VIII. 1815. dom of its policy. how strong soever, seemed capable of withstanding a power CHAP. which, beginning its career of victory with the burning of Moscow, had terminated it by the capture of Paris. What has augmented in the most remarkable degree 13. this moral influence, is the prudence and wisdom with Great wiswhich it has been exercised. Never impelled by senseless external ambition on the part of its rulers, or frantic passions among its people, the policy of Russia for two centuries has been eminently moderate and judicious. Its rulers are constantly actuated by the lust of conquest, but they never precipitate the moment of attack; conscious of their own strength, they await calmly the moment of action, and then appear with decisive effect. Like a great man in the conduct of life, they are never impelled by the thirst for immediate display which is the torment and bane of little minds, but are satisfied to appear when circumstances call them forth, aware that no effort will then be required to prove their superiority. Their conquests, how great soever, seem all to have been the result of necessity; constantly, in reality, aggressive, they have almost always appeared, in serious warfare, on the defensive. The conquest of Finland in 1808, the result of the treaty of Tilsit, is the only one for the last century in which its cabinet was avowedly and ostensibly the aggressors. While this prudent policy disarms their neighbours, and induces them to rely on the supposed moderation and magnanimity of the government, it adds immensely to their own strength when the moment of action has arrived. Every interval of peace is attended by a rapid growth of their internal resources, and its apparent leisure is sedulously improved by the government in preparing the means of future conquest. No senseless cry for economy, no "ignorant impatience of taxation," paralyses their strength on the termination of hostilities, and makes them lose in peace the whole fruits of conquest in war. Alike in peace as in war, at home and abroad, their strength is constantly rolling on; like a dark thunder-cloud, a hundred and fifty thousand men, ready for VIII. 1815. CHAP. instant action, constantly overhang in Poland eastern Europe; and every state within reach of their hostility is too happy to avert it by submission. When the storm broke on Hungary in 1849, it at once extinguished the conflagration which had set Europe in flames.* 14. of purpose. The secret of this astonishing influence of Russia in Their unity European politics, is not merely her physical resources and rapid growth, great as it will immediately appear both are, but the unity of purpose by which the whole nation is animated. Like that of individuals in private life, this is the great secret of national success; it is not so much superiority in means, as their persevering direction to one object, which is the spring to which in both it is mainly to be ascribed. The ceaseless direction of Roman energy to foreign conquest gave Rome the empire of the world; that of the French to the thirst for glory and principle of honour, conferred on them the lead in continental Europe; that of the English to foreign commerce and domestic industry, placed in their hands the sceptre of the waves. Not less persevering than any of these nations, and exclusively directed to one object, rivalling the ancient masters of the world in the thirst for dominion, and the modern English in the vigour with which it is sought, the whole Russians, from the emperor on the throne to the serf in the cottage, are inspired with the belief that their mission is to conquer the world, and their destiny to effect it. Commerce is in little esteem among them; its most lucrative branches are in the hands of the Germans, who overspread its towns as the Jews do those of Poland. Agriculture, abandoned to the serfs, is regarded only as the means of raising a rude subsistence for the cultivators, and realising a fixed revenue for the proprietor. Literature is in its infancy, law considered as an inferior line; but war is cultivated with the utmost assiduity, and vast schools, where all subjects connected with it are taught in the most approved manner and with the latest improve *The Russian army which invaded Hungary in 1849 was 161,800 strong.GEORGEY'S Memoirs of the War in Hungary, ii. 149. VIII. 1815. ments, are constantly attended by two hundred thousand CHAP. of the best young men in the empire. The ablest among them are selected for the diplomatic service, and hence the great talent by which that profession in Russia is ever distinguished; but the whole remainder are turned into the army, where they find themselves at the head of ignorant but bold and hardy men, not less inflamed than themselves with the thirst for foreign conquest-not less impressed with the idea that to them is destined the sceptre of the world. 