The Sun.
London, England, 1854-04-21 00:00:00

" DECLARATION.

" France and Great Britain have at last openly left the
system of disguised hostility which they had adopted to-
wards Russia, especially by the entrance of their fleets
into the Black Sea.

" The result of the explanations which they have given
of that measure was of a nature to lead to a rupture of
reciprocal relations between them and the Imperial
Cabinet.

" This last fact was shortly followed by a communica-
tion in which the two Cabinets, through their respective
consuls, invited the Imperial Government to evacuate
the Danubian Principalities within a given term, 4hich
England fixed at the 30th April, and France, still more
peremptorily, at the 15th of the same month.
" With what rigat did' the two Powers thus pretend to
exact everything from one of the two belligerent parties,
without demanding anything from the other? This is what
they have not thought fit to explain to the Imperial Cabi-
net. To evacuate the principalities, without even a sha-
dow of a fulfilment, by the Ottoman Governmept, of the
conditions to which the Emperor made the cessation of
that temporary occupatioa subordinate—to evacuate them
in the brunt of a war which the latter was the first to de-
clare, whilst it is actively carrying on offensive operations,
when its own troops occupied a fortified point of Russian
territory—was already acondition inadmissible in substance.
The two Powers wished that in form it should become still
more unacceptable. They fixed a term of six days for the
adhesion of the Imperial Cabinet, at the expiration of
which, a refusal, or the absence of any reply whatever, was
to be by them regarded as equivalent to a declaration of
war.

" To ;summons so partial in its tenour, as practically in-
excusable as it was insulting in its terms, silence was the
only reply compatible with the dignity of the Emperor.
" Consequently, the two Governments have just publicly
made known that Russia,' by her refusal to accede to their
Imam!, has constituted herself towards them in a state of
war, the entire responsibility of which will rest upon her.
"In the presence of such declarations it only remains
for the Emperor to accept the situation which has been
"made hiin, reserving . to himself to employ all the means
which Providence has put in his hands to defend with
energy and constancy the honour, independence, and safety
of his empire.
" Independently of the message by which the Cabinet of
London announces its resolution to the two Houses of Par-
liament, it has in a supplementary declaration, explained
the motives which indu,l3 it to take up arms, and has reca-
pitulated the origin and the incidents of the question.
The Imperial Government thinks it superfluous to return
to a discussion on this subject. All its preceding docu-
ment§ seem tett to have exhauated the polemic. The recent
memorandum of the 18th Feb., publisheu on the occasion
of the rupture of diplomatic relations, and which contains
up to that point the whole historical exposition of the
question, will have sufficed to demonstrate'to whom, whe-
ther to Russia or to the two maritime Powe s, belongs the
initiative of the provocations, and what disastrous (fusteste)
chain of circumstances the false position i., which their
first steps placed the two Cabinets, lad them on by degrees
to take others still more provoking. Thy rej traced. minds
will have beau able to discover these all the successive
concessions wade by Russia for the maintenance of peace,
before as well as after the Vienna note, whilst the meteas ,
ing exactions of the two Courts engaged them daily more
and more still further in the path of a war with us.
" The occupation of the Principalities, which is taken
now apres coup, as a pretext for this war, did not prevent .
I the opening of negotiations. It would not" have any
more prevented their continuation, or rather these ne-
gotiations would have led to something long since,
if the Powers had not suddenly, without any good
reason, c'eupletely changed the bases which they them
selves had laid down in the first, .note concerted at
Vienna. The objections made by the Torte to certain
passages .f . that note were not sufficieut either to nul-
lify the rest. The essential substance remained iutaet,
an 1 the Imperial Government had the right to regard all
the points which the Ottoman Porte .had not contesteel. as
acquired for any ulterior proposition." Such was not done.
An attempt was made to impose entirely new conditions
upon Ale ; what hadhitherto been admitted was declared
inadmissi'le3,ll3.! complaints of Russia ware ignored, as
also an' claini on, fts"'part to an equitable reparation, and
edits "counter-propositions ';iejteted without discussion.
At the-same ' time, Measures contrary to its rights as a
belligerent Power coincident in the Black Beit.with the
conditions transmitted from Vienna, were adopted, as if
to impress a character of compulsion to any adhesion on
its part. , Finally, all honourable retreat was cleverly cut
off from it by an imperious summons, such as Russia never
before received within the whole period of its history, even
at the time when a conqueror at the head of armed Europe
invaded its territory.

