they justify the occupation of the Provinces? As to the latter, Russia pleads the precedent of her previous occupation, unquestioned by the European powers. But, instead of justifying the one by the other, we should rather deny the justice of both. On the former occasion the cause of Russia may have been good. But the goodness of the motive can never legalise an illegal act. The former occupation should not have been allowed. By not being awake, we let in the wedge, and we are now suffering the penalty of having listened to the dangerous doctrine that the end sanctifies the means. Let us disown so bad a precedent. The thing which Russia seeks to do is, single-handed, to extort from Turkey pledges, or the fulfilment of alleged pledges, as to her own internal administration, the giving or fulfilling of which would be a surrender of her national integrity, in order virtually, though not yet nominally, to use her as a province and thoroughfare. This must not be. If the administration of Turkey becomes a public nuisance, it must be abated by the public verdict of nations; but it may not be corrected by a single nation which, while it has no peculiar right to interfere, has a peculiar interest in spoiling the offender. If Russia has already injured Turkey, and stolen a march on Europe by treaty, now is the time, when the operation of treaties is suspended, to see that the evil is not repeated or prolonged, but repaired. And if, having not yet done it, she now attempts it, every lover of fair play must forbid her. Let us not forget, while treaties are talked of (and, in so far as advantageous, so religiously asserted), that the position of Turkey in Europe has the sanction of treaties without number, framed not in ignorance of what she was, but knowing it well. If the nations of Europe had persisted in refusing to acknowledge such an intrusive and persecuting power, and had provided, as the first condition of conceding to it, by diplomatic recognition, a place in the European commonwealth, that it should afford to its Christian subjects the same advantages as they should have enjoyed under Christian rule, or at least that it should administer equal laws to Christians and Turks, the case would now be widely different. But it was not so. Europe took Turkey as she found it. And whatever immunities have since been granted by Turkey to Christians, these have in so far been acts of free grace, that they were no original conditions of the entrance of Turkey into the European federation. In short, it is far too late to put Turkey on her trial as a candidate for her place. It was never said to the Turk, We shall take proof of you for a century or two by your conduct, before we admit you. He has, on all secular grounds of public law, as good a right to his place as we have to ours. We may, indeed, be bound by no treaty to maintain Turkey, but we are bound by justice to see that it is fairly dealt with. At all events, let us do one thing or the other. Abolish Turkey with one consent, if you will, provided you know what next to do. But if you deem its abolition undeserved, if you cannot put Greece in its place, or agree how to divide the spoil, defend it from all thieves and robbers in the meantime. Here justice and interest are at one.

We may regret that the Turk is there; but we dare not turn him out by the shoulder in our indignation. We must wait till that Higher Power which sent him shall withdraw him.

No European confederacy, then, still less any single nation, can force Turkey out of Europe by resolving to impose new conditions on it, which it will not, or cannot accept. Yet we do not counsel the folding of the arms in a resignation which borders on fatalism. It may come to pass that Turkey, like any other nation, may so change for the worse its original character, and may so sin against that common law of nations which is more sacred than any statute or