London, Tuesday, August 16, 1853 

David Urquhart has published four letters on the Oriental 
question,” purporting to expose four delusions—firstly, that 
regarding the identity of the Oriental and Russian Churches; 
secondly, of there being a diplomatical contest between England 
and Russia; thirdly, of there being a possibility of war between 
England and Russia; and lastly, the delusion of union between 
England and France. As I intend to recur another time more 
fully to these letters,”’* I confine myself for the present to 
communicating to you the following letter addressed by Bem to 
Reshid Pasha, a letter published for the first time by Mr. 
Urquhart. 

“Monseigneur! Not seeing the order arrive to command my presence at 
Constantinople, I conceive it to be my duty to address to your Highness some 
considerations which appear to me to be urgent. I commence by declaring that the 
Turkish troops which I have seen, cavalry, infantry, and fieid artillery—are 
excellent. In bearing, instruction, and military spirit, there can be no bettcr. The 
horses surpass those of any European cavalry. That which is inappreciable is the 
desire felt by all the officers and all the soldiers to fight against Russia. With such 
troops I would willingly engage to attack a Russian force double their number, and 
I should be victorious. And as the Ottoman Empire can march against the Russians 
more troops than that Power can oppose to them, it is evident that the Sultan” may 
have the satisfaction to see restored to his sceptre all the Provinces treacherously 
withdrawn from his ancestors by the Czars of Moscow.... 

Bem. 

“ The Morning Advertiser, August 15, 1853.— Ed. 

The Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs* has sent to all the 
European Courts a note relative to the conduct of the American 
frigate St. Louis, in the Koszta affair, denouncing the American 
policy in general. Austria contends that she has the right to kidnap 
foreigners from the territory of a neutral power, while the United 
States have no right to commence hostilities in order to defend 
them. 

On Friday, in the House of Lords, the Earl of Malmesbury did 
not inquire into the mystery of the Vienna Conference, or of the 
propositions forwarded by it to the Czar,” nor did he inquire as to 
the present state of transactions. His curiosity was rather of a 
retrospective and antiquarian character. What he moved for was 
“simple translations” of the two manifestos addressed by the 
Emperor, in May and June, to his diplomatical agents, and 
published in the St. Petersburg Gazette,’ and also “for any answer 
which Her Majesty's Government might have sent to the 
statements therein contained.” The Earl of Malmesbury is no 
ancient Roman. Nothing could be more repulsive to his feelings 
than the Roman manner of openly examining foreign Ambas- 
sadors amid the patres conscripti. 

The two Russian circulars he stated himself to “have been published openly to 
all Europe by the Emperor of Russia [...] in his own language, and [...] have also 
appeared in the English and French languages in the public prints.” 

What possible good, then, could result from translating them 
again from the language of the writers of the public prints into 
the language of the clerks of the Foreign Office? 

“The French Government did answer the circulars immediately and ably.... The 
English reply, as we are told, was made soon after that of the French 
Government.” 

The Earl of Malmesbury was anxious to know how the 
indifferent prose of M.Drouyn de Lhuys might look when 
translated into the noble prose of the Earl of Clarendon. 

He felt himself bound to remind “his noble friend opposite,” 
that John Bull, after thirty years of peace, of commercial habits, 
and of industrial pursuits, had become “somewhat nervous” with 
regard to war, and that this nervosity had, since the month of 

No. 21506, August 13, 1853.— Ed. 

March last, “increased from the continued and lengthened 
mystery which the Government have drawn over their operations 
and negotiations.” In the interest of peace, therefore, Lord 
Malmesbury interpellates, but in the same interest of peace the 
Government keeps silence. 

