The Sun.
London, England, 1853-10-12 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1853.

It is admitted at last by the organs of Lord
ABERDEEN that war is imminent. It is admitted
at last by those same organs that the Vienna
Note has proved an egregious failure. It is ad-
mitted at last by them, moreover, that the Con-
ference held by the Four Powers through their
plenipotentiaries in the Austrian Capital is found
to have blundered from the beginning to the end
of their protracted negotiations.
Therefore, at last, an energetic course is being
pursued (we are told) by the Coalition Govern-
ment. Therefore, at last, the Cabinets of St.
James's and the Tuileries have resolved (we are
told) upon assuming an attitude of determination.
Therefore, at last, sufficient authority has been
intrusted by them (we are told) to their Ambas-
sadors at Constantinople.
Now, from the commencement of these lament-
able delays, of this contemptible timidity, of this
pernicious indecision—we insisted, in the clearest
terms imaginable, that sooner or later a conflict
would prove inevitable—that sooner or later the
Vienna Note would prove abortive—that sooner
or later the boasted Conference of the Four Powers,
through their representatives, would prove to have
been altogether incapable of effecting anything like
an litmoura.ble pacification. We maintained in the
plainest language that could have been employed,
that an energetic course ought in the first in-
stance to have been followed out by the Adminis-
tration. We maintained, in words that could not
by any chance whatever admit of misapprehension,
that a resolute attitude ought by right from the
very outset to have been assumed by France and
England simultaneously. We maintained, not by
hints or innuendoes, but by bold and explicit as-
sertions, that full power should have been accorded
at once to Lord STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE, en-
abling him to afford prompt assistance to the
Porte by summoning the British fleet to the
Bosphorus directly the first intelligence was re-
ceived of the Russian troops having crossed the
Pruth and formally taken possession of the
Danubian Principalities.
Wherefore, it appears that, after all, we have
not been so very much mistaken in demanding a
bolder policy than that hitherto adopted by the
Aberdeenites—in persisting that the lawless ambi-
tion of the CZAR ought in reason to have been re-
pelled by the bayonet-thrust and the explosion of
bomb-shells, rather than by the pitiable little paper
pellets of a bungling diplomacy—in laughing to
scorn the preposterous idea entertained of securing
peace by a series of timorous and protracted nego_
tiations. After all, we were right in asserting that
the advance of the Cossacks across the Pruth should
be answered by the combined fleets advancing into
the Sea of Marmora through the channel of the
Dardanelles. After all, we were right in declaring
that no reasonable expectation of a happy result
could be founded upon the proceedings of the
Vienna Conference. After all, we were right in
protesting against what we knew to be useless, and
worse than useless, dangerous and ruinous pro-
crastinations. Results have attested the justice
of our arguments. Events have come at length
as their most simple and unan-
to be recognised
swerable verification. We say this, GOD knows,
in no vain-glorious exultation. We say it not
boastfully as to ourselves—but rather reproach-
fully as to our antagonists. Anything like vanity
in the matter cannot for an instant be taken
into consideration. For the deductions drawn
by us all along from passing occurrences were not
exclusively our own ; they were not the evidence
of any Peculiar superiority of judgment ; they
were simply the conclusions drawn by common
sense and impartial observation from the obvious
bearings of the Russo-Turkish difficulty. Briefly,
in fact, they were nothing more than the utter-
ance of those rational convictions which have
from first to last, in regard to this Eastern Ques-
tion, been prevalent among the intelligent masses
of our population. Consequently it is in no
frivolous spirit of braggadocio that we repeat again
and again that we were right, and that our oppo-
nents were wrong, in reference to these dilatory,
and, as facts have proved, most abortive and con-
temptible, negotiations. It is rather, as we have
before remarked, in a spirit of reproach, than: in