London, Tuesday, Dec. 13, 1853 

“With the fleets of France and England in the Black Sea, the astonished Sultan 
of Turkey is already surprised that one of his ships is captured with impunity by a 
Russian vessel. The spring will bring him further wonders.” 

Thus we were informed by last Saturday’s Press.* The following 
Monday brought the “further wonders,” not expected untl 
spring. Defeat of a Turkish squadron by a Russian fleet in the 
Black Sea, off Sinope—such were the contents of a Russian 
dispatch from Odessa, dated 5th inst., confirmed afterward by the 
French Moniteur”. Although we are not yet in possession of the 
exact details of this occurrence, so much is clear that the Russian 
report greatly exaggerates the case; that the whole matter in 
question is to be reduced to the surprise of some Turkish frigates 
and a certain number of transports, which had on board troops, 
provisions, ammunition and arms, destined for Batum; that the 
Russian force was largely superior in number to the Turkish one, 
and that, nevertheless, the latter only surrendered after a 
desperate engagement, lasting an hour. 

“Our fleet,” says the Englishman, “at all events, is not there to prevent the 

Russians from attacking Turkey. The fleet is not there to interfere with Russian 
convoys of men and arms to the Caucasus. The fleet is not there to see that the 

* Of December 10, 1853.— Ed. 

December 13, 1853.— Ed. 

Black Sea is not a Russian lake. The fleet is not there to help our ally, nor to save 
him from destruction. The fleet is not there to avert a Navarino, after the 
memorable pattern.... Russian Admirals may maneuver, we suppose, within 
gun-shot of Constantinople, and the screws of England will continue as impassive 
as the prime screw of Lord Aberdeen himself. Will these costly farces be tolerated 
by the people?” 

The coalition is exasperated at the Czar having beaten the 
Turks at sea instead of on the terra firma. A victory of the latter 
sort they wanted. Russian successes at sea may endanger their 
places, just at the moment when Count Buol has assured the 
Sultan’ of the Czar’s strictly defensive intentions, and when Lord 
Redcliffe was urging on him a three months’ armistice. It is very 
amusing to observe how the business of soothing down the public 
has been distributed between the several organs of the Coalition 
Ministry. 

The Times, as the representative of the whole of the Cabinet, 
expresses its general indignation at the ingratitude of the Czar, and 
ventures even upon some menaces. 

The Morning Post, of course, is still more warlike, and gives its 
readers to understand that the “untoward” event at Sinope could 
never have occurred if Lord Palmerston were the Premier, or at 
least the Minister for Foreign Affairs. 

“It is at least evident,” says The Post,” “that a Russian naval force, dispatched to 
act on the Turkish coast, has been able to strike a sudden and heavy blow at the 
resources of the Porte, precisely in the quarter where the Divan had the best 
reason to expect that if there were anything substantial, anything beyond mere 
ostentation, in the professed services of her allies, the value and operation of such 
services might now be expected to become available. It will hardly be urged, we 
suppose, that the Black Sea is an appropriate stage for another scene of the 
diplomatic comedy which_has been plaved in the Principalities under the name of 
the ‘Material Guarantee,”°5! [...] The Russians, therefore, may be taken to have 
abandoned the hypocrisy of their defensive attitude. [...] It must be a subject of deep 
regret, that the extent to which our” (read Aberdeen’s) “suiting policy has gone, 
has brought heavy damage on our ally and a shadow of reproach on ourselves. It 
would be a matter of lasting blame and scandal, should a second such disaster be 
suffered to occur for want of that protection which our fleets were expressly 
dispatched to afford.” 

The philosophical Morning Chronicle, the special organ of the 
Peelites, thinks 

> Of December 13, 1853.— Ed. 

“it not improbable that the power which has disturbed the peace of the world 
may now be disposed to acquiesce in the termination of the war.”* 

The Emperor Nicholas, on the plea that “he does not wish to 
oppose the expression of the free will” of the Hospodars Stirbei and 
Ghica to withdraw from the government of Moldavia and 
Wallachia, has, by rescript of Nov. 8, entrusted their functions to 
General von Budberg, placed, however, under the superior 
control of Prince Gorchakoff. 

The fact of England urging upon Turkey an armistice at a 
moment when it cannot but assist the Czar in gaining time to 
concentrate his troops and to work at the decomposition of the 
ostensible alliance between France and England; the simultaneous 
intrigues of Nicholas to upset Bonaparte and to replace him by 
Henry V; the loudly boasted-of “fusion” of the two Bourbon 
branches negotiated in common by King Leopold, Prince Albert 
and the Princes of Orléans—such are the circumstances which 
induce the public to direct anew their attention to Windsor Castle, 
and to suspect it of a secret conspiracy with the courts of Brussels, 
Vienna and St. Petersburg. 

