The Express.
London, England, 1853-12-23 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23.

AGAIN we find the Vienna telegraph announcing
"on authority" the measures adopted by the French
and English Govern meu ta ! According to this telegraph,
both Governments, as soon as they received intelligence
of the disaster at Sinope, despatched instructions to
their admirals in the Bosphorus to enter the Black Sea.
Ordinary mortals cannot, of course, be expected to
understand or appreciate the wisdom which makes
great statesmen and great diplomatists do every-
thing in a different way from the rest of the world.,
From all that we can learn, the statement we have
just stated is substantially true, the very suspicions
channel through which it reaches us not-
withstanding. Unluckily, the circumstance of
the Vienna Telegraph's being right on this occasion
warrants a fear that there was equal truth in the
statement it was lately employed to convey, that the
combined fleets would only enter the Black Sea to
prevent further hostilities between the belligerents—
to prevent the Turks from taking vengeasce for the
massacre at Sinope. The French and English Go-
vernments must, therefore, be aware of the leaky
propensities of the Vienna Cabinet, and must conse-
quently be prepared to see any information they may
transmit to it immediately imparted to the public.
la other words, any information they may trans-
mit to Vienna is meant for publication. What useful
purpose isaerved by flashing the news along the electric
wire to Vienna and back again before it is allowed
to reach the journals of London and Paris is one of
those mysteries of State which, as aforesaid, ordinary
mortals cannot be expected to comprehend. Why,
we spin ask, are we to look to Austrian sources for
news of what an English Cabinet is doing? Has
Lord ABERDEIN to seek Austrian permission before
a national fact is made public ?
It is se far satisfactory to learn that the com-
bined fleets have been ordered to enter the
Black Sea; it would be more satisfactory

still to be assured that they would be usefully
and creditably employed while there. On this
head it is impossible to feel confident, so long u the
statement in the official journal of Vienna, that the
fleets are only to be employed to prevent the Turks
from retaliating for the aggression at Sinope, remains
uncontradicted. It is true that we have reason to
believe that the Sinope affair has at last opened the
eyes of a majority, even of the English Cabinet, to the
real intentions of Russia; and that the Russian
embassies, both in Paris and London, are quite in a
flutter of preparation, protesting that they are to
take flight as soon as intelligence is received that
the combined fleets have entered the Black Sea.
Such a step on their part would assuredly go far
to define the relative position of France and
England towards Russia with still .greater cer.
tainty—to compel these Powers to act decidedly with
their ally Turkey. But even in that case, the melan-
choly reflection will remain that an immense deal of
valuable time has been lost. The progress of the
Turkish arms in Asia may have been impeded by the
interruption to Turkish convoys, which the presence
of the combined fleets in the Black Sea might have
prevented. It is true we attach little credit to the
boastful accounts of a victory on the Caucasian fron-
tier, to which the Russians have now restricted their
claims. Prince ANDRONNIKOFT'S Bobadilisn bul-
letin contradicts itself. He seeks to make it appear
that his troops had stormed an " inaccessible "
position, strongly fortified, after wading across
a river, the water of which reached to their,
armpits, under a strong and well-directed fire of
artillery, and driven the enemy from their entrench-
meets after an obstinate and protracted hand-to-hand
combat, with the loss of only forty killed. But he
afterwards intimates parenthetically that " the loss
of the Cossacks, the artillery and the militia,"—in
short, of the main body of the force under his com-
mand—" has not been ascertained." The Russian
general claims to have slain 1,000 Turks and taken
40 peisosen (a curious coincidence that the number
of his own men killed sad of the enemy captured
should be exactly the same); but he leaves his
Emperor in the dark as to the loss of life on his
own side by which this advantage has been
pined. And it is the only advantage gained by
the Russians as a set-off to the otherwise
victorious advance of the Turks into the Russian
territory, and to the enthusiastic adhesion of the
natives to their cause, along more than 150 miles of
frontier. AU allowances beige made, the partial
check experienced by the Turkish arms near Ach-
alzic, cannot be regarded as of any importance. It
interests us only as an illustration of the bold
blasphemy with which Russian piety presumes to
play with Omnipotence. The Cara, and his coun-
cillors, know right well, that even though the
exaggerations of Prince ANDRA:CRUMP were literally
true, still the balance of success and defeat would
preponderate dreadfully against them in the Caucasus.
And yet they order their priests to intone hymns
of thanks for victory—to celebrate a grand
Te Drum. If this be not practical Atheism,
and treating the Divinity as an empty name and
laughing-stock, it would be hard to say what is.
There is, therefore, ne reason to despond as to the
condition and prospects of the Turkish armies in
Asia r but this is no excuse for the Governments
whose irresolution, vacillation, and impediments
thrown in the way of the SULTAN'S Ministers, have
gone far to deprive those forces of needful supplies,
by enabling the Russians to cut off the communica-
tion between them and Constantinople by sea. The
conduct of the Emperor of RUSSIA in seizing upon
the Danubian provinces has proved his want of com-
mon honesty ; his exultation in the mas-
sacre at Sinope has proved his want of com-
mon humanity; were it certain that he pro-
mised the English Cabinet to abstain from any
hostile ageressioes on the Turkish territory, except
to the north of the Danube, until negotiations were
at an end, the attack on the Turkish ships under the
guns of the fortress at Sinope, and the burning of
the town, would prove him a promise.breaker ;
but, as Lord ABERDEEN and the Russian Government
are at odds on that point, we shall not insist upon it.
Lastly, the profane mockery of thanking Heaven for
imaginary victories proves that he fears Gun as little
as he regards man. And yet it is unblushingly
maintained by some of his creatures in the press,'
and insinuated by others, that the cause of Rus-
sia against Turkey is the cause of Christianity 1
against Infidelity. To support Turkey they al-1
lege is to support the oppressor of Christians
against their protector. Let us leave out of
view for a moment the profane mockery in the
chuichea of Moscow and St. Petersburg, and look
only to the conduct of the two powers to such of
their subjects as differ from them in creed. The
haughty Moslem, cry the partisans of Russia, will
not allow the Christian Rajahs to enter his armies ;
be exacts money front them instead. But read the
details of the Malian conscription in Poland; let any ,
unbiassed mind ask itself whether the unhappy