The first signs of aggression of Russia on European Turkey no 
one was more annoyed at than the noble Earl himself. He had 
never suspected such a thing as Russian designs upon Turkey. He 
would not believe in what he saw. There was above all “the honor 
of the Emperor of Russia.” But did the aggrandizement of his 
Empire ever damage the honor of an Emperor? There was “his 
conservative policy [...] which he had emphatically proved during 
the revolutions of 1848.” Indeed, the Autocrat did not join in the 
wickedness of those revolutions. Especially, in 1852, when the 
noble Earl held the Foreign Office 

“it was impossible for any Sovereign to give more repeated assurances, or to 
show a more sincere interest in the maintenance of the treaties by which Europe is 
bound, and the maintenance of the territorial arrangements which have existed for 
the happiness of Europe for so many years.” 

Certainly, when Baron Brunnow induced the Earl of Malmes- 
bury to sign the treaty of 8th May, 1852, with regard to the 
succession of the Danish throne, he caught him with repeated 
assurances as to the foible of his august master for existing 
treaties; and when he persuaded him, at the time the Earl hailed 
the usurpation of Bonaparte, to enter into a secret alliance with 
Russia, Prussia, and Austria against this same Bonaparte, he made 
a great show of his sincere interest in the maintenance of the 
existing territorial arrangements. 

In order to account for the sudden and unexpected change 
which has overcome the Emperor of Russia, the Earl of 
Malmesbury then enters into a psychological analysis “of the new 
impressions made on the Emperor of Russia’s mind.” The “feelings” 
of the Emperor, he ventures to affirm, “were irritated at the 
conduct of the French Government in regard to the Holy Shrines 
in Palestine.” Bonaparte, it is true, in order to allay those irritated 
feelings, dispatched M. De la Cour to Constantinople, “a man of 
singularly mild and conciliatory conduct.” But says the Earl, “it 
appears that in the Emperor of Russia’s mind, what had passed 
had not been effaced,” and that there remained a residue of bitter 
feeling with regard to France. M. De la Cour, it must be 
confessed, settled the question finally and satisfactorily, before 
Prince Menchikoff’s arrival at Constantinople. “Still the impression 

on the mind of the Russian Emperor remained unaltered.” So 
strong was this impression, and the mental aberration resulting 
from it, “that the Emperor still suspected the Turkish Govern- 
ment of wishing to impose upon Russia conditions which she had 
no right to impose.” The Earl of Malmesbury owns that it is 
“impossible” not only for “any human being,” but even for an 
English Lord, to “read the human mind;” nevertheless, “he 
cannot help thinking that he can account for those strange 
impressions effected upon the Emperor of Russia’s mind.” The 
moment, he says, had arrived, which the Russian population had 
been taught for many generations to look forward to as the 
“predestinated epoch of their obtaining Constantinople, and 
restoring the Byzantine Empire.” Now he supposes “these 
feelings” to have been shared by “the present Emperor.” 
Originally, the sagacious Earl intended to explain the Emperor’s 
obstinate suspicion, that the Turkish Government wanted to hurt 
him in his rights, and now he informs us that he suspected 
Turkey, because he thought the proper moment to have arrived 
of swallowing her. Arrived at this point the noble Earl had 
necessarily to change the course of his deductions. Instead of 
accounting for the new impressions on the Emperor of Russia’s 
mind which altered the old circumstances, he accounts now for the 
circumstances, which restrained for some time the ambitious mind 
and the old traditional feeling of the Czar from “giving way to 
temptation.” These circumstances resolve themselves in the one 
great fact, that at one period the Earl of Malmesbury was “in,” 
and that at the other period he was “out.” 

When “in” he was the first, not only to acknowledge Boustrapa,* 
but also to apologize for his perjury, his murders, and _ his 
usurpation. But, then, 

“the newspapers of the day continually found fault with what they called a 
subservient and cringing policy to the French Emperor.” 

The Coalition Ministry came, and with it Sir J.Graham and Sir 
Charles Wood, 

“condemning at public meetings the policy and character of the French 
Emperor, and condemning the French people, too, for the choice of this prince as 
their sovereign.” 

