WHAT KIND OF PEACE?

From the Examiner, 30 Dec.

TERMS OF PEACE.

It is understood that the indirect negotiations which have been pending at Vienna, and failing which the allies expect the crisis which may lead to more active help from Austria have definitively failed. What the Czar offers, as might have been anticipated, is not satisfactory.

How long time would elapse before Europe would be professedly governed from St. PetersThe Spectator of 30th December says:- burg, we know not-nor care. All that is Favorable as have been the results hitherto of humiliating, all that is disastrous in that result, the war which will render 1854 a memorable would have occurred, and the time and form year, it depends upon our future course for the open assumption of universal empire whether this year is to be memorable as a would be for the emperor of Russia to fix, glorious or an infamous date in English and and a matter in which the descendants of freeFrench annals. We can pass no satisfactory men could not much interest themselves. The judgment upon action till it is completed. If evil could not then be resisted: whatever we have embarked in the contest with deep resistance is to be offered must be offered now, convictions of the reasonable grounds of our and the fall of Sebastopol is the first and inproceeding, and with a firm purpose of not dispensable guarantee that such resistance is desisting till we have gained security for our- and will be successful. With the good wishes selves and for Europe, the end will be more of the season, the first thought that will rise glorious than the beginning. If, on the con- spontaneously in the heart of the nation on trary, an impatience of the expense, of the Monday morning, will be "Speedy destruction trouble, of the sacrifice, demanded by a great to Sebastopol. May both wishes be fully purpose, prove powerful enough to undermine realized. our convictions, to paralyze our action, and to lead us to abandon our own cause, the year that is passing will have been the beginning of the end. We see no symptoms of such pusillanimity, such weakness, in the public. But symptoms are not wanting that among the recognized advisers of the public a tendency of this kind is cautiously showing itself in wholesale abuse of the management and managers of the war. But we have now, as heretofore, to lift up our voice against any form of policy that would under any pretence advise abandonment of the war without material guarantees of security for the future. History would have no more ludicrous spectacle to of fer, were it not for the mighty hopes overthrown and the vast human interests compromised, than if England and France were to make a peace with Russia that should leave Sebastopol standing or Russia mistress of the Black Sea. The position of Europe would be inexpressibly worse than if we had never raised a finger to arrest the course of Russian domination. We should have tried and have failed; and this not through want of material, The Czar will listen to no stipulations limitbut of moral power-not because we were not ing his power over the fleet and the fortificarich and valiant, but because we were not tions of Sebastopol. Maintaining that each men, and our valor was a mere brute impulse, sovereign must be left to do what he likes unsustained by purpose and idea. Meanwhile, within his own territories, and that none can Russian policy would have received not a have the right to question his preparations at check, but a warning-would not have been Sebastopol, he argues that the Sultan, in like forced back upon her path, but simply have manner, is at full liberty to convert Sinope been enabled better to measure the obstacles into a fortress and arsenal, which he may make, and appreciate her own power for overcoming if it so please him, as extensive and as formthem. And how long would even caution be idable as Sebastopol. necessary after united Europe had failed to Such is said to be the reasoning and resolve arrest the stride of the despot? The enthusi- of Russia; and manifestly, if assented to or asm and the efforts of the Western Powers acted upon, the change would be merely from having evaporated with no result-their mili- open war to a state of antagonism as fatal to tary prestige gone their pretensions the the general interests of Europe. Each counlaughingstock of Europe-the spirit and con- try would be unceasingly engaged in constructfidence of their people lowered, who would ing fortresses, training and paying armies, undertake to lift voice or arm afterwards to building fleets, always preparing, in short, gainsay or stop that omnipotent influence? for no remote hostilities. It would be that

We do not profess to be acquainted with the details of these negotiations, but as to the main question on which they have broken down we have no reason to doubt the information communicated to us. Agreement even as to the construction of the four points was thought not unattainable, but it was on the condition required by the allies for the liberation of the Black Sea from the naval and military incubus of Sebastopol that every hope of accommodation vanished.

most undesirable and most insecure of all [ things, an armed peace; for with Russia and Turkey in such attitudes, how could Europe disarm?

From the Examiner, 30 Dec. THE BALTIC FLEET AND SWEDISH CO-OPERATION.

