The Sun.
London, England, 1857-01-13 00:00:00

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(From the Morning Post.)
The two great Western Powers—England and 14 a.
Prauce—are doing all that in them ties for the
settlement of the quarrel with the Swiss Govern-
ment and his Majesty Frederick William I Y.,
Ring of Prussia. In so far as Switzerland is con-
cerned, the mediators will experience little diffi-
culty. The Swiss are a plain, serious-minded,
straightforward
people—truthful, steady, and well
principled. What they say they really mean,
and what they promise they will to the letter
perform. If they ho somewhat austere and
rigid, according to our notions, they are at the
same time honourable and scrupulous. Indepen-
dently of this, they aro for the most part staid and
sober men of business—taking no transcendenta
views of human affairs— having no high-flown
notions of prerogative, and no extravagant conceit
in their own power and wisdom. Pursuing what
is just as far as practicable, they are, as men of
shrewdness and sense, content with what is possible
and practicable. With such a nation, or their
representatives or public men, England and
France are sure to have no difficulties which may
not be immediately solved. But, with the other
belligerent, his Majesty Frederick William IV.,
the case is widely different. The King of Prussia,
unfortunately for himself, for his subjects, and for
Europe, is one of the most crotchetty, captious,
punctilious, and high-handed among prerogative
Sovereigns, with a most uneasy, because too full-
blown, sense of his own dignity and importance.
To be sure, the family is of the newest, and there
was only one really ,great man among them, old
Fritz, of conquering and martial memory ; .but
even this is no excuse for the fussy self-importance
of a monarch whose house—though of yesterday
compared with other princely houses—can count at
least four or five generations of kings.
The real fact is that the Monarch of Prussia has
more medileval scholarship than sound practical
common sense, and that he has been wholly apoiled
—partly by his half-mystical German education, and
partly by the long apprenticeship which lie served
to the Russian political system under Alexander,
who always had the whip-hand of him—an ascend-
ancy which the Russian Czar left to his brother and
successor, and the King's own brother-in-law, the
late Emperor Nicholas. With a monarch such as
this Prussian one—strange by nature,strange by edu-
cation, um bratile, capricious, wilful, yet not without
moments of speculative benevolence and kindliness
—benevolence which he uniformly denies himself the
luxury of putting into practice—it will be indeed
difficult to deal. Whenever his own personal va-
nity or ambition are concerned, or there is a pro-
bability of the extension of his power or authority,
or of his territory, the Persian King is utterly
unreliable—indeed, we may say faithless—and we
need but refer to his Majesty's conduct in 1848 and
1849 for proof of the fact. Under the pressure of
the rampant German democracy in 1848, and with
a view to his election as Emperor of all Germany,
he gave to Prussia a constitution one of the most
democratic in Europe. The equality of Prussians
was proclaimed before the law ; guarantees of free-
dom of the person were afforded ; every Prussian
was allowed the right to express his ideas freely,
orally, by the printing press and by artistical de-
signs ; the secrecy of letters was held to be in-
violable ; offences in diffusing ideas were cognisable
only by the general penal code ; feudal tenures,
family entails, and privileges of rank were all abo-
lished ; and Prussians paying 245., who had resides
for six weeks, wore to vote as primary electors.
So soon, however, as the King saw that his elec-
tion as German Emperor was hopeless, and that
the tide was turning against democracy, his ardour
for this democratic constitution cooled, and we need
not say no trace of it now exists or has existed in
Prussia for many a long day.
Nor did the King only play thus fast and loose
with his own people. He was as false to his brother
monarchs as his own subjects, and was willing to
become an Emperor of a German Empire from
which Austria was to be excluded. Instead of avail-
