Page:Wallachia and Moldavia - Correspondence of D. Bratiano whit Lord Dudley C. Stuart, M.P. on the Danubian Principalities.djvu/15

 It is, therefore, to be hoped that the inhabitants of the Principalities, and the Christian population of the Turkish Empire generally, will continue deaf to the persuasions of the agents of Russia, who endeavour to seduce them from their fealty to the Sultan, by representing the advantage of being ruled by a sovereign of their own faith. That advantage they would soon find to be illusory—and they would bitterly lament the change, if, instead of being under the sceptre of the Mussulman sovereign, who allows them perfect liberty on all matters of religion, and respects their local rights, they were placed under the iron rule of the Christian autocrat with his conscription, his secret police, and all the rigours of his military despotism. On the other hand it is to be desired that the Porte should, by conceding to the Christian population of the empire every just demand, more and more conciliate their attachment and confirm their loyalty; and such must be the advice which every friend to the sultan, every one anxious to baffle the designs of Russia for the enslavement of mankind, should wish to offer to the Turkish Government.

I have been led to make these observations on the importance of a good understanding between the Principalities and the Porte by the consideration that a contrary state of things would materially aid the machinations of Russia against your country, which it is the object of your letter by exposing to counteract. Public- opinion is, after all, not wholly without weight in the world ; and if it cannot always check the ambition and schemes of princes and cabinets, it yet often stimulates governments to the discharge of their duty in opposing and preventing them. How much less would public opinion be outraged by any attempt on the part of Russia to occupy or get possession of the Principalities, if it were the prevailing idea that the inhabitants were dissatisfied with the Turkish government, and therefore not averse to such a change !

I consider it, therefore, of great consequence to make known to the world that the Principalities have no desire to sever their connexion with Turkey, and that they look on the idea of passing