Page:Karl Marx - The Story of the Life of Lord Palmerston - ed. Eleanor Marx Aveling (1899).pdf/76

 70 in a previous article. But the treaty of July 6, 1827, bound Russia to not attempting any territorial aggrandisement, nor securing any exclusive commercial advantage from her war with Turkey. Any extension, therefore, of the Russian frontier, attendant on the Treaty of Adrianople, openly infringed the treaty of 1827, and was, as shown by the protest of Wellington and Aberdeen, not to be recognised on the part of Great Britain. Russia, then, had no right to receive Circassia from Turkey. On the other hand, Turkey could not cede to Russia what she never possessed, and Circassia had always remained so independent of the Porte, that, at the time when a Turkish Pasha yet resided at Anapa, Russia herself had concluded several conventions with the Circassian chieftains as to the coast trade, the Turkish trade being exclusively and legally restricted to the port of Anapa. Circassia being an independent country, the municipal, sanitary or customs' regulations with which the Muscovite might think fit to provide her were as binding as his regulations for the port of Tampico.

On the other hand, if Circassia was a foreign country, hostile to Russia, the latter had only a right to blockade, if that blockade was no paper blockade—if Russia had the naval squadron present to enforce it, and really dominated the coast. Now, on a coast extending 200 miles, Russia possessed but three isolated forts, all the rest of Circassia remaining in the hands of the Circassian tribes. There existed no Russian fort in the Bay of Soudjouk-Kale. There was, in fact, no blockade, because no maritime force was employed. There was the offer of the distinct testimony of the crews of two British vessels who had visited the bay—the one in September, 1834, the other, that of the Vixen—confirmed subsequently by the public statements of two British travellers who visited the harbour in the years 1837 and 1838, that there was no Russian occupation whatever of the coast.—(Portfolio, VIII., March 1, 1844.)

When the Vixen entered the harbour of Soudjouk-Kale

"there were no Russian ships of war in sight nor in the offing. … A Russian vessel of war came into the harbour thirty-six hours after the Vixen had cast anchor, and at the moment when the owner