"Not being stile to *lose their eyes upon the insuffi-
ciency of the motives for a disastrous war and upon the
want of proportion which exists between its effects and
its cause, the two Powers are obliged to exaggerate its
object by bringing the most vague accusations against
Russia.

"They allege that their honour and material interests
have been hurt—projects on our side of aggrandisement
and conquest in Turkey—the independence of the Porte,
and even that 'of other States ; finally, the balance of
power in &trope, which, according to them, is threatened
by_ our excessive preponderance.
" All these general imputations rest upon no foundation
whatever.
" We have never attacked honour of the two Courts.
If that honour has been placed in jeopardy, it has been done
by themselves. From the very onset they have adopted a
system of intimidation, which would naturally fail. They
made it a point of amour propre to oblige Russia to
bend to them ; and because Russia would not consent to
her own humiliation, they say that they are hurt in their
moral dignity.
" Materially, their interests have not been hurt by us
either. They can only be so by the war which they wish
gratuitously to wage against us. Ou the contrary, it is
they who hurt our interests much more seriously by at-
tacking us in the north and in the south, in our ports, and
on different points of our coasts.

" The poli;y of aggrandisementand conquest which they
attribute to Russia has been refuted by all her acts since
1815. Of her neighbours in Germany and in ;he North,
is there one which, during the last forty years, have had
to complain of an attack, or even of an attempt at an at-
tack, upon the integrity of his possessions ?
"As regards Turkey, although we have been at war with
her, the peace of Adrianople exists to attest the moderate
ttse we have made of our SUCCO.3 • and since then, at two
intervals, the Ottoman empire has been saved by us from
imminent ruin.

" The de (ire of possessing Constantinople, if that empire
should fail—the intention of forming a permanent esta-
blishment there—have been too publicly, to solemnly dis-
avowed, for any doubts to be entertained on that subject
that do not originate in u distrust which nothing can cure.
" Events witl shortly show whether the Powers or
Austria? (Russia) have struck the most fatal blow, not only
against the independence, but against the very existence of
Turkey. As a price for the interested services given to
her, she has already renounced by treaty the distinguishing
privilege of every independent Power—that of, making
peace, or declaring war, at, its own free will, at the moment.
an,l on the conditions it may itself deem most advisable.
She will be forced to subscribe to an engagement which
will give equality of civil and religious rights to all her sub-
jects. Russia will sincerely applaud so important a gua-
rantee, obtaiued in favour of all the Christians in Turks, , if
it succeed in assuring it to them in a really efficacious
manner. But in presence of a revolution which would so
profoundly alter all the constituent bases of the Ottoman
Government, Russia has the right to be surprised that an
engagement by which the Salt in confined himself to con-
titan religious privileges already existing, and emanating
from our treaties with him, should have eeen declared an
attempt against his sovereignty and his independence.
" It is fur Burma—not for the two powers—to decide if
the general equilibrium really runs the risks which are at-
tributed to it. from the suppossed excessive preponderance
of Russia. It is for it to examine which weighs heaviest
to-daY upon the freedom of action of states—Russia lett to
herself, or a formidable alliance, the 'pressure of which
alarms every neutrality, and uses by turns caresses or
threats, to compel them to follow in its wake. Europe
will also decide if, during the last years, it is from
Russia that have . come pretensions the most hostile
to the rights of sovereignty, and to tho independence
of feeble states; if in Greece, in Sicily, in Naples, in
Tuscany, it is for or against those rights that she has de-
clared ; whether in Germany between the great Govern-
ments she has sought to saw discord, or to re-establish
union ; whether, morally in Lombardy aid materially in
Hungary, her efforts have not been consecrated to the
maintenance of equilibrium, and whether the blows that
are preparing against her, the isolation in which it is hoped
to place her, by handing over the political world to a far
differeutsort of preponderance, will not rathjr be the an-
nihilation of that equilibrium.
" We thus see to what the Vague generalities urged
against Russia are reduced. But the last especially of
these grounds of accusation suffices to understand the true
motive of a war for which, judged by its apparent grounds
there is no reason ; and it is contrary to the moral; indus-
trial, and commercial interests of the entire world, that it
will really accelerate the ruin of the very empire which it
made the pretext to save from an imaginary peril. The
true motive was publicly proclaimed by the English
Ministers, when they asserted before Parliament that the
moment had arrived at lust, when it was necessary to abate
the influence of Russia.
" It is to defend that influence, not less necessary to the
Russian nation than it is essential to the maintenance of
the order and the security of other States—it is to sustain
the independence and territorial integrity which are the'
bases of it—that the Emperor, obliged in spite of himself
to embark in this contest, is about to devote all the means
of resistance which are furnished by the devotion and the
patriotism of his people. He trusts that God, who has
eo often protected. Russia in the day of trial, will assist
him once more in this formidable struggle. lie sincerely
laments the infinite evils which are about to fall on huma-
nity ; but at the same- time he feels it to be his duty to
protest soleusoly against the arbitrary pretensions laid
down by the two Powers, which throw upon him alone all
the responsibility of them. They are free, without doubt,
to adopt against Russia such measures as may be conve-
nient to them; but it does not belong to them to lay the
consequences to his charge. The responsibility of the ca.

