The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-03-28 00:00:00

THE RUSSIAN CORRESPONDENCE.

TirE secret and confidential correspondence between the
British and Russian governments, which took place in the
early part of last year, and the memorandum drawn up by
Count Nessolrode in June, 1844, have this week been pub-
lished, and laid before parliament, by the British govern-
ment. These remarkable documents fill nearly a page and
a half of the morning papers, and we can, therefore, find
room only for a brief summary of their contents.
It appears that, shortly after the Emperor of Russia's
visit to England, in 1844, Count Nesselrode transmitted
to the English cabinet a memorandum of conversations
held with, and proposals urged upon, the Duke of Wel-
lington, Sir R. Peel, and other English ministers, in which
the Emperor sought an understanding with England—
first, to maintain the existence of the Ottoman empire in
its present state, so long as that political combination
should be possible ; and, secondly, in the provision of its
dissolution, to enter into a previous concert as to every-
thing relating to a new order of things, so as to preserve
the rights of the various states of Europe, the faith of
treaties, and the balance of power. The two cabinets then
declared that they were mutually convinced that it is their
common interest that Turkey should retain her inde-
pendence and her existing territorial possessions ; that
they would unite their efforts to consolidate her existence,
and to avert dangers threatening to her safety ; and that
for this purpose it was essential to leave the Porte alone,
without uselessly harassing it by diplomatic embarrass-
ments, and without interfering, except in cases of absolute
necessity, in its internal affairs. Russia added, that it
was desirable not to allow the Porte to play off the dif-
ferent states of Europe
.B.iiist one another, but to main-
tain, as far as possible, the unanimity of the representatives
of the foreign powers, without assuming the character of
exclusive ascendancy.
This was in 1844. In 1853, it occurred to the Emperor
of Russia that the time had come to renew his proposals
for a previous understanding, with a view to the contin-
gency of the fall and partition of the Ottoman empire ;
and he seems to have arrived at the conviction that the
first point of his original proposal, viz., to maintain the
existence of the Ottoman empire, was useless, as " the
man was so very ill," to use his own expression, that the
real danger lay in the chance of his expiring before the
necessary measures for the division of his property had
been arranged. The Czar, therefore, made overtures
through Sir Hamilton Seymour to the British govern-
ment, in a series of confidential conversations on this
subject. _

The first of these communications took place on the
9th January of last year. The Emperor began by inti-
mating his conviction that Turkey was on the verge of
ruin, adding that her fall would be a great misfortune,
and it was very important that England and Russia should
come to a perfectly good understanding on these affairs,
and that neither should take any decisive step of which
the other is not apprised.
The second conversation took place on the 22d of Janu-
ary, when the Emperor disclaimed the policy of Catherine
11., directed to the conquest and overthrow of the Turkish
empire ; asserted his right to the protection of Christians
in the East, but said it gave rise to very inconvenient
obligations ; and expressed his desire to come to an expla-
nation with Sir H. Seymour, as a friend and a gentleman,
lest the fall of Turkey should take Europe by surprise.
He declared that if England ever intended to establish her-
self at Constantinople, he should not permit it ; but that
he was equally ready to engage not to take Constantinople,
at least as his own, for he did not deny that circumstances
might occur to induce him to occupy Constantinople as a
guarantee. To Sir H. Seymour's report of this conversa-
tion Lord John Russell, on the 9th of February, replied
by refusing to come to any understanding without the con-
currence of France; and in considering the contingency of
the dissolution of the Turkish empire, disposed of the
arguments of the Emperor by showing that an agreement
made in such a case tends very surely to hasten the con-
tingency for which it is intended to provide. Lord John
Russell, also, on the part of Her Majesty's Government,
renounced all intention or wish to hold Constantinople,
and declared their readiness to give an assurance that they
would enter into no agreement to provide for the contin-
gency of the fall of Turkey without previous communica-
tion with the Emperor of Russia.

With this declaration the Emperor declared himself
completely satisfied, and voluntarily reciprocated the de-
claration of the British minister. On the 20th February,
however, the Emperor strongly repeated his conviction
that " the sick man was dying ;" and on the following
day opened himself more fully to the British minister. It
should be borne in mind that at this moment Prince Men-
schikoff was on his way to Constantinople, and subsequent
events have proved to demonstration that the Emperor
Nicholas, some days before the first of these conversations
with SU:H. Seymour, had ordered 144,000 men to march
to the frontier of the Danubian Principalities, and was
now bent on engaging the British government, in conjunc-
tion with his own cabinet and that of Vienna, in a scheme
for the ultimate partition of Turkey, and the exclusion of
France from the arrangement. He began by signifying
very clearly the results he would not tolerate : he said he
would.not tolerate the permanent occupation of Constan-
tinople by the Russians, his own subjects, or by the
French or English, or any other great nation • that he
would never permit an attempt at the reconstruction of a
Byzantine empire, or such an extension of Greece as would
render her a powerful state, and, still less, the breaking
up of " Turkey into little republics, asylums for the Kos-
suths and Mazzinis, and other revolutionists of Europe."
He observed that the Principalities are already almost in-
dependent states under his own protection, that Servia is
nearly the same, and that Bulgaria might be independent
likewise. On the same terms, and as a set off, lie had no
objection to our taking possession of Egypt, and did not
see why the island of Candia should not become an English
possession. It was expressly provided by a Russian
me-
morandum of the 21st of February, 1853, that the result
of this discussion should remain what it ought to be, a
secret between the two sovereigns."
To these disclosures of the views of Russia, which
reached the Foreign-office on the 6th of March, Lord
Clarendon replied that, concurring as he did in the nega-
tive declarations of the Emperor, the British Government
persevered in the belief that Turkey still possesses the
elements of existence, and that the hastening or indefinite
postponement of an event which every Power in Europe
is concerned in averting will mainly depend on the policy
of Russia herself towards the Porte ; but that in any case
England desired no territorial aggrandisement, and could
be no party to a previous arrangement from which she was
to derive any such benefit, or to any understanding, how-
ever general, which was to be kept secret from the' other
Powers.
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readily acknowledged that the best way to support the
duration of the Turkish Government was " not to harass
it by imperious demands, enforced in a manner humiliating
to its independence and dignity." Provided this rule was
respected by all the Great Powers, and none of them took
advantage of the weakness of the Porte to obtain from it
concessions which might turn to the prejudice of the
others, the Emperor declared that "he was ready to labour
is concert with England, at the COMMOII work of prolong 1