Russia would characterize it as not less Sir Charles Napier has brought back from outrageous to demand of a great power, than the Baltic, all safe and sound, his fleet of fifty humiliating to such a power to consent, that sail, and though he has not destroyed Swea she should limit her number of ships, and cease borg, Helsingfors, or Cronstadt, or got at St. to make her batteries formidable in any sea. Petersburg, or had occasion to use those sharp-* The first maritime countries, however, have ened cutlasses we heard about soon after he not shrunk from entering into stipulations of sailed, it would be very unjust to say that he this kind. England and France made mutual and his gallant comrades have done nothing. concessions not many years since that each Despite all appearances, the old admiral has should keep only a certain number of vessels really accomplished something, as a brief statein the waters east of Malta; and what would ment may show. seem to have been demanded of Russia was First of all he has organized a great fleet something tantamount. If Russia maintain out of very inadequate materials, for his men her great fleet at Sebastopol, England and were composed of old sailors and landsmen, France must keep a corresponding fleet in the and if he has not turned the latter into firstBlack Sea or the Bosphorus; and such a state class seamen, he has taught them gunnery to of things would be as expensive and disquiet-perfection. Next, he has gained complete acing as war, without any hope of ultimate satis-quaintance with every nook and cranny of the faction from such results as are produced by Baltic and its gulfs, has tried and tested all the difficulties and possibilities of their navigation, and has gained an amount of practical knowl edge of those seas which will be serviceable not merely for the next campaign, but for the next century. More than this, he has cultivated intimate relations with their as yet neutral nations; has inspired them, it is believed, with confidence in our strength and ability to protect them; and has converted their waters into an Anglo-French lake.. As we all know, the formidable fortifications of Bomarsund, on which Russia had spent and was spending millions, for the purpose of overawing the nationality and attacking the independence of Sweden, have been abated and destroyed; and the neutrality of Denmark, which existed with Russian tendencies and inclinations, has been converted into a neutrality with English tendencies and inclinations. The naval pres

war.

It is idle to set up the point of honor in answer to the demand for a guarantee against aggression. What now must be forced from Russia is the satisfactory security that her future intentions are those of peace. If her fortresses in the Black Sea are to be kept armed to the teeth, Russia still meditates war. Her very demands prove it, and necessitate a continuance of the existing struggle till material guarantees shall be obtained for the effective re-establishment of peace.

They lie before us in the Crimea, and the first condition now, to whatever we may hope hereafter to achieve, must be the completion of that enterprise. It is no longer upon the Danube, but in the Crimea, that tranquillity must be conquered. The line of the Danube is comparatively safe, but after all that has passed an honorable peace is not possible which tige of the Czar has been reduced to the lowest would leave Russia possessed of the Tartar point, the Russian fleets have been locked up province. To do this would be to leave Turkey in their fortresses, and Russian commerce has in far worse strait than we found her. To de- been swept from the northern seas. Finally, prive Russia finally, decidedly, and by force by the complete stoppage of the trade in salt, of arms of the Crimea, is the work we have a prime necessity of life, terrible privations now, therefore, imperatively to do. We have must have been inflicted on the population of half accomplished it; it may take the summer Russia. All this, moreover, has been acto complete; the Sea of Azoff may have to be complished by Admiral Napier in difficult and entered by vessels fitted for the purpose, and dangerous waters, without loss or injury of the amount of reinforcements required for the any sort or kind to an immense fleet, and reduction of the fortresses of the mountains, as though many of the ships under his command well as of the batteries of Sebastopol, may be were utterly unfitted for the service to be larger than we have even yet taken into cal- performed. culation. But there the great obstacle to This may suffice to dispose of the notion peace now lies, and it can be removed only that the gallant old sailor has done little or by the sword. As long as the Czar retains nothing. That he has not done more would the Crimea he will persevere in his projects seem to be other people's fault, not his. against Turkey; and it is not till we are finally What Admiral Napier may next year be masters of that province that the possibility of able to accomplish, when he returns with a peace to Europe can ever be restored. flotilla of gun-boats and floating batteries,

ン

events will decide. But if, in 1855, we would | Swedes, the lighter the terms needful will be. effectively assail Russia in her northern ex- Towards the close of the last war, it was tremities, something more than even that kind thought worth the while of England to subsiof craft, valuable as it must prove, and which we have no doubt Admiral Berkeley will give him in plenty, will have to be resorted to by Sir Charles Napier's superiors, the Queen's Government.

dize King Bernadotte to the extent of eight millions sterling, and, after its conclusion, to reward him by the annexation of Norway. Though far richer now than then, we have no desire to see English gold poured into Swedish coffers at that lavish extravagant rate; but, deeply concerned as Sweden is in the result of the present war, it is childish to expect that she will join the Western Powers unless they help her with money-and for this plain reason -that Sweden has all the elements of military strength except money. For what resource of that kind can a state with a revenue of only one million sterling have? The first condition

