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THE SMitt. j NEWPORT, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1854. WE regret to say that we have been but too true prophets, and that that state of things, which, from the first, we declared must be the inevitable result of events, brought about by the mad am- bition" and bad faith of the Emperor of Russia, is now about to present itself in its worst and darkest phase—WAR From the moment the battalions of the Don and the Wolga passed the Pruth, and a kind of second crusade was preached against the Infidel, by booted, spurred, and mous- tached Peter-the-Hermits of the nineteenth cen- tury-differing in everything from the self-apos- tolised preacher of Clermont, except in truculent hate, and fanatic zeal-from the moment when the gauntleted hand raised the cross under the cupolas of the churches of Moscow and St. Peters- burgh, and proclaimed the holy conflict against the Turks—could any one have been blind enough to doubt, that the mind of the Czar had been made up, and that he was prepared to dare the worst to gain his ends,aud realise the darling am- bition of the House of Romanoff! Did his words fall upon cold ears ? Were no eyes turned towards heaven, when the appeal was made ? Did no hearts leap at the death to the infidel" cry r Did no swords gleam when the can to arms was made ? Yes! all Russia, debased, though it may be by slavery,—stood, to a man, erect, and cheered on its Pontiff and its Emperor, to do battle against the followers of the false prophet, and cried aloud for the conducting of its children to the promised land on the Bosphorus. Wre may lament, as we should, but to no purpose, this enthusiasm in favour of a corrupted faith—this desecration of the sacred name of Heaven—this profanation of the term— all so unlike that holy religion which is a it_ Branch first)et and blest By heaven's high finger in the hearts of kings, Which whilome grew into a goodly tree, Bright angels sat and sung upon the twigs, And royal branches for the heads of kings Were twisted of them." But why speak of high and ennobling inspira- tions, when we have but the dross, and the outpourings of man's wild and pitiless ambition, and for" royal branches," encircling the head of the upright monarch, we may fancy we see the cypress wreaths yet to be worn for hecatombs of the slain. The worst of madmen," it is true, "is the saint run mad;" and if the Emperor Ni- cholas be the saint he pretends to be, such mad- ness might be pleaded AD MISEKICORDIAM for his acts, but such a charitable donation cannot, we think, be afforded to him, for there is too much method in his madness, and all would seem to declare a long-concealed purpose now progres- sing and hastening to its early-sought and beloved fruition. Having gone so far, could he well pause in his career ?—could he recoil before the powers he had dared ? for he must have well known that France and England would not, without a struggle, have permitted him to do that—to make the Greek tiara trium- phant from the Baltic to the Mediterranean —for which Alexander offered Napoleon the em- pire of the west,—but which Napoleon sternly re- fused, saying, The Russians once at Constanti- nople, our provinces would be seen in our own days attacked by a host of fanaticsand barbarians and, if in this too tardy struggle, civilised Europe happened to perish, our culpable indifference would justly excite the complaints of posterity, and would be a title to opprobrium in history." The Emperor Nicholas could never have ima- gined that England and France would have earned for themselves such a title to the opprobrium of history," and, although he may not have thought that those so long-called hereditary enemies," would have been such fast friends in the hour of peril—still, he must have been prepared to have measured swords with them. Their stedfast union could not, and has not, made him yield an iota of his arrogant pretensions. One circum- stance, certainly, did not enter into his calcula- tions, nor was it provided for in his plans. He calculated on finding a Turkish mob to disperse,— not an imposing disciplined and scientifically-led Turkish army for his lieutenants to manoeuvre against and fight. He thought but of those that opposed his General Diebitsh, in the passage of the Balkan, in 1828, forgetting that the army of the Sultan was then in a state of transition—that the musket and bayonet were then only replacing the pike and the scimetar, and that men are not in a campaign made masters of the Queen of weapons," as the soldiers of Louis the Fourteenth found to their cost, at Malplaquet. The Turkish soldier has now proved himself a match in the field for the unflinching and immovable Russian, and Oltenitza and Citale have showed Nicholas that he can never again hope to make a military tour to Adrianople. He has felt this, and, until he could bring up his full force, he has been seeking to gain time and amuse his enemies by diplomatic ruses. He has never yet for a moment halted in his firm resolves-his end was before him— whether to gain it by open or