Wilmington Journal

Manchester may view with indifference the accession to the dominion of such a power of some of the finest provinces in the world, of 15,000,000 subjects, and of their ancient capital—the Key of Europe and of Asia; and may hope that when the barbarous Turk has been expelled by hordes scarcely less barbarous and infinitely more dangerous, things will go on as before, and the European system, relieved of its Mahomedan element, enjoy a renewed vigor. But is this expectation reasonable? We give to the most anti-commercial country of Europe hundreds of miles of the navigation of her finest river, and we must expect that by that change the Danube will be as effectually closed to commerce as the Dnieper, the Dniester, or the Volga.

Of course, with Russia in possession of the Dardanelles, the rising commerce with Asia by way of Trebizond is at an end, the Circassians must fall in their isolation, and Asia Minor be open to invasion at once from West and East. Has it ever occurred to Mr. Cobden to consider what, in the case supposed, would be the inevitable destiny of the Austrian empire. Cut off from communication with the Black Sea—her natural outlet—with Russia as her neighbor in the Adriatic, it would not be difficult to dispossess her of her ports in that sea; and to reduce her to a position of dependence on the will of the Czar.

It is needless to trace step by step the inevitable course by which a power which has already absorbed Poland, Finland, Bessarabia, Georgia, and so many other provinces, would proceed to deal with the smaller principalities and kingdoms of Germany.

Without supposing Russia to possess any considerable maritime power, but merely to carry on her advances by land, it is obvious that from the conquest of European Turkey, and the occupation of Constantinople, would follow necessarily a chain of events which would leave England and France, the only States capable of opposing her onward course towards the foundation of an Empire based on universal fear and universal barbarism. To this condition it must come at last; and as it must come, were it not wiser to meet this power in its first onset, before it is strengthened by the arms and tributes of so many conquered provinces, than to suffer the cockatrice's egg to hatch, in order that we may see if we have strength to crush the full grown monster? It is not a question of maritime supremacy any more than the invasion of the Goths and Vandals, the Romans or the Macedonians, who conquered the sea by the land. It is a question of self-preservation and of the assertion of that law of Europe—the only defence of the weak against the strong, of the trampled against the oppressor—the only guarantee of future peace. We cannot isolate ourselves from the great commonwealth of nations and continue to be the nation we are. It is the penalty we pay for our high destiny, our glorious mission; and we will pay it without repining.