Page:Wallachia and Moldavia - Correspondence of D. Bratiano whit Lord Dudley C. Stuart, M.P. on the Danubian Principalities.djvu/10

 of those territories by her troops. The other powers will not consider such a trifle worth notice; and the Porte, which had believed itself on the point of death, will, doubtless, felicitate itself on having escaped—as if by miracle—and be unable to withhold the expression of its gratitude for the generosity of its all-powerful friend and ally. This is Russia’s continual game. Knife in hand she demands of Turkey a debt, suppose £100. Not daring to say no, Turkey timidly complains that it is too much. Russia suffers herself to be softened, and declares that she will hold her neighbour quit for £50 ; and Turkey claps her hands, and declares that she has made an excellent bargain.

Yes ! the present danger is altogether in the Principalities, and not at Constantinople. It is their possession, or at least their occupation, that Russia at this moment desires to have at any price; for whatever enterprise she may make against either East or West, she well knows that it is of great importance that she should first obtain possession of that country, on account both of its geographical and topographical situation, and of the spirit which animates its inhabitants—the only people in the East, who, notwithstanding the promises that Russia has often made to them, notwithstanding the wrongs which they have more than, once suffered at the hands of Turkey, persist in regarding the Russians as their implacable enemies; and who reproach the Turks only for allowing themselves to be too readily intimidated or deceived by the Czar, and for having compromised the very existence of their empire by surrendering the liberties of Moldavia and Wallachia. •

Truly Russia lacks not a pretext for a new occupation. She will raise some pecuniary claim which the Porte will be unable to meet, and she will occupy the Principalities as security for payment; besides, has she not already in her possession a bond for 15,000,000 francs from the Principalities themselves, which the Porte has had the misfortune to sign ?

If care be not taken, if the English government shall not intervene in time, she will obtain all she desires; for in the question of the Principalities especially, the Porte has long