Then followed the Montenegro affair,’ and the Coalition 

“allowing Austria to insist on the Sultan giving up any further coercion of the 
rebellious Montenegrins, and not even securing to the Turkish army a safe and 
peaceable retreat, thus causing Turkey a loss of from 1,500 to 2,000 men.”* 

At a later period the recall of Col. Rose from Constantinople, 
the refusal of the British Government to order simultaneously 
with France their fleet to Besika Bay or Smyrna—all these 
circumstances together, produced the impression on the Emperor 
of Russia’s mind that the people and the Government of England 
were hostile to the French Emperor, and that no true alliance was 
possible between the two countries. 

Having thus traced with a delicacy worthy of a romance-writer, 
who analyzes the undulating feelings of his heroine, the succession 
of circumstances belaboring the Emperor of Russia’s impression- 
able mind and seducing him from the path of virtue, the Earl 
of Malmesbury flatters himself to have broken through the pre- 
judices and antipathies which had alienated for centuries the 
French from the English people by his close alliance with the 
oppressor of the French people, he congratulates the present 
Government upon having inherited from him the intimate alliance 
with the Western Czar, and upon having reaped where the Tories 
had sown. He forgets that it is exactly this intimate alliance under 
the auspices of which the Sultan has been sacrificed to Russia, the 
Coalition being backed by the French Emperor, while the French 
Soulouque eagerly seizes the opportunity of slipping on the 
shoulders of the Mussulman into a sort of Vienna Congress and 
becoming respectable. In the same breath in which he congratu- 
lates the Ministry on their close alliance with Bonaparte, he 
denounces the very policy which has been the fruit of that 
mésalliance. 

We shall not follow the Earl in his expectorations on the 
importance of Turkish integrity, in his denial of her decay, in his 
repudiation of the Russian religious Protectorate, nor in_ his 
reproaches to the Government for not having declared the 
invasion of the Principalities a casus belli, and for not having 
answered the crossing of the Pruth by sending out their fleet. He 
has nothing new except the following letter, “perfectly unsur- 
passed for insolence,” addressed by Prince Menchikoff to Reshid 
Pasha on the eve of his departure from Constantinople: 

from Clarendon’s speech in the House of Lords on August 12, 1853.— Ed. 

“Buyukdere, May 9, [21st] 

“At the moment of departure from Constantinople, the undersigned Ambas- 
sador of Russia, has learnt that the Sublime Porte manifested its intention to 
proclaim a guaranty for the exercise of the spiritual rights vested in the clergy of 
the Eastern Church, which, in fact, renders doubtful the maintenance of the other 
privileges which that Church enjoys. Whatever may be the motive of this 
determination, the undersigned is under the necessity of informing his Highness, 
the Minister of Foreign Affairs, that a declaration or any other act, which, although 
it may preserve the integrity of the purely spiritual rights of the orthodox Eastern 
Church, tends to invalidate the other rights, privileges and immunities accorded to 
her religion and clergy, from the most ancient times, and which they enjoy at the 
present moment, will be considered by the Imperial Cabinet as an act of hostility to 
Russia and to her religion. 

“The undersigned begs, &c. 
“Menchikoff.” 

The Earl of Malmesbury “could hardly believe that the Russian 
Emperor countenanced the conduct of Prince Menchikoff, or the 
manner in which he acted,” a doubt confirmed by Nesselrode’s 
notes following Menchikoff’s departure, and the Russian army 
following Nesselrode’ notes. 

