The Sun.
London, England, 1856-08-15 00:00:00

Spirit of the I)ublic Journals.

(From the Times of this day.)
Russia, though with a new Emperor and fresh
opportunities, seems far from disposed to enter the
path of reform. The ok;stinate and sulleu spirit
still lives—humiliations are, it would appear, al-
most already forgotten, and both Czar and people
are as ready as ever to plaay the old game of pride,
violence, and cunning, which was successful for
more than 150 years. But we cannot think that
at the present time such a display will be success-
ful. Common prudence would advise a more gra-
dual and less demonstrative return to the assump-
tions and menaces of former days. It is but a few
months since Russia accepted the terms of peace
proposed through Austrian mediation. At that
time we were told by the Russian press in Europe
of the sincerity and moderation of the Czar. To
believe certain prints and certain politicians, Russia
was a land of good faith, and her unambitious
people were lost in astonishment at the designs im-
puted to them by the misguided Cabinets of the
West. About last February, when the represen-
tatives of Europe were to meet in Paris, the tone
of every Russian organ was most magniloquent and
high-minded. Peace, good will to all men, popular
instruction, railways, canals, improved agriculture,
free trade, were in the heart of every Russian. A
smile of good-humoured pity was the answer to
those who hinted that Muscovite policy might still
remain unchanged, and that it would be as well to
take guarantees while we wore still strong, united,
and in earnest. All this lasted until peace was
made, and Russia obtained conditions with which
she had no reason to be dissatisfied. Now, how-
ever, all is changed. Cronstadt is no longer
threatened ; Poland is for ever abandoned by
the West, and will be fully Russianised be-
fore war again visits Europe ; Bessarabia, with
the exception of a narrow slip, is preserved ;
the Caucasus still remains a Russian possession.
The Czar is about to be crowned with much
splendour, and all Europe is flocking to the sight.
Russia is again taking hor stand as a great Power,
and is no longer a vast prison, with a Sovereign,
nobility, and people placed under the ban of thq
world. Hence the old, inveterate obstinacy, re-
vives ; the old cunning is once more to be tried to
discover if it can, as of yore, command success.
There can be no doubt of the unwillingness of
Russia to cede quietly and honourably what has
become by treaty the property of the Ottoman
State. We shall, perhaps, have it explained with
many details that the difficulties we complain of
were unavoidable ; that the destruction of Kars
and the Danubian forts was strictly legal, and that
the occupation of Serpents Island was only some
transaction connected with the lighthouse. But
facts still remain on record. It is certain that the
conduct of the Russians has induced England again
to occupy the Black Sea. The Hannibal has been
sent to Serpents Island, and sufficient intimation
has been given that in the opinion of the allies
something like a breach of faith has taken place.
Compare the conduct of France and England with
that of their late enemy. The allies had more than
250,000 men in the East. They had prepared, far
from their own country, immense stores of food,
clothing, and warlike material, in expectation of
long hostilities. Every man and horse and gun
had to be brought away by sea, at a time when
transport was scarce and dear. Yet in four months,
two-thirds of the time allowed, not only the Crimea
but Turkey itself has been cleared of the allied
troops. We learn from Constantinople to-day that
after the departure of a flotilla then about to sail
scarcely a thousand Frenchmen would be left in
Turkey. Our own naval and military establish-
ments have been broken up, and soon Scutari
will retain no traces of us except the graves of
the dead and the monument which commem-
orates them. This promptness, so honourable to
both nations, has not been imitated by Russia.
Although Kars is but some 30 miles from her own
frontier, and held but by a few thousand men, she
is there still, destroying works, cutting down fo-
rests, refusing English officers the right of visiting
the spot, and, during her little term of power,
playing the despot after the fashion of Warsaw or
Tiflis. The same is the case at the mouth of the
Danube. Russian troops are still there, and will
remain until the latest day allowed by treaty, with
perhaps the desperate hope that something will
happen to enable them to refuse the cession alto-
gether. The part of Bessarabia which is to be
added to the principalities is still in Russian hands,
and the Czar raises doubts on the topography,
and would, as far as may be judged, from appear-
ances, gladly evade the condition which for the
first time causes his frontier to recede.
We do not certainly think that any practical re-
sult will follow from these litigious and undigni-
fied displays. The other Powers are far too much
in earnest to allow any trifling in matters of such
importance. It will be observed that Austria,
who perhaps knows her neighbour better than we
do, has not yet evacuated the Principalities, al-
though she ought to have done so some time since.
She is, no doubt, waiting until Russia shall have
performed her part of the engagement. That when
the end of the six months comes we shall see the
Russians unwillingly depart is certain enough.
We may in future times have to watch their de-
signs for the recovery of their former territory, but
that they will acquiesee for the present we know,
because we have the power to enforce it. But the
spirit of the Court of St. Petersburg is not the less
apparent. It can hardly be to impose on civilised
nations that the Russian Sovereign makes this
display of impoeut obstinacy. Indeed, the im-
pressions it must leave on Europeans is rather
that Russia is weaker and more sorely wounded
than was thought. To see her lingerinr, at the
spot she must leave, and performing acts of paltry
tyranny till the last, cannot raise her in the eyes of
German or Italian. But it may be that on some
ignorant and confiding races the spectacle of her
armed occupation after the Allies have left the
East may have an influence. If she holds Kars
after France and England have withdrawn their
armies from Constantinople, the fact may be ex-
pla,ined consistently with Russian interests among
nations to whom Russia alone speaks. Neverthe-
less, in the end such subterfuges can be of little
avail, and the conduct of Russia, by destroying
any nascent feeling of confidence among the Wes-
tern nations, will bring on her evils far over-
balancing any advan'ages which a dilatory evacua-
tion call procure.

