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Leader (1850-1860), 22nd October 1853, Edition Town of 2, Page 1017, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      address of the ITinsbury people stated that " the character of England for good faith" had been •" damaged , " and condemned secret diplomacy . Lord Clarendon made a short speech in reply . He disaented from the assertion . that the national character has been injured , and defended secret diplomacy as a constitutional practice of long-standing as regards foreign affairs . " Not from the slightest wish to favour mystery , but to avoid the danger of defeating our own objects , do the Ministers withhold information until all the proceedings are concluded . " Lord Clarendon added : —

      "I have no hesitation in telling you that a peaceful solution of this question has been , the object of her Majesty ' s Government . It would Tre highly criminal if the < 3 overnment sought any other solution . Those who know what are the calamities of war do not rush lightly into it , and it is our object , if possible , to guard ourselves , but more especially Turkey , from those calamities . But , on the other hand , I consider that there is one calamity greater than war , and that is national dishonour , a price

      at which I can assure you peace will not be preserved by her Majesty ' s Government . As I said at first , I will not enter at any length into the details of the policy we are pursuing , but content myself with saying that we are so full y alive to the British and European importance of maintaining the Ottoman empire , that the deputation may rest assured that there is not the slightest intention on the part of her Majesty ' Government of abandoning Turkey . " Other conversation followed , but nothing of greater importance was elicited .

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      Letters received by Hungarian officers in Paris state that a free corps of Hungarians is in arms , and carrying on a guerilla warfare in the Carpathian mountains . JSTew Orleans is now healthy . Absentees are returning in crowds . Business is reviving . This is the only news of interest brought by the United States mail steam ship , WasMngtort , which arrived off Cowes last evening , on her way to Bremen . The French Minister of Marine has written to the Secretary of the English Committee formed to organize a memorial to Bellot , intimating that Rochefort—where the fiunily of M . Bellot reside , and to which part he was attached—is the best site for a monument to his memory . Lord John Russell and the Earl of Ellesmere have requested Sir Roderick Murchison to place their names on the list of the Committee , for the purpose of furnishing the erection of the monument .

      "The Emperor of the French has granted a pension of ¦ 2 , OOGf . out of his private purse to the father and mother of Lieut . Bellot who perished in the Arctic expedition . This pension is to descend to the brothers and sisters of Lieut . JJellot after the death of their parents . " [ Surel y the British Government , or the British I ^ irliament , will not be slow to assert its debt of gratitude and honour to the immortal services of the devoted young man , so well called "the friend of the English . " We are glad to find that a meeting is announced under the auspices of Sir lioderick Murchison , to consider what form the proposed memorial to Bellot shall take . He deserves a marble record in Westminster Abbey ; it would bo likewise a graceful act to erect a monument to his memory in his own

      native place in France ; but while wo cannot devise too many forms of respect and affection to the memory of the dead , lot ua not , as a nation , forget in the most official and solemn manner , to offer our tribute of acknowledgment to those survivors who mourn the loss of so noble a son , and so brave a brother . No pension can console for such a loss , nor can it express the feelings that fill the heart of England ; but it is to our own fair fame that we owe the discharge of a debt at once of national , and of universal obligation—the debt of humanit y to heroism . And may the name of Bellot bo a pledge of peace between tho two nations , whom a common glory and a common service has now united . " ]

      lho eldest daughter of tho Czar ( tho Grand Duchess Mario of Russia ) is to embark to-day from Dover on her return to tho Continent .

