St. Petersburg, November 21, 1864. THE Russian newspapers have given an account of the last military operations executed by a detachment of our troops in the regions of Central Asia with remarkable success and important results. It was to be foreseen that these events would the more attract the attention of the foreign public that their scene was laid in scarcely known countries.

Our august Master has commanded me to state to you briefly, but with clearness and precision, the position in which we find ourselves in Central Asia, the interests which inspire us in those countries, and the end which we have in view.

The position of Russia in Central Asia is that of all civilized States which are brought into contact with half-savage, nomad populations, possessing no fixed social organization.

In such cases it always happens that the more civilized State is forced, in the interest of the security of its frontier and its commercial relations, to exercise a certain ascendancy over those whom their turbulent and unsettled character make most undesirable neighbours.

First, there are raids and acts of pillage to be put down. To put a stop to them, the tribes on the frontier have to be reduced to a state of more or less perfect submission. This result once attained, these tribes take to more peaceful habits, but are in their turn exposed to the attacks of the more distant tribes.

The State is bound to defend them against these depredations, and to punish those who commit them. Hence the necessity of distant, costly, and periodically recurring expeditions against an enemy whom his social organization makes it impossible to seize. If, the robbers once

punished, the expedition is withdrawn, the lesson is soon forgotten; its withdrawal is put down to weakness. It is a peculiarity of Asiatics to respect nothing but visible and palpable force; the moral force of reason and of the interests of civilization has as yet no hold upon them. The work has then always to be done over again from the beginning.

In order to put a stop to this state of permanent disorder, fortified posts are established in the midst of these hostile tribes, and an influence is brought to bear upon them which reduces them by degrees to a state of more or less forced submission. But soon beyond this second line other still more distant tribes come in their turn to threaten the same dangers, and necessitate the same measures of repression. The State thus finds itself forced to choose one of two alternatives, either to give up this endless labour and to abandon its frontier to perpetual disturbance, rendering all prosperity, all security, all civilization an impossibility, or, on the other hand, to plunge deeper and deeper into barbarous countries, where the difficulties and expenses increase with every step in advance.

Such has been the fate of every country which has found itself in a similar position. The United States in America, France in Algeria, Holland in her Colonies, England in India-all have been irresistibly forced, less by ambition than by imperious necessity, into this onward march, where the greatest difficulty is to know when to stop.

Such, too, have been the reasons which have led the Imperial Government to take up at first a position resting on one side on the Syr-Daria, on the other on the Lake Issyk-Kaul, and to strengthen these two lines by advanced forts, which, little by little, have crept on into the heart of those distant regions, without, however, succeeding in establishing on the other side of our frontiers that tranquillity which is indispensable for their security.

The explanation of this unsettled state of things is to be found, first, in the fact that, between the extreme points of this double line, there is an immense unoccupied space, where all attempts at colonization or caravan trade are paralyzed by the inroads of the robber tribes; and, in the second place, in the perpetual fluctuations of the political condition of those countries, where Turkestan and Khokand, sometimes united, sometimes at variance, always at war, either with one another or with Bokhara, presented no chance of settled relations or of any regular transactions whatever.

The Imperial Covernment thus found

itself, in spite of all its efforts, in the dilemma we have above alluded to; that is to say, compelled either to permit the continuance of a state of permanent disorder, paralyzing to all security and progress, or to condemn itself to costly and distant expeditions, leading to no practical result, and with the work always to be done anew; or, lastly, to enter upon the undefined path of conquest and annexation which has given to England the Empire of India, by attempting the subjugation by armed force, one after another, of the small independent States whose habits of pillage and turbulence and whose perpetual revolts leave their neighbours neither peace nor repose.

Neither of these alternative courses was in accordance with the object of our august Master's policy, which consists, not in extending beyond all reasonable bounds the regions under his sceptre, but in giving a solid basis to his rule, in guaranteeing their security, and in developing their social organization, their commerce, their wellbeing, and their civilization.

Our task was, therefore, to discover a system adapted to the attainment of this three-fold object.

The following principles have, in consequence, been laid down :

1. It has been judged to be indispensable that our two fortified frontier-lines -one extending from China to the Lake Issyk-Kaul, the other from the Sea of Aral along the Syr-Daria-should be united by fortified points, so that all our posts should be in a position of mutual support, leaving no gap through which the nomad tribes might make with impunity their inroads and depredations.

2. It was essential that the line of our advanced forts thus completed should be situated in a country fertile enough, not only to insure their supplies, but also to facilitate the regular colonization, which alone can prepare a future of stability and prosperity for the occupied country, by gaining over the neighbouring populations to civilized life.

3, and lastly. It was urgent to lay down this line definitively, so as to escape the danger of being carried away, as is almost inevitable, by a series of repressive measures and reprisals, into an unlimited extension of territory.

To attain this end a system had to be established, which should depend not only on reason, which may be elastic, but on geographical and political conditions, which are fixed and permanent.