(Fi•ora the Atily News of this day.)
One day in the year 1788, a thoughtless
"Middy" was leaning over the bulwark of his ship,
then anchored off Shithead, listlessly gazing into
the water. H-is captain, who had been pacing the
deck, all at once stopped short, tapped him on the.
shoulder, anti pointing to some ships sailing past,
said—" Mark those vessels, young man ; they
carry in them the germ of.a mighty empire." The
vessels the captain pointed to were the small
squadron in which was embarked the first batch of
convicts sent to " Botany Bay." -
The "Middy" to whom the prophetic words were
addressed still lives, an honoured veteran. Year '
after year passed away, and the future empire
seemed in no haste to develope itself. In 1810—
twenty-two years after the floating prisons had
passed Spithead—New South Wales had only
10,000 inhabitants. In 1817 the summit of the
mountain range behind Sydney was crossed for the
first time. The exports from the colony were
Baal ; the imports wore convicts, rum, provisions,
and slops. The foundation of the colony had been,
like everything else done by an English Govern-
ment, a compromise. For some twenty years
before 178 S almost the only punishment-in Eng-
land for all sorts of crimes was the gallows. Men
and women were hanged for the most dangerous
and revolting crimes; boys and girls were hanged
for picking pockets of a few shillings. They were
strung up by the dozen or half-dozen at a time.
Men grew sick of this. The idea of reformatory
punishment dawned on their minds. Bentham
promulgated his scheme of a Panopticon. Minis-
ters shrunk aghast from such a daring innovation.
Then Mr. Eden came forward, with his scheme of
a penal colony. Before the American revolution a
considerable proportion of the crime-class of Eng-
land had been absorbed by the North American
colonies. A class of speculators had sprung up,
who took convicts off the hands of a Government
which knew not what to make of them, and sold
them to "the plantations. The young republic
refused to remain the moral dunghill of England,
add as no other way of disposing of the surplus
gaol-birds on hand occurred to the English Govern-
ment they were hanged up to get rid of them. On
this hint Mr. Eden spoke ; he would create a new
colony to receive the convicts, whose hangipg the
public would no longer tolerate. There was a pre-
cedent for this proposal, and that is all'in all with
English statesmen. Besides, it promised to_ relieve
them of the difficult practical question, what was
to be done with tho convicts when released from
prison. Eden's comprpmise between the gallows
and the Panopticon was snatched at and an Act
of Parliament was passed for the settlement of
" Botany Bay."
Having achieved this great feat the Government
and the Legislature sat down to take breath, and
thought no more of the experiment they had initi-
ated. The criminals, and the soldiers sent to guard
them, were left to shift for themselves. The spot
on which they settled was ill-adapted for tillage ;
and none of them had any notion of such employ-
ment. Year after year fresh gangs of convicts were
sent out. Prisoners and gaolers had alike to be
clothed and victualled from the old country. " Bo-
tany Bay," as it was long called—or Sydney—was
merely a larger prison, with an arid soil for floor,
and the (mail and sterile mountains for walls.