Washington sentinel. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1853-1855, 1854-01-20

timorous effort at diplomatic compromise. We
pointed out the yulnerability of Russia both in
the direction of the Black sea and of the Baltic
both by the Sound and by the Bosphorus.
But ministers were obdurate. They were in
fatuated in a belief in the efficacy of negotia-
ton through the British, French, and Prussian
ambassadors at the court of Schoenbrunn.
How justifable was this confidence in the
adroitness of diplomacy, the world has seen
long since, through that redoubtable Vienna
note which had to be explained, and then in
effectually explained, by receiving commenta-
ries in the shape of series of Ito the czar at
least) wholly inadmissible notifications.
At length, however, the cabinet of England
begins to give faint and intermittent indications
of recognition of the importance ofthe emer-
gency, and of the imperative need of a final
abandonment of these futile and craven nego-
tiations. Aberdeenism, in short, has for ten
long months been fumbling at the Gordian knot
of the Russo Turkish question, and discovers,
at last, (what was obvious to every sane man at
the outset,) that it must perforce be cut as OF
old by the sword of Alexander.
An incisive energy, indeed, IS OF length de-
manded on all hands from the French and
British governments. Will that energy be re-
vealed without further delay or procrastination?
God knows So long as the Earl of Aberdeen
with all his Muscovite predictions strong up
on him, remains at the head of the administra-
ton, such policy must, in the fullest sense OF
the word, be improbable. Even now we are
only "talking" of war--we are only talking
of an entrance into the Black Sea-we are
only talking" of an expedition next spring.
movement of The fleets towards the Crimea,
md 6 Gah eli
And Russia is still energetically carrying on
her enormous warlike preparations. Flushed
with victory, and with all her evil passions in
famed by the inhuman butchery of the Turks
at Sinope, she is collecting together oil the re-
sources Of her colossal system to sustain her
arrogant demands upon the Porte, to enforce
her daring project for the diffusion OF the do
minating authority of the Greek Church, and
to support the already assumed right OF the
Russian soldiers to the occupation Of the Prin-
cipalities. Auxiliaries are in this manner be-
ing gathered under the banners of the Autocrat
from Sweden and from Finland, while in an
opposite direction the Persians are being de-
coyed into completely with the cabinet Of st.
Petersburg as opposed to the divan at Con-
stantinople. Insomuch has the latter arrange
ments on the part of the Emperor Nicholas
proved successful that we hear of the advance
Of an army Of thirty thousand or forty thousand
men, under the standard of the Sophis, in the
direction of our Indian frontiers, and of sin
lister correspondence between the Shah and
Dost Mahommed. Can England-while events
like these are transpiring still tolerate the
timidity and indecision hitherto revealed, dur
ing ten or eleven months consecutively, by the
Aberdeen administration? Can Napoleon wit
ness unmoved the sullying of his glorious tri-
color-while the flag that has braved thou
sand years the battle and the breeze" is being
trailed in the mire by the faulty Of q blunder-
ing coalition government 2, ~ 6i5s IN IT.