ing himself of Scandinavian or Sclavonian sympa-
thies, and making the Danes and the Poles his
natural allies, he taught the Danes, by his unprin-
cipled aggression ou Schleswig, to look rather
towards Russia, and the Poles to consider Prus-
sians as much their enemies as the Russians them-
selves. The King of Prussia, in truth, by his
perverse policy, had the unenviable and bad dis-
tinction of making Poland a bulwark for Russia
against Germany, instead of making her a bulwark
for Germany against Russia. But the worst pas-
sage in this King's career was his enthusiastic
encouragement of his soldier-subjects in their
attack on Schleswig-Holstein. In this the Prussian
monarch was governed by mixed motives of the
very lowest kind. His first desire was to enhance
his own popularity, to increase his own power and
territory, and, above all, to filch a seaport, or
even a portion of the seashore, from Denmark.
Denmark had repeatedly refused to join the Prus-
sian Zollverein, and such was the revenge taken on
her by a King who professes to be deeply pene-
trated with the Evangelical spirit, and who him-
self homilises (if we may coin a word) with unction
on matters best left to the regular ministers of every
Christian faith. With a monarch of this peculiar
character, whose career since 1848 has been wholly
guided by vaulting, yet insensate, ambition, or by
unprincipled cupidity for the territory, towns, sea-
board, and fleets of other States, it will be ex-
tremely difficult for mediators to deal. England
and France must remember that the very selfsame
Frederick, who clamours now so lustily for his
sacred and divine rights as Prince of Neuchatel
and Valengin, is the selfsame King who, in the
streets of Berlin, bellowed forth Hoch ! for the
sacred cause of German Nationality. Hoch 1 for
a German Empire of which he was to be himself
the head. .Hoch I for a German Fleet, of which
this landlubber representative of Teuton turgid.
ness was to have the guide, usufruct, and direc-
tion, the actual command to be entrusted to a
Prussian Admiral—such a thing being unknown
in nature or art, on land or at sea. Such is one of
the parties between whom the two most powerful
nations in the world have to arbitrate, and whom
they have to satisfy in making an award. That
England and France can and will satisfy Switzer-
land, no one doubts ; but who believes that they
can or will satisfy Frederick William IV. That
Monarch, in his cloud-capped mystical fits, firmly
believes that his sway is purely theocratic, and that
all his princely privileges are perfectly sacrosanct.
Long protocols and diffuse diplomatic papers
will be dispersed through Europe from the offi-
cina of Potsdam, and we may be far advanced in
February ere this ceremonious Potentate shall have
stated his case. Meanwhile his punctilious pride
may be worked on by the Russian Court and the
Russian faction at Berlin, so that these obstacles
must be boldly looked at by the powerful mediators.
We have little doubt that if the King of Prussia
plays this solemn game of antiquated jure divine
formalism, that he will be abandoned by all his
small satellites of Germany, and that his perversity
will be rebuked by Austria, who, on the Swiss
question, as on the question of Bolgrad and the
Isle of Serpents, has played a wise and fitting part.
But there remains in the background Russia, who,
as Sir J. Malco:m's schoolmaster said of his early
pupil, "is at the bottom of every mischief." With
England, and France, and Austria of one mind,
however, in reference to Switzerland, Europe may
well disregard the manceuvres of Russia. It is
stated by our Paris Correspondent that the Federal
Council of Switzerland (supposing always that
Prussia renounces the sovereignty of Neuchatel) is
desirous of knowing when, and at what precise
epoch, the King will do so ? This is a wise and
prudent precaution, and serves to show that the
Federal Council well know their man—we cannot
say know their King—for the King of Prussia
never was even King of Neuchatel.
One thing alone is clear in this imbroglio, and
that is, letahe King of Prussia be in what humour
he may, England, France, and Austria will
prevent a single Prussian soldier from entering
Switzerland.

