principal Russian establishment in the Steppe country, is but little more than half of that to Novgorod. If agents for English houses were settled in any of the Tartar towns, he thinks they might create jealousy, as the merchants would consider such a course as an attempt to deprive them of their legitimate profits; but as these enterprising traders are in the habit of travelling thousands of miles with their caravans, they necessarily know every part of the country and in what part of it the tribes are located at every season of the year. It is by the agency of these merchants that Russia distributes her merchandise over Central Asia. Mr. Atkinson furnishes a list of the commodities which are likely to be most in request by the Kirghis and other tribes, for the details of which we must refer to the pages of his important and interesting work. England, in the possession of the Indus, has a natural facility for carrying on a profitable commerce with Central Asia; and it rests with our manufacturers and merchants to determine whether the millions of that vast region shall be supplied with the European commodities which they require from the banks of the Mersey, the Clyde, and the Thames, or from Moscow and Novgorod. It is not the population of these great plains that would alone benefit from a free access to British productions if placed within their reach at some spot high up the Indus, but such wares will also find their way to the Mongolian tribes on the north of the great Gobi desert, and to the countries beyond the Selenga and the sources of the Amoor. The inhabitants of Siberia will, in Mr. Atkinson's opinion, eagerly avail themselves of the advantages of this commerce; the Kirghis, as soon as fairs shall be opened, will send numbers of excellent horses to India, and the precious metals being abundant in their country will in time also be exported freely in exchange for the articles which they desire. We have in former numbers of this Review repeatedly directed attention to the aggressions of Russia in Asia.* We announced a few years since that, in the Chinese province of Manchouria, Russia had contrived to establish a military station at the mouth of the river Amoor, the outlet of Siberia. † We now learn that the most extensive preparations had been long in progress at Irkutsk for the annexation of the territory which has recently been added to the empire. Mr. Atkinson, who spent two who spent two winters in the capital of Siberia, and two summers in the regions to the south, saw the preparations which were in progress for the annexation of the Amoor district; and he had an opportunity, he says, of *See Numbers 191 and 192 of the Quarterly Review.' No. 192, p. 590. judging judging of their efficiency. Chests of arms for new regiments of Cossacks were constantly arriving, as well as batteries of artillery fully equipped, which could be needed for no other purpose than to overawe the Chinese Government. He estimates the force of Cossacks then ready for active service in Eastern Siberia as amounting to between thirty and forty thousand men. The dockyard and arsenal on the banks of the Angara were in full activity preparing material of war and a steam flotilla; and the Government evidently felt that the time had arrived to take the first step towards the dismemberment of China. That policy has resulted in a complete success, without the expenditure of an ounce of gunpowder or one drop of blood, and has been carried out in a manner strictly conformable to the most approved diplomatic precedents. A Russian squadron of no contemptible strength now displays its flag in the Strait of Tartary or rides in safety in the harbours of the Sea of Japan; and as wherever Russia has once planted her foot the next object has always been to make that footing sure, it may not be long before we hear of the erection of enormous fortifications. The naval power of Russia has never been much considered in estimating her political strength. Shut in for a great part of the year by a frozen sea, her ships have never encountered those of any Power which had the free range of the ocean. As yet perhaps her Government regards the rising naval establishment in Eastern Asia more as a school of naval instruction than an immediate addition to her maritime strength; but its value in reference to the future, and to her well-understood objects, must nevertheless be great. In a tract, the title of which we have prefixed to this article, and which was generally attributed to Sir John M'Neill, that able and experienced diplomatist truly said, 'the avidity with which Russia has sought, and the pertinacity with which she has clung to every acquisition of territory even when it could be maintained only at the cost of large pecuniary sacrifices, shows that she desires those acquisitions with reference to some other consideration than the mere intrinsic worth of the property acquired.' Her ambition, as we said in 1854, is enormous. The last of her acquisitions in a part of the world where she is peculiarly free from European surveillance, and where her machinations for an extension of territory have been long carried on, affords an instructive warning to the Western nations that they can never abate their distrust or rely on her moderation. We are inclined to think that, when the Chinese Government becomes fully aware of the artifices which were employed to obtain the formal cession of so large a portion of its territory, and that portion the cradle of the Mantchoo dynasty, indignation at having been deluded into 6 so important a concession without any substantial equivalent will take the place of gratitude for supposed services in an hour of extreme distress. The systematic occupation of the left bank of the Amoor in defiance of the repeated protests of the Chinese Government was as indefensible by the law of nations as any of those aggressions to which we are in the habit of referring as some of the worst results of popular government in the New World, and proves that a low sense of international morality is the characteristic alike of democracy and despotism. The free navigation of the Amoor as the outlet of her Siberian possessions is all that Russia could in reason and justice have sought from the Chinese Government. The habitual feeling of the Government of China towards Russia has been recently revealed in a remarkable document. A State paper, purporting to be a memorial addressed to the Emperor of China by the President of the Board of Civil Office and twenty-three other leading statesmen, was found in the Summer Palace. It is a remonstrance against the intended flight of the Emperor into Tartary. 