neither Romanist nor Protestant is no ground, provided they are not Russian. That their faith or rites are more akin to, nay, even identical with his own, is no ground. He has no authority, human or divine, for taking such: a place as the universal champion of the East. He never pretends that members of the Russian Church are among the persecuted, save a few pilgrims; yet he does not limit his care to these. He is, indeed, in the second place, the Autocrat of all the Russias. But there is no pretence that any part of his dominions has been seized or invaded. Therefore, neither as temporal nor as spiritual head has he a vestige of claim to interfere individually, on the abstract ground of right. All that he could do would be to unite with other Christian powers in representations to the Porte. To the necessity of making these, the other Christian powers are now awakened; too late, indeed, to prevent the solitary aggressions of Russia, but assuredly not too late to bring out the utter groundlessness of her pretensions.

It has always been the artful endeavour of the Czar to place his opponents at a disadvantage, by bringing them at each step into a position in which they shall appear aggressors. He crosses the Pruth, professing not to declare war thereby, but merely to take a precautionary pledge for the fulfilment of treaties. And because Turkey justly regarded his act as a declaration of war, he calls Turkey the aggressor. He insists on fighting out with Turkey alone a quarrel in which all European powers have, by his acts, become interested. And because they act on this conviction, he calls them aggressors for interfering in a private quarrel. He has forced the fleets of Europe to occupy the Euxine, as he the Proviuces. And, after seeing them where they would not be if neutral, and being told how far their defence of the weaker part would go, he seeks by the question of a simpleton to throw on us the stigma of being the first to declare war. But the cloven foot has been unmistakeably revealed, by his rejection of the proposal of the Four Powers to insist on and obtain a protectorate for all Christians under Turkish sway. And, in assigning, as the ground of that rejection, that he will not suffer any interference with his sole right of protection, he virtually arrogates to himself a right which they who are its objects disallow, which no treaty ever did or could confer upon him, and which the other powers of Europe cannot permit him to plead. In fact, his claim of protectorate would cover almost every class but the only one of which he is protector. He cannot be claiming from Turkey a right to protect the Russian Church. That right is not interfered with by Turkey, or any one else. And, of those whom he does claim to protect, every class, however hostile to Turkey, would infinitely prefer the rule of Turkey, mollified by Christian diplomacy, to the temporal rule of the Czar. To this last his religious protectorate would infallibly lead. For, if the two characters of spiritual and temporal head are inseparable in his person in Russia, who shall separate them in Turkey, whenever he has the power to exhibit both? Moreover, why rest in the mere protectorate of Christians? What if the Jew also should become an object of pity to the Czar, and he should extort Syria from the Turk for the Jew, who has certainly a better claim to Palestine than the Greek to Turkey?

It may, however, be argued, that all speculations as to abstract rights are superseded by treaties, the terms of which must be kept, and by which Turkey and other powers have recognised the right of Russia to insist in such as her present demands, and to occupy the Provinces as she does.

To this it must be replied, that one of the very questions at issue is whether such compacts as those alleged exist, whether they are capable of the interpretation put upon them by Russia, and whether