Chapter III

Dictation--Signal of war--Civilization--Barbarism--Russian court--
Turkish Civilization--Duties of England--Extent of her empire--
Africa--Asia--India--Australia--English influence--Northern
powers--Free institutions--Turkish aspirations--Commercial views--
Mediterranean trade--Steam-boats--Dardanelles--Nullification--
Government measures--Nesselrode’s answer--Russian magnanimity--
Treaty of 1809--Strait of the Euxine--Russian advantages--Key of
Turkey.

It was comparatively an unimportant prerogative of the Sultan to hold in his own hands the key of the Dardanelles. We acquiesced in his exercise of that principle, because he was an old ally of ours, and not possessed of any formidable power. But the same prerogative usurped by the Emperor, becomes a privilege of a very different character. We have not been consulted about the transfer. From weak hands it has been grasped by those of a giant, with whom we shall, sooner or later, have to contend for the liberties and the peace of Europe. If we had been solicited to consent to such an arrangement, we should certainly have opposed it; if insisted upon, we should have negotiated further only by ordering our fleet to the Bosphorus. Are we to be constrained into acquiescence by the force of a treaty concluded behind our back--a treaty signed by the Sultan under duresse--a surreptitious, and in every respect an illegal instrument?

♦ DICTATION ♦

Are we to acknowledge the Czar as the sovereign lord of Turkey, dictating the law of the Dardanelles--the law of nations--to the whole commercial world? Are we to endure the continuance of those relations between Russia and the Porte, by the instrumentality of which, under the mask of a treaty concluded between two powers, one independent of the other, and upon a footing of equality with it only by diplomatic fiction, a rule of warfare is enacted in a clandestine form, to be carried into execution whenever it suits the convenience of the party with whom it originated? These are questions in which not England only, but all maritime Europe, the two Americas, and the Indies, are vitally interested.

♦ SIGNAL OF WAR ♦

The view I have taken of the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, must be founded altogether upon mistaken notions as to the authority from which international laws should emanate, and as to the sanctions by which they are upheld, if that compact be not such an invasion of the rights of all other countries as to compel them, in their own defence, to nullify it by the most direct exercise of all the powers of resistance within their control. That treaty must be rescinded, or we shall be but a province of Russia. It is itself a manifest preparation for war. It is the first trumpet sound of the camp gathering in the North, to emulate the hordes which, in former ages, pressed upon the barriers of the Roman empire until they swept them away, bearing down beneath their hoofs, as they rushed tumultuously onward, every monument of art, every creation of genius, every fair and beauteous and noble work of a polished and generous people, that was conducive to convenience or illumined by accumulated centuries of glory.

♦ CIVILIZATION ♦

Considered as a question of human civilization, I ask any man conversant with the actual state of the Northern empire itself, whether, setting apart the fraud perpetrated on the “Giant Mountains,” and the injustice against all other nations with which that act is pregnant, there is the most remote probability in the hypothesis that Turkey would be really and permanently improved by becoming the handmaid of Russia? We are told, from day to day, by foreign writers, paid out of the imperial treasury, that the Ottoman sovereignty is falling to ruin; that the Mussulmen are a voluptuous, indolent, superstitious, slavish and barbarous race; that they have no schools, no literature, no science, no architecture, no sculpture, no painting; and that the time has arrived for expelling them for ever from Europe, where after all they have been only encamped for a few centuries.