leini ties of a war belongs to the Power which declares it,
140 i)0!1:1 !o atc,:pt,
" St. Patersburgrldateli 30, 1854."

THE CONFIDENTIAL CORRESPONDENCE.

The number of the 31st of March (12th of Aprill
contains the following article
"The British Ministry has just published all the confi-
dential correspondence to which the article in the Journal
de St. Petersburg alluded on the kith of February (No;
336). In addition to 'these documents, it has deemed it
apropos to introduce not only the Cabinet papers (pekes
de Cabinet) exchanged between the Thipenal Court and
that of England, but even the secret reports which Sir H.
Seymour made to his Government of his private conversa-
tions with his Majesty the Emperor.
"It was natural that public curiosity should be drawn to
these private conversations. Without examining at •what
point the English envoy had left them, influenced by the
opinions-and prejudices which governed him, party spirit
and bad faith have not been wanting to draw from his
relations the: most hazardous consequences and the most
false interpretations. Misled by expressions of which the
reporter hiniself avows he was not always certain of having
exactly' retained the -precise meaning—deceived by some
fugitive ideas thrown out by chance in the warmth and
the abandon of a conversation without constraint—he
thought he saw in the words of the Emperor, such as they
have been reported, the proof of objects determined before-
'hind, of territorial arrange ants at the ezpeuse of Turkey
—in one word, of a , plan of partition which his Majesty
had proposed to England,-without the participations, and
to the exclusion of other Courts.

