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LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, MAY 11, 1855.

NAVAL AND MILITARY INTELLIGENCE.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

rantee the territorial independence of Turkey. Again, the
second object of the Third Point was to put an end to the
preponderance of Russia in the Black Sea ; but here Russia
answers that her maritime superiority arose only from her for-
mer treaties, and from the isolation of the Porte, and that it
lay at the choice of Turkey to turn the balance of maritime
, power in the Black Sea to her own advantage. At one mo-
ment it suits the policy of Russia to represent Turkey as a
dying man, and at another to speak of her as a formidable
rival, though, at least, she cannot be both. The ascendancy
of Russia iu the Black Sea is of recent date, but it is not the
less complete, for she owes it to the conquests which in the
last cequry and in 1813 wrested from the Ottoman Empire
the northern shores of those waters. The geographical char-
acter of that coast, the course of the great rivers, the posses-
sion of Sebastopol, and even the prevailing winds and cur-
rents of the Euxine, all concur to give to the great northern
empire, which extends from the Danube to the Caucasus, an
overwhelming preponderance over that State which still holds
the Bulgarian and Asiatic coast. The Russian has accumu-
lated all the means of attack ; the Turk cannot even boast
of an efficient means of defence at the mouth of the
Bosphorus. The attempt to show that the Ottoman em-
pire is not exposed to danger from the Russian
fleet is a bareaced imposition on the credulity of
Europe ; and if the Russian vessels had sailed for Constanti-
nople with 20,000 men on the day after Prince Menschikoff's
return from his mission, the Emperor Nicholas would have
realised his predictions. If ever Europe again leaves Russia
in a condition to strike such a blow the opportunity will not
a second time be throw". away.
But Prince Gortschakoff went even further. He argued that
the existence of the maritime power of Russia in the Black Sea
might, become essential for`the protection of Turkey against
the fleets of England and France, and that if the Black Sea
were disarmed there would be no security against the action
of those Powers upon Constantinople. It is difficult to imagine
a grosser sophism. England and France are cordially united
for the defence of Turkey, but they cannot be united against
her, and if, by an improbable change in events, one of those
Powers were in arms, as in 1807, against her, the other would
become the more closely allied to her; yet, with extraordi-
nary inconsistency, after having adverted to this danger of an
attack on Turkey by the Western navies, Russia proposes in
the next sentence that the Straits should be opened to ships
of war of all the Powers I So that in the course of this paper;
destined to show in what manner Russia would allow her own
maritime preponderance to be abated, she argues—first, that
she has no necessary•maritime preponderance at all in those
waters; and, secondly, that the weakness of Turkey is such
that the maritime power of Russia is needed to protect her
from the aggressions of the Western Powers. This is what the
Russian Plenipotentiaries call" uniting their efforts to put
the scheme in operation with frankness and sincerity." We
Say, on the contrary, that to offer these extravagant asser-
tions and arguments to the Conference in satisfaction of the
just demands of Europe was to violate the spirit of the letter
of that moral engagement which Russia had deliberately con-
tracted on the opening of these negotiations.
What, then, does •the position of Austria become f The
Cabinet of Vienna does not dispute that from the Bth of
' August to the 26th of April the proposals of peace were fairly
discussed on the basis and in the manner indicated by the
Austrian Minister. Count Buol distinctly declared that the
Emperor's mind was made up to adhere, at all risks, to his
engagement with the Allied Powers; and he stated in closing
the Conference that the Russian counter-propositions did not
contain any satisfactory solution of the difficulty. We are
entitled therefore to assume that Austria has not changed her
ground, and that she is entirely with us iu principle ; but
we have no certainty, and, indeed, it is a matter of great
doubt, whether she is or will be with us in action ; in other
words, the risk appears to her too great ; the stake is too
....

The Britannia, 120, was placed in dry dock at Ports-
mouth yesterday to complete her fit out as an hospital
Hands have commenced building the newly-designed
scrov-corvette Cadmus, 20, in Chatham dockyard, where
the Childers, 12, Commander Hickley, is now far ad-
vanced in her equipment and will be undocked the neat
spring tides ; she will shortly after proceed to Sheerness,
and thence to Spithead and China.
The hospital ship Belleisle, 6, Commander James
Hosken, sailed from Plymouth Sound for the Baltic,
yesterday morning. The transport Dunbar, Captain
Scott, sailed on Wednesday with a detachment of Poles
for the Black Sea.
The Gorgon, 6, paddlewheel sloop, Commander R B.
Crawford, arrived at Spithead yesterday morning from
Woolwich with boilers for her Majesty's yacht. She
will convey a flotilla of gunboats to the Black Sea.

