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THE MERLIN'S NOTES OF THE…

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THE MERLIN'S NOTES OF THE WEEK. KARS has fallen !-to the eternal disgrace of the French and English name; owing to the sluggish apathy of the war departments of both countries- to the want of a NAPOLEONIC vigour in Omar Pasha, and to the miserable arrangements of the Turkish Government. While the magnificent Imperial Guards of France were returning to their country, for their winter housing in the Casernes of Paris and Courbevoi, there to repose on their laurels till the next campaign; while our troops were employed in road-making in the Crimea, and large numbers of our officers were approaching the white cliffs of Albion, for the discharge of "urgent and private business," the gallant General Williams, with his matchless staff—his able Hungarian coadjutor, Kmc ty—and his dauntless garrison, were left to brave, not the battle, for that they could and would have defied, but to lingei on, hour after hour, and day after day, exposed to the slow, dreadful tor- tures of famine—tortures which fortitude could not support, and which, in the end, all but broke down the springs of life. In vain did they l><ok from their mud redoubts on the Armenian plateau, in the hope of descrying the expected aid. None came— and the catastrophe was complete Russia gained her triumphs in 1812 by the terrible snows of her wretched climate. She now obtains her first suc- cess against her enemies, not by the keenness of her sword, the ELAN of her troops, but by the aid of an ally that gives no quarter, that paralyses the arm, that made Jugurtha, in the Roman dungeon, cry like an infant for food, and has swept whole armies from the earth, like the mandate of a destroying angel The reflection is terrible—the loss immense Sixteen thousand soldiers, 120 pieces of cannon, and eight generals, are no slight spoils, to close the campaign of 1855. 'I he most will be made of MouraveifPa victory—TE DEUM will be sung in all the churches; the priests will come forth, cloaked in their sacerdotal garments, and proclaim that the hand of the Almighty is seen to point from the clouds, and direct the armies of holy Russia to conquest, home, and honor." The prisoners will be marched through the streets of Moscow, Novo- gorod, and St. Petersburgh. The brutal passions of the brutal Russian mob will be excited and mad- dened by such a sight, and the stimuli of repeated doses of li/.KI; and the Czar will give fresh and fresh levies for his armies. It will render the chances of peace more unlikely, and confirm, more and more, the stubbornness of the Russian, never to submit or yield." One consequence of the fail of Kars must be regarded with much interest, not un" mixed with great, nay, considerable anxiety. We allude to the probable fate of the Hungarian pri- soners. The brave General Kmety, and many of his military compatriots, were known to be at Kars. Will Russia persevere in her threat to give up their men to their self-styled sovereign, the Emperor Joseph, who broke his Imperial word, and robbed their country of their once proud and vaunted Gin stitution ? If given up by Russia, will Austria dare to wreak her vengeance on their men ?-and if she does, will England and Turkey remain passive spec- tators of another bloody day" at Pestti ? These men were found under the orders of a British General, lately promoted by his Sovereign to a superior rank in his profession, for the successful employment of their talent and energy for by their talent and energy he was enabled to achieve those feats for which the Crown honoured him. They were also fighting under the Turkish flag, which floats in the war beside ours. Both Empires are bound to insist that Kmety and his fellow Hunga- rians be treated as prisoners of war. Should they not do this, America, it will be seen, is the only country that knows how to maintain her rights by defending those that claim her protection, and that holds not out the American name, like the (IVIUM ROMANUM, with Verres in sight of Sicily—a delusion, a mockery, and a snare for those that fan- cied it would protect them from outrage—being their shield and safeguard in their moment of pcril and danger. TllE recent alliance with Sweden does no great honour to her king, who seems certainly unfitted to be at the head of that gallant nation which aVasa and a Gustavus Adolphus once swayed. Much more was expected from the Swedish kmg, but the sword of his, after all, most gallant father, is, we fear, doomed to rest in its sheath. At first, indeed, we were told that Canrobert had reported perfect success to the man of destiny," at the Tuilleries, and that plans had been laid down for future arrangement, and that all Scandinavia was about to be summoned to arms! Alas! the portents have been found to have been delusive, or, at best, the mere mirage of some far distant future. That a treaty has been signed, there can be no doubt; but a treaty for what ?