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

RUSSIA.

We have received copies of the Journal of ,St.
_Petersburg, of 31st March (12th April), and of the
tat (13th) April.
A supplement to the latter contains the follow-
ing important document :
" 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, which
England fixed at the 33th April, and France, still more
petemptorily, at the 15th of the same month.
" With what riot did the two Powers thus pretend to
ex•lct everything from one of the two belligerent parties,
without demanding anything from therother ? 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 Government, of the
Conditions to which the Emperor made the cessation of
that temporary occupatiod 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
a refusal, or the absence of any reply whatever, was
to be by them regarded as equivalent to a declaration of
war.

" To a summons so partial in its tenonr, 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
demand, 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 him, 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.
_ • _ _ _ _ _ _ _

" ludepes ndently 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 induce it to take up arms, and has reca-
pitulated the origin and the incidents of the question.
The Imperial Government thinks it superfluous td return
to a discussion on this subject. All its preceding docu-
ments seem to it to have exhausted 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 v7hole 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 (funeste)
chain of circumstances the false position in which their
first steps placed the two Cabinets, led them on by degrees
to take others still more provoking. Unprejuliced minds
will have been able to discover there all the successive
concessions made by Russia for the maintenance of peace,
llefore as well as after the Vienna note, whilst the increas-
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 aprs coup, as a pretext for this war, did not prevent
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, cJmpletely changed the bases which they them-
selves had laid - down in the first note concerted at
Vienna. The objections made by the Porte to certain
passages cf that note were not sufficient either to nul-
lify the rest. The essential substance remained intact,
an I the Imperial Government had the right to regard all
the points which the Ottoman Porte had not contested as
acquired for any ulterior proposition. Stich was not done.
An attempt was male to impose entirely new conditions
upon us ; what had hitherto been admitted was declared
inadmissr.le ; the complaints of Russia were ignored,' as
also any claim on its part to an equitable reparation, and
all its counter-propositions rejected without discussion.
At the same time, measures contrary to its rights as a
belligerent Power coincident in the Black Sea 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 able to close their eyes upon the insuffi-
ciency of the motives for a dissstrous 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 aceusations against
Russia.

"They allege that their honour and material intere'sts
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 Earope, which, according to them, is threatened
by our excessive preponderance.
" All these general imputations rest upon no foundation
whatever.

We have never attacked the 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 consedt 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. On the contrary, it is
they who hurt our interests much more seriously by at-
tacking us in the north and in the south, iu our ports, and
on different points of our coasts.

" The policy of aggrandisement and 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, (luring the last forty years, have had
to complain of an attack, or even of in 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 in° ierate
use we have made of our BIACCO.,B ; and since then, at two
intervals, the Ottoman empire has been saved by us from
imminent ruin.

"The desire of possessing Constantinople, if, that empire
should fail—the intention of forming a permanent esta-
blishment'there —have been too publicly, to dolemuly dis-
avowed, for any doubts to be entertained on that subject
that do not originate in a distrust which nothing can cure.
" Events will shortly show whether the Powers or
Austria? (Ilussia) 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.
and 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, obtained in favour of all the Christians in Turke.s , it
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-
firm religious privileges already 'existing, and emanating
from our treaties with him, should have oeen declared an
attempt against his sovereignty and his independence.
"It is fortEurve—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, tLie 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 the independence
of feeble states ; if in Greece, in Sicily, in Naples, in
Tuscany, it is for or against those rights that she has de-
clred ; whether in Germany between the great Govern-
ments she has sought to sow discord, or to re-establish
union ; whether, morally in Lombardy and materially in
Hungary, her efforts have not been consecrated to the
maintenance of equilibrium,
and whether the blows that
are pregaring against her, the isolationin which it is hoped
to place her, by handing over the political world to a far
differentsort of preponderance, will not rath.e• 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, ju.lged by its apparent grounds
there is no reason ; and it is contrary to the,moral, indus-
trial, and comtherehal 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 last when it wise necessary to abate
the influence of Russia.
" 4is 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 iu 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
so often protected Russia in the 'day of trial, will assist
him once more in this formidable struggle. He 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 solemnly aeaiust the arbitrary pretensions laid
down by the two 17owers, which throw upou him alone all
the responsibiiit of them. They are free, without doubt,
y
to adopt against Russia anal nies,snres as may be conve-
nient to them P • but it does not belong to them to lay the
consequences to his. charge. The reepoueibility of the 04-