( From the Times of this day.)
In the common acceptation of the word "prejudice" it is
confined to matters of taste or theoretical opinion. It is,
however, just as often a prepossession as to matters of fact,
and is quite as injurious in that shape as in any other. For
this we do not want a better illustration than several tho-
roughly false butinveterate opinions held by nearly all Eng-
' lishmen about the military power of tl,e States engaged in
the present war. People used to speak, -and indeed speak
now, about Russia as having a* almost innumerable popula-
tion ; as overrun with populous tribes ; as ready to pour
hordes over Europe ; as inexhaustible ; as having nothing so
' cheap as men, and so forth. England, on the contrary, and
even France, were supposed to be comparatively States, in
which men could be counted, were precious, and easily ex-
, hausted. But how stands the fact ? First, that England
alone, without either France or Turkey, is no slight antago-
nist to Russia, even in mere numbers ; for, while the British
Isles contain, in a compact and available position, thirty-six
millions, the utmost that All the Russias contain in the half
of two continents is only sixty millions, a large proportion of
them almost unproducible. But England and France to-
gether are quite equal in population to the whole of Russia ;
and, with Turkey, immensely superior. Such is the value of
one prejudice. Another was and is that England has no re-
serve. She hai an army, it is true, but one that is so widely
'and seriously occupied that when some 50,000 men had been
sent to the war the only reserve was the Militia, which has
yet to be embodied and trained. When this supply threatened
,to be scanty the next chance was a foreign legion. Now,
what is the fact ? Sir E. PerrYslrill answer for us. There
is now in India an army of nearly half a million of men at the
disposal of this country. In that army there are about
30,000 Europeans belonging to the Queen's service, in-
cluding cavalry and infantry of the Line ; and 40,000
European troops .'..n the Company's service, of every arm,
except cavalry. The exact aggregate which Sir
of Ers-
kine has ' made out is 457,000 men, with 12,000 officers,
aa
si n
thist a i n ed
armyat maya n expensebe,
resources of India, and might easily be increased, especially
from the warlike tribes lately added to our dominion. Here,
then, is a reserve, and an ample reserve, well organised, offi-
cered and generally with some experience of war. How could
csonsdtl my
it be said that we had no reserve ? Of this immense force
70,000 are British soldiers. Of the rest, the irregular native
cavalry is just the force we most require in the war, and can-
not supply from home. Here, then, is everything that we
want for our present necessity—numbers, organisation, disci-
pline, European courage and talent in all its developments,
practical experience in all its forms —in fact, the substance of
all that we have been accustomed to ascribe to Russia, and to
reckon as her superiority over the Western Powers. When
such is the fact, and such the prejudice, and when, too, we
practically disregard the fact, and realise the prejudice, Sir
Erskine Perry has taken, as it appears to us, a very reason-
able course in moving for a committee "to consider how the
army in India may be made most' available for the war in
Europe, and to inquire into the steps necessary to be taken
if it should be deemed expedient to constitute the army of •
the East India Company a Royal-army." - We must confess
to a great regret, though perhaps no great surprise, that such
a motion, in the present state of this country and the present
prospects of the war, should be thrown out by a decisive ma-
jority.
As the progress of the war is only too likely to make the
question of reinforcing our army in the East very serious and
urgent, not to say vital, we wish our legislators would go a
little below that smooth surface of commonplace topics in
which such such spelkers as Sir JaS. Hogg would wish to keep
them; There are some grave considerations, as it happens,
peculiar to the condition of this country, bearing on the sup-
ply of our army, on our military strength, and our very ex-
istence as a military power. The British Isles contain, it is
true, 28,000,000 of inhabitants.; but no people in the
world suffers so great and continual a drain of men for pur-
poses calling them from home, and withdrawing them from
the physical strength of the country. Most other countries
have their armies and their chief enterprises within their
own borders. We send out swarms, in which the males
greatly preponderate, to our colonies and to America. We
have the largest navy and mercantile' marine in the world.
Great part of our army is distributed over many colonies and
dependencies. In particular, as Sir E. Perry states, there are
70,000 British soldiers, in one form or another, assisting to
preserve our Indian empire. As some measure of the total
number of men withdrawn from our defences at home and
from our European exigencies, there were at the last census
of the British Isles 713,366 more women than men, being a
greater disparity of the SCX3S than is to be found in any other
country of the world. This, too, happens in a country where
thero is more profitable employment for men than in any
other, and where all these demands conspire to aggravate the
difficulty of recruiting our armies. Now, with what reason
can we talk of Russia's immense population and our own
early exhaustion? With what justice can we say we have
done our utmost when we have sent out 50,000 men ? Here,
then, comes prejudice—if we are to continue in the plan of
constantly supplying a large army to a distant dependency
awl weakening our position at home, without taking proper
steps to qualify the constant and systematic damage we are
doing to ourselves, we shall certainly pay for such folly in
the long run, for while we are grasping at the Indian shadow
we shall lose the European reality—that is substance, shadow
1 and all.