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      A very sad slu ' pwrcck has occurred . Tho Balhousie , bound for Sydney , was wrecked in tho Channel on Wednesday morning . Sho left London on tho 12 th , and almost irom the first encountered severe gales . Through Tuesday night and Wednesday morning olio met a heavy ana oh ' -Ueoeb y Head , and after a Btrugglo of some hours , she rolled right over on her starboard ' beam ends , and remained m that position , with her mast heada in tho water , whidi "ion made a clear breach over her . Joseph Read , one of w » o HiUiorHj ecrambled from the quarter to the inizemimnt , and was saved . All tho other poHKonmjr . s perished—numbering fil ) . l Near Tunbridgo , the Medway overflowed its banks , oorno hop-pickera piuming through the mIuiIIow Hood in a m S > WllH overwhelmed by u sudden riso of the water . X 1 " ' ' . y- «« von wore drownod . Hie cholera at Liverpool is decreasing . During tliti ]»» l wcok there have been Ufi fatal cases -nU tho victims bointr poor Uranium emigrant . fVi i J " " Clifton , accompanied by " wmiral military noiuiH , attended at Marlborough-street Court ycwtonluy , 1 M T . i uaauranco tlmt he would not fight a " duel with J " ' - WmrloM Liino Fox , of tho ( irouudier Uimrdn . Kir «« l > orfc said : — "To tho Inwt of my belief , l , ho quarrel unuT " e < l ' > ° nnd " f " " 1 WiU ) ' * P > b " «»"'«» Wy A nothor case of woman-beating occurred yesterday wcok — -milking sovmi ctrnes in all during flio week . 'Richard r '"" wan annoyed by Elizabeth Hill , a irl of bad « lm-Ct- r ' ll <) Htl ' kli <; r , knocked her down , and kicked at , , lllCo - ( Some time ngo , ho kicked her in such a « ,. . Ina « ner about tlo hood and liico , that her foeo was tUr m ' ¦} cllv » " bor cycH cut to pieces nnd blinded for award d H >) " Two , months' imyriHonmonl » woro

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      DESTINY OF CHRISTIAN TURKEY . To support Turkey , says Mr . Cobden , is to uphold Mahomedanisni in Europe ; and the Titties , which , amuses itself one day with exposing the fallacy of Mr . Cobden's sophistries , is repeatedly insinuating or asserting , that to defend Turkey against the inroad of Russia is to perpetuate rude barbarism in Europe , and to check the advance of civilization , and the progress of Christianity . This view of the subject is one that naturally appeals to the sympathies of Christian States ; but it is so unfounded in truth , that it can only be sustained by assertions which are the reverse of fact .

      In proof , it is stated that Christians in Turkey have no civil rights ; now this is untrue . The States of Christian Turkey are so different in their constitution and their progress towards civilization , that they cannot be lumped together in one general statement . But the chief of these States ave made a progress which is not to be denied . In Bulgaria , the people have so decidedly advanced in industry and in social influence , that they have submitted with a sort of bourgeoisie contentment to the dominion of the Turks :

      they only wanted to be left in quiet , and to have more of that which they have cultivated with great assiduity—education . W ^ e speak with a personal knowledge of opinion amongstindigenous Bulgarians of high rank . Bosnia has been under different circumstances . The local seigneurs , who have been for generations renegades from the Christian faith , in order to strengthen their feudal power , are opposed to all reforms ; and it was only under the vigorous administration of the Vizier Taliir that many oppressive

      usagesthe remains of a corvSe , imposts fixed by the Turkish officers , and other prescriptive oppressions—were abolished . The Servians , who have cultivated a military organization with great ability and assiduity , exercise , under the suzerainty of the Porte , a species of independence which makes them feel that they can , to a certain extent , dispose of the balance of power in Christian Turkey ; and whatever the tentatives of Russia ,

      the disappointments of man like Petronivitchwhose services during 1848 Austria scantily repaid—and the intelligent policy of Alexander Grcorgovitch incline the Servians , in common with the Christians of Turkey Proper , to the maintenance of the Porto as the true protector of their practical independence , which would be submerged under either an Austrian or a Russian suzerainty .

      Tho movements of 1848 called together tho leaders of these several tribes with tnoso from the other provinces , only to show how the antireforming tendencies of the Bosniae seigneurs , the different objects of Bulgarians and Servians , forbade any united action on one . side or tho other . The several tribes could assert their own power , hut they could not unite , either to revolt , or to put down revolt . Oinor Pacha suppressed the revolution , ami then offered conditions to 1 , 1 m

      defeated which wont to complete the practical emancipation of tho Christian Rayahs . There wore nmiiy reasons for this policy , besides the intelligence of tho renegade Turkish chieftain . There- was ( he fact , that JServia , the Christian province , had made its support appreciated by the Porto . There- ifl in the Turkish army a largo proportion of refugees from Poland and

