The Sun.
London, England, 1840-07-24 00:00:00

EVENING EL'lrrlol.q.

AFFAIRS OF THE EAST.

(From a distinguished Correspondent.)
The affairs of the East have within these few days un-

:-?,.onc a most important change, and have been hurried
-.to a headlong career, where the least untoward move-
.cnt way produce results fat,l to the equilibrium and har-
i,my of European Powers. This state of things is merely
e consummation of the short-sighted presumption of the
resent Secretary for Foreign Affairs; and CU this occa-
on he is said fur ()Lee to have met with the moststrenu-
_ .

resistance from his colleagues in the:Council, which
aa only overcome by the threat of his resignation. The
pneussion even of this small mutation, a mere rope of sand
te the present Ministry could not withstand, and the
oreign :S,..e•ret,-v iriamphed.
The French Government have always held the epinion
!at to withstand the utter dissolution of the Ottoman
;mpire,uuder the• increasing pressure of northern ambi•
3n, it was necessary to strengthen the emasculated power
the young Padischah by a bulwark formed of the feuda-
ry
empire of Mehemet Ali, reduced, however, to its just
As it became daily more palpable that the youth-
• Sultan (a mere shuttlecock betwixt an ignorant Sul-
'ia mother and a treacherous Minister) could not
)1(1 firm an empire which had escaped the grasp of
Is potent and gifted father, and as Mehemet Ali
3uld be interested in the further inviolability of
-.0 Ottoman rule, and in not changing from a
-ble to a more dread northern liege lord—under
,:;:se circumstances, we say, the policy of France in this
,pect has daily acquired fresh adherents. Consequently,
en M. Guizot, the most honest, and perhaps the most
•'red, of French Statesmen, came to infuse new vigour
the negotiations, his success was apparently beyond
most sanguine hopes, whilst the displeasure of his
)rtbern colleague was no less palpable. However, our
._,r.2jg,n Secretary had still a tendency, like all little
ends, to fall back into his old limited habits of ratiocina-
,n; and, when his self-love was fired by the dexterous

ogestion that the soluthm of the great question would
attributed to the French representative, then Lord
'almersto-n is said once more to have doggedly embraced
; ee most opposite course.
We have already stated how, we hear, he overcame the
istance of his time-serving colleagues. Alarmed at
concessions proffered by Mehemet Ali to the Sultan,
• „ich might have led to immediate reconciliation, Lord
Irneriton issued instructions to Lord Ponsonby to keep
by all means the feud betwixt the liege lord and his
vassal, and to exalt the expectations of the former,
pointing out the probable effects of the Syrian insurrec-
un, of which we know who fanned the dimes ! In the
tvcantime we are told (what is of paramount importance)
:',at Lord Palmerston has signed a compact with Austria,
'russia, and Russia, not on opposed to and excluding
Ne'rance, but unknown to the latter Power until signed
• ;lad acted upon. The result of this compact is, that
.erms are to be dictated to the Pacha worse than before
'.L:e battle of Nezib, giving him only a few days to accept
:r refuse. After the lapse of that time still worse con-
riitions are to be proposed for his acceptance; and, if after
-11 e expiration of a month he has not complied, the will of
the Conference is to be enforced vi et arwis.
And now comes the consideration of the effect of this
compact. The success of its measures is only to be ex-
pected
from the insurrection in Syria. For that quarter
the English fleet has sailed : but there also will arrive the
'French fleet, and the Egyptian with an army abroad.
The departure of these troops has diminished the military
force disposable near Alexandria for the invasion by
the Pacha of the Sultan's remaining empire. But, on
the other hand, the Pacha, with the genius of a States-
man, and a determination equal to every emergency, with
one glance has seen that he cannot hold all he had em-
braced in his sway, and has clearly distinguished where the
vital struggle for his empire must be fought. He is con-
sequently said to have recalled at once all the troops dis-
persed over his recent gigantic conquests in Arabia, &c.
The game to be played by France is now evident. She has
only to encourage the Pacha to a determined resistance :
then coercive measures will be resorted to. England can
only employ her fleet to bombard some maritime towns
and capture the Pacha's fleet, if that of France will re-
main a passive spectator ; and we hear that M. Thiers
has most emphatically stated some time back to the re- ,
presentatives of the Powers that nothing could be more
erroneous than the belief that France would remain phy-
f;ically passive, and use only moral means, whatever might
Be this as it may, the effective means of coercion
are in the hands of Russia alone. The Pacha's forces,
on the first attack, may advance, and another battle
of Nezib be fought and won. Thereupon the Rus-
sian army kept in readiness will drop down the con-
quered channel to Constantinople. The folly of
Lord Palmerston will then bare reached its climax and its
consummation, and, if the hitherto slugglish public spirit
of England hold still any sway, Lord Palmerston and his
colleagues will sink to rise no more. But they will leave
behind a legacy of irretrievable evil. Even now it is seen
that the union of France and England, which the Whigs
once boasted of so much as the grand counterpoise to the
aristocratical Powers in the European equilibrium, is anni-
hilated. Austria, who is the natural ally of England, and has
common interest against Russia, is thrown back into the arms
of this great Power, which she cannot contradict, unsup-
ported, requiring, as she does, the moral effect of an al-
liance with the Autocrat to control her Hungarian and
other turbulent lieges at home, whilst she strains herself
to keep down her Italian subjects at a distance. Prussia,
left by the Congress of Vienna a narrow riband of hete-
rogeneous States straggling across the map of Europe,
without natural force of aggregation or natural bulwarks
to her frontiers, is still less inclined to control her es-
seutial Russia, while England deserts her in-
terests. To those who may be inclined to doubt the
vices of Russia, we recommend their reading the
erruhatic words of the great Russian historian :
" The object and character of our policy has inva-
riably been to seek to be at peace with everybody, and to
fr.,alic conquests without war ; always keeping ourselves on
the defensive ; placing no faith in the friendship of those
•svliose interests do not accord with our own, and losing
zlo oppr_rtunity of injuring them without ostensibly break-
g our treat es with them."
We have thought it right to give circulation to the
ril,eve article, in the style and spirit of which skilful rea-
der,: wiil he able to detect diplomatic sagacity and tact.
At i 3 our duty to say that it does not proceed from any
Source that cLn be supposed to be identified with the in-

t;r9sts of Mehemet Ali. The facts asserted in the above
article are, we believe, unquestionable; but for its argu-
ments or its tone we do not wish to declare ourselves rc-
oubible.l-11foriting Post.