bwli'ieg of a. wir b

,ng to th.. Paver which de(Aare3 it

Wimih i)os:L i

"" Sc. Yetersbur,;, ALach 1654."

THE CONFIDENTIAL CORRESPONDENCE.
The nutnber of the .31st of March (12th of April)
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 91.1 the 13th of February No.
336). In adthtion to these ductLuents, it has deemed it'
ayrcrpos to introluce not only the Cabinet papers (pieces
'detiabinet) 'exchanged between' thu Imperial Court and
that of England, but even the secret reports which Sir H.
Seythour made to his GOvernMent:of leis private conversa-
tions with his Majesty the Emperor.
" It was natttral that public curiosity should be drawn to
these private conversations. Without examining at what
.point the English euvoy' 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 haiardous consequences and the most
false interpretations. Misled by -etpreisiona of which, the
reporter himself avows he was not.'always certain of having
exactly retained the precise- Meaningt-deceived by swim
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_laefore-
hand, of-territorial arrange ents at' the expense of Turkey
—in one word, of:a 'plan of -partitien which his Majesty
had proposed to England, without the participatiens, and
to the exclusion of other Courts. •

"However; on several occasions-, in- the, course of
his discussions with the English representative; -the
Emperor did not cease to repeat that he did not
wish to conclude either treaty M. protocol with Eng-
land ; that it was not the question of a plan by which the
two Cabinets Might dispose, without the concurrence 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 parties should arrive at
as soon as possible ;- lastly, of a simple exchange of ideas
upon the word of a - gentleman (d'une parole de genti .
homme), in order to engage- both, with the intention of
avoiding political conibivatiens that might be contrary to
their mutual interests. These assurances. are, contained,
under a form, and in terms not less positive, in-the -memo-
randum which the Emperor caused to be prepared by his
Cabinet, in reply to the written cominuetcations 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
(daoya/), to endeavour to seek in the motive witichin-
duced the Emperor to open with England a correspondence
(pourpariers) on this subject, the intention to -get that
Power to dispose of, with himself, beforehand, the posses-
sions of _Turkey. Nothing waslurthet from the ideas of
his. Majesty than like notion of a partition. and of a parti-
tion effected by anticipation. The expectations of the Em-
peror related to the future, not to the present ; his views
were quite eventual.- The design of his Majesty in explain,
rag himself so frankly, woe solely to avoid a-iy incident of
'a nature to affect the intimacy which he desired to main-
tain in his relations' with England ; to prevent all diffe--
rences, all misunderstandings, anti any kiud of divergence
which events' uncertain,' but possible, might suddenly bring
about between Great Britain and himself, if they nad been
'left.eutirely out of their reciprocal foresight.
"The two Courts might have differed its opinions upon
the greater or less imminence of the catastrophe which was
foreseen ; but, in the event of that catastrophe, what were
the views expressed by the Emperor? He disavowed ex•
pressly, for himself, any desire or intention of possessing
Constantinople. He made beforehaoti au engagement not.
_to establish himself there L. a permanent manner. This dis-
avowal, this engagement is confirmed by the Cabinet papers.
Is it conceivable after this, that in the' face of vernal and
written declarations--deol.tratious so formal alio so nbliga-
tory that the English Ministers would have had the courage
to accuse his Majesty, in their places in Parliament, of am-
bitious purpo,es, and of projects of conquest upon the ca-
pital of the Ottoman empire ? Such a forgetfulness of the
word of the ,Emperor, added to that, of all propriety in lan-
guage, which they have eMploye i towards his august per-
son, was assuredly intended in order to authorise the luu-
perial Government to address a direct upped to their con-
science; referring to the assurances (confilences) which so
evidently attest the disinterestedness and the purity of
the political-views f his Majesty.
" Not oily have the character and the motive of his over-
tures been iuteutioually uiisunderst ,oil' and flisrep resented
(envenimes), but it has even ueen sought to use them as a
means or attempting to persuade other Powers that if the
Etrseror, on this occasion; ad iressed himself more parti
laxly to England, it was only because he paid no regard to
their opinions or their interests. We content ourselves
with remarking' that the subject of those discussions was
brought confidentially to the knowledge of the Sovereigns
of Austria and a Prussia. And, as far as concerns Prance,
it is essential to remember that the epoch -at which they
were brought about was precisely that - in which that
Power created at Constantinople, in respect to-the plsses-
siou of the Holy Places, the difficulties which successively
have produced the present crisis, and in which its ambas-
sador in Turkey has just employed all his energy to sup-
plant our influence tuere.
"In such circumstances, and later,
.at the moment
when France - did everything' to drag England into
an hostile attitude agaiust us, it was. quite natural
that -the Emperor should not deem it opportune to
put the Cabinet of the. Tuileries partially in -possessi-m
of its intimate epanchenterds with the British GovernMent,
unless it intended to prevent any Understanding as to the
eventual fate of the East, since, -as has bean shown, the
question was not of o partition of Turkey,- nor even of
concluding any transactions whatever, under the form of
a protocol or treaty.
" These short observatinna 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 mein, the puelication whica has just
been made will prove only one thing—the abuse of is gene-
rous confidence, Which has been appreciated, and, the in-
justice of ;tuipicions which have been made the- pretext of
a disastrous war, •for which; had it not been for them,
there would have been no cause." - .