“The present race of Englishmen,” says the aristocratic Morning Herald, 
“should see that the policy of this country be not made subordinate to Orleanistic 
dreams of restoration, Belgian terrors of annexation, and infinitesimal German 
interests.” 

“There are,” insinuates Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, “conspirators not watched by 
the Home Office [...], conspirators whose names, like stars upon a frosty night— 
glitter in The Court Circular. They do not live in St. John’s Wood, neither dwell 
they in Chelsea. No. They enjoy a somewhat larger accommodation in the Halls of 
Claremont. One of those conspirators—the frequent guest of our gracious 
Queen—called by compliment the Duke of Nemours, went fresh from his English 
home to Frohsdorf to make that bridge—that is, to bridge the abyss for the 
Bourbons back to France. And doubtless he will return and again eat his venison at 
Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle. 

“Your ministers,” writes the Paris correspondent of The Leader, “are doing what 
Victoria tells them to do. Queen Victoria wishes all that King Leopold wishes. King 
Leopold desires all that Emperor Nicholas desires, so that Nicholas is de facto the 
present King of England.” “ 

The position of Bonaparte is at this moment more critical than — 
ever before, although, at first view, his chances of fortune never 

* The Morning Chronicle, December 13, 1853.— Ed. 

December 11, 1853.—Ed. 

seemed more promising. He has succeeded in slipping into the 
circle of European royalty. The character Nicholas has lost, he has 
won. For the first time in his life he has become “respectable.” 
The power which, combined with Russia, tumbled down his uncle* 
from his gigantic throne, England, has been forced into an 
apparent alliance with himself against Russia. Circumstances have 
almost constituted him the arbiter of Europe. The prospect of a 
European war, dragging along with it insurrectionary movements 
in Italy, Hungary, and Poland—countries where the people 
looking almost exclusively to the recovery of their national 
independence, are by no means too scrupulous as to the quarter 
from which to receive assistance—these eventualities seem to allow 
the man of the 2d of December to lead the dance of the peoples, 
if he should fail to play the pacificator with the kings. The 
enormous blunders committed by his predecessors have given his 
policy even the appearance of national vigor, as he, at least, evokes 
apprehensions on the part of the powers, while they, from the 
Provisional Government down to the Burgraves of the Assemblée 
Legislative,** had assumed only the power to tremble at every- 
thing and everybody. 

But now let us look at the opposite side of the medal. The 
fusion between the two branches of the Bourbon dynasty, 
whatever may be its intrinsic value, has taken place under the 
auspices of the Courts of London and Vienna, and at the dictation 
of the Emperor Nicholas. It is, therefore, to be considered as the 
first act of a Holy Alliance directed against Bonaparte. On the 
other hand it has, for the moment, conciliated the different parties 
of the French Bourgeoisie, whose very divisions prevented them in 
1848-51 from opposing the usurpation of the hero of Strasbourg 
and Boulogne.” The blue Republicans themselves, meeting at the 
house of Mr. Carnot, have decided, almost unanimously, that they 
would lend their aid to the Legitimists in any attempt to overthrow 
Bonaparte. These gentlemen seem fully resolved to run again 
through the traditionary cycles of restoration, Bourgeois-monarchy 
and Republic. For them the Republic meant never anything but, 
‘‘Ote-toi de la, que je m’y mette,”° and if they cannot take themselves 
the place of their rival, they will at least inflict upon him the 
greatest punishment they are aware of—the loss of place. The 

30, 1836, and in Boulogne on August 8, 1840.— Ed. 

parts to be acted have already been distributed. The generals, the 
ministers, all the principal functionaries are already nominated. 
The danger threatening Bonaparte from this side is a military 
insurrection which, if it do not lead to the restoration of the 
Bourbons, may afford the occasion for a general outbreak. But 
after all this Malet conspiracy,*™* dependent on the support of the 
Cossacks, is no more dangerous than the Ledru-Rollin conspiracy, 
dependent on the support of the Turks. Let me remark, en 
passant, that if the whole French emigration at London and Jersey 
were to meet, Ledru would hardly venture to present himself. The 
great majority of the French refugees belonging to different 
fractions of the socialist party, have joined together in the Société 
des proscrits démocrates et socialistes, avowedly hostile to the 
pretensions of Ledru. He is said to possess still some influence 
with the French peasantry, but power must be conquered, not in 
the departments, but at Paris, and at Paris he will meet with a 
resistance he is not the man to overcome. 

