ions.
The British diplomatist in Russia was unquestionably a shrewd man, and
yet his letters abound in predictions of Russian ruin. His descriptions
run in this style:--"Great expenses, and nothing to show for them. The
army in a state of decay; the navy incomplete and ill-equipped; the
political system languid, and such as, if pursued, must ultimately
reduce this immense mass of power to that state of Asiatic
insignificancy from which it so lately emerged."

And this high-coloured and rash statement, it is to be remembered, was
not a page in a popular novel or in a summer's "Tour," but was given as
the deliberate opinion of a statesman conversant in continental
politics, and addressed to the government of this country. He seems to
have altogether overlooked the boundless territory and growing
population of Russia, her forty millions of men--a number already
exceeding that of any other kingdom in Europe--the inaccessible nature
of her dominions, the implicit and Asiatic devotion of her subjects, the
unrivaled vigour of her despotism, and the fact that she had but that
moment secured an immense tract of Polish territory, and was stripping
the Turks on the other side--that to the north she was touching on the
Vistula, and to the south had nearly reached the Danube. The subsequent
career of Russia is a still stronger refutation. Every war, instead of
shaking her power, has only given it additional strength and stability.
Like England, she has gone on with almost involuntary but rapid
progress; and the period may arrive when there will be but two nations
left in Europe--England the ruler of the seas, and Russia holding the
kingdoms of the Continent in vassalage. It is true, that the ambassador
adverts now and then to the inaccessible nature of the Russian
territory, and the success of the national arms; but the former would be
but a negative source of power, and the latter he uniformly attributed
to good-luck. He ought to lave attributed them to the causes which would
have produced the same effect in any age of the world--to the mastery of
an immense population; to the daring of a head of empire possessed of
remarkable ability, and filled with projects of unbounded supremacy; and
to the growth of a new generation of soldiers and statesmen, encouraged
to the highest exertion of their talents by the most munificent
rewards--the policy of the empress making the evidence of courage and
genius in the soldier the only requisite f