The Sun.
London, England, 1854-04-17 00:00:00

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LONDON, MONDAY, APRIL 17, 1854.

" The fleets are still at Baycos I" It was the
announcement made during several weeks, we had
almost said during several months, in each suc-
cessive despatch received from Constantinople. It
was the parrot-cry of Our Own Correspondent.
It was repeated with " damnable iteration. " It
became monotonous. People began at last to be
tired of it. It might have been stereotyped.
A change has at last been effected in our intel-
ligence from beyond the Dardanelles.
" The fleets are still at Varna !" That is the
newly-arranged morsel of information. We sup-
pose we shall be 'fed upon it like a crumb of
comfort for something more than the next fort-
night.

Seriously, are these sorry illustrations of our
system of delay to be continued ? Are our sup-
plies of assistance—" few and far between "—to
be denied to the Sublime Porto until after a series
of these exquisitely tantalising evidences
of doubt, weakness, and procrastination ?
Are our troops to be tarrying idly at
Malta, while the French contingent from Algeria
and Marseilles is being hastened, shipload after
shipload, past that island without stopping, di-
rectly on to Gallipoli, the place of appointed de-
barkation ? Not a scrap of a letter comes to us
from the Fast but contains the same assertion,
almost in the same words, reiterated over and
over again in terms of urgent entreaty and of
most sorrowful lamentation. From Gibraltar it
is the same, from Valetta, from the Morea, from
Cephalonia, from Constantinople. Every one who
has been watching events in the East for some
time past in those quarters, is impressed with
the firm conviction that both England and France
have been too late in rendering military aid to the
Turkish army scattered along the borders of
Wallachia and Bulgaria. Every one on the spot
is satisfied that the Western Allies of the Sultan
are at this moment deplorably behind hand in the
transmission of soldiers to the seat of war for the
effectual protection of his dominions. It is felt
generally in those parts that not only are we
behind hand in forwarding our warlike aid to
OMER PACTRA, but that the troops we have already
sent are in their aggregate number altogether
inadequate to the present emergency. it is in-
sisted—and we rest assured not without ample
reason—that 25,000 men fromEnglandandso,ooo
men from France will be literally but as driblets
doled out at a wonderful crisis to the rulers of
Turkeyin the hope (save the mark 0 of withstanding
the threatened incursion of the combined European
and Asiatic hordes which have already begun to
pour across the Danube from the frontiers of the
vast Russian territory.
Is it remembered that England and France in
aiding Turkey in the struggle with her colos-
sal antagonist, are opposing themselves to a
power that extends over about one-seventh of
the habitable globe ? Is it sufficiently
borne in recollection that we are entering
upon a contest with a despot having supreme
authority over nearly 70,000,000 souls ? A
population, in fact, of 69,660,146 altogether in
1852, having
been, in 1846, 66,008,315. A
population of 50,000,000 of the Greek Church,
of 7,000,000 Catholics, of 3,000,000 Tshud
and German Protestants. Against an empire
containing thus 70,000,000 inhabitants, we are
sending some 25,000 English, and some 50,000
French soldiers ! The inadequacy of these num-
bers, we rejoice to know, is already beginning to
be recognised. There are rumours in Paris of au
intention on the part of the EMPEROR not simply
to increase the body of troops sent eastwards from
Algeria and Ma-medics from 50,000 to 75,000,
but to despatch somewhere about 100,000 or
150,000 altogether. England must increase
her military aid proportionately—that is to
say, if she seriously purposes to take a
part in the struggle worthy of her political
importance. An intention about which we may

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