The Sun.
London, England, 1854-06-26 00:00:00

THE PRINCIPALITIES.

" VIENNA, Monday Morning.—The night be-
fore last the Russian reply to the Austrian Note
reached Vienna.

"It is to the effect that, as a mark of high
consideration for Austria, Russia consents to eva-
cuate the Turkish territories."
Can it be that it was in anticipation of
this announcement the Earl of ABERDEEN ob-
served with such sinister emphasis on Monday
evening last, when spaking of Peace—" We
may look to the attainment of that great object in
a shorter time than many Noble Lords seem to
think, probable." It is suspicious. A " shorter"
time ? Scarcely a week has elapsed after the
" forty years' friend" of the Emperor NICHOLAS
has given utterance to that significant
sentence of foreboding when we receive
the above abrupt intimation that the CZAR has
consented to evacuate the Principalities ! Again
we say it is suspicious.

If itlhave ever been advisable for the people o
England to be prudent and watchful, it behoves
them to be so now ! After the massacre of Sinope,
and a doubled income tax, and two years of
trouble and disquietude, and the prolonged
devastation of the provinces, and the fit-
ting out of enormous fleets for the Baltic
and the Euxine, and the despatch of expeditionary
airnies from England and France to the seat-of-war
"'is all to be hushed up through our complacently
al-loving Russia to escape by the evacuation of the
Principalities? N •
Nut without infamy both to the
French and to the English Governments ! No.
The conditions of the are somewhat
weightier and. some. h t
w a . more, considerable.
Russia must be compelled. to give pecuniary
indemnity to Turkey for the devastation of
the Danubian Principalities. The CZA.R must
be compelled to yield adequate compensation
for the expenses of the war not only to the Sublime
to the maritime
Porte, but also allies of the
Ottoman Government. Beyond this, prowl_
tionary measures must be adopted in regard to
the future. Whether the Crimea should be
•
re-
stored to the SULTAN, and Finland to the lima
-
of Norway and Sweden, and Russia be com
polled to disgorge other robberies from her
immediate neighbours—must yet, of course, be
decided. But at any rate two conditions no less
'remarkable than these are already quite obvious and
.indisputable. The opening up of the river Danube
and the opening up of the Black Sea to the'whole
world's navigation. Sue:i are the manifest and
absolutely essential co4ditioi of peace with
.Russia, and not the mere evacuation' of the
Principalities.

This evening the Prime Minister of England is
to favour the country with his Explanation. It
remains to be seen whether this explanation will
amount to a distinct recantation. Unless my
- r Lord ABERDEEN consent to the unwholesome ne-

*cessity of eating bia 9WII words--a revolting nc-
Issiei it must ba confeaaed—Wa ca of for the

life of us understand how it is he undertakes to
remove what he calls the " misapprehensions"
prevalent in regard to some of his recent, and,
by this time sufficiently notorious, observations.
Misapprehensions ? Why, the language lately
addressed to the House of Peers by the First
Lord of the Treasury, was altogether so plain and
obvious in its meaning that it never for one
instant admitted of the slightest possibility of
being at all misunderstood. What was that lan-
guage ? It is worthy of being particularly brought
again before the notice of the public, now
that we are close upon the sitting of the Upper
House appointed for the Earl of ABERDEEN'S
promised explanation. Listen ! Again and again,
we say, mark ! and observe well what were those
words—those deplorable words, deplorable as com-
ing from the lips of the Prime Minister of Eng-
land—those notable and notorious words, the
meaning of which Lord ABERDEEN is going to
explain in the House of Peers this evening, those
words, in regard to which the Premier has re-
cently averred, there have been so many curious
misapprehensions. Now mark !
After having observed "we shall direct our
efforts to maintain, as far as reasonable [note the
modulation and reservation !] what is called the

security of Europe," Lord ABERDEEN, in that
miserable speech of his, which followed the very
noble and patriotic orations of Lords LYNDHURST,
DERBY, and CLARENDON, added—" that peace of
Europe which I cannot say I feel is very much en-
dangered by the chance of success of Russian ag-
gression." Is there any room, here, we ask, for
the slightest degree of misapprehension ? Again
we declare that words like these can only by pos-
sibility be " explained away," so to speak, by a
distinct and deliberate recantation.

Moreover—speaking of the treaty concluded
twenty-five years ago between Russia and Turkey,
speaking of the disgraceful Treaty'of Adrianople,
under cover of moving for a despatch in regard to
which Lord ABERDEEN is to-night going to clutch
desperately at the last straw of a seeming oppor-

tunity of explanation the Prime Minister
of England remarked—" I say, considering the
position of the Russian army at the gates of Con-
stantinople, the treaty of Adrianople did not show
on the part of Russia any great desire for terri-
torial aggrandisement. And what has happened
since ? That treaty was signed twenty-five years
ago, and since that time has Russia acquired a
single inch of Turkish territory ?—has Russia been
engaged in any hostilities at all with Turkey ?
None in the world. The only interference Russia
had with Turkey was to save the existence of the
Turkish Empire, by sending a Russian army to
Constantinople to protect it against the Egyptian
invasion. That is all that has h ippened since the
Treaty of Adrianople. Now, give me leave to say
that the Treaty of Adrianople was signed twenty-
five years ago, and no war, 'no aggression, has
taken place ; but, on the other hand, signal ser-
vice has been rendered by Russia to Turkey. I
think that if we can secure the same result for

