from the traditionary policy of the great empire of the North, that within a period of less than three years her passion for territorial aggrandizement would again break forth. Nevertheless, having given up, under the pressure of the Allies, a few square leagues of territory which once formed an integral part of the Turkish empire, the Imperial councillors seem to have suddenly turned their attention from the banks of the Danube to the eastern frontier of the vast Russian dominions. Compelled by an unexpected combination of two powerful States to recede a few steps in Europe, Russia has since made one of her gigantic strides in Asia, adding to her previously enormous empire a territory equal to the combined areas of France and Italy. She has obtained an extensive seaboard on the North Pacific, access by one of the noblest rivers in Asia to the centre of her dominions, a considerable increase of population, and a position in Central Asia in dangerous proximity to the weakened and distracted empire of China, from the capital of which her frontier is now distant less than 600 miles.

The region bordering on the great River Amoor has passed by treaty from the dominion of China to that of Russia. In the autumn of last year, when the combined French and British expedition was supposed to be approaching Pekin, and public expectation was excited by the hope of hearing through the ordinary channels of the occupation of that almost fabled capital, the nation was startled by the publication of a telegram from St. Petersburg, announcing that preliminaries of peace had been signed, and that negotiations were in progress which would speedily result in a treaty conceding to the Allied Powers all their demands. This intelligence was conveyed from Pekin to St. Petersburg in the unprecedentedly short period of five weeks. Gratifying as the announcement was, we were at a loss to account for such an unusual activity in Russian communications, and for the motives which could have induced a power that had no part in the quarrel to interest itself so greatly in the result. A few weeks after the conclusion of the peace the mystery was completely cleared up. The 'St. Petersburg Gazette' published the heads of a treaty between China and Russia, by which the former confirmed the possession, by Russia, of the whole of the left bank of the Amoor (which had practically become hers in 1858), and added to it an extensive region, bounded by the Usuri as far as the lakes of Khinka, by the Gulf of Tartary, and by a frontier line running between the lakes of Khinka and Passette Bay, or Napoleon's Bay, about the 42nd parallel of latitude; so that Russia is now legally possessed not only of the country north of

the

the Amoor and east of the Usuri, but of the entire coast of Manchouria down to the frontiers of Corea. The newly-acquired region has been formed into the maritime province of Eastern Siberia.

Russia has hitherto owed much more to diplomacy than to her arms. The last of her acquisitions will be found to be marked by that dexterous use of opportunities which has so often enabled her to accomplish important objects without provoking the opposition of other powers, or even eliciting from them a remonstrance or a protest.

Russia placed herself in an attitude of hostility to China in 1858, by moving a considerable Cossack force to the frontier, and thus paralysing the efforts of the Government to extinguish the Taeping rebellion. This demonstration had simply a political object. It was found expedient by the Court of Pekin to purchase the retreat of the irregular Russian force in order to release a large body of Chinese troops from their otherwise indispensable presence on the borders of the empire. The price paid for this Russian concession is believed to have been the surrender by treaty of the whole of the territory north of the Amoor (of which Russia had previously taken forcible possession by a series of encroachments, to be noticed below), together with the free navigation of the river. This treaty was not ratified by the Emperor at that time; but when the Chinese Government failed to carry out its engagements with England and France, and the war was renewed by those Powers, the arts of Russian diplomacy were once more called into requisition.

At the moment when the allied forces were present before the capital, when a popular insurrection was imminent, and the palace of the Emperor in flames, the Russian Ambassador, Count Ignatieff, presented himself to the mandarins assembled in council. The wily diplomatist tendered his good offices, and pressed upon the distracted statesmen his intervention, intimating doubtless that a cession of territory on the right bank of the Amoor would at once be highly acceptable and a becoming acknowledgment of the important assistance rendered to the Emperor of China. The Ministers eagerly accepted the offer, and General Ignatieff was able in a few days to transmit to his Government not only the ratification of the treaty of 1858, but a treaty ceding a part of the Chinese empire of the highest value to Russia, absolutely and without any consideration or equivalent whatever. The services rendered by the Russian envoy to the Court of Pekin were purely imaginary. The Earl of Elgin and Baron Gros were not ministers to be influenced by Russian mediation. Their terms never varied; the condi

tions on which they made peace were those originally proposed, with the necessary addition of an increased indemnity.*

The possession of the Amoor has been one of the most cherished projects of the Czars of Russia from the time it first became known in 1639. They first coveted it principally for the sake of its valuable furs. They took possession of a considerable portion of the left bank almost as soon as it was discovered; but after many sanguinary conflicts the Russian settlers were driven from the territory by the Chinese forces, and they were compelled to abandon it by a formal treaty in 1687. From that period the mouth and lower portion of the river were protected by armed boats, and its navigation has been rigidly interdicted.

One of the most important treaties entered into between the Russian and Chinese Governments was that of Nerchinsk in 1689. The fortresses built by the Russians were demolished, and strict rules were agreed to for regulating the intercourse between the population of the respective frontiers. This treaty grants a free access to the subjects of each power to the territories of the other, under certain passport-regulations, and permits them to sell and purchase at pleasure. The future boundaries of the two empires are described with much precision, and the great object of the Chinese Government was effectually attained, namely, the exclusion of the Russians from the navigation of the Amoor.