THE WHITE SEA SQUADRON.
The White Sea squadron, Meander, 44, Capt. Baillie ;
Ariel, 9, screw ; and Phcenix, 9, screw, left the Downs
yesterday, for the Baltic.

hazardous to be lightly played for. The military occurrences
of the last three months, the hardships of the winter cam-
paign, the unexpected duration of the siege of Sebastopol, the,
reports current in Europe of the losses sustained by the Allied
armies, and the evident resolution of both France and England
to concentrate all their efforts for {he present on the Crimea,
have undoubtedly had the effect of rendering Russia more
arrogant and Austria less bold. We had all along foreseen
that the Conferences of Vienna would p • ove altogether abor-
tive, unless some military achievement occurred in the in-
terval to decide these questions which the sword once drawn
can alone determine ; but until the French and English
armies in the Crimea have shown that they are fully able to
accomplish what they have undertaken we neither inspire
sufficient fear to our enemies nor sufficient confidence to our
allies. The mystification of these Conferences and the langour
of some of our adherents' may all be traced to the want of
energy and activity manifested by the Government, and
before we can compel Russia to be in earnest in making peace
we must prove that we are altogether in earnest in making
war. But, if any further justification of the war be needed,
it will be found, in spite of Lord Grey, in the papers now laid
before the country.

We shall not repeat here what we have often urged be-
fore, on the gross injustice and fatal impolicy of rejecting
the ready aid of Indian talent, Indian experience, and Indian
organisation to supply the utter want of those qualities
at the war ; nor need we, as Sir E. Perry has done it so well.
We will rather assist his argument by impressing upon the
attention of our readers the broad fact of this so-called small
country, in the midst of its many calls, always supplying
70,000 soldiers to India, and not receiving in return one sol-
dier to replace that vast drain. No country ever acted on
that system before, or could do so, without throwing away
its influence at home. All former empires that ever pretended
to hold distant countries in subjection made a fair exchange of
armies, so that while Italians were holding Britain, or Numi-
dia, or Dacia, Britons, Numidians, and Dacians were sta-
tioned In Italy, and even supplying candidates to the Impe-
rial purple. Whatever the final results, the Roman Empire
would not have lasted ten years without that interchange.
At this moment Russia is carrying on the war with forces
drawn from the heart and extremities of Asia, as well as
from the most northern shores of Enrope, either directly en-
gaged in the Crimea or replacing the troops sent there. Rus-
sia could not carry on the war without doing so ; and when
we talk thoughtlessly of her overpowering population it is
these distant regions that we are unconsciously thinking of.
Our case is the same as Russia's, only we have not got the
sense to see it, and shall not see it till our eyes have been
opened and our wits quickened by a succession of disasters.
We have attained to an empire by a sort of accident without
attaining to imperial minds, and in some respects are about
as much at fault in our position as Saecho Panza in his king-
dom of Barataria. The fact is, we are governed by cliques, re-
presented by such men as Sir James Weir Hogg. There is
an Indian clique, and a Military clique, and a Naval clique,
and a Landowners' clique, and a Whig clique, and a Lawyer's
clique, and some other cliques, and other people who represent
the feelings, if not always the real interests, of the several
classes ; but the very last thing understood, or even recegnised
in this country, is, that we are an empire, the largest in
the world, as well as the most populous, the richest,
the most various, and the most united in its interests.
That the House of Clmmons should deliberately sanction the
idea that we can go on for any length of time keeping 70,000
British soldiers in the East, and a good many in other parts
of the world, besides our navy, without borrowing soldiers in
return, while we are taking an active part in a great Euro-
pean war, shows how little that body has risen to the sense
of its own " imperial" character. The case is not one of
etiquette, nor is it one of military precedence and pay ; it
concerns something snore than the feelings of the Horse
Guards, or even the present convenience of the East India
Company; it is a question of imperial necsssity. It will ride
over scruples and break through regulations. It will compel
the notice of Governments and constrain a divided and reluc-
tant Legislature. We shall see before long with the sharp
eye of calamity that empires can only be sustained by mutual
giving and taking, and that if we would remain a leading
Power in Europe, and a dominant Power anywhere else, we
must replace in Europe the men we send to Asia.