      Hungary , who sympathise with popular reform—i ( we may use such a . phrase— and who are not to bo despised . Tho Christian populations , especially iu Bulgaria , liuvo bo improved in intelligence , that their views must be perforce ropeeted and conciliated , except at the ex pen ho of a fresh crusade , which the Porte cannot wage ttguiiiat it » own Christian aubjeett ) whon

      it needs the support of those subjects against external enemies . The Christian schools in Bulgaria are permitted ; the right of testimony in courts of law , which the Times has recently denied , was granted to Bulgaria , has been practically exercised elsewhere , andhadbeen completed by a recent edict for all Christian subjects of Turkey before the limes asserted the contrary . But a still more important right was granted during the movements which began in 1848 , and terminated in 1850—that of bearing arms . A new act of tyranny on the part of Turkey—a tyranny which the Turkish

      Government commits in common with Austria , with Russia , with France , and even with our own in times not long past , is likely to give a new impulse to the Christian population of Turkey—it is the forced conscription , which is rapidly recruiting Turkish army with Christian soldiers , and , at the same time , obliging the Turkish Government , in deference to the increasing numbers and intelligence of the Christians , to extend to Christians a military promotion hitherto denied . It is said that the Turks are barbarians ; and they are so , though not to the extent to which

      the term might formerly be applied . But did the Times and its party support the Italians and the Hungarians for the sake of their intellectual and moral superiority , when they were assailed by the Austrians P Was any resistance made to the Government of the Czar , who thinks that the will of one man is to dictate to Europe ; who threatens to swamp international law with a deluge of bean-eating conscript ruffians ; whose family cultivate the old' Russian customs , and terrify their European wives b y riding on horseback into their bedrooms ? Is such a race to

      disclaim the title of barbarian while it is extended to the Turk ? But , indeed , this point is beside the real question , which is , whether the maintenance of the Turks is for the present politically desirable ? We maintain that it is so , and that it is conducive , not only to the growing freedom of Christians , but to the development of Christianity itself . The policy of Mahrnoud and Abd-ul-M edjid , essential to maintain the position of Turkey amongst other Governments in Europe , is fatal to Mussulman supremacy of the old kind , and favourable to the Christians . It was indeed

      derived from a sense of the growing importance of Christian Powers , of the superior systems of those Powers , and heing in its spirit derived from Christian States , while it lias necessarily favoured the Christians , it has compelled the Porte to rely more and more on members of that faith . The Christiana feel this , and while they feel that they are not yet prepared to act togethei " , that they cannot unite and organize " a State" of their own , they prefer to retain the comparatively indulgent and mild suzerainty of Turkey rather than to introduce a great Power , barbaric though called Christian , which would

      force upon them a regime more strange and hateful than that of Turkey , and reduce them , politically as well as theologically , to the Procrustes rule of its own " orthodoxy . " Several mercenary , or ambitious intriguers , like old JVliloscii Obrenovich , have desired to carves out now principalities on the Danube under the auspices of Nicholas ; but they have always been' frustrated by the invincible repugnance- of the subjects of tho Porte , both Christian and Mussulman , to the Russian regime . Since 1848 Russia and Turkey have changed places in tho view of the Christian populations , so far ns these populations can be Haid to have a view . The

      Pansclavaisin of Russia—that dream of nn . Empirehas been dissipated by experience of Russian tyranny , brought nearer every day , and now introduced amongst the Moldo-Wai Inch ians , who are learning already what Russian exile is ; and also by a knowledge of the 1 ) mho agents who have recently represented Russia to the Turkish Christians . Russia is now tho oppressor , tho Sultan the protector of tho Rayahs .

      If the Chrintians are necessary to the Porte , so also is the Porte to the Christians . . If . the Turks were driven out , of Europe , as the Saracens were from Spain , European 'lurkoy would have oven more immediate cause to deplore tlie privation than Spain had ; and for other reasons . Tiio Turkish Government may bo described as a fence which keeps out alien tyrants , while the Christian populations are developing their crude vitality Ah yet the Christians could neither hIjukI alone nor unite ; but under tho temporary and imper-

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      There is nothing so revolutionary , "because there is nothing so unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to keep things fixed when all the -world is "by the very law ol its creation in eternal progress . —Db . Abhdlu .

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      SATURDAY , OCTOBER 22 , 1853 .

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      October 22 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 1017

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 22, 1853, page 1017, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2009/page/9/