The “silent” Clarendon, “painful as it was to him,” was obliged 
“to give the same answer over and over again,” viz.: to give no 
answer at all. He felt it “his public duty not to say a word” which 
he had not already said, of “not laying any communication before 
them, and of not producing any separate dispatch.” The noble 
Earl accordingly gave not one iota of information which we did 
not know before. His principal aim was to establish that, during 
the whole time that the Austrian and Russian Cabinets were 
making their encroachments, he was in “constant communication” 
with them. Thus he was in constant communication with the 
Austrian Government when it sent Prince Leiningen to Constan- 
tinople and its troops to the frontier, “because,” at least this, says 
the innocent Clarendon, was the “reason given’”—‘“‘because it 
apprehended an outbreak of its own subjects on the frontier.” 
After the Sultan had yielded to Austria, by withdrawing his force, 
the energetic Clarendon “was again in communication with 
Austria, in order to insure the full execution of the treaty.” 

“J believe,” continues the credulous Lord, “it was carried out, for the Austrian 
Government assured us that such was the case.” 

Very good, my Lord! As to the entente cordiale with France, it 
had ever existed since 1815! As to the part the French and English 
Governments took “with respect to the sending of their respective 

fleets,” there “was not a shade of difference.” Bonaparte ordered 
his fleet to proceed to Salamis, 

“believing that danger was imminent,” and, “although he” (Clarendon) “told 
him the danger was not so imminent, and that for the moment it was not necessary 
for the French fleet to leave the French ports,” he ordered the French fleet to 
leave them; but this circumstance did not make the slightest difference because it was 
much more handy and more advantageous to have one fleet at Salamis and the 
other at Malta, than to have one at Malta and the other at Toulon.” 

Lord Clarendon further states that throughout the insolent 
pressure of Prince Menchikoff on the Porte 

“it was a matter of satisfaction that the fleet was not ordered out because no 
one could say that the Turkish Government acted under their dictation.” 

After what has passed, it is indeed probable, that, had the fleet 
then been ordered out, the Sultan would have been forced to 
draw in. As to Menchikoff’s “valedictory letter,” Clarendon owned 
it to be correct, “but such language in diplomatic negotiations with 
governments was, fortunately, rare, and he hoped would long 
remain so.” As to the invasion of the Principalities, the English 
and French Governments 

“advised the Sultan to waive his undoubted right of treating the occupation of 
the Principalities as a casus belli.” 

As to the negotiations yet pending, all he would say was that, 

“an official communication had been received this morning from Sir Hamilton 
Seymour, that the propositions agreed upon by the Ambassadors at Vienna, if 
slightly modified, would be received at St. Petersburg.” 

As to the terms of the settlement, he would rather die than let 
them slip out. 

The noble Lord was responded to by Lord Beaumont, the Earl 
of Hardwicke, the Marquis of Clanricarde, and the Earl of 
Ellenborough. There was not one single voice to felicitate Her 
Majesty’s Government on the course pursued in these negotia- 
tions. There were very great apprehensions on all sides that the 
ministerial policy had been the wrong way; that they had acted as 
mediators in behalf of Russia, instead of as defenders of Turkey, 
and that an early display of firmness on the part of England and 
France, would have placed them in a better position than that 
which they now hold. The old obstinate Aberdeen answered them, 
that “it was easy to speculate on what would have been the case, 
after the event had occurred; to say what might have been the 

case, had they followed a different course.” However, his most 
startling and important statement was the following: 
“Their Lordships must be aware that they were not bound by any treaty. He 

denied that this country was bound by the stipulations of any treaty to take part in 
any hostilities in support of the Turkish Empire.” 

The Emperor of Russia, when England and France first showed 
their disposition to meddle with the pending Turkish affair, 
utterly repudiated the binding force of the treaty of 1841 upon his 
own dealings with the Porte, and the right of interposition 
resulting therefrom on the part of the Western Cabinets. At the 
same time he insisted upon the exclusion of the ships of war of 
the other Powers from the Dardanelles, in virtue of the same 
treaty of 1841. Now, Lord Aberdeen, in open and solemn 
assembly of Parliament, endorses this arrogant interpretation of a 
treaty which is only respected by the Autocrat when it excludes 
Great Britain from the Euxine.* 

Written on August 16, 1853 Reproduced from the New-York