The Express.
London, England, 1853-10-05 00:00:00

LO DOS, WEDNESD.IY, OCTOBER 3.

IT is desirable that there should be no mistake with
respect to the exact nature of the news of a projected
declaration of NA rat Constantinople, which we pub-
lished yesterday. The different statements which have
been put in cii t :::ation on this head arc derived
from retirees which have nothing else in common
but their conveyance by electric telegraph from
Vienna. The intimation received at the Fureign-
office, and at score of the Foreign Enursiits, is
simply that the Great Council of the Ottoman Em-
pire had resole( a to advise tho BVLTAN to declare
war against Russia. Other information—promulgated

ostensibly on the authority of some unofficial
telegraphic message—goes to affirm that the
SULTAN had actually signed a declaration of war.
This latter account is liable to suspicion from difficul-
ties as to the time for conveying it from Constanti-
nople to Trieste ; from the fact that there has been of
late a regular manufactory of alarming and exagge-
rated rumours at Trieste; and also from its having
been published along with some reports of
actual hostilities which could no: possibly have been
brought by the same route, yet were so printed as to
have the appearance of resting on the same autho-
rity. The only intelligence, therefore, that at present
appears to ho entitled to any credence is, that the
Great Council had recommended a declaration of war.

This restricted version of the story appears liable to
no other doubt than arises from the obscurity
which uniformly, if not necessarily, attaches to the
curt phraseology of the electric telegraph. A day or
two must probably elapse before the detailed expla-
nation is brought by a human messenger, who, if he
move more tardily than the electric spark, can at
least carry more bulky and more explicit messages.
That even the official version of the story increases
the probability of a warlike solution of the
Eastern difficulties there is no doubt; but in
this there is no cause for panic. This contingency,
however deprecated, has all along been contem-
plated as possible, and should it come will be met
without any flutter of the national pulse. The agita-
tion of the public securities yesterday is no index of
the national feeling; fur the funds are proverbially
as nervous and vapourish as a fine lady.
The Ministers at present in town have been
assembled to deliberate on this news. The meeting
can scarcely have been a very pleasant one. No
English Minister likes to look tho contingency of
war closely and directly in the face. In the first
place, the responsibility is in reality onerous enough
to weigh upon the spirits of any man. In the second
place, JOHN BULL, however enthusiastic he may be at
the outset of a popular war, is very apt to get tired of
it when the bills come to be paid, or any temporary
reverses occur, and to blame Ministers for doing
what he entirely sanctioped. But worse than either of
these considerations some, at least, of the Ministers
present must have felt painfully that to their own
half-hearted, undecided policy was wholly and
solely owing the possibility of all their fine-spun
negotiations ending in • war. We explained yes-
terday bow the lowered tone of Russia and the
professed readiness of Austria to act once more in
concert with the Western Powers, was owing entirely
to the conviction which the failure of Count
BRENTANO'S wind-raising mission had flashed
upon the EMPLIIOII and CZAR of the impossibility
of replenishing their exhausted treasuries. Had
those two Powers been sooner put to the push,
they would sooner have discovered that they cannot
well afford to go to war. In that case their re-
treat before a determined expression of will by
France and England would have been unqualified,
Now, the vanity of Russia (at least) has been
brought into play. Its retreat will be too obvious for
its proud stomach. There will be haggling, and it
may be a brief local war on the Danube to save ap-
pearances; for a pampered despot does not for a mo-
meet weigh the sufferings and bereavements of
other men in the balance against his own wayward
will.