disguised means, he cared not; and thus the world has been held in suspense for months and months, depending on the Czar's jus- tice, prudence, and returning reason Our Minister, the Earl of Aberdeen, has indeed been Patience per- sonified; but of the purity and patriotism of his mo- tives (mistaken though that patriotism may be), none can doubt. He sought to fling oil upon the troubled Waters, and avert the scourge of war from Europe. He has signally failed,and we are commencing a war in the first months of 1864 which we might have concluded, or, at least, have materially checked, at the close of 1853. But England's forbearance, like the forbear- ance of every brave man, must have had its limits, and our demonstration in the Black Sea has brought mat- ters to a crisis. There could have been but one an- swer to the innocent query of the Cabinet of St. Peters- burgh—What were we doing there ? We were not there for pleasure, certainly, nor to make the Turk comport himself more amicably towards his self- assumed Muscovite master. On the contrary, we were there to protect him, and the coasts of his Asiatic empire, and to aid him in the transport of his troops an munitions of war. There was no parrying such an answer, and no diplomacy could avert its import. It told that England and France were at length in right earnest, and would no longer be deluded by promises of peace, while massacre and war were pro- ceeding. The Ambassadors at London and Paris, as a matter of course, then demanded their passports, and France at once proceeded to hasten forward hermili tary movements and the Foreign Minister of Eng- land, in his place in Parliament, felt it his duty to declare that he had no confidence that negotiations could be re-opened, or, in short, THAT PEACE COULD BE PRESERVED I His lordship's mind could not come to any other conclusion, considering the audacious and insulting answer sent by the Emperor Nicholas to the last Vienna note, and which, it now appears, was the ostensible object of Count Orloff's mission. The con- ditions, we are now informed, on the authority of the Government organ, on which Russia was pre- pared to treat, were few in number. First, that a Turkish plenipotentiary should proceed to the head- quarters of the army, or to St. Petersburg, to øpen direct negociations with the Czar, but with LIBERTY to refer to the Ministers of the Four Powers; se- condly, that the former treaties between Russia and the Porte should be renewed thirdly, that Turkey should enter into an engagement not to give an asylum pto political refugees; and fourthly, and lastly, that the Porte should recognise, by a declaration: the Rus- sian protectorate of the Greek Christians, as demanded by Prince Menschikoff!! If the Russian legions were at the gates of Con- stantinople, more arrogant and humiliating terms from the vanquished could not have been demanded. They even transcend the truculent demands made in the spring of the past year, and, if acceded to, would make the Sultan the very slave of his Tetrarch and thus, after all the labours of diplomatists, and all the overstrained concessions for peace, a serious question presents itself, and demands a prompt and implicit answer—Would the Emperor Nicholas be now, at the eleventh hour, so arrogant, so burlily prepared to do battle, if he thought he would have ALL Europe against him ? We may speculate on the neutrality of Prussia, because she must tremble for her Rhenish provinces but Austria, will she keep faith with us ? Can she be honest ?" What if she should lose Italy in the struggle ? She knows she must lose it, in the first general European war, and it now takes more than a hundred thousand of her finest troops to keep down the impatient and chafed Lombardese. Could she not be' indemnified for the loss of such a king- dom ? Where is Servia ? Is there nothing to be got on the Danube P Has there been no such thing in history as great sacrifices having been made for the rounding of an empire, and making its frontiers more secure ? A few short months will disclose much, and prove whether or not the mantle of Metternich has fallen on true Austrian and legitimate shoulders. For ourselves, our course is plain—our path defined. We must have no little war, and we must all, as Earl Fitzwilliam so justly said, rally round the Govern- ment, to maintain the honour and enforce the interests of our beloved country. We have the finest fleet that ever swam. The Baltic and the Black Sea must be ours, and Russia so far closed in while one hundred thousand French and British troops on the Danube, with the imposing Turkish army already there, will be more than sufficient to drive the Scythians beyond the Pruth, and teach the Emperor of Russia a lesson that he and the successors of his throne will not for ages neglect to mark, learn, and inwardly digest ?"

THE MERCHANT SHIPPING AND…

LECTURE BY SIR HENRY BISHOP.I

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ABERGAVENNY.

BRECON

I LOCAL INTELLIGENCE.

FUNERAL OF THE LATE CHARLES…

BURIAL BOARD.

BEAUFORT-

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