The Sun.
London, England, 1855-09-15 00:00:00

MEMOIE BY CoUNT NESSELRODE.

Besides the note to Prince Gurtschakoff, given in
another column, there exists a memoir on the situa-
tion of Russia, by. Count Nesselrode, a paper not
strictly diplomatic, but composed for the use of the
Czar's representatives at foreign courts, and designed
to give them the means of combating the prevalent
belief that Russia is too much exhausted to carry on
the war. Le Nord offers the subjoined analysis of
this memoir from the pen of its Berlin correspon-
dent :

A year ago Russia, taken, so to speak, by surprise,
could not dispose of all her forces. Her troops had not
then bad time to take their stations along all her fron-
tiers, from Archangel to the Black Sea and its Asiatic
confines. Neither had she been able to take iu the
interior all the measures necessary for resisting a for-
midable attack upon her several extremities ; and
yet she has resisted. Russia now disposes of all her
troops ; a national levy has appeared as if by en-
chantment, fully armed, mounted, and organised, for
the purpose of replacing the regular regiments, where
they were of secondary utility. The spirit of the nation
has come to the assistance of the Government, not alone
in the equipment of this new and numerous military con-
tingent, but even in the means of transport for the troops.
The loan that Ru,eia contracted last year, notwith-
standing the interdict which her enemies thought fit to
lay upon it not only in their own countries, but even in
the capitals of neutral countries, but nevertheless suc-
ceeded, and is now entirely paid up.
Her financial credit, that index of a nation's resources,
on the exchanges even of those very countries which are
waging war against her, has remained, so to Break, un-
shakeable. At the commencement of the war Russia
might have felt some trepidation respecting her commerce,
but now she sees that she is sufficie►,t to herself. Th
blockade of her ports has not only failed to produce al
those results which might for an instant have been ap
prehended, but she has even been enabled thereby to a--
certain the greatness of her owu resources, as also the
rapid and marvellous progress made of late years by her
national manufactures. Her interior commercebas con-
siderably increased, and her foreign trade has opened for
itself a new outlet, which every day assumes vast di-
mensions.

Lastly, Russia has been tried by one of those mourn-
ful and sad events which, far from weakening the coun-
try, has in a manner reahitnatad it with fresh ardour. A
change of reign has taken place ; a prince beloved and
regretted has disappeared, leaving to his son the sacred
inheritance, so resolutely accepted, of defending the
national honour, even to the last extremity. This in-
heritance has been in part shared also by the entire
nation, which, cidlected and united, has taken upon
it,elf the task of enabling its new sovereign to enter
into possession, and support the burthen of it, by sharing
...ith him also the weight of its responsibility. Russia
has done more ; not merely has she prepared to
resist, and permanently resist, but she has found the
posqbility of carrying her arms abrr.ad into the territory
of that enemy who first declared war against her and
who is now, far more than herself, menaced an:l con-
quered. Russia, in short, has now fallen back upon herself
that she may give greater impetus to all ber elements of
resistance, in the midst of which she will await, calm,
resigned but resolute, until it may please her enemies to
make to her such proposals of peace as she can subscribe
to without giving the lie to her past history, and with-
out degrading herself for the future. If her extremities
are attacked, her heart is not, and its nature is such
that it will blunt the keenest blades that may attempt to
pierce it,
and
army, her
abroads ,
If we bestow a glance at the consequences, which these
two years of war have bad for the two great
odt foic
e
P Eng-
land allied against the RusSian empire, we shall see that
land has lost her sole, her brilliant, and costly ng-
ts,
naval prestige, her consideration at home
compromised, repudiated, and used up her m
emi-
nent statesmen ; annihilated the authority
an
of her Parliament, and sapped thhe principle of which
she was at all times so proud—
freedom. We see how she has doubled in two years
oft her national
her income tax, ihcrea-ed the
Ex-
chequer Bills, as likewise hernumber of her
the heavy
charges of a n immense public debt, by
the present form 4 tin goyer new
loan.
In France, if
express tacitly either one' tent does not permit one to
s wishes or complaints or griefs,

we yet know that this war has already cost her within
the space of two years 70,000 of her childres, besides
several loans, that have added to her budget a debt of
nearly five milli,rds. As for Turkey, these two years
of war have sufficed to cause hEr disappearance, if not
from the region of right, at all events fr•im that of fact.
By the admission of her own allies, she has lost 1:0,000
men. If she nas an) r: en left, she has an army that no
longer belongs to her ; she is obliged, in order to pro-
cure money, to pledge the revenue from Egypt and her
custom dues at Smyrna. In both Asia and Europe the
allies have military occupation of her ; Corstantinople
and its keys are in the hands of the French, and Lord
Redoliffe is endeavouring to replace the Sultan.
I do not (says the correspondent of Le Nord) pre-
tend to have given you in the above lines the exact
text of the arguments made use of in the document
of the St. Petersburg cabinet. But with the slight
difference of a few facts and figures that have es-
caped me, or which could not be given me, I think
I have stated to you with tolerable accuracy its
meaning and tendency.