As RADLURT laid, however, " the battle will be
brief" (der Kampf wird kurtz win). The battle,
indeed, to which he referred, is not yet fought out,
and his declaration was premature. But any war
in which Russia may, to save appearances, engage
with the Porte, and its allies, must be brief on '
account of the condition of the Russian treasury. We
urge this not as a reason why France and England
should stand true to their engagements with Turkey.
We do not even lay so much stress as
some do upon the treaty-engagements which
bind these powers to support Turkey ; except in so
far u the observance of treaty stipulations is indispen-
sable to the existence of a system of international law,
as opposed to a state of international anarchy.
We rest the obligation of England and France to
support the independence and integrity of the Otto-
man empire against Russian aggression, upon its
being necessary to the defence of civilisation, impe-
rilled by a threatened irruption of barbarism. There
are two causes which ought to be sacred in the eyes
of every European of this age. The first and
holiest is the individual liberty of the citizen,
guarded and regulated by constitutional laws. The
second is national independence as necessary to pro-
tect parliamentary government where it exists, or to
promote its development where it has yet to be called
into being. The enemies of the one are the enemies
of the other. The ultimate object of the BOURBONS,
when they trampled down the national indepen-
dence of Spain, of the HAPSBURGS when they trode
out the spark of national independence in
Naples, was to sweep from the earth prin-
ciples and institutions the mere existence
of which might inspire emulation in their own
subjects. The object of the House of Rostaszow in
attacking Turkey is to gain a vantage ground,
whence it may at any time march to assail constitu-
tional antes in Europe. In England we are called
upon to support Turkey both by our devotion to the
cause of individual liberty apd national indepen-
dence; in France they are called upon by at least
the latter consideration. The European civilisation,
at the head of which the French and English nations
stand, is threatened by Russia.
Our English Ministers are, of course, likely to
persist in their taciturnity as regards the course
they intend to pursue. It is of no use repeating the
reasons that render this inconsistent with the frank
understanding which ought to exist between a free
people and its Government A day of reckoning will
come at last. If the policy of Ministers shall then
appear to have been worthy of the nation, their reti-
awe will doubtless be forgotten and forgiven. But
if their silence shall prove to have been a cover to a
policy which they must have known would outrage
national feelings, the retribution will be increased
tenfold.

THE ('ASE OF RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
IN TUSCANY.

,
To THR EDltotr. VI CHI EXTRIM

SlB,-1 should not have now addressed you on
the subject of the treatment of Miss Cunning-
hame by the Tuscan authorities, had I not per-
oeived in the Morniny P"..t of Tuesday, Sept. 20,
a letter, written by some person at the baths of
Lucca, the statements made in which are so very far
from being true, and so likely, if uncontradicted, to
produce evil effects, that I am compelled, malting moi,
to rush into print, be it merely to correct the errors
of the Lucca correspondent, whore desire to throw
into contempt the proceedings of others has
led him to distort facts and garble state_
meats. lie safe: "An English lady., Miss Cnn-
niughame, some few days back, committed the great
imprudence of distributing protestant tracts in the
neighbouring village of Lugliano. Some of the in-
habitants warned her of the impropriety of her pro-
ceedings, and protected her from the exasperated
feelings of others of the peasants who were preparing
to pelt her with stones, and seriously to injure her."
Now, sir, the exasperated peasants, and the threat-
ened ill-usage are creations of the fertile brain of the
Morning Post correspondent. No peasants have
shown any angry feeling. No insults have been
offered to any English lady under any circumstances.
It is true that some tracts on religious subjects had
been dispersed amongst the peasantry, and had been
received with gladness instead of exciting indigna-
tion. 'These tracts Miss Cuuninghame is accused of
having distributed, but the charge remains yet to be
proved. The tracts in question, some of which
i have been seized, treat of religious subjects, but are
in nowise controversial ; even the priest who
examined them acknowledged the harmless nature
of their contents, and the excellent tendency of the
doctrine inculcated. In my former letter I was in-
advertently led into the error of asserting that defies
Cunningham° had acknowledged the justice of the
accusations brought against her. Miss Cuuninghame
is a sincere protestant, and would doubtless willingly
see the progress of the faith she professes and be-
lieves to bo the pure one, and would also doubtless
gladly avail herself of any means in her power to
assert the truth of the word of God, and the immense
privilege of reading the Bible. To all this she
would, I am sure, willingly and boldly testify; but
the acts charged against her have yet to be proved.
I will now, sir, just for the sake of argument, sup-
pose
that they can and will be proved. Even in such
a ease will any one, even a Roman catholic the moat
bigoted and fanatic, approve of the course pursued
by the Grand Duke of Tuscany, or justify the
treatment which this unfortunate lady has received ?
For the honour of humanity we will hope that the
Morning Pose correspondent is the sole person who
could write what follows: "No ono can for one
moment entertain a doubt as to the gross culpability
of Miss Cunninghame's proceedings" proceedings
which, if brought to proof, would, as he kindly in-
forms us in u preceding sentence, " lay her open to
a punishment of from five to ten years' imprisonment
with hard labour."