‘‘-'4 Govt:rou.n:tit 'vas issued a declaration
L.O rights and duties of 8 wedisb subjects
with regard to the contending Powers. It forbids
privateers, -dm, and-defiees contraband of war .to
be " cannons, mortars,. all kinds Of arms; bombs,.
grenades, balls, flints, matches, powder, saltpetre,
brimstone harness, spears, sword-belts, cartride-
boxes, saddles,..and bridles, and anything of this
kind useful in war ;" exclusive, however, of .what
may be reqiiired by the crew for its own use. This
document is in 13 sections. :.War now being. de-
clared; King Oscar has -ordered the harbours_ for-
bidden by the neutrality to be closed .to all foreign
ships of war.. • But in this announcement no moil
tioia is made of the secret article agreed,oninfaier
of Russia.

THE WEATHER IN THE_BALTIC.
Suhjoined are the latest advices relative to till°
state oldie navigation in the Baltic

BOLDRRAA, April -11 (Noon).`—As a heavy drift, of
lee in the river is likely to take place shortly, the.ies-
sels that have wintered' here are now being hauled into
the Winter. Harbour._ In conseqneace of the heavy fall
Of snow, there is nothing to be been seawards. The sea-
channel is still firm, and the ice appears to lie on the
ground.--12th, a.m. :--Thisinornitig there were several
vessels in the ice close off this port, amongst them some
loaded Norwegian jachts and sloops. The Gulf is cow'
pletely covered with large masses of ice, and the ice is
the Sea Channel, has everywhere heaped itself till it lies
on .the ground ; 20 vessels in sight of the harbout. Wind
N.N.-W. Temperature 5 deg. of frost. Depth of water
in the Sea Channel 13 feet DuLeh.—(Alternoon
The ice lies as far as the Tiefe, .heaped: up together to
the extent of 15 to 20 feet, and there must be a strung
land wind to get it free.