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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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,. Horae-• w * * Name . Gana . power . CIms . Duke of Wellington 131 780 Screw three-decker . Weptune 130 — Sailing three-decker . Agamemnon ... 91 600 Screw two-decker . Prince Begent ... 90 — Sailing two-decker . J *> n don ••• SO — Sailing two-decker . ImpeneuBe 60 360 Screw frigate . Blenheim 60 450 Screw two-decker . —J * 60 460 Screw two-decker . £° g ue ... 60 450 Screw two-decker . Edinburgh 58 450 Screw two-decker . Arrogant 47 , 360 Screw frigate . Amphion 34 300 Screw frigate . Sidon 22 560 Paddle frigate . Highflyer 21 250 Screw frigate . Odin ... 16 660 Paddle frigate . Encounter 14 360 Screw corvette . Vesuvius 6 280 Paddle sloop . Banshee 2 360 Paddle express boat . In the French ports a fleet is being fitted , destined , it is said , to act in union with Admiral Corry ' s squadron ,
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LETTERS FE 0 M PARIS . [ Fbom oub own Corbespondent . ] Lbttbb LXXVIII . Paris , Thursday Evening , June 23 , 1853 . All business is at a stand still in Paris , and generally throughout France , in consequence of the prevailing uncertainty about the chances of war or peace . Many people begin to murmur and talk bitterly about this state of things , as if they had just found out that it is not always an advantage to leare the destinies of millions of men at the mercy of the arbitrary caprices of a
single irresponsible fellow-creature . For the last fortnight there have been more and fiercer diatribes current among the bourgeoisie against the inconveniences of despotism and the monarchical system in general , than even the well-abused " republic" encountered in three years ! Just now there seems fa be a sudden and startling revulsion of opinion ; and the more the crisis is protracted , and the solution delayed , the more republican will the middle and trading classes become again . Yet if public opnion is un easy and disturbed , it is tranquillity itself
compared with the fever and fret of our poor Government . It is in the great resolutions of great crises that great men are recognised . In the present difficulty , if Bonaparte were half the man the creatures of his faction represent him to be , would he have shown this pitiable hesitation ?—would he have adopted within three days three contradictory resolutions , such as I am about to relate ? Last week he bad arrived
at the sound and satisfactory conclusion that , let the Russians be once suffered to occupy the Danubian provinces , it would be next to impossible to drive them out again ; and that to permit such an aggression would be to give them up , without a blow , a considerable aggrandisement of territory . Full of this conviction , which is merely one of absolute justice , as will appear in the results , and proud of the alliance newly contracted with the British Government , he wrote last
week ( it is understood ) to your Cabinet , Betting forth his opinions on the point in question , and inviting the English Government to make a casus belli of the Russian occupation of the provinces . But your Cabinet , it seems , doubtful and divided on the question , returned an evasive answer : without positively refusing it , abstained from making any sort of pledge or promise in response to the proposals . It is now a week since this reply of your Government was transmitted to Bonaparte . The Emperor , disgusted at hesitation and delay , where he expected unreserved co-operation , redetermined
solved at onco to make a coup de tSte : he to make an appeal to the nation , and actually drew up a formidablo note , treating the entry of the Russians into Moldavia and Wallachia as a casus belli . This note was on the point of being sent to the Moniteur , when the E mperor suddenly took it into his heiul to rend it to the Council of Ministers . He did read it ; and if a thunderbolt had fallen on the council table it could hardly have created greater consternation . Some Ministers , I boliovo , nlmost screamed with alarm . Fould all but threw himHclf at tho Emperor ' s feet , and dragging himself along on his knees , a la Juive , ho conjured his imperial master , ho supplicated him , lie and entreaties that the
besieged him wjth prnyers note might not bo published . Tho majority of the Ministers joined him in his forvont appeals . Hut Persijrny and Duco * , on t ho other hand , insisted on tho ifecLity of tho note : thou Bonaparte d . sinused his Council , « aying in his usual way that ho would consider the matter ( qu ' il s ' amscrait ) . Now , tho chief object of this note wna l > y auch a solemn ami p We declaration to give heart to the English Cabinet , and induce then , too , to pronounce in favour oto name policy . So ho sent for Lord Cowley and VhTtho note Hut Lord Cowley assured him , Zrt ^ MW . ** policy of the English SovSn ent was for tho present moment "P" * " ** tZ would not commit itaelf prematurely ; that if he
( Bonaparte ) published that note , he would immediately find himself abandoned by the English Cabinet . A few hours after a note of the Prussian Government was remitted to Bonaparte : a note ambiguously worded j but which , under the semblance of neutrality , expressed clearly enough the intention of Prussia not to consider the occupation of the Provinces a casus belli . This was a knock down blow for Bonaparte . He instantly tore up his famous note , which was already in type and in proof ; and betook himself to the plains of Satory to play at soldiering and generaling . But this is not all . On the next day ( Tuesday ) he received intelligence of another repulse . On the fifth of this month , elated by his recent alliance with England , and dreaming himself already the manager of Europe ,
