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London, England, 1855-06-02 00:00:00

arrangement which would accord to them only a momentary
repose, troubled in advance by their own previsions?
Finally, would the preponderance of Russia in the Black
Sea be destroyed, if it were necessary, at the very moment
of making peace, to agree on the means of one day putting
an end to it?
It would be superfluous to carry this reasoning further,
and I believe that I have demonstrated that., starting from
the principle of the opening or closing of the Dardanelles
and the Bosphorus, the Cabinet of St. Petersburg did not
keep the engagement it took in causing itself to be repre-
sented in the conferences at Vienna. To confirm this
judgment I will content myself with calling to mind that
Count lino], in the last meeting on the 20th April, declared
that " the Russian project, in which he could see neither a
solution nor a basis for a solution, indicated only the means
of reacting against the naval preponderance of Russia, when
it should have already assumed the proportions of an in-
tolerable danger, but in no respect tended to cause it to
cease in a permanent manner, and in the ordinary state of
things."
The demands of the Western powers, in conformity with
the wishes of the Porte, supported to the end by the Aus-
trian plenipotentiaries, as a complete and efficacious sys-
tem, were, on the contrary, as moderate in form as they were
legitimate in their nature. We asked nothing from Russia
which would have caused her dignity, and still less her
honour, to suffer. We invited her, moved solely by the gene-
ral interest of Europe, to fix on a basis equitably calculated
and accepted by the Porte the number of vessels which
she means to keep for the future in a sea in which she has
to dread no attack, and in which her navy, reduced to rea-
sonable proportions, amply sufficient fur the regular services
for which she would have to provide, would in any case
have been at least equal to the Ottoman navy. The Cabinet
of St. Petersburg refused this accord, which would have
restored peace to the world. It has declined the
authority of the examples that were cited to it ; has
forgotten that, in its last treaty of peace with Persia,
it imposed itself on that power the obligation of abstaining
from navigating the Caspian Sea, and of exclusively re-
serving that sea to the flotillas of Russia ; it has not con-
sented to admit what France, England, the United States,
and the Netherlands, under different forms, and at different
epochs, have accepted, either to terminate war, or to con-
solidate peace, or to suppress germs of rivalry or conflict
between neighbouring States.
I have now terminated this exposé ; and there will result
from it, I hope, for all impartial minds, the conviction that
the Western powers cannot be responsible for the continua-
tion of a war the effects of which they have desired to stop
with as much sincerity and zeal as they employed to pre-
vent its breaking out. France and England do not enter-
tain the sentiments ascribed to them; their hostility is not,
as has been said, implacable. They have never desired to
impose on Russia a peace derogatory to her honour and
her dignity ; but necessity has charged them with a duty
which, with the aid of Divine Providence, they will
know how to fulfil ' • and Europe, consolidated on her
bases, will be thankful to them for having restrained within
just bounds an influence which everywhere endeavoured to
go beyond the circle of its legitimate action.
WALEWSKI.

The following circular despatch has been addressed
by Count Buol to the Austrian plenipotentiaries at
German Courts, relative to the Vienna Conferences:—

Vienna, May 14.

The decision of the British Government to present to
Parliament the protocols of the Vienna Conference makes
public the negotiations for peace at a moment when they
cannot be regarded as terminated.
At the end of the protocol of the twelfth sitting of the
Conference, Austria declared that she did not regard every
means exhausted to bring the negotiations upon the third
point to a solution, and that she regarded it as her special
mission to endeavour to discover the means for effecting a

rapprochment.
The plenipotentiaries of France and England on their
part, it is true, declared that their instructions were ex-
hausted, but did not declare the negotiations terminated ;
and when later, by protocol N 0.13, the rejection of a pro-
posal emanating from Russia was stated, Austria resolved
to recommend confidentially to the serious consideration
of the Courts of Paris and of London new propositions, in
which she thought to find a loyal and complete fulfilment
of the third point of guarantee, and which his blaiesty the
Emperor, our august master, deems of a nature (fur yeeig-
net halt) to be presented to the St. Petersburg Cabinet as
an ultimatum. The last protocols of the Conference left
the negotiations still pending, and the Austrian Cabinet
for its part would have hesitated at leaving that reserve
which the case commanded, and which, in the interest of
an object so importa,tt for all, it had imposed upon itself.
The notification made in the British Parliament of the
publication of the protocols made it incumbent upon us
to have them published likewise, so ea to bring them to
the knowledge of the Governments of Germany, and you
are requested to present the accompanying documents,
with a copy of this letter, to the Government to which you
arc accredited. As we make this communication before
the result of the still-pending negotiations can be stated,
we can only do so with that reserve which the attainment
of the object commands. As yet we do not express any
opinion upon the situation of affairs. Shortly, however,
we may be in a condition to explain our views fully to the
Diet—views upon which the reply of the Cabinets of Paris
and of London to the proposals alluded to above cannot
fail to exercise some influence.

Count BnoL.

THE CzAn ALEXANDER has caused the pamphlet
entitled " The Last Hours and Dying Words of the
Emperor Nicholas," to be translated into several
Oriental languages, and printed at.,the Government
per•