♦ BARBARISM ♦

I could feel the force of this sort of argument if put forth in favour of England or France, or even of Southern Germany; but in the mouth of a Russian it is unintelligible. If Turkey be in a state of dilapidation, is it to be restored by the destroyer of Poland? If the Turk be voluptuous, will the Oustliougan render him abstemious? If the Turk be indolent, will the Cossack convert him to habits of industry? If the Turk be superstitious, will the idolater of Mordua win him to the paths of religion? If the Turk be slavish, will the serf of Horodeck, or Kandalox, or Neomerskovolocki, kindle in his breast the sentiment of freedom? If the Turk be barbarous, will the forester of Boraevet, or the fisherman of Dwinka, teach him how to dance? If the Turk have no schools, is he likely to obtain them from the conqueror who shut up the university of Warsaw? If the Turk have no literature, will he acquire it from the unrestricted, enlightened presses of Moscow? If the Turk possess no science, who is there among the Palatines of Hokia that will initiate him in Algebra? If the Turk be not sufficiently conversant with the rudiments of architecture, will the Calmuc create him a Michael Angelo? If the Turk be ignorant of sculpture, will they who dwell on the Ulka or the Sloutka transform him into a Phidias? If the Turk be no painter, will the hunters of Sestanox, or those who drink of the Molascheck, render him the rival of Titian?

♦ RUSSIAN COURT ♦

If the magnanimous autocrat feel desirous of assisting to civilize mankind, let his Majesty shew what he can do by beginning at home. Let him look to the very _élite_ of his own court, the very nobles by whose presence his palaces are graced, and say whether they are such as even he would wish them to be? That some few men of great aptitude for diplomacy, of elegant manners, and general intelligence, belong to that court, no one who knows any thing of the Lievens, the Nesselrodes, the Di Borgos, the Pahlens, the Orloffs, will venture to deny. But these are either foreigners, or the “rari nantes in gurgite vasto.” What are they amongst fifty millions of boors, over whom the imperial sceptre waves--men degraded even beneath the lines of ordinary barbarism, and likely to be kept there for ages still to come, by the essentially unchangeable principles of the government which holds them in subjection?

Most of the agents of the Russian cabinet are adventurers from the civilized nations, who seek to earn fortune, and perhaps fame, in the service of a treasury, which, though very much straightened in its resources, can always command enough of gold to establish a system of corruption in every part of the world, where anti-liberal views are to be carried into effect. I am willing to acknowledge the fact that some native subjects of the emperor have displayed great intellectual powers. One of these gentlemen, however, whom I met at Rome, who had devoted himself to painting, and was considered as eminently successful in his art, told me that he had no country but Italy. He had not the most remote intention, he said, to return to a home where celebrity has no lustre, genius no protection!

♦ TURKISH CIVILIZATION ♦

Turkey, it must be admitted on all hands, is not in a state of civilization at this moment--unfortunately very far from it. But there is no danger in asserting that it is much the superior of Russia in that and every other respect; and if any such connection as the relation of sovereign and subject were to be established between the autocrat and the Ottoman people, it would blight every hope of improvement, annihilate every chance of future prosperity, which they now enjoy. To adopt avowed, systematic, and most rigorous measures for the entire extermination of the Turks, would be a policy infinitely more humane than any that would bare them to the scourge of the most brutal soldiery on the face of the earth.

♦ DUTIES OF ENGLAND ♦

Again, putting aside the clandestine attempt at international legislation by the two Powers, as well as the utter impossibility of Turkey being civilized by Russian example, can I, as an individual of the multitudes who compose our own empire, treat with indifference the question, Who shall rule in the Mediterranean? Who shall shut or open, when he pleases, the gates of the Dardanelles? Who shall command all the shores of Marmora and the Euxine; subjugate Persia; penetrate, in his steam-boats, to the capitals of Europe, by the Danube; to the mountains of Nubia, by the Nile; and to India by the Euphrates?

Had we only in view the mere human ambition of directing the destinies of the world, which under the EYE that never sleeps we hold at this hour in our hands, even that were a noble motive of action, a glorious impulse to renown. But he must tread to little purpose the earth on which we are placed, who does not read in letters of light the ordinance of the GREAT GOD, whereby he has announced it to be his will, that from this island should be dispensed the knowledge of his law, and the happiness with which it overflows, amongst all the families of men still immersed in mental darkness and misery. All our important acts upon the theatre of the world, our impregnable position on the seas, which give us access to every tribe under the sun, the power we at this moment exercise from the point where that sun rises to the point whence it is to rise again, are the palpable tokens of a divine mission, for the due execution of which, we, who live in discussion and action, and our children’s children, shall be held responsible.

