The Express.
London, England, 1853-09-27 00:00:00

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LONDON, TrESDAT, SEPTEMBER 27.

WREN contemplating these Eastern troubles which
now engross the thoughts of all Europe, the moat pro-
voking consideration is that one man should have
the power to do so much mischief. Here is a man—
Num; ft.os of Russia—born and dandled into an un-
natural overweening estimate of his own importance
—fancying, hke Jfrs. Jelluly, that he has got a mis-
sion—fancying, like Mi. Tiirreydror, thit he is " the
glass of fashion and the mould of form,"--and not,
like those worthies, with his powers of annoyance
confined to vexing and impoverishing his own im-
mediate kith and kin, but able to spread beggary,
death, and desolation over a whole hemisphere.
The resolute determination of Nictiotos to
plunder his neighbour is the source of all
the mischief that has already been done, and the
infinitely greater mischief that may yet be done by
this Turco-Russian quarrel. lie first kindled the
fire of national contest by his ambitions desire to
appropriate a slice of the Turkish territory, and
assume the airs of a suzerain in his dealings with
the StattN. He now prevents the restoration of
tranquillity by refusing to accept of peace on any
terms that he does not think coosisteet with his ,
vanity. His greed of other people's goods began the
fray, and his personal vanity keeps it up. The evil
already done is enormous. The miserable subjects
to his iron sway have borne, and will have to
bear, the expenses of his military movements.
The drachmas which pay his soldiery and the
transport of ammunition and provisions will be
squeezed like drops of blood from the overtazked serfs.
Though there has yet been no fighting, his troops,
moved to the Danube, have been decimated by disease.
Before a blow has been struck, he has impoverished
and caused to die in lingering torments thousands of
his subjects. The same evil influences of his ambition
have been felt in a leaser degree throughout the
dominions of Turkey. Great costs have been
entailed upon France and England, to watch
and be prepared to check his aggressive movements.
The public funds of these countries—and of every
country in Europe—along with their mercantile
enterprise, have been partially paralysed by the
uncertainty which he has diffused over the future.
All this is but the chill which he has already cast
over half a hemisphere, by hanging above it like a
huge black cloud. If the storm burst, the misery
and agony will be multiplied a hundredfold. And
if peace is maintained, it will probably be but at the
expense of such concessions to the author of all this
evil as will render him only more powerful to plague
mankind when the mood shall again seize him.
Let the idolaters of legitimacy, or centralised
government, or by whatever dulcet epithet it may
please them to designate despotism, look upon this
picture. All these evils are the natural and neces-
sary consequence of enabling one mortal—es pas-
sionate and wayward as any of his brethren—to
wield the whole resources and energies of a nation
at his obsolete will, and inflating him at the
same time with unintermitting, fulsome eulogies of
his wisdom and goodness. All these evils are the legiti-
mate fruits of absolute monarchy, and the on!y fruits
which that baleful tree has ever borne or ever will
bear. It is only over an ignorant and demoralised people
that a despotism can be established and permanently
maintained. It is by the vices of the people that the
despot attains power, and it is by more deeply de-
grading them that he keeps hold of it. Para'
TnE 011 EAT found the Russians a rude, geese
horde ; the despotism he established has
made them something worse. The poor—the
un-ennobled, are more rude, more servile, more
fiercely superstitious than ever. The nobles have
enormous nominal estates eaten up by debt; the only
trades they are trained to are predatory war, or that
low cunning diplomacy and political intrigue which
are prized in all semi-barbarous courts. The cam-

monalty are eager for a religious war, in which they
dream of pleasing Heaven while indulging the most
brutal desires. The nobles are eager for war, in
order that its plunder may replenish their lank
purses, and enable them to wallow in those sensual
luxuries which a superficial civilisation, thinly
spread over engrained barbarism, has taught
them to relish. By touching these monster
springs, the despot moves his nation. The favourites
of the moment inspire and guide his designs, but the
favourites of the moment are so only u his fickle
liking for them lasts. The whole capabilities of a
despot-ridden nation are put in motion by his whims
and crotchets, but his power is limited by the nature
of these capabilities—that is to working evil.

The whole history of Russian interference in the
affairs of Europe gam 1815, proves the truth of what
we have here said. Russia is the sleepless enemy of
the liberties and prosperity of the nations of Europe.
When constitutional government in Spain was to be
crushed in 1822, Russia offered to march an army of
100,000 men through Germany, Northern Italy, and
France, to enoomplish the task. After 1830 Russia
availed itself of the troubles of Europe to plunder
Turkey and finally crush Poland. After 1848 Russia
strengthened the feeble hands of Austria to trample
down Hungary. And now, Wm a spider at the
centre of its web, Ruda is prepared to pounce on
the Ant fat fly that may incautiously approach its
circumference. Turkey would be preferred at the
moment; but should some tusforessen providential
intervention save Turkey at present, the dart may be
suds upon Persia. The sombre woods and ungerial
morasses of Russia are the nursing places of a pes-
tilential moral Weems. that threatens, in turn, u
the wind churns to blow, all who have the misfor-
tune to be near it.

Need ewe be said to show the importance of
striving to keep the Russian despot and his hordes
confined within their present limits? Wherever
Russian cougnent entends it chills every generous
emotion and paralyses every better aviration. It
makes the good bad and the bad worse. for is it
difficult to keep the plague within its own territories
or drive it back to them. Its power is more in
show than substance, or rather it is believed to
be great because unknown. Russia could hold
no long contest with England and France. Once at
war with them, she would be shut op in her own
regions and be unable to send a single ship to sea.
The mouths of all her rivers would be blockaded, and
her commerce, such as it is, would be wholly stopped,
whilst the trade of the rest of the world would go
forward almost as freely as though no such country
as Russia existed, and no such creature as
an Autocrat encumbered the peaceful rela-
tions of the peoples of the earth. Russia has never
been able to accomplish anything of moment with-
out borrowing from abroad ; it has so often bor-
rowed under false pretences (borrowing money for
the construction of a railroad and spending it upon
Circassian or Hungarian inroads), that lenders are
becoming chary of its advances. Jealously, too,
though the secrets of the prLon-housz. arc kept,