Page:Wallachia and Moldavia - Correspondence of D. Bratiano whit Lord Dudley C. Stuart, M.P. on the Danubian Principalities.djvu/19

 Porte. None have criticised the acts of the Turkish government more unsparingly than I myself have done, every time that I have had to interest the people and cabinets of Europe in the question of the Danubian Principalities; and I have done so the more severely, since my criticisms, however painful they might be to the Porte, concerned the future welfare of Turkey, much more than that of the Roumanian people. For peoples do not perish; whereas nothing is so fragile as empires composed of heterogeneous elements. But it is not under present circumstances that I shall accuse the Porte. I shall not imitate some of the public acts of the periodical press of England and France, who have so unwisely chosen the time to place Turkey under the ban of civilization, that one may (perhaps not without reason), call into question then’ sincerity.

But what is of importance to state here, and that, notwithstanding the recent rejection of the ultimatum of Prince Menschikoff—which, at all events, can only be considered as an act of despair which will probably have no result—is, that the Porte, right or wrong, (wrong doubtless, for the only effectual means to prevent Russia from meddling in her affairs, to compel her respect, and at the same time to assure to herself, at need, the protection of friendly powers, would be to return frankly to legality; and thus strong in her right and the devotedness of the peoples of the East, to repel with vigour every unjust demand, from wherever it might come, without further care of what her aggressors or protectors might say or do,)—that which, I repeat, it is necessary to establish here is, that the Porte, whether right or wrong, no longer believes in its power of opposing the least resistance to the daily increasing requirements of Russia, without the previous support of England and France; a support which, unfortunately, (when it is not completely wanting), is almost always, as perhaps in the present instance, undecided, fearful, tardy, and inefficacious. In fact, if, at the first news of Prince Menschikoff’s mission, and of those immense preparations for war which Russia was making in her ports on the Black Sea and in the whole extent of her southern provinces, England and