♦ EXTENT OF EMPIRE ♦

The Roman empire, when it reached the full extent of dominion which it was destined to hold, stretched from the Atlantic to the Euphrates, from Dacia to the tropic of Cancer, occupying a million and a half of square miles, teeming with every fruit of earth, distinguished by every shade of beauty, comprising all the tribes of men then fitted to lead or to follow in the career of civilization. For what purpose was such an empire constructed? From what actually occurred we are authorized to say, that all these tribes were assembled under the eagles of Rome, for the purpose of hearing the new law which was disclosed to them from the Mount of Olives. That law, after the lapse of eighteen centuries, is still the guide and the hope of their descendants.

No other empire has arisen since the dissolution of that of Rome worthy of being compared with it, except that of Great Britain, which not only exceeds it in territorial vastness, but beyond even its possessions exercises a moral sway, almost commensurate with the planet of which the island seat of her government forms so small a part. It was our mission to convert the forests of North America into nations, to give them our own language, our religion, and our free institutions. These duties we have accomplished. It devolved on Spain to perform similar offices for the southern tracts of that vast continent, so far as religion and language were concerned; but to us they looked for the institutions of liberty, and for emancipation from the thraldom in which Spain had held them; from us accordingly they have received independence, both at home and abroad.

♦ AFRICA ♦

The whole continent of Africa is waiting to bear further testimony to our character. We are the only European nation that holds any portion of that territory, from which light can eventually be shed over the sable multitudes who occupy its central and northern districts. The incursions of the barbarians who swarm on our frontiers in the south, will compel us ultimately to extend those frontiers until they touch the Nile. Men, actuated by extraordinary impulses, have gone forth from amongst us at the hazard, and almost uniformly at the forfeiture of their lives, to explore the rivers and lakes, and mountains and plains, and to become acquainted with the tribes of those magnificent, though as yet unhealthy, regions. They have already felt our power in the south and in the west, and know that it is irresistible. They warred with each other in order that they might make captives, and sell them to less populous climes. We have already put an end to that unhallowed trade, have extinguished their motives for perpetual hostilities amongst themselves, and have attempted to shew them that there are other kinds of commerce, which can only be fostered by peace, extended by industry, protected by laws, blessed by religion, and capable of forming a bond, which shall connect them by the ties of interest and affection with all their brethren of the human race--a bond never to be broken. The last shout of our people, speaking the living voice of our God, was--“Break the chains of the negroes!” _it is done_. The next will be--“Baptize them!” IT WILL BE DONE.

♦ BRITISH INFLUENCE ♦

Unroll the map of Asia, and behold the duties imposed on us throughout the whole of that wondrous continent. But a few lustres ago--within almost my own memory, although that does not extend as yet to forty years--we had no more territory in Hindostan than we now possess in China--a few feet of earth with a fort upon it, which we called a factory. That factory is now an empire, extending from Ceylon to the Himalayan mountains, from Ava to the Indus. We menace the dense regions of China on one side, and almost control those of Persia on the other. We have broken the crowns of the dissolute and sanguinary dynasties raised up by the Tartar and the Turcoman, the Mogul and the Saracen, the worshipper of block, and stone, and fire, and fused them all into one dazzling jewel, which has been set in the diadem of England.

♦ IN ASIA ♦

Beneath our sceptre in that land there are more than a hundred millions of human beings. They were, like the Africans, perpetually engaged in wars with each other. We have already accustomed them to peace. The men whom we have given them from time to time as their rulers have exhibited matchless talents for empire, and taught them the solid glory of Justice sitting by the side of Mercy. Laws firmly administered have secured them property, life, and liberty; they have been lately called to magisterial and judicial offices, and will soon be summoned to legislative assemblies. Education has begun to prepare their children for still nobler fortunes: for the resuscitation of the most brilliant arts which had their primeval sources in oriental genius and taste; for the cultivation of the most fertile territory on the globe; for a commerce which is to enrich all nations; for the substitution of the one English language in the room of the myriads of defective dialects by which they are now encumbered; for the substitution of the one Christian religion in place of the multifarious forms of idolatry by which they are still degraded; and for the resolution of our empire into several independent states, destined by peaceful rivalry in industry, and literature, and science, to restore that Paradise which, though overspread by the jungle and the marsh, and ravaged by the elephant through long ages of degeneracy, has never been wholly effaced from the world of the sun.