This system was suggested to us by a very simple fact, the result of long experience, namely, that the nomad tribes,

which can neither be seized or punished or effectually kept in order, are our m os inconvenient neighbours while, on the other hand, agricultural and commercial populations attached to the soil, and pos sessing a more advanced social organization, offer us every chance of gaining neighbours with whom there is a possibility of entering into relations.

Consequently, our frontier-line ought to swallow up the former, and stop short at the limit of the latter.

These three principles supply a clear natural, and logical explanation of our last military operations in Central Asia. In fact, our original frontier-line, extending along the Syr-Daria to Fort Perovsky on one side, and on the other to the Lake Issyk-Kaul, had the drawback of being almost on the verge of the desert. It was broken by a wide gap between the two extreme points; it did not offer sufficient resources to our troops, and left unsettled tribes over the border, with which any settled arrangement became impossible.

In spite of our unwillingness to extend our frontier, these motives had been powerful enough to induce the Imperial Government to establish this line between Lake Issyk-Kaul and the Syr-Daria, by fortifying the town of Tchemkend, lately occupied by us. By the adoption of this line we obtain a double result. In the first place, the country it takes in is fertile, well wooded, and watered by numerous watercourses; it is partly inhabited by various Kirghize tribes, which have already accepted our rule; it consequently offers favourable conditions for colonization, and the supply of provisions to our garrisons. In the second place, it puts us in the immediate neighbourhood of the agricultural and commercial populations of Kokand. We find ourselves in presence of a more solid and compact, less unsettled, and better organized social state; fixing for us with geographical precision the limit up to which we are bound to advance, and at which we must halt, because, while, on the one hand, any further extension of our rule, meeting, as it would, no longer with unstable communities, such as the nomad tribes, but with more regularly constituted States, would entail considerable exertions, and would draw us on from annexation to annexation with unforeseen complications. On the other, with such States for our future neighbours, their backward civilization, and the instability of their political condition, do not shut us out from the hope that the day may come when regular relations may, to the advantage of both parties, take the place of the permanent troubles which have up to the present

You are requested to take these arguments as your guide in any explanations you may give to the Government to which you are accredited, in case questions are asked or you may see credence given to erroneous ideas as to our action in these distant parts.

It is needless for me to lay stress upon the interest which Russia evidently has not to increase her territory, and, above all, to avoid raising complications on her frontiers, which can but delay and paralyze her domestic development.

The programme which I have just traced is in accordance with these views.

Very frequently of late years the civilization of those countries which are her neighbours on the continent of Asia has been assigned to Russia as her special

mission.

No agent has been found more apt for the progress of civilization than commercial relations. Their development requires everywhere order and stability; but in Asia it demands a complete transformation of the habits of the people. The first thing to be taught to the populations of Asia is that they will gain more in fa

vouring and protecting the caravan trade than in robbing them. These elementary ideas can only be accepted by the public where one exists; that is to say, where there is some organized form of society, and a Government to direct and represent it.

We are accomplishing the first part of our task in carrying our frontier to the limit where the indispensable conditions are to be found.

The second we shall accomplish in making every effort henceforward to prove to our neighbouring States, by a system of firmness in the repression of their misdeeds, combined with moderation and justice in the use of our strength, and respect for their independence, that Russia is not their enemy, that she entertains towards them no ideas of conquest, and that peaceful and commercial relations with her are more profitable than disorder, pillage, reprisals, and a permanent state of war.

The Imperial Cabinet, in assuming this task, takes as its guide the interests of Russia. But it believes that, at the same time, it is promoting the interests of humanity and civilization. It has a right to expect that the line of conduct it pursues and the principles which guide it will meet with a just and candid appre(Signed) GORTCHAKOW.

ciation.

No. 1.

COLONEL HARLEY TO THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY.

Received May 9.

The Castle, Cape Coast, April 14, 1873. MY LORD, I had, on the morning of the 12th instant, the satisfaction of receiving from the King of Ashantee a letter, of which the inclosed is a copy, with others, from Mr. Dawson, my special messenger to the King. I venture to use this expression, my lord, as I think it will be satisfactory for your lordship to learn from the King himself the cause which has led him to the invasion of the Protectorate.

2. Your lordship will perceive that the cause stated by the King is the transfer of Elmina, and I think not a little to the singular selection made by Mr. Hennessy of Mr. Plange (an Elmina man and a Dutch agent) as the first English Commissioner to Coomassie after the transfer, whom he despatched to the King with many valuable presents, amounting to some 600l. or 700l., and amongst them a monster mirror. Well, my lord, there were people here who could have told Mr. Hennessy, had it suited him to learn it, that Mr. Plange's loyalty to the flag was more than suspected, and that he had been known to say "Elmina is transferred, but not in heart." He had been, I am told, in some way previously con

nected with the King, and we now, fortunately, know something of his mind and feeling towards British rule; but it seems to me, from the King of Ashantee's statement, that whatever Mr. Plange did say produced great irritation, and led to his sending his army across the Prah against the tribes of the Protectorate.

