The Sun.
London, England, 1836-02-22 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Our readers will easily conceive that the play of
Hamlet, with.the part of Hamlet left out, would be
about as perfect a dramatic representation as the
comedy now playing by the Tory party, with the
" omission of the part of Peel. N the minor
characters of the drama, the Tories undoubtedly mus-
ter strong. The Guildenstierns and Rosencrantzes
are to be found in great abundance. The competitors
even for the higher role of Polonius are sure to be
found in considerable profusion, among a party which
boasts of so many excellent " natural" copies of the
great original. Claudius and Gertrude, also, may
not be without worthy and fitting representatives,
though Ophelias are somewhat more difficult to find ;
but what substitute can there be for Hamlet? With-
out Peel, my Lords and Gentlemen, what can you
do ? Will you venture upon meeting the audience with
your principal performer absent, or will you pack up
your " properties," and embarking your fortunes in the
Derby dilly, adopt some new plot, and indulge in the
pleasant dreams of more successful combinations ?
But be not altogether down-hearted. What if the
Duke stays away ? you have Roden and London-
deny in the Lords ; and if Peel recedes, does not
Stanley come forward ? And have you not a Hardy
and a , Walter, whose eloquence, both transcendant

(see Standard), leaves it only doubtful which of them
is entitled to be pronounced the greatest orator of mo-