"However, on several :meal:ions,' in the course of
his disoussions with the English representative, the
Eriaperor did' not cease 'to repeat that he did ' not
wish to conclude either treaty or protocol with Eng-
land ; that it:was not the question of a plan'by which the
two Cabinets might dispose, without the conenrrence of,
and without respect to, the other Powers, of the provinces
governed:by the Sultan; that in his idea-the question was
one of an understanding, perfectly-general,- upon certain
eventualities that each of the two partiee Should arrive at
as soon as possible; lastly, of a simple exchange of. ideas
upon the word 9f -a gentleman (letzne parole, de gentik
11.07ThITIO, in order to engage .both, with the intention of
avoiding political combinations that might be contrary to.
their mutual interests. These assurances are contained,
under a form, and iu terms not less positive, in the memo-
randum which the Emperor. caused to be prepared by his
Cabinet,- in reply to the written communications' which
the reports of Sir H Seymour had provoked on the part
of the British Ministry.
" It is, then, supremely unjust, not to say dishonourable
(clotoycit), to endeavour to seek iu the motive which in-
duced the Emperor to open with England a correepondence
(pourparlers) on thii subject; the intention to get that
Power to dispose of,' with himself, beforehand, the posses-
sions of Turkey. Nothing was further from the ideas of
his Majesty than the notion of a partition. and of a p irti-
tion effected by anticipation. The expectations of the Em-
peror related • to the future, not to the present ; his views
were quite eventual. Thedesign of his Majesty in explain-
ing himself so frankly, was solely to avoid any incident of
a nature to affect the intimacy which he desired to main-
tain in ins relations with England ; to prevent all diffe-
rences, all misunderstandings, and any. kind of divergence
which events uncertain, but possible, might .suddenly bring
about between Great Britain and himself, if they dad been
left entirely out of their reciprocal foresight. •

"The two Courts might have differed in opinions upon
the greater or less imminence of the catastrophe which was
foreseen ; but, in the event of that catastropee, what were
the views expressed by the EmPeror? He disavowed ex
.pressly; for himself, any desire or intention of possessing
Constantinople. He made beforehand an engagement not,
to establishhimsell there a permanent manner.. This dis-
avowal, this engagement is confirmed by the Cabinet papers.
Is it conceivable after this, that sin the face of vernal and
Written declarations74leclarations so formal rind so•obliga-
tory —thatthe EuglishMinisters would have had the courage
to accuse his Majesty, in their places in Parliament, of am-
bitious purpo,es, and of. projeuts ot conquest upon the ca-
pital of tha Ottoman empire? Such a torgetfuluese of the
word of the Emperor, aittleilto that of all propriety in lan-
guage, which they have einploNed towards his august per-
son, wasoassuredly intended-in order to authorise the Im-
perial Government to address a direct appeal to their con-
science, referring to the I.suranees (aufliences) which so
evidently attest the disinterestedness and the purity of
the political views ~f his Majesty.
" Not only have the character and the motive of his over-
tures been intentionally misunderstood and misrepresented
(envenintes), but it has even been song,ht to use them as a
means of atteaipting to persuade other Powers that if'the
Emperor, in this occasion; addressed himself more parti.u-
larly to Eugland, it was only because he paid no regard to
their opinions or their interests. We content ourselves
with remarking that the subject of th3se discuisions was
brought confidentially to the knowledge of the Sovereigns
.of Austria and of Prussia. . And,. as fir as concerns France,
it. is essential to remember that the epoCh at-which they
wed brought about was precisely that in which that
Power created at Conitantinuple, in-respect to the plsses-
siou of the Holy Places, the difficulties which successively
have pro luced the present crisis, and in which its ambas-
sador in Turkey has just employed all his energy to sup-
plant our influence were. • -
In • such • circumstances,. and liter, at the moment
when France did everything to • drag gugland into
an hostile attitude against us, .it was quite natural
,that the Emperor -should not deem it opportune to
:put' the Cabinet "Of the TnileVie3: partially in possession
of its intimate epancheamts with the British Government,
anlessit intended to: prevent any understanding as to the'
eventual fateof the East, since, as has be.m shown, this
question was not of P partition of Turkey, nor even of
concluding any transactions whatever, tinder the font of
a protocol or treaty. .
" These short observations will suffice to reduce_ to its
just value all that falsehood and.exaggeration•which male-
. volence has attribUted to the language of his Majesty. In
the eyes of impartial men, the publication which has just
been made will prove only one thing—the abuse of a gene-
rous confidence, which has been appreciated, and the in-
- justice of suspicions which have been made the pretext of
a disastrous war, for which, ha:t it not been for them,
there would have been no cause."