profound suspicion against Russia among the English, and that suspicion has been the cause of a century of Anglo-Russian suspicion, friction, and misunderstandings. At the Congress of Vienna, Lord Castlereagh opposed Russia's acquisition of Poland, fearing that that country might become dangerously strong. Replying to the expressions of the British representative's fears, Alexander sent Lord Castlereagh, on November 21, 1814, a most remarkable memorandum—the clumsy translation is that given in the British Blue Book—in which we read:
Justice established, as an immutable rule for all the transactions between the coalesced States, that the advantages which each of them should be summoned to reap from the triumph of the common cause should be in proportion to the perseverance of their efforts and to the magnitude of the sacrifices.
The necessity for a political balance in its turn prescribed that there should be given to each State a degree of consistency and of political Conventions in the means which each of them should possess in itself to cause them to be respected.
By invariably acting in accordance with the two principles which have been just stated the Emperor resolved to enter upon the war, to support it alone at its commencement, and to carry it on by means of a coalition up to the single point at which the general pacification of Europe might be based on the solid and immovable foundations of the independence of States and of the sacred rights of nations. The barrier of the Oder once overstepped, Russia fought only for her Allies: in order to increase the power of Prussia and of Austria, to deliver Germany, to save France from the frenzy of a despotism of which she alone bore the entire weight after her reverses.
If the Emperor had based his policy upon combinations of a private and exclusive interest when the army of Napoleon, collected together, so to speak, at the expense of Europe, had found its grave in Russia, His Majesty could have made peace with France; and without exposing