That something is the conversion of the neutrality of Sweden into an alliance offensive and defensive with the allies. If the present struggle be for the freedom and independence of Europe, no state has a more direct or deeper interest in it than Sweden; and when Lord John Russell argues that in such a struggle it is the duty of Germany to take a large and active part, his argument applies with irresistible force to the Scandinavian states. Eng- of her co-operation, therefore, is and must be land and France are fighting their battle, and have as much right to expect and require their co-operation as that of Germany.

money. Supply her with that, economically and moderately, and her gun-boats are at our service in the Baltic, and her gallant army of 60,000 men may be used to create a diversion in our favor on the Polish frontier of Russia.

It is idle to say that Russia has given Sweden no just cause of war, when we have just destroyed a fortress that could have had no object but the ultimate subjugation of Sweden. The next condition is, a permanent guaranThe erection of Bomarsund was as much a tee of her independence and integrity. "Practicause of alarm and danger to Sweden as that cally we do now give Sweden such a guarantee, of Sebastopol to Turkey. By its agency, and for Europe would never tamely submit to see under its protection, Russia would have been Sweden at any time attacked by Russia; and able to have a fleet of thirty sail of the line in on the conclusion of a general peace we could a position, at any favorable moment, to destroy easily lighten the weight of such an obligation, the Swedish monarchy and the independence by binding Russia to the same effect. It was and freedom of the Baltic; and the very first only two years ago that, for the sake of prelaw of nature, the instinct of self-preservation, serving the incongruous and heterogeneous dictates an alliance on the part of Sweden elements that constitute the Danish monarchy with the powers that have reduced that form- under one sovereign, we concluded a treaty idable and threatening fortress. which protected them by such a guarantee;

they gave to Denmark? In the latter case there existed literally not a tittle of the inducement or the interest that dictates the wisdom of guaranteeing Sweden and Norway against all Russian assaults and intrigues.

So long as the abatement of the power of and that treaty was greatly to the advantage Russia seemed a light and easy task, it may of Russia. Why, then, should France and have been no unwise policy not to extend the England hesitate, at a moment like this, to area of hostilities, and to disturb as little as give to Sweden and Norway a pledge such as possible the peace of minor countries. But as the magnitude and difficulties of the war increase, so our policy and our duties become enlarged. That which we could leave undone when Sebastopol seemed within easy grasp, it is folly, and worse than folly, to neglect, when our very army before Sebastopol is itself in danger. With a common cause in hand, we ought now to seek Swedish co-operation even at some sacrifices. Such co-operation is only a question of terms, and the sooner England and France authorize and empower their ministers at Stockholm to come to terms with the

If the winter be allowed to pass away without some effort to secure Swedish co-operation, deep indeed will be the responsibility of those who have the conduct of the war. To open the next Baltic campaign with that natural ally by our side would be a work of which statesmanship might be proud.

M. LEON FAUCHER, an eminent French writer and most serious books on our country published on questions of political economy, has just died. in France. M. Faucher played a leading part Amongst his productions are two large volumes, in political affairs, and was for some time a Cabicalled Etudes sur l'Angleterre," one of the best net Minister.

From Blackwood's Magazine
ZAIDEE: A ROMANCE. - PART I.

CHAPTER I. THE GRANGE.

"SOME call it the Uplands, sir, and some call it the Grange-to us hereabouts it is nought but the Squire's house; that's the name."

stranger who never comes out of the wintry, windy horizon. It is a rare chance, indeed, when there is not a reddening of storm in the sunset which blazes upon this uplying house-a still rarer joy when the morning comes without the chill breath of a sea gale, and the sca itself could not witness a wilder riot of wind and brewing tempest than rings about the ears of the dwellers here through many a winter night. The old house never wavers of its footing for such an argument, but stands firm upon the little rocky platform over which a lawn, which has been green for centurics, mantles warmly, and, stoutly defiant of the winds to which it has been used so long, sets its back against the hill, and holds its ground.