r PRICE 41). STAMPED

RUSSIA AND THE CIRCASSIANS.

- ---....--.-....

(From the Morning Herald.)
The Rus,4ans are at their old game with the
Circassians, and, if the intelligence recently re-
ceived be correct, have lost the last move. There
has been, it would seem, a great battle at Bayuk,
iii which the Russians came to the attack with
10,000 men, and were defeated, with the loss of
nearly 2,000, besides several guns. Further de-
tails aro wanting ; but enough is known to satisfy
all devout believers iu the moderation and inoffen-
sive character-of Russia, that, if ever she suspends
her military operations, it is in order to prepare
for more extensive and effective operations, and
that she is as intent to-day in removing the Circas-
sian barrier as she has been at any time since 1783,
when she occupied the country between the bend
of the Don and the northern' slopes of the Cau-
casus. The Paris Conference has completed its
work we are told—the neutralisation of the Black
Sea being one of its ostensible objects ; but to say
nothing of other advantages and opportunities en-
joyed by Russia for regaining her command over
those waters, she has been permitted to retain all
the places of strength on the coast of Abasia ; and
the Russian plenipotentiary, at the moment that
he affixed his signature to the recent protocol,
knew perfectly well that a Russian army was on
foot in Circassia, and that it is the hardly-con-
cealed intention of the Russian Government to get
hold of the eastern seaboard of the Euxine, if they
are not already in full possession of it. Now, of
this intention the British Government hashad
abundant notice. Before the treaty of peace was
concluded Lord Palmerston was asked whether
the forts on the coast of Circassia were to be re-
stored to Russia, and the consequences certain to
ensue from such a policy were at the same time
fully pointed out.--the -First Minister replied,
that there was nothing to apprehend from the
restoration of the forts in question to the Rus-
sians, and, therefore, that no provision would
be made respecting them in the treaty. It appears
that Russia has profited by the consideration
manifested by her recent foes. Not only are those
forts now garrisoned by Russians, but Russian
cruisers watch the coast, and but the other day
committed so serious an outrage upon Turkish
commerce as to call for the interference of our
admiral in the Black Sea. We are at a loss to
comprehend how the common sense of Englishmen
can be imposed upon by provisions so hollow as
those of the treaty of March, glossed over though
they be by the specious language of my Lord Pal-
merston. So far as the neutralisation of the Black
Sea is concerned, if by that term is meant its free-
dom from Russian control, except that the fleet at
Sebastopol has been suck, and some time must
elapse before that which is now being built at
Nicolaieff is fit for sea, there is nothing that we
know of to prevent Russia dominating as before
in the " interior waters" of Turkey. All the
places we had wrested from her we have delibe-
rately restored. In exchange for the nominal
freedom of the Danube we consented to replace
her in all her positions of offence from Odessa to
the Don, and from the Don to Fort San Nicholas.
We all know that Russia never yet respected a
treaty when it was her interest to break it, and,
when we have not only applied the incentive but
afforded the ready opportunity for violating her
latest engagement, we are led to believe that she
will be peculiarly sensitive respecting it. There
is something almost incredible in the credulity
of Englishmen ; but they are commonly shrewd
enough in the ordinary affairs of life, especially
when their pockets are touched. The late war
has cost the country one hundred millions, to
say nothing of the sacrifice of human life. This
price was paid cheerfully, because it was be-
lieved that we had arrested the danger and
the nuisance arising from Russian aggression.
What if that money might as well have been sunk
in the waters of the Black Sea itself for any sub-
stantial benefit which has or is likely to arise from
the expenditure ? What, if five years hence Russia
has more than repaired all her losses, laughs at the
production of the Paris Congress, as she laughs at
this moment at our credulity, and once more lords
it in the south, if she does not strike home that
long-meditated blow at the city of the Sultan with
a rapidity and success which will astonish Western
Europe t
There aro public writers who, to carry on the
farce, tell us that the moral effect of the war has
told against Russia amongst the nations of Europe
—that it has controlled her aggressive policy, and
taught the wild feudatories of Central Asia to doubt
the invincibility of her arms. This teaching may
suit the views of those who resort to it, but it has
no foundation in fact. The result of the late cam-
paigns, especially the defence of Sebastopol, are
considered throughout Europe as eminently credit-
able to Russia, and have raised her military cha-
racter to the same extent that they have depressed
our own. She is looked upon throughout the Con-
tinent as having maintained a conflict single-handed
against the two most powerful nations of Western
Europe, aided by states of known gallantry and
even of military renown ; and as having retired
from the struggle with dignity and honour. As
to the people of Asia, we need only refer to the
fall of Kars, and the more recent movements along
the Caspian, in proof of the absurdity and false-
hood of any suggestion of their loss of confidence
in the mighty Czar. We repeat what we have as-
serted, that we have lost not only money, but re-
putation by the war, and that the peace is a trans-
parent imposition, and we have only to hope that
the representatives of the people will demand from
fills Government a statement of what we have
gained by our war expenditure so far, before they
consent to the continued imposition of a war tax.

tHenEmndaußdncutOhsrYi
oAnigL dissatisfactiongtYACHTohoelated c 1 a
iAwt
n Pas Pr :fhb:
arzyr
ssbe
lieutenants
n
to,
iughness the Prince of Leiningen to fill the vacancy in
there APPOINTMENTS,—We
Tca e.sWoccasioned
performed
selection ofu hn ids
e amongSnepte nno dor
the Royal Yacht. If we understood that the appoint-
ment in question was considered in the light of a royal
nomination, we are not so disloyal as to permit a breath
of discontent to dull our pages with reference to it, but
for some time the yacht has been given to officers on an-
count of good service claims. The senior at present in
the yacht is Lieut. Dalyell, who lest an arm in attempt.
ing to storm the Redan ; and although a young officer,
no one fomtd fault with the selection, since, but for this,
he might have remained a lieutenant all his life, in conse•
quence of his personal disability. His serene highness, on
the other band, was sure of promotion at no distant
period, from his exalted rank, and his late:appointment
has the effect, therefore, of needlessly depriving some
officer not equally blessed with a title of the chance of
gaining merited advancement.— United Service Gazette.
BIRMINGHAM AND MIDLAND INSTITUTE.—The annual
meeting of the subscribers of the above institution was
held at the rooms yesterday at noon ; the Right Hon. thi
Earl of Dartmouth, president of the society, in the chair.
The report was of a satisfactory character, the numbSs
of students in the various departments having consider.
ably increased during the present year,
and the indus.
trial classes had been almost seltisupporting. The nen4
building now in course of erection is expected' to be,
completed within the time specified, but several thousand
pounds are still required to complete the amount. The
Right Hon. Lord Hatherton was elected president for
the ensuing year.
CRYSTAL PALAGIL—One Shilling Day.—Monday,
Jan. 12.—Admissions on payment, 3,016 ; do. by BOABOI2
tickets 832 ; total visitors, 4,448.