'Where,' say these sagacious councillors, can your Majesty's personal safety be better assured than at the capital? Beyond the Hoo-pe-kow Pass is the haunt of numbers of Russian barbarians, and these have been constantly pretending to deliver communications to the Government at Pekin for the furtherance of some treacherous design.' * That design was manifest enough when the Russian Minister sought a conference with the Prince of Kung on the approach of the allied forces to the capital. Nor is it less instructive to observe the anxiety manifested by Russia to confine other Powers in their diplomatic intercourse with China to the governors of the provinces, while by the means of a resident embassy she has been able to communicate directly with the Court. In a leading journal -the Abeille du Nord' of St. Petersburg-an article appeared at the commencement of the late war, the object of which was to prove that the British Government had often acted unjustly towards the 'Celestial Empire.' 'What,' said this Government organ, can European nations want in China but security and liberty of commerce in the seaports? It is there that the power of European nations can be sensibly felt without being exposed to considerable losses of men and money. Would it not be better, instead of treating directly with an impotent government, to make arrangements with the local authorities?' Suggestions of this kind, as our Minister at Pekin has justly observed, are founded on a misapprehension-he might have said a misrepresentation-of the position and influence of the Chinese 6 *Correspondence, p. 263. † Ibid., p. 39. Government, Το Government, in which the will of the Emperor is supreme. keep the representatives of every other Power out of Pekin seems to have been the policy of the Russian Government. We cannot but think that the mind of the Emperor of China must have recently received a considerable amount of political enlightenment. It is with much satisfaction that we learn that a disposition has been unequivocally manifested by the Court of Pekin since the war to draw closer its relations with the representative of the British Government. We entertain a confident expectation that a strong reaction will soon display itself throughout the country in favour of England, and that the Government will freely acknowledge that the two nations are commercially united only to their mutual advantage, and we trust that the majesty of honest dealing' will inspire all classes in China with the conviction that Great Britain could have had no object either in her policy or her arms inconsistent with the prosperity and integrity of their country. ART. VII.-1. Opere Politico-Economiche del Conte Camillo Benso di Cavour. Cuneo, 1857. 2. Camillo Benso di Cavour. Per Roggero Bonghi. Torino, 1861. 3. Count Cavour, his Life and Career. By Basil H. Cooper, B.A. London, 1860. OUNT CAVOUR holds far too great a place in the history of Four time to permit us to pass over his death in silence. Short as was his public career, he was the most remarkable man of our generation, and his influence will probably be felt longer and more widely than that of any living being. He has called into political existence a nation which, if its future be not marred by untoward events or wilful misconduct, may become one of the greatest of the earth, and may alter that balance of power upon which the present relations of the civilised world are based. A candid inquiry into the history and condition of Italy will show that two things were necessary to the success of a man who, at this particular time, sought to achieve her independence and to unite her various States under one rule-that he should be born a Piedmontese, and should come from the upper, rather than the middle or lower ranks of the people. Both these conditions were fulfilled in Count Camillo Benso di Cavour. He was descended from an ancient and noble family, founded, it is believed, by a Saxon named Odibert. His ancestors have been traced to the middle of the 12th century. They belonged to the flourishing community community of Chieri, holding fiefs which are still possessed by their descendants. During the Middle Ages the Bensos numbered several distinguished statesmen and warriors. The Count Geoffrey Benso defended the Castle of Montmeillan, then the bulwark between France and Savoy, for thirteen months with great bravery and skill, against Louis XIII. At a later period the family contracted alliances with the noble French house of Clermont-Tonnerre. The title of Count of Cavour was conferred upon Michele Antonio di Benso, from a small town in the province of Pinerolo. Camillo was the second son of the Marchese don Michele Giuseppe Benso di Cavour and of Adelaide Susanna Sellon, a lady of Geneva. He was born on the 10th of August, 1810. It is not a little curious that one of his sponsors was Pauline Borghese, the sister of the first Napoleon. His father, although an amiable man, and much beloved in his family, had rendered himself unpopular by his aristocratic manners and reserve, and by his connexion with the absolute party. A share of his unpopularity long fell upon his son. Like most young men of rank, Camillo was sent to the military academy. The army was then almost the only career open to a youth of noble birth. The civil service of the State was despised, and few in his position could be prepared for it by a suitable education. He soon distinguished himself by his diligence and ability, and was chosen as a royal page, then the next step to successful entrance into patrician life. His position at the Court seems to have been irksome to him. He took little pains to conceal his distaste for it, and was soon dismissed from its duties. Returning with renewed energy to his studies, chiefly directed by the celebrated astronomer Plana, he completed his military education at eighteen, leaving the Academy with the rank of Lieutenant in the Engineers, and the reputation of an able mathematician and one of the most industrious pupils of the institution. He was soon employed as an engineer, although only nineteen years old, in important works. In a letter, dated the 9th March, 1829, he writes, "I have passed the whole winter in the Apennines, to make the plan of a new fort, the object of which would be to close the road between Nice and Genoa!' A singular entry into life of the statesman who, thirty years later, was called upon to transfer the frontiers of his country to this very line of defence. From Genoa, he was sent to finish some works at L'Esseillon, a fort perched upon precipitous heights, and commanding the pass of the Mont Cenis into Italy. He writes with a keen enjoyment of the grand mountain scenery which surrounds it. He had formed an early friendship with the late Mr. William Brockedon. That distinguished Alpine Vol. 110.-No. 219. traveller P |