operations," as the last almanac expresses it, besides
various _corps de reserve_, and a navy of 186 from steamers, 41 large
sailing vessels, and numerous gun-boats and smaller vessels, in the
Baltic, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, the White Sea, and the Sea of
Azof. More than seven eighths of these are frozen up and totally
unavailable for six months every year. It is estimated that, after
allowing for the forces necessary to protect the home possessions of
the empire, of which Russian Poland is the most troublesome, the
number of troops that can be brought into active offensive operation
does not, under ordinary circumstances, exceed two hundred thousand
men, and it must be obvious, considering that Russia has but little
external sea-board, and must submit to the rigors of a climate which
locks up the best part of her navy at least half of every year, that
she can never attain any great strength as a naval power. I am
inclined to believe, therefore, that while this great nation, or
combination of nations, is, from the very nature of its climate and
topography, almost impregnable to foreign invasion, it can never
become a very formidable power at any great distance from home; and
there are considerations connected with its form of government, and
the difficulty or impracticability of changing it, which, in my
opinion, forms an insuperable obstacle to the education of the people,
and such general dissemination of intelligence among the masses as
will entitle them to take the highest rank among civilized nations.
Nor does the history of Russia during past ages afford much
encouragement for a different view of the future. Democracy existed
for several centuries before the country became subject to despotic
rule, and from the ninth to the fifteenth century the aristocracy
possessed no hereditary privileges; the offices of state were
accessible to all, and the peasantry enjoyed personal liberty. It was
not until the reign of Peter the Great--the high-priest of
civilization--that the serfs became absolute slaves subject to sale,
with or without the lands upon which they lived. In respect to
political liberty, there has been little, if any advance since the
reign of the Empress Catherine, who accorded some elective privileges
to certain classes of her subjects in the provinces, and reduced the
administration of the laws to something like a system. The absurd
pretense of Alexander I. in according to the Senate the right of
re