15. the empire: tion. The physical circumstances of Russia are such as to justify, in a great degree, these anticipations. Its popu- Statistics of lation in Europe consisted in 1850 of 62,088,000 souls, its populaand in Asia of 4,638,000 more; in all, 67,247,000, and including the army, 68,000,000. It is now It is now (1853) not less than 70,000,000. Of this immense mass no less than 60,500,000 are the inhabitants of the country, and engaged in cultivation, and only 5,388,000 the indwellers in towns, and engaged in their industrial pursuits, the remainder being nomads, or in the army. This enormous proportion of the cultivators to the other classes of society-twelve to one at once indicates the rude and infantine state of civilisation of the immense majority of the inhabitants, and demonstrates in the clearest manner the utter groundlessness of those apprehensions regarding the increasing difficulty of raising subsistence for the increasing numbers of mankind in the later stages of society, which in the early part of this century took such general hold of the minds of men. For while, in the immense and fertile plains of Russia, twelve cultivators only raise food for themselves and their families and one inhabitant of towns, and perhaps an equal number of consumers in foreign states-that is, six cultivators feed themselves and one other member of society-in Great Britain, by the census of 1841, the number of persons engaged in the cultivation of the soil was to the remaining classes of society as one to seven nearly; and yet the nation was all but self-supporting. In other words, the 1815. CHAP. power of labour in raising food was above forty times VIII. greater, in proportion to the population in the old and densely-peopled, than the young and thinly-peopled state.* The same truth has been exemplified in America, where, by the census of 1841, the cultivators over the whole Union are to the other classes of society as four, and bePopulation yond the Alleghany Mountains as eight to one; facts de la Russie which demonstrate that so far from population, as Mr Tegoborski, Malthus supposes, pressing in the later stages of society on subsistence, subsistence is daily acquiring a greater and more decisive ascendancy over population.1 1 Koepper's en 1838, 72; i. 130, 132, 193. The rapidity with which this immense body of men increases in numbers is as important in a political point of view as it is formidable to the rest of Europe. The annual present addition to the population has been from * By the census of 1840, the proportion of cultivators to all other classes in the United States of America stood thus: Or about 3 to 1. Beyond the Alleghany Mountains they were: Or about 8 to 1 in the basin of the Mississippi, the garden of the world. On the other hand, in Great Britain, by the census of 1831 and 1841, the families respectively engaged in agriculture and other pursuits stood thus : Or 7 to 1 in the latter period only. And yet, down to this period, the nation was, to all practical purposes, self-supporting-the importation of wheat having been for forty years back not only trifling but declining, and in some years nothing at all. Average of wheat imported yearly: -Vide PORTER's Progress of the Nation, 3d edition, 139, 140; History of Europe, chap. xc. 34; and American Census, 1840. VIII. 1815. 16. dity of in the Russian 1840 to 1850, as one to one hundred, and that notwith- CHAP. standing the fearful ravages of the cholera, which in 1847 caused a decrease of 296,000.* This average increase will cause a duplication of the population in Great rapiseventy years, being as nearly as possible the rate of crease of increase in the British empire for thirty years prior to population. 1846; since that time the prodigious drain of the emigration, which has now reached the enormous amount of 365,000 a-year, has occasioned an annual decline, probably only temporary, of from 200,000 to 250,000. It is greater than that of any other state in Europe, Prussia alone excepted, which is increasing at such a rate as to double in fifty-two years; but far from equalling that of the United States of America, which for two centuries has Tegob, regularly doubled its inhabitants every twenty-four years, 93; Koepaided, it is true, by a vast immigration from Europe, which sur la popuhas latterly risen to the enormous amount of 500,000 Russie. a-year.1 But the formidable nature of this increase, which, if it remains unchecked, will bring Russia, in seventy years, to have 140,000,000 of inhabitants, or about half of the whole population of Europe at this time, which is estimated at 280,000,000, arises from the vast and almost boundless room which exists in its immense possessions for future augmentation. Such is the extent of its territory, that, great as its population is, it is at the rate less than 30 the square mile for Russia in Europe, while in Great Britain it is at the rate of 220, and in France of 171. If Russia in Europe were peopled at the rate of 1 i. 88, 92, per, Mém. lation de 17. Great room increase in for future its inhabi tants. |