It seems almost incredible that is the closing
half of the 19th century a government can be,
found to frame such a code of laws, or a people to
submit to them ; and still more incredible, that one
belonging to a free land, enjoying full liberty of con-
science, and every facility for the expression of his
feelings, should be found base enough to endeavour
to uphold by his pen, and to justify so barbarous 1
and brutal an application of them. Five to ten
years' imprisonment, with hard labour, for
having attempted to awaken an interest on reli-
gious subjects in the mind of a fellow-creature,
perhaps weak and erring as oneself, but without the
same inestimable privilege of reading the word of
God, and turning to it for comfort and assistance—
even granting that the protestant mode of salvation
is wrong—that the Bible should be a sealed book—
that our prayers and supplications should be ad-
dressed to the Virgin Mary or the calendar of saints,
male and female, through the mediation of the parish
priest, or by any other devious and doubtful route,
rather than the simple and ever ready way so merci-
fully pointed out to us by the Lord himself ! Sup-
posing, I say, that
.protestantism is in error, and
Roman catholicism right, surely the punishment of
from five to ten years' imprisonment with hard labour
(the general sentence awarded to a murderer under
extenuating circumstances) is a little severe treat-
ment for a difference in opinion or an error in judg-
ment. Would not even the lightest punishment fall
but too heavily for such a crime on a weak, defence-
less woman and a stranger ? Would not even one
day's estrangement from a sick and suffering
went (for Miss Cunninghame's mother is, it is
feared, on the bed of death) be too severe
a punishment for the transgression of a law
which only came into operation twelve days before
the time when it is alleged the infraction of it took
place ? Would not even the mere preparatory stages
of this cruel case, the public seizure, the unfeeling
preparations, the hurried departure, be a more than
sufficient infliction for a far more heinous crime,
without the prospect of a protracted imprisonment
in a foreign land, and the fearful knowledge that the
fact alone of such imprisonment would in all human
probability sever asunder the slight thread of life
which connects a beloved mother with this world?
Sure am I, that through the length and breadth of
England, and the United States will arise a cry of
shame and honest indignation at the conduct of the
Grand Duke of Tuscany. Can even be, wedded as
he is to his own short-sighted and fatal policy,
imagine for a moment that converts can be made, or
waverer. secured by such acts of cruelty and despo-
tism? Does he never scaa the pages of the past?
Is the history of religious and political persecution
unknown—the unfailing sequel unheeded? Is
every book that can instruct or elevate a
sealed one ? Weak man ! know that acts
like these make weeders—not converts ; confirm
waverer., do not intimidate them. The tears
shed by the Madiais during their long and weari-
some confinement have watered a fruitful and a
grateful soil. The harvest is already ripe, and the
reapers are ready—no extraneous miasmic is needed
—there is no blunting out Miss Cunninghamee; no
seeking in foreign lands aid which the native soil
affords not. No; the Grand Duke himself is the
husbandman; he sows the seed. and he will reap the
harvest.

One word more respecting inaccuracies con-
tained in the letter from Lucca. The writer speaks
"of the indignation of Italians at the attempt
made to seduce the people from their faith." So far
from this being the case, I positively affirm that the
Grand Duke stands alone, and that the line he has
chosen gives serious uneasiness to the members of
his government, and that they, as well as all educated
Italians, would gladly hail a more liberal and en-
lightened policy.

I cannot conclude this letter without bearing will-
ing and grateful testimony to the able and energetic
oondnot of the lion. Campbell Seerlett, her Britannic
Majesty's Charge d'Affaires in Tuscany. I do not pre-
tend to be in his confidence, or to be able to
penetrate all diplomatic secrets, but you may, sir,
rely upon the information which enables me to
affirm that no means have been neglected by Mr.
Scarlett to obtain in the first instance the young
lady's immediate release, and when that failed, to
alleviate her painful and trying situation. His in-
terviews with the Minister for Foreign Affairs have
been frequent, his remonstrances urgent. He has
communicated more than once with the Grand Duke,
through his royal highness's private secretary, but
has, I fear, failed to mitigate his obstinacy, or melt
his obduracy. lam informed—and I believe cre-
dibly so—that representations have been made in a
very high quarter; in one, indeed, where the influ-
ence used would be almuet irresistible, even with the
Grand Duke, and that the result, though still doubt-
ful, is not altogether hopeless. Thus much in justice
to her Majdsty's representative ; for rumour is gene-
rally as ill-naturedand unjust as it is universally
exaggerated. Nothing in fine can exceed the inte-
rest evinced in the ease by Mr. Scarlett, and the
ability displayed by him. Let us hope that he will
be well seconded and sustained at home.
Florence, Sept. 27. CIS IS.

Tin CRYSTAL PALACE, SI