Such would be the answer of the Cheshire peasant of whom you asked the designation of this old-established family dwelling place: it is both the Uplands and the Grange in reality, but the Squire's house, its simplest and most common distinction, is sufficiently satisfactory. The scenery about is Cheshire scenery-nothing grand or elevated certainly, but, after its bare, bleak, windy fashion, wild enough to please a In a semicircle round the front of the Grange is moderate taste for desolation. The principal the moat, which in these peaceable days is nothing feature in the landscape is a low, rocky hill, better than a pond enclosed in broken masonry, where a shelf of bare, brown whinstone, almost the evil qualities of which bit of half-stagnant waas hard as granite, alternates with a slope of that ter are numerous, and would be more so in a less close, slippery, hill-side turf, rich with thyme and breezy locality, while its sole good one is an inlow-springing plants of heather, with bits of numerable crop of water-lilies; but no one has clover and crowflower, and infant prickles of the heart to destroy this bit of antiquity, and furze, which seems to seize and hold fast the every one is proud of the swan-like floating warmth of sunshine better than the most velvet flowers. Behind the house rises the rocky degreensward. A strange, ceric-looking, solitary fence of the hill, so sheltered here that it is windmill, the very picture of useless labor, flap-green with the richest turf, and draped with ping its long solemn wings in the air, crowns one wealth of hardy, ruddy, half alpine flowers. dreary mound; on the other is a small round Fruit-trees and blossoming shrubs do not refuse tower of observation, surmounted by a gallery, to grow under this verdant shadow, and within whence you can look out upon the sea; and the the warm and well-defended enclosure; and they summit of this dreary little hill, and these two say it is summer in the garden of the Grange buildings standing out abrupt and gaunt from many a day after the autumn winds are wild its points, strike sheer upon the sky without a upon the dreary fields of the level country, and softening tree. To be so minute in real extent, when the last hollyhocks are dying in the and so slightly elevated, the loneliness and si-cottage flower-plots below. Modern requirements lence of this place is remarkable; below it, a have made sad havoc in the regularity of the long stretch of pasture, the flattest and least building-modern improvements, beginning in varied of Cheshire fields, stretches away towards the days of Elizabeth, have thrown out oriel the bleak sand-banks and unfeatured coast-a treacherous shore, where the waves roll in strong and wild, with a tawny foam and ocean force, but where there is scarcely either rock or headlandnothing but the border of dry and powdery sand, and the hidden shifting banks that make this shore so dangerous, and without either beauty or interest to claim a second glance from an unacquainted eye.

The trees of the district are few and scanty; twisted and struggling oaks, Scotch firs, gaunt and defiant, bits of half-grown hedgerow, and wild dishevelled willows. On the sheltered side of this hill alone a young plantation flourishes; and under the shadow of these trees, closely folded into a cozy nook of this strong-ribbed iron miniature of a mountain, lies the Grange or Uplands, the Squire's house of the adjacent village, and

the scene of our tale.

windows, and enlarged casements, and built additions, till the Grange, though still not very large, is a cluster of houses, a domestic chronicle of architecture in its own person, and has just that graceful medley of styles and periods which, with the ivies and mosses of old centuries, and the living flowers of to-day, combine to form the finest harmony of a hereditary dwelling-place.

Within, there is an old half, no longer used or possible to use in these days. Remnants of old armor, a faded banner, and an emblazoned coatof-arms, give something of ancestral dignity to this ancient apartment; but the modern servant, who goes soft-footed across its echoing stones towards one of those closed doors, which break the wall, looks strangely out of keeping with the variegated pavement, the great wide chimney, and lofty window, which he passes in his way. No longer the rude retainers of an old Cheshire The house is such a moated Grange as Mari- barony to make this vaulted roof ring again, and ana herself might have inhabited; a far-seeing, yonder old oaken table groan-one mild-spoken wistful, solitary house, commanding long lines of man of all employments, in his rusty black coat road, along which nobody ever travels. The and white neckcloth, like what the parish vicar freest heart in the world might pine at one of might have been a hundred years ago, carrying these deep, antique windows, and grow aweary his tray to the modern drawing-room, and as he of its life, looking along the roads from the opens the door, the modern luxury of a soft Per Grange; and the Grange stands straining all its sian carpet appears just edging the pavement of dark glowing eyes into the day and into the the hall. The wonder is, after all, that there is night, as if on constant watch for the expected so slight an incongruity felt and visible between

the antique life, chill here without in the ancient apartment, and the modern life, warm and full of comfort, which meets it on the threshold of the modern room.

very dark brown that the universal opinion calls it black, her lofty features, and her air of unconscious queenliness, which neither comes from the good Saxon Squire, who has slept at rest for two years now in the chancel of Briarford Church, nor from the little brisk mother who sits by her side But no one can explain the mystery, and Elizabeth's mother consoles herself with the resemblance of mind which her daughter bears to various members of the family; and, very proud of her daughter's distinguished looks and singular grace, manages to be content.

