever. His letters have evidently been studiously composed with reference to the Blue Book, and that he may appear in a popular light. I find he has been all the time in correspondence with Palmerston, who, we may be sure, has incited him to fan the flame, and encourage the Turks to push matters to extremities. I should like to know what Palmerston would have said, when he was at the Foreign Office, if one of his colleagues had corresponded with any one of his Ministers abroad, in a sense differing from that in which he himself instructed him. The wonderful thing is the impunity which he continues to enjoy, and how, daring and unscrupulous as he is, and determined to have his own way, he constantly escapes detection and exposure. The good case which the Government has put forward, and the