- a treaty to guarantee King Oscar in his present possessions, and embodying a condition, on his part, that he will alienate no part of his territory, and that no communications are to be received from his natural enemy—Russia, without instant communica- tion to the allied powers. That is, in other words, that we are to protect his house from the public spoiler, and that he will open not its gate at any peremptory summons made to him, without first telling us that he has been called upon to surrender. Why, if this be all Canrobert has effected, he might as well have stayed at home. and ceased blazoning his mission to the world. There is more danger looming in the distance: to England, from the Baltic than from the Euxine. Bomarsund was the northern Sebastopol intended for us-a gigantic fortress.within two days' sail of the coasts of Scot- land, erected for no commercial purposes. It ought to have long since attracted the attention of our statesmen, if they were not Belf-blinded to the acts of their Imperial and conservative friend of forty years standing." With Bomarsund, in Finland, the CONSTITUTION EL states, from actual data, that Russia has long coveted the possession of a portion of the Norwegian coast. Her ships, says our French contemporary, now enchained for six months of the year in a prison of ice, would then obtain a continual liberty of action. In place of crews composed of a number of peasants, who may make excellent soldiers, but are useless as sailors, Russia would extend her sceptre over a population essentially maritime, composed of hardy and skilful navigators, whose existence depends on the fisheries of the coast. Finmarck contains 50,000 inhabitants, the male portion of which would supply valuable rein- forcements to the Russian fleet. It would, moreover, be easy for the Czar to transplant whole tribes of Russian subjects from the interior of the empire to those vast and thinly-populated regions. The abundance of fish is such, that a population twe-fold as great as the present one, would find ample resources. By the second generation, the Russian fleet would be able to draw from that spot, crews as skilful, robust, and more sober, than any other sea- men in the world. It is impossible to dissimulate the danger which the formation of a similar navy, at the very doors of Europe, *lWi»ld! offer. Certainly it would be impossible to dissimulate such a danger; but the men that so long ruled England, saw the Russian propositions for the acquisition of Finmarck, proceed for years, unchecked either by remonstrance or protest; and that they fell to the ) ground, was certainly owing to no merit of theirs. We once broke down a northern confederacy, and forced Denmark to declare herself; but then Nelson led our fleets, and there were men of clever heads, and of more dauntless hearts, found to rule over and direct the destinies of England. WE regret that Prince Albert has thought proper to depart from the even tenor of his way," and to invite the censure of many upon him, for an act that none can justly defend, and fe" but the mo,t unscrupulous flatterers, can attempt to palliate or uphold. Lord Campbell may call him the Alter Ego of our gracious Queen, hut we ques- tion if the lights of the law of England, in her best and most glorious days, would sanction an Alter • Ego" at all or that lie or she that could do no wrong," should have a SECOND-SELF that m'ght do far from right. The inviolability and indivisibility of the monarch cannot be shared; and when an Emperor of Austria, by the advice of all Aulic- Council, creates an Alter Ego," that Alter Ego" SHAKES with him thu rights and duties of the government of the empire It was so with the late Emperor Francis the Second, when he called his son to jo'n him, and be clothed with co-imperial rights and powers. It is not so—it cannot be, never was, nor ever can be so, in England and Lird Campbell's law, if new, we think will soon be like some antiquated Marshd"-dfet, Prince Albert is the worthy, the beloved consort of the highest, and the most estimable ot her sex, and the moment he begins to move out of the pure and hallowed atmosphere of .the domestic circle, lie may rest assured, he will be periling her just and deserved popularity with the people of England. He was wrong in bolstering liP, by the affixing of his high namp, the very uncalled-for and unseemly request of the Colonels of the Guards, to be permitted to snare in the privilege of the Colonels of the Line, given them as a alight. counterpoise to the great and many advan- tages enjoyed by their more favoured and fortunate Brothers of the Guards. A Captain in the Guards holds brevet rank as Colonel in tne army, a dis- tinction, since the days of the old regime in France, unknown, we believe, in any army in Europe. A colonel in the line has had conferred on him, by a recent regulation, after three years service, the right to rank as colonel in the army. This right the colonel, by brevet, wants to share with him-a most modest re- quest, truly; and when the Prince Consort memorialises the tiueen to grant this, we should well know that the constitutional Sovereign of England could not do it without the advice of her responsible advisers and what minis:er at the present time, with the loud cry for Army Reform abroad, could, or would b- found to grant, or even to listen to, the Princely "petition." Prince Albert did not exercise his usual good judgment, then, in making an unreasonable request at an unreasonable moment, and which lie must, have known, could on no account and under no (,irCill1l.tallces, be coin e led to him and his illustrious, noble, and gallant co-memorialists THH attempts of Austria to make pea; e between the belligerent powers, havo been so often tried and so often found hollow, that the seeing them renewed must cause little hope of witnessing a termination of hostilities. The interference of Austria is ever to be viewed with suspicion, and when she stirs, danger to the cause of an earnest prosecution of the war, is to be apprehended. BL,t Lord Palmerston we believe to be true to the best interests of his country, and Louis Napoleon (lares not make an inglorious peace. Austria, therefore, this time, we think, will get nothing by her "motion," and a rule to "iur- ther pl.ad" will be granted to the Russian Emperor. Another year, and we shall terminate the war by humi- liating" our great enemy, and perhapa dictating to him a peace under the walls of Warsaw WE sincerely hope that Omar Pasha has triumphed in the mauner and to the extent stated. If so, it will in some sort ameliorate the public grief for the fall of Kars

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