We now come to the point at which we may advert to a question which set the whole English press in a blaze in 1837; namely, the blockade of the Circassian coasts, and the pretensions of Russia as to that part of the Caucasus. It is evident that the tzar's government being at open war with the mountaineers, may at its pleasure intercept the foreign trade with the enemy's country. This is an incontestible right recognised by all nations, and the capture of the Vixen was not worth the noise that was made about it. As to the proprietary right to the country which Russia affects to have received from Turkey, through the treaty of Adrianople, it is totally fallacious, and is unsupported by any historical document or positive fact. It is fully demonstrated that Turkey never possessed any right over Circassia; she had merely erected on the seaboard, with the consent of the inhabitants, the two fortresses of Anapa and Soudjouk Kaleh, for the protection of the trade between the two countries. Russia herself, in the beginning, publicly acknowledged this state of things; and the evidence of her having done so is to be found in the general depot of the maps of the empire. Chance threw into my hands a map of the Caucasus, drawn up by the Russian engineers, long prior to the treaty of Adrianople. The Turkish possessions are distinctly marked on it, and defined by a red boundary line; they consist solely, as we have just stated, of the two fortresses on the coast. This map, the existence of which one day sorely surprised Count Voronzof (governor-general of New Russia), was sent to England, and deposited in the Foreign Office during Lord Palmerston's administration. After all, I hardly know why Russia tries to avail herself of the treaty of Adrianople as a justification in the eyes of Europe of her schemes of conquest in the Caucasus. She is doing there only what we are doing in Algeria, and the English in India, and indeed with still greater reason; for, as we shall presently see, the possession of the Caucasus is a question vitally affecting her interests in her trans-Caucasian provinces, and her ulterior projects respecting the regions dependent on Persia and Central Asia.
Here are the terms in which this subject is handled in a report printed at St. Petersburg, and addressed to the emperor after the expedition of General Emmanuel towards the Elbrouz, in 1829:
"The Tcherkesses bar out Russia from the South, and may at their pleasure open or close the passage to the nations of Asia. At present their intestine dissensions, fostered by Russia, hinder them from uniting under one leader; but it must not be forgotten that according to traditions religiously preserved among them, the sway of their ancestors extended as far as to the Black Sea. They believe that a mighty people, descended from their ancestors, and whose existence is corroborated by the ruins of Madjar, has once already overrun the fine plains adjacent to the Danube, and finally settled in Pannonia. Add to this consideration their superiority in arms. Perfect horsemen, extremely well armed, inured to war by the continual freebooting they exercise against their neighbours, courageous, and disdaining the advantages of our civilisation, the imagination is appalled at the consequences which their union under one leader might have for Russia, which has no other bulwark against their ravages than a military line, too extensive to be very strong."
Reflections like these, printed in St. Petersburg, can leave no doubt as to the dangers to which the southern provinces are exposed. They are not to be mistaken, and the government sees them clearly: the aggressive independence of the Caucasus is perilous to all Russia. Armed, courageous, and enterprising as they are, the mountaineers need only some degree of union among their chiefs, to carry the flames of revolt over a vast portion of the tzar's dominions.