THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON ON RUSSIAN HONOUR.

Evening Post, Volume XVI, Issue 79, 16 March 1878, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON ON RUSSIAN HONOUR.

The newly-published volume of the Duke of Wellington's despatches contains a large amount of matter of peculiar interest at the present time. The volume is occupied with the year 1829-30 — a period when England was as much vexed by Russian aggressions and Russian diplomacies as it is to-day. There is very much likeness in the troubles, too, though the methods of dealings with them shows less familiarity. Then, as now, a vast deal was heard of the Czar's sacred word, of his pledged honor, and so forth. But in those days an English Minister made no difficulty in giving to protestations of that kind their true value. Thus, whan in August, 1829, the Russian plenipotentiaries called on the Duke of Wellington to notify an extension of the blockade of the Dardanelles to the Bay of Enos, the Duke remonstrated against the execution of the project, informing them that such a blockade would be perfectly understood in this country as indicating a desire to carry ion operations in the plains o Adrianople. What followed is particularly worthy of attention just now. The Duke says :— " These observations drew from Prince Lieven the usual reproaches of a want of confidence in the honor of the. Emperor. To which I answered, that I did not sit there to manifest confidence in his Sovereign or in any Sovereign, but to watch over the interests of his country, for the preservation of which I was held severely responsible." Elsewhere we find another passage very much to the purpose. In a memorandum on Eastern affairs, addressed to Lord Aberdeen, the Duke says :— " We are now to remove the doubts of the Porte of the sincerity of his Imperial Majesty's wishes for peace, and to convince the Porte of the moderation of his demands, and of the expediency of complying with them. The difficulty of this question has always consisted in its having been made a personal one. We are told that the Emperor of Russia is a highly honorable individual. He Bays that the wishes for peace ; and we must not only give credit to his assertions, but we must urge the Porte to give credit to them. I put the honor of the individual out of the question, and I look at the case only as it relates to the powerful monarch of a great empire. When such a one wishes for peace, and is desirous that other Powers should make known his wishes to his enemy, he explains himself to them frankly ; and he commits no act which can render the negotiation of a treaty of peace more difficult." In another place the Duke says :—": — " I confess it makes me sick when I hear of the Emperor's desire for peace. If he desires peace, why does he not make it ? ... He is looking to conquest ; and the plunder of Constantinople, if nothing else, would satisfy more than one starving claimant, besides what it would give to the public treasury."