It is an autumn evening, and the whole family are assembled within. The room is large-very large for the dimensions of the house-stretching whence did they spring, those stately beauties? from the broad and heavy mullioned window which looks towards the front, to the long, narrow modern sashes which open upon the green turf and trim walks of the garden behind. More than one smaller room opens from this drawingroom, and the family must be a tolerably affectionate and harmonious family, or it could not Busily knitting a purse at the window is Mar. bear such close neighborhood. One door, which garet, a pensive beauty, just touched with sentiyou would fancy to open directly into the wall, mentalism. Both these young ladies have had opens instead into one of the oddest little nooks the evil fortune to be born older than the heir, so of building, as bright as daylight, all aglow with that Margaret is actually two-and-twenty at this a great round window, where, with fairy book-present writing, and Elizabeth full two years shelves and a miniature piano, with little otto-older-a state of matters very dreadful in the mans and couches, dainty with their own needle- estimation of wild, pretty, seventeen-year old work, the young ladies of the house have made themselves a bower-for only the young ladies' maid, who is much the finest person in the family, calls it the boudoir. Just at the opposite end, running off at an angle, a low one-storyed addition to the original house is the gentlemanly retirement, the library, a larger, graver apartment -less gay and more comfortable; while the mother claims as her own exclusive property, a door opposite the ever-open door of the young ladies' room. The matron's "closet" is always closed, and is a sober, lady-like, house-keeper's room; so cach separate interest having its separate possession in a cluster round the drawingroom, it is less wonderful to find the whole family assembled here.

Sophy, who lies on the carpet playing with the oldest and shaggiest of greyhounds, a privileged visitor of the drawing-room. There is no mistake about Sophy's sunny eyes and golden hair, her lilies and roses of sweet complexion, and her gay simplicity of heart; her mother has had no difficulty in finding out hosts of kindred whom she resembles, and Sophy is the family darling, the beloved of the house.

lip, and some unshed tears about her heart, how well he fills his father's place, and what credit he does to his father's name.

The heir has not quite attained his majority Yonder he sits in his father's chair reading the newspaper, which was his father's oracle, and absorbed with a young man's eagerness in the political news of the day; an impatient start and "pshaw" now and then, tempts one to suspect that Philip Vivian does not quite feel the force You cannot mistake the lady of the house in of his father's principles; but the dreadful dignified possession of her little work-table and thought has not yet dawned upon his mother, her casy-chair; but that rich gown of dim black who looks up at him now and then with mothersilk, and that snowy widow's cap, coming closely admiration, thinking, with a smile on her kind round her face, make it very evident that Mrs. Vivian of the Grange is the Squire's mother, and no longer, what she has been for thirty years, the Squire's wife. The easy-chair is by no means a low chair, and the foot-stool is rather higher than usual, from which you may divine that this representative of domestic sovereignty is a very little woman. Little in stature, though by means of high heels and other innocent devices this good gentlewoman makes the most of what she has, and most becomingly little are those lady-like and delicate hands, and the small feet which Mrs. Vivian slippers so handsomely. As nimble as they are small, you would never fancy these ac-ing smile, which is sometimes so very bright and tive fingers had seen fifty years' good service, nor this alert little figure travelled the ways of mortal care so long. Mrs. Vivian will tell you that she has had her own share" of trouble, but for all that there is not a lighter foot in the household than belongs to the mother of all.

Still another member of the family, whose age is half-way between the ages of Philip and of Sophy, has a corner and a writing table to himself. This son is the least handsome of the whole, though his eyes are finer than Elizabeth's, and his head a nobler head than even that lofty one, clustered all over with rich brown curls, which Philip carries like a young prince. But a great deal of frolic and mischief are lurking in Percy Vivian's eye, and he has a doubtful, waver

tender, sometimes so scornful, sometimes as pensive and sad as Margaret's. Everybody knows he is very clever, but what more he is, nobody does very well know.

Are these all? Still one little personage remains yonder coiled up in a corner, embracing a At the table near her sits a stately personage, book; a girl of fourteen, in the angular developwhom it is a perpetual wonder to Mrs. Vivian, ment peculiar to her age, which may turn out and all Mrs. Vivian's friends, to call her first- either ugly or beautiful for anything that can be born. Five feet ten at the smallest measure, prophesied. Not such a little personage either, with the bearing, as she has the manner, of a-half a head taller than Aunt Vivian, with long princess! Elizabeth Vivian could carry her arms, long fingers, long hair, and eyes that shine mother under her arm like a child. And then in fitful brightness-cyes that, shadowed by ZaiElizabeth's great dark liquid eyes, her hair so dee's long eye-lashes, are stars never visible to