The National Register.
London, England, 1817-08-04 00:00:00

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No. 495.—V0L. X.

POLITICAL DISQUISITION.

ON THE INJUSTICE OF THE CONTINENTAL PRESS
TOWARDS RUSSIA.

EUROPE has so long been accustomed to the
leotage, that, now it is removed, she cats hardly be-
lieve it possible that her deliverers should not, in
their turn, become her oppressors ; she can hardly
believe, that a Power which the false refinement of
France has designated us barbarous, should know how
to forgive in the moment of victory ; and this feeling
is most carefully kept up by the unceasing endeavours
of a set of despicable men, who, having been driven
from their own country for their crimes, have seized
on the public press in almost every neighbouring states
and through it poison the very source of public
opinion.

During the long and destructive war which Eng.
land has carried on for the deliverance of the world,
she has a thousand times been accused of interested

motives; and when the termination of that war
proved how false all these charges were, that, instead
of aggrandisement she only sought security, and that
instead of enslaving her neighbours, her only aim
was to give them peace, her libellers, both abroad and
at home, shifted their ground, and pointed to Russia
as the nation whose overwhelming power will ero
long crush the independence of surrounding states.
Day after day, the presses of the Continent have
teemed with accusations against her, all as false as
those which have been levelled against ourselves.
One writer sees the destruction of European liberty
in the ascendancy which Alexander is gaining in
Poland ; another in his " meditated" conquest of the
Ottoman Empire; and a third, the union of the
Imperial Family with the houses of Orange, Wirtem-
burg, and Brandenburg ; while another sot of
writers discover the danger In the increasing civili-
'ration of the North ; and descry, in the looms of
Russia, the annihilation of English wealth and pros-
perity.

- -
If we have no regard for the feelings of a ln'ave
and noble minded people, thus libelled by the rump of
a jacobinical tyranny, let us at least, for our own hon.
our, discountenance opinions, which if entertained by
us, must lessen us in the estimation of our neighbours.
Let us bear in mind bow nobly disinterested the con-
duct of Russia has been t With every motive for re.
venge, her only object has been to save ; with every
opportunity for aggrandizement, she has taken almost
nothing ; with the power to keep aloof from all engage-
ments that might bind her, contrary to her interests,
she has courted alliances founded upon the only just
principle that can exist, the principle of Christian
Charity. Had her views been what these mischievous
writers would insinuate, could she hope for a more
favourable opportunity than that which lately present-
ed itself? With a million of men in the field, could
she not have wrung from exhausted Europe con-
tentions which would have facilitated her a.vent to that
supremacy which she is described as aiming at ? The
period of peace is the period of renovation, and Europe,
recovering from her wounds, will surely oppose a more
formidable resistance to any aggression, than when ex-
hausted by a conflict of five-and-twenty years duration.
Russia, with all the policy which her enemies ascribe
to her, may be supposed to have thought of this, and
yet shehas acted as if she never had. She has been un-
ambitious, unrevengeful, betting ail example of political
forbearance and of moral rectitude, and for this she is
accused of every bud motive, and held up as an object
to be dreaded and detested.
The cause of all this abuse will be llama to arise from
Russia's having been lately so mainly instrumental in
the destruction of that tyranny which the scribes of die
Continental press called liberty, and in the downfal of
that man whose crimes are, in their eyes, virtues. Let
us, however, guard against their insidious doctrines, and
rather rely on the fisith of a Nation which has hitherto
proved itself true to its engagements, than insult it by
countenancing the libels of a swarm of wretches who
have fled from their country to avoid the punishments
due to their innumerable villainies.