The serious dangers to be apprehended on the part of 
Bonaparte rise from quite a different quarter, viz.: from the high 
prices of provisions, the stagnation of trade, and the utter 
dilapidation and exhaustion of the Imperial exchequer. It was the 
peasantry who, in their superstitious faith in the magic powers of 
the name of “Napoleon,” and in the golden promises held out by 
the hero of Strasbourg, first imposed him on France. For them the 
restoration of the Bonaparte dynasty was the restoration of their 
own supremacy, after they had been abused by the restoration, 
speculated upon by the monarchy of July, and made by the 
Republic to pay the expenses of the revolution of February. They 
are now disabused, not only by dragonnades but by famine too. 
Incendiarism spreads, at this moment, through France at an 
unparalleled pace. As to the middle classes, they were foolish 
enough to suspect the Assemblée Nationale of having caused, by 
the disputes and intrigues going on among its different fractions, 
and by their common opposition to the executive power, the 
transitory commercial stagnation of 1851. They deserted not only 
their own representatives, but they provoked intentionally the coup 
détat with a view to restore what they called ‘“a_ regular 
Government,” and above all, “sound business.” They have now 
discovered that industrial crises are neither to be prevented by 
military despotism nor alleviated by its stretching public credit to 
its utmost limits, exhausting it by the most lavish expenditure, and 
making a financial crisis the inevitable partner of a commercial 
one. The middle class pine, therefore, for a new change of power, 

to afford them at last “a regular Government” and “sound 
business.” As to the proletarians, they accepted Bonaparte from 
the first moment only as a transitory necessity, as the destroyer of 
the république cosaque,* and their avenger on the party of order© 
Weakened as they were by successive defeats before the 2d of 
December, and fully occupied as they were during the years 1852 
and 1853, they have had time to watch the occasion when general 
causes and the universal discontent of all other classes would 
enable them to resume their revolutionary work anew. 

The following Paris commercial report will throw some light on 
the social state of France: 

“The state of commercial affairs in. Paris during the last week is not satisfactory. 
Except the manufacturers who are preparing New Year’s presents for the 
shop-keepers, and those employed in dress-making, trade appears to be at a 
complete standstill. One great cause of this is the dearness of provisions in the 
provinces, which prevents the mass of the population from making their usual 
purchases. The wheat crop, the chestnuts, and the vintage failed simultaneously in 
the central departments of France, and the peasants, being compelled to make 
sacrifices in order to buy bread, deprive themselves of everything but articles of 
first necessity. The provincial letters state that the principal portion of the cotton 
goods offered for sale at the late fairs found no buyers, which easily accounts for 
the stagnation in trade apparent at Rouen. All exportation is confined at present to 
the South American States. The markets of New-York and New Orleans are 
represented as glutted with French produce, and consequently no orders are 
expected from those quarters. The houses which fabricate generally for Belgium 
and Germany have almost all suspended their works, all orders from their 
correspondents abroad having ceased. [...] Business must be dull in Paris when the 
Bank of France finds, as it does at present, the commercial bills offered for 
discount decrease considerably in amount. The corn market, which was dull ten 
days since, with declining prices, has become animated, and the holders of wheat 
are more firm in their banks. The bakers have shown a greater inclination to 
purchase flour, and several buyers from the eastern departments have definitively 
arrested the downward tendency of prices. The corn factors in Paris not being able 
to execute ali the orders received on Wednesday last, the buyers proceeded to 
Havre, where a decline of 2f. a barrel had previously been announced. Flour 
immediately on the arrival of the buyers rose from 44f. to 47f. the barrel, and 
wheat from 83f. to 86f. the measure of 200 kilogrammes. A similar rise took place 
in the markets through the department of the North. The corn market at 
Strasbourg has been well supplied, and wheat has declined 1f. the hectolitre; at 
Lyons the market was quiet, but without a fall. Rye has again risen in Paris; [...] 
sales 12,000 quintals of oats at 22f.9c. the 100 kilogrammes. A letter from 
Marseilles of the 2d inst., states that 341 ships, bearing 804,270 hectolitres of wheat 

entered that port between the lst and 30th of November. These arrivals make 
2,102,467 hectolitres of wheat imported into Marseilles by 714 ships, within the last 
4 months.”? 

Written on December 13, 1853 Reproduced from the New-York 

Tribune, No. 3961, December 21, 1853;