(Fr•ot. the Times of this day.)
The singular motion of which Lord Grey gave notice last
night in the House of Lords wil bring under the review of
Parliament the conditions of peace lately discussed at Vienna,
and we await win entire confidence the all but unanimous
verdict of both the L rds an i Commons on this issue. While,
however, these debates are impending in the assemblies of
the Legislature, it is desirable that the country should
thoroughly ”nderstand the nature of the proposals made by
the allies and the artifices by which they were defeated. The
memorandum of the 28th of December, 1854, which is pre-
fixed to the protocols of the subsequent Conferences at
Vienna, states in very plain and explicit terms the bases ou
which the negotiation was opened, and the objects which
the allied Powers have undertaken to effect. It included
the tot•a.l abolition of the Russo-Turkish treaties with
reference to the Principalities, by providing that none
of the stipulations contained in them should be . re-
vived at the peac ; it stated that, in order to secure
the free navigation of tha Lower Danube, the channel
of the river should be withdrawn from the terri-
torial jurisdiction existing by virtue of Article 3 of the Treaty
of Adrianople ; it proposed to connect the Ottoman empire
more closely with the balance of power in Europe, and to put
an end to the preponderance of Russia in the Black Sea ; and
lastly, to cause Russia to renounce her claim to an official
protectorate of the Christian subjects of the Sultan belonging
to the Eastern Church, and to surrender all the articles of
former treaties on which that claim was founded. These terms
I were framed by France and England, adopted in the most
formal manner by Austria, and accepted by Russia as the
basis of negotiation. The whole question of the conduct of
the several Powers in the course of this transaction reduces
itself therefore to this,---whether they adhered with sincerity
and honour to the principles they had laid down, and whether
they were prepared to act on the solemn declarations they
had made. As far as England and France are concerned, we
presume that it will not be contended by Lord Grey that
these Powers retracted or evaded any of the concessions they
had announced their intention to make, but that, on the con-
trary, they carried their conciliatory policy
ienetdiotgmoni
nttetioh.tbahecetotvhess eeeduriffiNebnceodfiteoenios.
etf,
fur-
thest limit. Lord John Russell declared that, " the eyes
t2odthoefseDleuceemstbioenr:
of England and her allies, the best and only admissible terms
of peace would be those which, being most in harmony with
fidelitytheae
cln ud a
equal
o hn
fidelityo:
oth the
hho
eef t
principles
itproclaimedhnceei Russia;
pdViennaelnbss
gyhwaotgfiu?hrid
iloemdcmhTTea
nhrttetei
at,
she samehetsayhenebemsoeanswers
eiembodied
the
ns
for the security of Europe." Did Russia, then, adhere with
this negotiation opened Does Austria adhere with equal
teoinoft position and the future political relations
we shall proceed to consider them succes-
sively.

No portion of these papers has more excited our astonish-
ment than the Russian document read by Prince Gortscha-
koff to the Conference on the 21st of April, and numbered
" Annex A to Protocol 12." In this communication the
Russian Cabinet declares that in accepting the Four Points
as a basis of negotiation it has neither concealed from itself
their true meaning nor thought of altering it. Yet in the
following paragraphs it proceeds to disfigure and evade with
the most ovident sophistry the principal conditions of the
Third Article. It is true that the ruling idea of the arrange-
ments proposed is to put an end to the isolated position of
•the Qttoman'Empire,•to connect it with the balance of power
in Europe, and to bring it within the.. public law of 4he civi-
lised world ; yet on the very first discussion of this subject
Prince Gortschakoff flies off altogether from the engagement
offered by the other Powers, not only to respect, but to gm,'