528

LIFE O™ COBDEN,

fora?

most likely to promote the end you and I desire to soe, 8
distaste for war and a wish on all sides for peace? Putting
humanity and patriotism aside for the sake of argument,
perhaps the best thing that could happen would be a long
and sanguinary contest without decisive result, until the
German powers stepped in to compel the exhausted combatants
 to come to terms. For whether the one or the
other side win, I foresee great evils to follow. Let John
Bull have a great military triumph, and we shall all have to
take off our hats as we pass the Horse Guards for the rest of
our lives. On the other hand, let the Czar’s swollen pride be
gratified and inflamed with victory, it will foster that spirit
of military insolence which pervades everything in Russia.
But if neither could claim a decisive triumph, and both
were thoroughly discouraged and disgusted with their
sacrifices, they might all in future be equally disposed to be
more peaceable,
“It is scarcely possible to foresee any other result than
this, unless upon the assumption that the Russian Empire is
a more thorough imposture than anybody has suspected.
And yet if the accounts be true, there does not seem to be#
great force to protect Sebastopol, and all their Black Ses
ships and arsenals, notwithstanding that the Government
have had more than two months’ notice from Lord John
Russell himself of our intention to strike a blow there.
What an illustration it is of the weakness which accompanies
the acquisition of territory by mere military conquests on &
large scale. We know that Russia has more than 600,000
effective troops, and yet if report be true she cannot con
centrate 50,000 for the defence of a vital point. Little
Belgium could do more. , , . .
“But I cannot convince myself that we are to have an
easy victory in the Crimea. I was reading last night the
account of Bonaparte’s Russian campaign. If the Russisn¢