The Express.
London, England, 1853-06-18 00:00:00

LON.DOI►, SATURDAY, JUNE 18.

SOME days must elapse before any certain intelli-
gence of Russian operations can reach this country
from the Principalities, or Constantinople ; and while
the narrow margin that is still left of peace remains
uninfringed, it is lawful for all who desire it to hope
for the uninterrupted amity of the world. It may
be that at the last moment ambition may draw ruin,
and territorial rapacity be curbed on the banks of the
Pruth. But private accounts of the nature and extent
o! the preparations made for aggressive warfare, while
they more than confirm those already published,
do not tend to render us more sanguine than
we have hitherto been of a pacific termination
of what is, somewhat inaccurately, called the Turkish
question. It might, with much more propriety, be
designated the Russian question, for all the fears and
sympathies of Europe at tho present moment are
measurable, not by the apprehensims or wishes of
the Turks, but by a far more genuine, perhaps more
selfish, sense of a common danger and detriment aris-
ing from the outburst of a new career of aggression
on the part of the northern barbarians. For
barbarians in all political respects the sub-
jects of the Autocrat confessedly are. The
diplomacy and cuisine of St. Petersburg may be
modelled upon that of Paris, as its porticoes and
theatres are copied from those of Rome and Athens ;
bat a nation that consists of millions of illiterate
serfs and some thousands of territorial owners with-
out recognised powers or rights to take any part in
the government of their country, and every one of
whom is liable at any moment to be made the victim
of despotic suspicion or caprice, deserves no other
epithet than that of barbarian.
It is the profound sense which Europe entertains
of the rain which such a power is capable of spread-
ing far and wide, should the political ramparts within
which it is now confined be once broken down, that
has united in one sentiment of hostility and resistance
men of all parties and of all classes amongst civilised
nations. No instance of this can be more striking
than the manifestations of feeling against Russia by

the popular parties of France and England. However
they may differ in other respects, both are alike ear-
nestly attached to the cause of peace. While France
was governed by a Democratic Assembly nobody
ever suspected her of harbouring designs of war;
and, to whatever extent popular opinion may be sup-
posed to be expressed in the journals which
are permitted to exist under the Empire, it is
clearly and unmistakably pronounced in favour of
civil and military retrenchment, and the maintenance
of that state of external freedom and security which
promotes the development of commerce and manufac-
tures; and, with them, the certain growth of social in-
terests and feelings incompatible with the mainte-
nance of arbitrary power. In England the recollec-
tions of former periods of warfare, and the practical
consciousness of the infinite blessings we have reaped
during a long interval of peace, have rendered us in-
tensely averse to the idea of embarking anew in coati-
nen tallquarrele. We shall never again submit t ) be taxed
and impressed, and drawn into the raising of exorbi-
tant loans, to restore to the throne any foreign
dynasty, or to impose upon any other people institu-
tions not of their choice. We know that it is our
interest above all things to have, as willing cus-
tomers, all the nations of the world; and we know
that to enjoy their custom fully and securely we
must be at peace with them. It is in fact to this
feeling chiefly that those amongst us who would
tamper with the question of Russian aggres-
sion endeavour to appeal at the present junt,
tare. They endeavour to alarm commercial
interests by reminding them that the chief
portion of the trade between this country and the
ports of the Euxine is carried on in British ships,
and hence they argue that it would be impossible for
our fleets to make any effectual demonstration on
behalf of Turkey in those waters without practically
suspending our mercantile intercourse with the
countries whose produce we take in exchange for our
•wn. But if our manufactures or colonial products were
suddenly shut out of any Russian market whither
we are now accustomed to carry them, to an equal ex-
tent mast a suspension take place in the export of
goods therefrom. In other words, it concerns the
proprietors of corn land, and the merchants who
ship grain from Odessa and other Russian ports, quite
as much that mercantile intercourse should remain
unimpeded with this country as it concerns us that
it should do so. And uit is tolerably clear that the
power of deciding such a question must remain
in our hands and not in those of the CZAR, we may
take for granted that whatever other instructions
may have been sent to Admiral DUNDAS, be
has not been told to molest trading vessels. In point
of fact, Russia is equally vulnerable by land as
by sea. Her huge empire consists of a heterogeneous
mass of variously dated acquisitions, of which many
are but ill secured, and are ready at a moment's
notice to renew their 'oft-repeated attempts at self-
emancipation. Circassia has never yet been subdued,
and Georgia still trembles with resentment and wild
hopes at the recollection of by-gone times. The
population of these frontier provinces have at enor-
mous cost been gradually disarmed by the jealous
despotism of their conqueror, but nothing
will be easier than to permit them to re-
possess themselves of arms and all the munitions
of insurrectionary warfare. On the day that the
Cossacks cross the Pruth, the liabilities of Russia t)
this species of retaliation will begin. The Ottoman
treasury may not be very full, but it will hardly lack
the means of raising on the flank of its formidable
enemy insurgent auxiliaries so reliable as those to
whom we have referred. Every rifle sent to Cir-
cassia and every sabre sent to Georgia would retain
an additional soldier, whom the Porto need not pay,
nor clothe, nor feed, and upon whose fidelity implicit
dependence might be placed.

SUICIDE OF THE QUEEN'S CIIAPIAIN.-WC regrel
to announce the death, by suicide, of the lion. and Rev.
A. P. Pereeval, rector of Little Bookham, and one of the
chaplains to her Majesty. This diatressicg event took piece
on Saturday lut, and on Monday an inquest was held by
Mr. Woods, the coroner for Surrey, when it was proved by
evidence that the deceased clergyman had taken a large
quantity of laudanum. The evidence was conclusive that
the deceased had far sonic time past been labouring under
strange delusions; and the jury, after a petit nt investiga-
tion, returaed a verdict of " Temporary insanity."

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WATERFORD AND KILKENNY RAlLWAY—Traffic
for week ending June 4, 18513, 124/. 6s. 10d. Coiresponding
week last year, 641.18 e. Id.

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