he thought to strike a master-stroke of diplomacy , and to send a special Envoy to St . Petersburg to propose to the Czar Nicholas a European congress to settle amicably ( a I ' amiable ) the question of the Eastern Church . The Russian Emperor , however , gave this proposal just the sort of reception that Bonaparte . with a little keener perception of his own position might have easily anticipated . " What does this clown want with me ? " was the brusque reply of Nicholas . " Go and tell him that I don't want to have any business with him , and that he and his congress may be blessed . " * Then turning sharply round to the courtiers : " Did you ever hear of such , impudence ? This mountebank ( paillasse ) of Paris offers me a congress ! This gentleman who wants to persuade the shopkeepers of the Rue St . Denis that he is received into the
European concert . He will have to wait a very long time before I give him that satisfaction . " It was on Tuesday last that this polite answer reached the ears of our poor Bonaparte—since that day he is completely unhinged ( demonte ) ; he has almost lost his head , and has been consigning to all sorts of hot places all the Kings and Emperors and Sultans of this upper earth . Meanwhile the vessel of the State has been " put about . " We are all for peace at the Tuileries ; all for peace in the bureaux of the Pays and the Constitutionnel—all for peace on the Bourse . In the last named den it is even rumoured that the combined fleets have already been recalled . Government
journals , officials , bankers , shopkeepers , everybody seems to have swallowed the Russian occupation of the Danubian Provinces . Qu ' est ce que cela nous fait ? that sacramental formula of the universal scepticism , is in the mouth of all these braves gens . " Is it nothing to you , " men of intelligence may say , " to become Cossacks within twenty years or so ? Possibly you may not object to the operation , but wo are very far from desiring it . " After this specimen of the poltroonery of the monarchists of every country , there remains but one hope for civilization—it is the universal triumph of the Republican party , and the cauterization of the gangrened corruptions of Monarchical Governments .
There is no positive news from Turkey since my last . It is not yet known whether or not the Russians crossed the Pruth on the 14 th inst ., as a telegraphic despatch from Vienna announced . It is only known that the Russians had thrown two bridges over the Pruth , at Lkuleni and Leowa , and one over the Danube at Tultovha . Moreover , four gun-boats had entered the Pruth to cover with their guns tho passage of the troops , and four others were stationed on tho Lower Danube . It is now said , that the riding of tho waters has caused a serious overflow of these two rivers , und that the passage was rendered impassable for a
fortnight at least . Turkey has addressed to tho represenlativesof t ho Powers a Me morandum , or Hatti Scherif , conceding and according to nil thcChristians of every Church full and entire independence , civil and religious . This concession , which generalizes tho particular demand of Russia , is considered by all a mnstcrly stroke of policy . Indeed , tho Turkish Government shows itself in all respects fully determined . On learning- tho Austrian offers of mediation , it declared boldly , that it would not accept tho isolated mediation of that power , but only thut of tho four great Powers , signers of tho treaty of 1841 .
In homo affairs there are a few scraps of news worth sending you . In the fir « t place , tho arrests have gone on to nn extent quite alarming . It is reckoned that nearly 2000 persons , including men of all parties , hnvo been recently arrested . Names belonging to tho highest classes are mentioned | in tho list . It was even rumoured that M . Herryer and tho Archbishop of Paris hud incurred tho rigour of tho police . Probably this startling rumour i » owing to a mero confusion of namos . A man named LarchevAque , and another named Uorruyer , wore comprined in tho list of urrostH in circulation ; hciico tho rumour . Tho wholo
affair is , after all , nothing but an excess of zeal on the part of the police . I related last week how the shouts of five ganpins , in the Avenue de St . Cloud , had been magnified into a plot . That absurd business came at last to the ears of Bonaparte , who had the Minister of Police , M . de Maupas , summoned before the Council of Ministers , and there interrogated and required to furnish facts and proofs of the alleged plot . M . de Maupas had nothing to produce , but he had to bear the brunt of the reproaches of his colleagues , who accused him
of having alarmed everybody , and created a sensation disastrous to the Government . Thereupon Bonaparte , disgusted at this shameful abuse of power , declared that he abolished the Ministry of Police . The decree to that effect appeared in yesterday ' s Moniteur , and was received by all Paris with the greatest satisfaction . The affair is considered an important victory over the despotic regime which oppresses us . We may hope that the 2000 people arrested will soon be set at liberty .
