t of Germany, who puts his head to the rack
to dig out the mysteries of the mercantile Machiavelism of "perfide
Albion," of which Palmerston is supposed the unscrupulous and
unflinching executor. We will, _en passant_, show, by a few modern
instances, what desperate shifts those foreigners have been driven to,
who feel themselves obliged to interpret Palmerston's acts by what they
imagine to be the English commercial policy. In his valuable _Histoire
Politique et Sociale des Principautes Danubiennes_, M. Elias Regnault,
startled by the Russian conduct, before and during the years 1848-49 of
Mr. Colquhoun, the British Consul at Bucharest, suspects that England
has some secret material interest in keeping down the trade of the
Principalities. The late Dr. Cunibert, private physician of old Milosh,
in his most interesting account of the Russian intrigues in Servia,
gives a curious relation of the manner in which Lord Palmerston, through
the instrumentality of Colonel Hodges, betrayed Milosh to Russia by
feigning to support him against her. Fully believing in the personal
integrity of Hodges, and the patriotic zeal of Palmerston, Dr. Cunibert
is found to go a step further than M. Elias Regnault. He suspects
England of being interested in putting down Turkish commerce generally.
General Mieroslawski, in his last work on Poland, is not very far from
intimating that mercantile Machiavelism instigated England to sacrifice
her own _prestige_ in Asia Minor, by the surrender of Kars. As a last
instance may serve the present lucubrations of the Paris papers, hunting
after the secret springs of commercial jealousy, which induce Palmerston
to oppose the cutting of the Isthmus of Suez canal.

To return to our subject. The mercantile pretext hit upon by the
Townshends, Stanhopes, etc., for the hostile demonstrations against
Sweden, was the following. Towards the end of 1713, Peter I. had
ordered all the hemp and other produce of his dominions, destined for
export, to be carried to St. Petersburg instead of Archangel. Then the
Swedish Regency, during the absence of Charles XII., and Charles XII.
himself, after his return from Bender, declared all the Baltic ports,
occupied by the Russians, to be blockaded. Consequently, English ships,
breaking through the blockade, were confiscated. The English Ministry
then asserted that British merchantmen had the right of trading to those
ports according to Article XVII. of the Defensive Treaty of 170