That the last-named power is disinterested in pursuing this policy is not for a moment to be supposed.  The price she has ever demanded for her protection has been one too willingly paid by these lawless mountaineers, an unremitting hostility to Turks and Turkey.  For centuries this was open and undisguised on the part both of the people and the Vladika, by whom, despite his religious calling, the destruction of Turks was rewarded as a distinguished national service.  Such, however, is no longer the case; although their hatred is not one whit diminished, or their depredations less frequent than of old, they mask them under the garb of a feigned neutrality and an unreal friendship.  Thus they protest, in the face of the most damning proofs to the contrary, their innocence of all connivance with the Herzegovinian rebels.  Corpses of those who have been recognised as accredited leaders they declare to be Uskoks, proscribed brigands, whom it behoves every lover of order to hunt down and destroy.  But none are deceived by these shallow excuses, which ill corroborate the assertion which, in an unguarded moment, escaped from the young Prince, that he would undertake, upon the fulfillment of certain conditions, to pacify the frontier within fourteen days.

This tacit admission of collusion with the rebels is quite sufficient to justify the Porte in endeavouring to overrun the province, and thus trample out rebellion in its principal stronghold.  Presupposing its ability to effect this, we then arrive at the real debatable point, whether such a course would be allowed by the other powers.  In the case of England the answer can hardly be doubtful; for it would ill behove a country, in whose Parliament all religions are tolerated, to interfere in the matter, abandoning that policy of non-intervention which she has so openly confessed and so successfully pursued, upon the narrow grounds of the inexpediency of permitting a Mussulman power to overrun a Christian province, and a province, be it remembered, which legally composes an integral portion of the Turkish empire.

The candid announcement made by the Porte of its intention to abandon the policy of forbearance towards Montenegro, which it has as yet pursued, betokens the existence of a small spark of its ancient spirit, and augurs well for its success.  Should the belligerents be left to themselves, I believe that it will succeed; but the web of political intrigue which has grown around the question, fostered by hereditary policy, imperial ambition, and private machination, render it difficult to foretell the issue.  The chances which render success probable are the deference which France has of late shown to the wishes of England, the want of union prevalent throughout the Austrian empire, and the internal movement in Russia, which incapacitates her from doing mischief in this part of Europe.  Yet, let us not disguise from ourselves the self-evident fact, that the views of Russia remain unaltered, that the policy of Peter is still maintained inviolate, and that, although the last war may have convinced her that actual self-aggrandisement will not be tolerated, she still holds one object ever in view—­the destruction of Turkish supremacy on both banks of the Danube and the substitution of dependent Slavism.