After the conclusion of the treaty of Nerchinsk the diplomatic relations of Russia and China assumed a more regular form, but in the course of the subsequent wars prisoners were frequently made by the Chinese, and, together with Russian deserters, were sent to Pekin, and formed into an Imperial body-guard. These Russian troops were permitted to erect a church of their own. A 'Russian House' in due time arose, and caravans from Europe were lodged there at the expense of the Chinese Government. An educational establishment followed, designed to teach Chinese to the young Russians, and Russian to the Chinese. The school or college expanded into a mission, to the support of which the Chinese Government was induced to contribute. At the entrance of the Russian House in Pekin stood, in 1857, a guard of Chinese soldiers. The establishment consisted then of only a few members, whose activity

* A treaty having reference to the Amoor is said to have been negotiated in the year 1860 at Aigunt, an ancient Chinese town near to Sagalien-Dla Choton, by the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia, and completed, Mr. Tilley says, in three days, 'in the business-like manner said to be peculiar to that statesman in his relations with Oriental powers. It is probable that this treaty is not the most important one, but that further concessions of far greater value were made to Count Ignatieff at Pekin.

was

was believed to be rather of a scientific and political than of a missionary nature, and who often served the purpose of a regular embassy.

The possession of the Amoor offered the readiest and most certain route for provisioning the Pacific settlements. Not less than 14,000 or 15,000 packhorses were required to carry the annual supplies to these distant stations, and thus the price of provisions was enormously high. A pound of flour in Kamschatka often cost eighteen pence halfpenny. Public attention was directed to the Amoor, and its commercial and political importance, by the frequent publication in Russian journals of narratives of early Russian adventure in that region; and when Count Mouravieff was appointed Governor of Eastern Siberia in 1847, one of his first acts was to send an officer with four Cossacks on an expedition down the river. He also gave orders for the immediate exploration of the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk, and the mouth of the Amoor. In 1850 the river was entered in a boat by a Russian naval officer-Lieutenant Orloff-and in the following year Nicholaivsk and Mariinsk were established as the trading ports of a Russo-American Company.

In the year 1854-5 the Russian settlements in the Pacific were in urgent want of provisions and matériel of war, and the only available route was to send them from Siberia down the Amoor. Count Mouravieff himself undertook the command of the expedition, and, with a battalion of infantry and some Cossacks, amounting altogether to about a thousand men, with several guns, he descended the Amoor in barges and rafts. The Chinese force on the river was not sufficient to offer any opposition or obstruction.

The Russian settlements' in Chinese territory were, up to the year 1856, confined to the towns of Nicholaivsk and Mariinsk, a few agricultural colonies situate between the two, and a port at Castries Bay. Count Mouravieff was most pressing on his return for the means of completely colonizing' the Amoor-the territory of an independent State; and, accordingly, 697 barges and rafts descended the river in the following year, Cossack posts were formed in convenient or commanding positions, and important additions were made to the military stations along the banks. Thus had the Russians paved the way for their operations of 1858 which we have already mentioned.

The latest treaty negotiated by Count Ignatieff at Pekin is the most important and comprehensive ever concluded by China with a foreign State. This treaty was ratified at St. Petersburg on the 1st of January, 1861. After defining with much exactness the eastern boundaries of the two empires, it proceeds to establish a

perfectly

perfectly free trade between the subjects of the two States, and declares that the local authorities shall afford special protection to such trade, and to all who exercise it. In addition to the ancient trade of which the town of Kiachta is the seat, it declares that Russian merchants shall enjoy their former privilege of going to Pekin on commercial business, and be allowed to trade at certain other towns without being obliged to maintain large commercial establishments in them. Chinese merchants are permitted to enter Russia, if so inclined, and to Russian merchants is conceded the privilege of travelling in China at all times on commercial business, but they are not to congregate together in a greater number than two hundred in the same locality. An experimental trade is to be opened at Kashgar, a town on the Chinese frontier, for which the Chinese Government undertakes to grant land for a factory and a church. Russian merchants in China and Chinese merchants in Russia are placed under the special protection of the two Governments. Commercial disputes are to be settled by the merchants themselves before a Court of Arbitration, and the governors of provinces, in the event of a Russian subject seeking flight in the interior of China, are bound to take measures to capture him, and hand him over to the Russian authorities.

The territory acquired by Russia, together with the possession of the great river which empties itself into the Sea of Okhotsk, give to that Power a most commanding position in relation to the two empires to which it is thus brought into close proximity. It at once dominates the Chinese waters and threatens the neighbouring empire of Japan. It is not a little curious to discover the views of Russia upon the Japanese empire in an incident which occurred so early as 1792. A Japanese vessel had been wrecked upon one of the Aleutian Islands. The crew were saved and sent to the capital of Eastern Siberia, where they were detained and well treated for ten years, and carefully instructed in the Russian language. The Empress Catherine then sent them back to their native country, with instructions to endeavour to persuade the Government to establish friendly relations and open direct communications with the Russian empire. The governor of Eastern Siberia was commanded to despatch an envoy for the purpose; but the Japanese ministers, thanking the Russian ministers for their attention, declined to enter into any treaty or negotiation whatever.*

The Sea of Okhotsk receives the waters of one of themost magnificent rivers of the Old World. The Amoor has a course of

* These facts are stated by Captain Sherard Osborne in his interesting work on Japan.

nearly