The Express.
London, England, 1853-07-29 00:00:00

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WC 4'121.

LONDON, FRIDAY, JULY 29.

TenKET, whilst protesting against the Muscovite
seizure of her Provinces, still says she is " disposed,
if an arrangement of a nature to satisfy Russia can
be arrived at without prejudice to the sacred rights of
the SULTAN, to send an Ambassador Extraordinary
to St. Petersburg, to seek, in concert with the Rus-
sian Cabinet, the means of arriving at that end."
Meanwhile there is reason to believe that the Cabinet

of St. Petersburg, instead of frankly closin; with
any proposition made by France and England for
the settlement of the Eastern question, has intimated
its preference fur diplomatic communications with

the Porte to be made and answered through Vienna.

It requires no great sagacity to discern in this expe-
dient a new device for procrastination and delay ;
and it is impossible, therefore, riot to view its adop-
tion with misgiving and distrust. The CZAR
has an evident interest in prolonging the ne-

gotiations just now. The more time he has for

planting troops in Moldavia and Wallachia,
the more complete will be their hold of
the invaded Provinces—and the more diffi-
cult it will be to turn them out. Every
honest man in this country must desire the terms
of accommodation offered on behalf of Turkey
by the Allied Powers may be accepted by the CZAR.
But every wise and well-informed person must feel
that the whole value of such propositions consists in
their being promptly and definitively adopted. The
sole consideration which can induce the Porte to
make any concession for the sake of peace is that she
should be speedily relieved from the burthens and
perils of a state of war. Procrastination is
too palpably the policy of Russia, while delay to Tur-
key is death. It may be thought worth the SULTAN'S,
while, for the sake of procuring an immediate eva.
cuation of his territories, to coecede something of
pride and dignity, even at the risk of wounding
thereby the religious and political prejudices of his
race. But his position is manifestly too critical to
render any farther concession safe unless the com-
pensating advantages which it is intended to secure
be immediate and palpable.

Weeks ago we foretold the internal dangers to
the Ottoman Empire which must arise if, under the
advice of hill Western allies, the SULTAN shall seem to
his Ottoman subjects to temporise too far. We pointed
out the consequences which must ensue if Russia
were suffered quietly to take military possession of
the provinces north of the Danube, and if, having
established herself there, she were permitted to open
autumnal negotiations. We were of opinion then—
we fear all men are fast coming to that opinion now
—that after the receipt of the incendiary manifesto
announcing the invasion of the Ottoman Empire, the
combined fleets should have droppped their anchors at
the Golden Horn. We argued that any less resolute
course would create an impression among the ill-in-
formed and fanatical, but loyal and brave, Moslem
population, that the SULTAN'S foreign advisers were
thinking more of avoiding offence to the Emperor
Ificuotas than of keeping their Sovereign on his
throne ; and that after his resources should have
been ingloriously exhausted, and his best op-
portunities lost, Ain.T. MEDJID would find it
too late to rally the enthusiasm of his
people, or to induce his allies to undertake
the expulsion of invaders from provinces which they
would have virtually annexed. These anticipations,
we regret to say, seem but too likely to be fulfilled.
The Turks are, with rare exceptions, bad politi-
cians; but, like many races of whom history records
the fate, their instinctive sense of what they can and
ought to do in moments of extreme danger has much
more of the sagacity essential to self-preservation
than calculating diplomatists are willing to ad-
mit; and it is impossible, we think, not to
feel that when the Turkish troops exclaim,
" if ever we are to fight, let us fight now," there is
too much truth in their impatient cry. It was to
this cry that the SULTAN was on the brink of preci-
pitately yielding, *hen on the morning of the Bth
inst. he caused it to be intimated to MI:STAMM
PACIIA and to RESCIIID PACIIA that he wished to
transfer their offices to two well-known members
of what has often been called the "Party of
Despair." It was only upon the urgent remon-
strances of Lord STRATFORD that ABDUL MEDJID re-
covered sufficient confidence in the policy
recommended by the Allies to retain the
Ministers who advocate forbearance and concession,
That the SULTAN should have allayed the apprehen-
alone of the Christian majority of his subjects by
the issue of ordonnances decreeing full toleration
was no doubt indispensable to his permanent reten-
tion of power. But it is vain to deny that his im-
mediate perplexities and perils may be ins:rased
ratter than diminished by measures of civil and reli-
gious liberty, which offend the uncompromising zeal
of that armed minority on whose fidelity and courage
the defence of the Danube and the Balkan abso-
lutely depends.

News travels but slowly in a country without
good roads; but the conduct of tho Russians in Wal-
lachia and Moldavia cannot long remain unknown
in the camp of OYER PAOLA at Shorn* and
within the walls of Constantinople itself. The
forces under Prince GOILTCHAKOFY can no longer
be regarded as an army of temporary oc-
cupation, respecting the political status quo of
the country they have entered, and restrained
within the limits of a political as well as military
bivouac. Their overwhelming numbers, the advance
of their outposts to the very banks of the ricer which
alone divides them from Bulgaria, their undis-
guised preparations to fortify their more im-
portant positions in the country, by usurpa-
tion of control over the post-office and the press,
and the insolent assumption of precedence on all
public occasions by the lieutenants of the CzAtt over
the lawful viceroys of the SULTAN—aII these and
many other minor circumstances compel the belief
that Russia has no idea of relinquishing territories so
easily won, and that under one pretence or another
she aims at their permanent retention.
How the Porte will be able to control the exaspe-
ration of the Moslems when all these facts come to be
thoroughly known in the camp and the capital, and
when every day is likely to bring new contributions
of inflammatory matter to the smouldering fire, it i
impossible to surmise. Confident promises of a
speedy settlement of a negotiation, and reiterated
assurances of substantial support from the 'Western
Powers, do very well so long as the public have
faith in the ability of those who offer theta to make
them good when the time they have to run
expires. But like promissory notes in mer-
cantile dealings, there is no restoring their
currency when they have once been dishonoured,
however innocent the makers of them may be of
anything like fraud, and however clearly their failure
may be attributable to fatality and misfortune.

Should the Cabinet of St. Petersburg succeed in pro-
tracting negotiations with tip interposiug Powers
until the season for active rtaistance on the Danube
and the Black Sea shall have passed away, and
should Russia then refuse to evacuate the Principali-
ties, the position of RESCUID and Mumma PACIIA,
and of all who side with them in the councils
of the SULTAN, will obviously be no longer
tenable. Men are everywhere but too ready to
judge by the event; and men in the desperate peal-
' tion of the Turkish race in Europe can hardly be
expected to form an exception to the rule. It is
undoubtedly, moreover, becoming every day a ques-
tion more critically affecting the interest and the
honour of England and France, whether, having
counselled a policy so perilous with regard to time,
they can afford to retain an attitude of judging and
protesting, but nevertheless of practical acquiescence
iu the dismemberment of an old and faithful ally.