__-
! twenty-five yedrs to come, we shall not do amiss,
and that, I believe, is the object which we ought
to have in view.'! Recollect that these are the
words, not of NESSELRODE, but of ABERDEEN ! The
statesman who uttered them, to use the memora-
ble expressions once employed upon a different
occasion, and in regard to a very different
personage, by my Lord JOHN RUSSELL, the states-
man who uttered these words was—" not the
Minister of Russia, or the Minister of Austria, or
the Minister of Prussia, but [save the mark] the
Minister of England." These are the words, in
fact, that my Lord ABERDEEN is going to-night in
the House of Peers to explain—these aro the
words, in regard -to which ho says there have been
so many and such extraordinary misapprehensions.
Do they admit of misapprehension ?—Examine
_

them syllable by syllable, sentence after sentence,
and ask yourselves, can tliz;y admit of misappre-
hension ? We maintain they do Not ! We insist
that they no more admit of misapprehension than
those wonderfully contrasting declarations which
had previously fallen from the lips of the Earl of
CLAILENDON—" We must now give Russia to un-
derstand that all Europe is not to be disturbed—
that great interests are not to be dislocated—that
nations aro not to have fresh burdens imposed
upan them—that great social, political, and com-
mercial risks are not to be incurred—and, above
all, that the greatest powers in Europe are not to
be united for any insignificant result. I think
we are all agreed that in this case any mere tem-
porary repression would only postpone the danger
by which we have been threatened, and that safety
can only be sought in measures which shall pre-
vent its recurrence." The language of the Foreign
Secretary was resolutely expressive of the deter-
mination of England and France to avenge the
injustice done to Turkey by the CZAR, and to extort
adequate guarantees for the futuro from the
Russian Government. Whereas- the language of
the Prime Minister was equally expressive of—
what ? A panegyric upon that same Russian Go-
vernment ! An' earnest encomium on its modera-
tion, on its good faith, and on its pacific intentions !
Otherwise how could the Premier inquire whether,
since 1829, Russia has engaged in any hostilities
with Turkey ? And himself reply at once to the
inquiry—" None in the world !" Otherwise how
could Lord ABERDEEN maintain so very earnestly
that the Treaty of Adrianople did not show on the
part of Russia anygreat desire for territorial aggran-
disement ? Nay, it was in this spirit of encomium
upon the moderation evinced by Russia in her con-
duct towards TURKEY that Lord ABERDEEN insisted
on the 19th instant, in the House of Lords, that
Russia had secured to herself no territorial acqui-
sitions at the expense of Turkey through the
medium of that same notable Treaty of Adrianople.
When that Treaty was signed, argued my Lord
ABERDEEN, in his character as thepanegyrist of Rus-
sian moderation—" no acquisition of Turkish terri-
tory was made by Russia." Now, what, let us
ask for a moment, was in reality the nature of
this same Treaty of Adrianople ?
Sir ARCHIBALD ALISON, the historian of modern
Europe, has called it emphatically in one of his
latest volumes—ALlsoN has called the Treaty of
Adrianople " one of the most glorious in the,
Russian, one of the most disastrous in the Turk-
ish, annals." (Vol iii., p.. 358.) And no wonder.
For by this treaty, which, according to Lord
ABERDEEN, secured "no acquisition of Turkish
territory to Russia"—behold what .was actually
accomplished ! .
Moldavia and Wallachia were evacuated, it is
true, by the Russian army, as well as were also
those portions of Bulgaria and Roumelia which
had been seized during the campaigns of 1828
and 1829 by the invading Muscovites. But the
Delta of the Danube, the islands formed by the
Mouths of that groat river, were " retained" by
Russia ! And while the CZAR thus secured to
himself, through this apparently insignificant but
really
important acquisition of Turkish territory
in Earope, he acquired a great deal more by the
same treaty, but in a more flagrant man-
fromne among the SULTAN'S Asiatic do-
minions.
Russia thereby obtained, in fact,
fortresses in Asia Minor as valuable as—Anapa,
and Akhaltsikh, and Alzkow, and Ak-
and Poll,
halkalaki. Let that be carried in remembrance
—let it be especially borne in mind that, while
Russia secured Brailow and a tract of country
lower down in European Turkey, she obtained
besides other fortresses in
Asiatic Turkey., the
,
ashalik of Akhaltsikh by the Treaty
that Treaty of Adrianople
offo Aredsrsiaannodpre
which my Lord
ABERDEEN declared secured to
Russia t 4 no acquisition of Turkish territory''
--at any rate, none to speak of ! And
opc as the model for
is now held up to Eur
this Treaty of Adrianople is actually what
the terms of a new pacification. If we obtain
peace with Russia upon any terms like that we
are told by Lord ABERDEEN) that we shall not
" do amiss
.We shall not "do amiss" if we end
the present iv 4
with. Turkey by a treaty like that