♦ INDIA ♦

Thus upon three distant continents of the globe, our exertions and our influence have been called forth to a wonderful extent, and attended with a degree of success quite miraculous. But scarcely were our duties in those regions discharged, or put into a regular train of performance, than we discovered a new continent in Australia, which opened a vast field of enterprise for our own population, just at the moment when the different classes of our community began to press upon each other with such an overwhelming force of mere physical density, as to threaten the most alarming consequences. Already great numbers of our families have transferred themselves to that new world, where the natural productions, the genial climate, the teeming soil, the abundant rivers, and the surrounding seas, promise them health, opulence, and peace. They have taken out freedom in their bosoms, to be brought forth when the due season shall arrive. In less than a century they will be independent, and another great nation shall arise, our brethren in blood, in religion, in language, literature, and liberty--our generous rivals in all those pursuits which are conducive to the happiness of mankind.

♦ AUSTRALIA ♦

Whatever may be said to the contrary by persons who are of discontented minds at home, it is impossible for those who found their knowledge of the European continent upon actual inspection, not to perceive that the _moral_ influence of England upon the civilized, as well as some of the uncivilized nations of that portion of the globe, is very remarkable, if not predominant. Books of any merit which emanate from our press, are within a few weeks after reprinted at Paris, Brussels, Leipsic, and in different parts of Germany, and provided only that they contain no _politics_ which interfere with the principles of the three powers who have organized a “High Police” in the North against the march of English ideas, are translated into every language of Europe. Austria has already its “Penny Magazine.”

♦ NORTHERN POWERS ♦

No power on earth is at this moment so frail as that which has been established by the Northern League. Should the whole, or any of its members have the temerity to go to war, the thrones of Prussia and Austria will be its first victims; and the minor sovereignties of south Germany will be compelled to concede to their people the most liberal constitutions. England holds in her hand the match, not yet lighted, by which the whole mind of Europe may be kindled into insurrection against the bristling hosts of the “Holy Alliance,” whose bayonets might as well fight with the stars, as with that public opinion which shines and marches above their heads and through their very ranks, bidding defiance to their impotent artillery.

♦ FREE INSTITUTIONS ♦

Our institutions have given to France, Spain, and Portugal, the models of those charters which they now enjoy, and although I regret to say, that constitutional liberty is as yet but in its earliest infancy in France, and is very defectively comprehended in the Peninsula, nevertheless the fire of free aspiration is certainly kindled in those countries, and it will at no distant period fill with its light the entire concave of their horizon. The Ionian Isles are prospering under our authority. The Greeks sent a deputation to us to ask for their ancient liberties, and they have not asked for them in vain from an educated people, whose finest mental associations are linked by a galaxy of immortal thoughts with their own.

The failing Mussulman now supplicates assistance at our hands:--no more noble heart beats in any human breast than in his; he asks for our civilization, not only as a great benefit to himself, but as a safeguard against the degrading, anti-civilizing power of Russia--he asks that his form of manly beauty may not be chained to the barren earth, that his mind, dark though it be, may not remain for ever under the eclipse every day becoming more frightful, as that vast congregation of brute matter, now visible on his confines, threatens in its course effectually to intercept the radiant and fertilizing splendour he would otherwise have received from Western Europe. Is he destined to petition us without success? Most assuredly not. We shall give much more than he may now expect to receive from our inexhaustible sources of improvement; we shall give it upon considerations perhaps of self-interest, which is the most powerful, as it is the most practical motive of action with a commercial nation: but the blessings he is to welcome and enjoy will be to him of the same value, as if they had been administered upon impulses of a more generous character.