dern times ? You are beat in Parliament, and have

lost your strong holds in a few score Corporations
but you have incorporated the " Dilly" in your ranks
The Carlton Club is entirely yours, and you can hire
Exeter Hall whenever you choose to engage the
M'Ghees and O'Sullivans to stir up " No Popery,
and cry down National Education ; and if Peel and
Wellington and Lyndhurst-will not countenance your
schemes—if they absent themselves from your -benches
in Parliament, and your banquets out of it—if they are
absent when you want their:aid, and silent when their
voice is required in the darling cause of bigotry
and ignorance--if they refuse- to- -mix up .. personal
motives with political hostility, and keep aloof at
the very time when a grand effort is to be Maths
to crush- a much dreaded -and powerful- individual,
upon the most contemptible- of pretexts—if your
internal differences are becoming more and more
obvious to the public, and your ranks thinning from
desertions—still you have the Royal _Prince, -and the
English Deputy, and the Orangemen of two islands.
Many Lords and Bishops will still follow your banner;
the Agnews and the. Inglises, and The Percevals, will
hardly forsake you, and you have the prejudices of
three-Universities, and *the bigotry and ignorance of
the whole empire, arrayed with certainty on ycur side.
.Your prospects, therefore, are not wholly destroyed,
and hope, with a sanguine temperament, may still
shadow forth to you dreams of Government when the
virtues of Cumberland, the wisdom of Londonderry,
and the comprehensive intellect of Roden, and Kenyon,
and Winchilsea,Shall be properly estimated, andsvhen
Stanley shall, perhaps, supply the place abandoned by
Peel. At all events, it would be inhuman for us to
deny the " pleasures of hope" to. a party whialv
entirely devoid of every other geroundeof-consolat:on.
Morning Chronicle.
The subject brought before. the house of CornMeos
on Friday last by Lord Dudley Stusr.:, was one of
the highest importance to the 'coinniercial interests,
the colonial possessions, and the greatness and pose-r
of the British empire, both in Europe. and Asie TF:c
schemes of conquest at the exiiel:s!3 or Staft•;,
so ably combined by Russia, an:l folowNl out
such skill, perseverance, and aliimung 1.1:-.)idav, demand
a deeper and more effectual -a'ti.'enfion._tlidnetl.l.4 hare
yet received from this country, or.Jritle-,ing.• by apisso-
- ances, from the Government, The -pouitssdeseiVino,
of notice with regard to RiiiSiar are ‘Try Alumerotis:and
very grave ; nor can they isee even enumerated, much
less expounded, in the course of a brief newspaper article.
In little more than a single century Ii uSsia has grown
from a fifth-rate European Power, to one which is only
not of the first-rate, because"; in the eyes of
-many shrewd
observers, she stands unrivalleed=.and alone. We do
not perhaps agree, not yet -at :least, with those who
regard the Muscovite empire as so pre-eminent, save in
_ _tile two attributes of vast extent_ and of gross and in-
creasing population. - But"no sane mind
that she is an ambitious and aggressive, artful and in-
sidious, most faithless, most unprincipled, and most
formidable Power—with aujacity and • euterpriSe to
undertake, anti with physical Means to execute, anv
project of self-aggrandizement, unrestrained -by the
slightest sense of moral discrimination between justice
and extreme atrocity. The modern history of Russia
is that of a State which has made one iniquitous en-
croachment the foundation of another, and has built
fresh claims against all'her neighbours upon the num-
ber and magnitude of the wrongs which she has already
perpetrated. She first violated the . public law of
Europe, by which she had bound herself to respect -the
rights of .the Pplish nation ; and then grounded on its
unsuccessful resistance to the infraction of those rights,
a claim to annihilate it as a distinct and recognized
race, which claim she has enfOrced :nis'otherwise than
by brute and savage power. Russia iu her proceedings
towards Turkey has manifested the same profligate and
odious design of making one oppression the means of
facilitating a second. Whatever. the 'shalloW and
foolish presumption of Mr. Poulett Thomson
may tempt him to put forth in Parliament
with a view to depreciate that curious and
authentic publication called the Portfolio, how-
ever he may pretend to disparaoe the Portfolio
as " absurd," the enlightened world will form a dif-
ferent judgment. If ever there was demonstration of
a political truth, it wag, contained in that despatch of
M. Pozzo di Borgo (Portfolio, No. 7), which, dis-
closing the apprehensions entertained by Russia of
the consequences of those great Turkish reforms set
on foot by the present Sultan, admitted that the last
war with the Porte had been precipitated, to disturb
and interrupt such reforms. Here, again, Russia
committed a crime—plunging two nations into blood
and misery, that one of them might be prevented
from making any progress towards civilization—fol-
lowing up that war by conditions of peace so grind-
ing, that the persecuted Sultan could never fulfil them
without total ruin—resforing the Russian treasury by
tyrannical pecuniary exactions from Turkey, in return
for a small mitigation of which Nicholas has retained,
contrary to the spirit of the treaty, a fortress which at
once lays open the heart of the Turkish empire to his
armies, and reserves to himself the command of the
Danube, not against the Turk alone, but against
all European Powers, Great Britain herself included.
In further prosecution of this criminal and 'outrageous
policy, Russia has since excited the rebellious Pasha
of Egypt to invade the Turkish territory in Asia
Minor; and, as the price of protecting the Grand
Seignor from the disastrous fruits of a conflict into
which she had betrayed him, extorted from his fears
the signature of an instrument, by which Turkey con-
sented to violate in favour of Russia the privileges
heretofore enjoyed by Great Britain and other States
under the express stipulations of treaty—viz., the in-
sulting convention of Hoonkiar 'Skelessi, according to
which Russia became, in fact, supreme Sovereign of
the Turkish waters, and arbitress of a question with
which previously she had never had the slightest con-
cern,—to wit, whether British men-of-war shoUld or
should not, have permission to navigate the Darda-
nelles and Euxine I Here, then, was a blow Osten:
sibly against Turkey, but improved into an offence
and outrage upon England, which it is in vain for
Lord Palmerston to varnish over by flippant apo-
looies or misconstructionss of the treaty itself, or
boastings of the power of England to vindicate her own
rights when threatened. We all know quite as well as
Lord Palmerston the intrinsic power of this great
country ; we all know that if fairly pitted against Rus-
sia, and with her force efficiently directed, she would
=ash tile head of the Tartar. Emperor against the
dockyard gates of Sebastopol, or the inmost defence of
Crnristadt. But the consideration here is, that there
will be no menaces beyond those which have been
already launched at Great Britain—that the object
will h ave been attained by Russia, and the victory
won before such shallow statesmen as Lord Palmerston
perceives.the approach of any imminent danger—that,
in And, we shall have been takenb y
seea
surprise.n y-
GQ forbid that rational Englishmen should
thisig in a general war, but an aggravation of all the
worst calamities with which our foreign prospects are