I don't know whether we are about to enter upon a more mild and temperate epoch ; at all events the transportations continue . This is what we read in a journal of Rennes : — "Since the first week in this month , a rather large number of prisoners for transportation have passed through this town on their way to Brest , to be shipped for Cayenne . " What do you say to these revelations ? Then , again , M . Lelut , a member of the Institute , has recently protested publicly in the Journal des Debats against the regime pursued at Cayenne . The government of that penitentiary colony had made a report , by which it appeared that out of 2146 prisoners there were 237 sick , and jnst twice that number ot convalescents , making altogether about 700 sick and
convalescent . M . Lelut , member of the Institute and of the Corps Legislatif , publicly declares that in France , among the poorest classes , and among persons of middle age , the proportion of sick persons was only 2 per cent . ; that in the prisons that proportion was scarcely doubled , even including the convalescents , while at Guyana , according to the Government report itself , the proportion was not less than 33 per cent . ; and as , following the observations of the same report , the convalescents were continually subject to fatal relapse , " the result was that Guyana instead of being a penitentiary , threatened to become a mortuary colony . " Certainly M . Lelut deserves to be congratulated on so courageous a protest against this infamous system ot transportation .
Let ine wind up my present letter with a piquant anecdote . My hero is a senator . He wanted to engage a handsome suite of apartments in the Qtiartier de la Madeleine . The landlord insisted on a six months lease . * ' But I may dio before my term has expired . " " In that case you will naturally ceaso to occupy the apartments . " " But I may no longer be a senator ; it may all go as it came ( tout ceci peut s ' en aller comme e ' est venu ) , and I shall be Qros-Jean as I was before . " " Quito possible , " coolly rejoined t o landlord ; " suppose , then , we make a special claus of that hypothesis . " So great is tho confidence of the very creatures of the Government in the stability of their own regime .
Meanwhile , howevevor , Bonaparte is playing tho General . For a long time ho was content to play nt soldiering—that is to say , to pass the troops in review : never till now did he venture to command in person tho manoeuvres . It is only since last week ho has taken this now step . Nothing is now wanting to complete tho burlesque of tho great Emperor . Yesterday ( Wednesday ) he took it into his head to attack tho Chateau of Versailles from the Park : tho attack was made by torch-light : need 1 say , that tho Chateau allowed itself to bo taken ? The gamins of Versailles have improvised a chanson , alter their manner , in honour of this exploit They sing an he passes by" Malbrook s ' en va-t ' -tm gnerro " " Mais il no part Jama is . " s .
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CONTINKNTAL NOTKS . This Ministry of ( Jejioral Polieo having boon suppressed , M . do MuupnH linn been appointed ainbunsudor to Nnplon , whoro hiH recent funotioim will . peculiarly endear him to tho Kiiitf , in tho plaeo of M . Ariolpho liurrat removed to BriiflKclH . M . ilia . ( Jo Hutcnval , Into Minister to Belgium , it ) nnmod Prefect of tho Soino , conjointly with M . JIuubmnniu Tho Due do Padouo ( M . Arrighi ) , M . . Horgor , ex-Profeet of tho Seine ; M . Prosper M ' orimo ' o , tho diHtingnitihod orator , and tho Marquis do Luvalotto ( ox-ambauHudor to Turkey , and tho prime eauso of all tho iniuchiuf of tho EaHtern question ) , nro nuiriod HcnatorM . A direction of General Safety in outablitthod , to bounder tho MiniHter of the Interior . M . Collet Meyfrrot , Profoct of tho Aubc , in appointed to this post , which includes tho supervision of tho general und Hpociul police , and of tho 1 > rosfl . Tho Ministry of Agrioulturo and Commerce , which lad been absorbed in the Ministry of tho Interior , is roT pstabliahod , and now abaorbe th , o Ministry of Public Works ,
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JuNiE 25 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 607
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* " Qu'ent co quo mo voufc co Magot ; P alloz lui diro que jo no voux p « u » avoir affaire & lui , et quo jo wo f MO lui © t de ( K > n congris 1 "
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Leader (1850-1860), June 25, 1853, page 607, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1992/page/7/
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