♦ TURKISH ASPIRATIONS ♦

What then would be the state of our commerce in the Levant, and indeed throughout the Mediterranean, if Russia domineered over Turkey and held the Dardanelles? Our trade with the Russian ports of the Black Sea and the Baltic is at this moment, I admit, considerable. But it is not in the power of the Autocrat to terminate or even suspend it by a ukase. His subjects want our manufactures and our colonial produce, and if they cannot carry on their accustomed interchange with us under the protection of law, they will carry it on in despite of the law. Our commerce with Constantinople is, if I be rightly informed, doubling every year; while at Smyrna it is steadily increasing, though not in the same ratio. Thessalonica has lately demanded an English consul. The inhabitants of the new kingdom of Greece have returned to those agricultural pursuits, to which they are naturally much devoted, and the Piræus, whose very name ceased to be remembered, except by the classic student, in Europe, exhibits the bustle of a crowded and industrious port. Napoli and Patras have been for some years actively engaged in intercourse with England. Corfu is crowded with Greek and English brigs. I reckoned above a hundred ships of all nations, our own as usual conspicuous, in the harbour of Trieste. Venice is recovering from her long lethargy. Ancona has some business, and Naples an important trade with us. Civita Vecchia is by no means abandoned by English merchantmen. Leghorn and Genoa are literally forested with our masts.

♦ COMMERCIAL VIEWS ♦

Hardly a week passes that our merchant flags are not seen entering or leaving Palermo. We visit Candia, and sweep the whole of the Syrian and Barbary coasts; every new year trebles our engagements at Alexandria. Marseilles, Toulon, Barcelona, Valencia, and Malaga, have for centuries been accustomed to our merchandize.

♦ MEDITERRANEAN TRADE ♦

Before ten years elapse, the Mediterranean will be traversed in all directions by steam-boats, and in no sea are they so much required on account of the variable and often perplexing winds, and still more provoking calms, by which it has been in all ages characterized. The result must necessarily be, that that vast lake will become the centre for commercial operations emanating from Persia through the Euxine, from Western Asia, Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe, Egypt, and the finest provinces of Africa--operations which, on account of the impulse they are to receive from the employment of steam-communication, will be multiplied to an extent of which it is impossible for us now to conceive even an estimate.

If this system of active commerce demand the presence in the Mediterranean of myriads of our merchant vessels, and if it be admitted, as I apprehend it must be, that the Power who possesses the Dardanelles under his control might rush out from his strong-hold, whenever it should suit his convenience, capture great numbers of those vessels, and run back again behind his gates with perfect impunity; that would be a state of things not very consonant to the well-understood interests or dignity of the British empire. The Dardanelles must not become another Algiers.

♦ GOVERNMENT MEASURES ♦

The question, therefore, at which the discussion has now arrived is this: By what process are we to rescind the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, to rescue Turkey from the power of Russia, and to constitute the Ottoman empire an impregnable barrier against the further encroachment of the northern hordes in that direction?

It is necessary here to observe, that as soon as our government received authentic information as to the conclusion of the secret treaty, they instructed Lord Ponsonby to remonstrate against it at the Porte in the strongest terms. Lord Palmerston also addressed a note to Count Nesselrode, intimating that the British Government disapproved of that transaction, and would act as if it had never taken place. A similar note was addressed to the same quarter by the French minister for foreign affairs. Count Nesselrode’s answer to both these communications was epigrammatic--Russia would act as if those notes had never been written. Such an answer as this was not calculated to soothe the irritation which the clandestine alliance had excited; and the next step on our part was, to demand explanations as to the object of the treaty, from the parties in whose names it had been executed. The reply of the Porte was an evasive commentary on its own copy of the treaty, which it attempted to interpret in a way to lead to a conclusion that the instrument was in effect so much waste paper. Such an interpretation as this naturally suggested the further inquiry, “if your construction be right, then why did such a transaction take place at all?”

“To please Russia, in whose power we were--to get away her fleets and troops, as they were no longer required,” was the Reis Effendi’s reply, given less in words than by a shrug of the shoulder, which was much more sincere than any language could have been on his part under the circumstances.

♦ NESSELRODE’S ANSWER ♦

The explanations of Count Nesselrode were administered in a more diplomatic form, and even assumed the character of an argument. “You are perfectly aware,” said he, “that it is an ancient regulation of the Ottoman empire to prohibit ships of war from entering the straits of the Dardanelles and the Black Sea in time of peace, and that all the powers have acquiesced in considering that the Porte had a right to make that regulation, inasmuch as the territory on either side of those straits was her own. We have done no more in the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi than acknowledge the justness of that regulation--it acts against ourselves as well as against you--our ships are shut out as well as yours--of what then have you to complain?”

♦ RUSSIAN MAGNANIMITY ♦

Such was the substance of an argument clothed in a vast mass of eloquent phraseology, in which the magnanimity of the emperor in quitting the Bosphorus at a moment when, if he were really actuated by views of aggrandizement, he might have realised them without the slightest difficulty, was put forth and extolled as the best interpretation that could be given of the treaty, and indeed the only interpretation worthy of his imperial dignity. Notwithstanding all these subtle and pompous declamations, the discussion, I believe, is still going on, but in what direction it tends at this moment I am unable to say.[3]

[3] Lord Durham’s appointment to the Russian embassy, which has met
with universal approbation, will probably solve the leading
difficulties of this question.

♦ TREATY OF 1809 ♦

The reader, however, who will look carefully through the whole of the treaty in question, and especially at the secret article, cannot I apprehend materially differ from the view which I have taken of that instrument. But in order that he shall have the point in dispute placed before him in a still clearer light, I shall here transcribe the eleventh article of the treaty of peace, concluded between Great Britain and the Porte on the 5th of January 1809.

“As ships of war have at all times been prohibited from entering the canal of Constantinople, viz. in the straits of the Dardanelles and of the Black Sea, and as this ancient regulation of the Ottoman empire _is in future to be observed by every Power_ in time of peace, the Court of Great Britain promises on its part to conform to this principle.”

It will be observed that this article speaks of two straits--those not only of the Dardanelles, but also of the Black Sea--and that the secret article of Unkiar Skelessi limits itself to the Dardanelles. So far, therefore, there is a most material difference between the two articles. Suppose Russia to be at war with England, and both the Powers to be at peace with Turkey, then the Dardanelles and Bosphorus would be shut against both by one article, but the Dardanelles alone against Russia by the article of Unkiar Skelessi. By this arrangement she obtains a wider range than the Euxine for her ships--would be enabled to provision them at Constantinople, to enter the Sea of Marmora, and convert the Dardanelles into an outpost for the protection of her establishments in the Euxine.

♦ RUSSIAN ADVANTAGES ♦

But this is a superficial view of the article, which must be taken in connection with the whole treaty. Under that treaty, it is impossible for Russia to be at war with England without Turkey becoming a party to it on the side of the emperor. The stipulations entitle him, whenever he thinks fit, to demand _secours matériels_ from the Porte, not, however, for the purpose of obtaining _secours matériels_, but something else, which it is already agreed shall be given in lieu of them; and that “something else” is the closing of the Dardanelles, and the prohibition to all foreign ships of war to enter them, “under any pretext whatever.” Assuming for the sake of the argument that the word “foreign” here is applicable to Russia as well as to England, even still the advantage is all on the side of Russia, and to the prejudice of England. The Russian ships would have no desire whatever to come out and encounter ours in the Archipelago or the Mediterranean; but our ships would have every possible motive, and, I fancy, no little desire to go in, to attack the Russians in their own seas, and to destroy their arsenals and naval establishments at Sebastopol.

♦ KEY OF TURKEY ♦

The whole of the remonstrances, however, which we are fairly entitled to make against the transaction of Unkiar Skelessi resolve themselves into this: that, by its effect, the Porte has ceased to be the mistress of the Dardanelles--that they are liable to be closed at the requisition, which means the command, of Russia; and that Russia, therefore, and no longer Turkey, keeps in her hand the key of those gates. Need I repeat, that that key is the token of something more than the gold ornament we see dangling at the back of an imperial chamberlain: that it is, in fact, the sceptre of the Ottoman dominions!