3. The news of the safety of the European missionaries who have all signed this letter will, I am sure, be a source of much gratification to your Lordship, and their signatures are already sufficiently known to me to leave no doubt of their being reliable.

4. Your lordship will observe in the second paragraph that the King of Ashantee distinctly claims the Fort of Elmina as his by descent. I am well aware how absurd this plea is, but, nevertheless, it is a plea sufficient for the savage Monarch to act upon, and the threat which he states was made to him by the messenger sent by Mr. Hennessy-" the King says he could not understand the Administrator-in-chief's sending Attah, alias Mr. H. Plange, to tell him of his having taken possession, and notifying him also that in four months he, the Administrator, would come to Ashantee to take away power from him." How can we now tell, but that this man, to favour the policy of the King of Elmina, may not have made some such statement as alleged, to enrage the King of Ashantee, and to induce him to move to the assistance of Elmina by invading the Protectorate. And here I would mention to your Lordship the evidence given by Coffee A. Kell, the cane-bearer, sent with my messenger, Mr. Dawson, to the King of Ashantee in December last, when negotiations were pending for the release of the European missionaries:-"Mr. Plange, Commissioner and an Elmina, told the King that the British Government intended giving Quake Fram, King of Denkera, power in four months' time, and the King said in reply, if any blood shed Plange would be responsible for it, as he had brought him that message. The King says he has a palaver with the Assins, the Denkeras, and the Akins, but not with white people, but Mr. Dawson thinks it is all false, as the King means war against the British authority. Mr. Dawson tells the Governor, as soon as he gets this message, to make prisoners of the King of Elmina and King Amakie, of Appolonia, as they are the cause of this war.' In his diary, he adds, the King explained how the Elminas had sent to ask his succour on a previous occasion, which led to his sending Atjiempon with money, &c. Mr. Dawson left Cape Coast on the 28th November

(and here, my lord, the dates are important), he states, "three days after leaving the Prah, they met the invading army, which had left Coomassie on the 9th December; it was the whole Ashantee force now at Yancoomassie." This at once discloses the treachery of the King of Ashantee, who was at the time professing friendship towards the Government through his envoys at Cape Coast. He also states "that the King of Elmina sent his brother Intehkohte, asking the King of Ashantee to send an army to him, and when the Fantees were busy away from Cape Coast they would come and overrun and plunder it. Amakie, King of Appolonia, sent also to Ashantee asking the King to send down and help him, and the notorious Atjiempon, who was sent back to Coomassie at such trouble and expense in December, is now on his way there with 3000 men. Moreover amongst the traders at Coomassie, British Elminas were put in log, but the Dutch Elminas went away with Atjiempon," and that he "has gone to Kinjarbo, the trading town on the Asinee River." Thomas Cochrane, the Fantee policeman, sent with my letter and proclamation to the King on my assumption of the Government, has been sent back, also with two other Fantees and two boys of Mr. Dawson's, in all six persons, and the King told the cane-bearer to say "that he has plenty of Fantee prisoners, but he has not killed any, he only kiils the Assins, the Denkeras, and the Akims.”

5. These two and another Fantee whom I examined confirm Mr. Dawson's reports, and they state further that they saw with their own eyes the brother of the King of Elmina at Coomassie, and the messengers of Amakie, King of Appolonia. It will thus be evident to your lordship that this scheme of invasion had been for some time intended by the Ashantees, and that Elmina and Appolonia were to rise to support it. All this only confirms the information I had the honour to convey to your lordship in my despatch No. 39 of the 2nd instant, at paragraph 4, in which I drew attention to the King of Elmina having issued an order for the Ashantees to arm, and I then ventured to express my own opinion "that the invasion was a preconcerted scheme between Ashantee and Elmina, and that when the invading army had advanced to a given distance of the coast, the whole of the Dutch natives of the Windward Settlements would rise en masse against the British rule."

6. The diary of Mr. Dawson will give your lordship more detailed information, and especially with regard to the part

Mr. Plange seems to have taken, so that he has lost the confidence of the King, and has even been ill-treated, which is a most exceptional thing in the case of special messengers or envoys sent to Coomassie. I shall recall him provided the King will allow him to return, leaving Mr. Dawson, with the Missionaries, to carry out any negotiations which may be necessary with the King.

con

7. The letter of Mr. Dawson to Prince Ansah, of which I submit a copy, * veys the impression that Governor Ferguson's letter to the King, announcing the intended transfer, was not opened until after the receipt of Mr. Hennessy's Proclamation, and that this has led to a misapprehension, but whether this be so or not, I am satisfied the King intended war, and his whole effort was directed to deceive the Government here, and to conceal his movements until he was ready, and they could no longer remain unknown.

8. Your lordship will now see how fortunate the timely arrest of the King of Elmina has been, and I propose sending instructions to the Civil Commandant at Axim to take exactly the same course towards Amakie, King of Appolonia, as adopted with him; i.e. to summon him and administer the oath of allegiance, and, should he refuse, to arrest him and send him to Cape Coast. For this service I shall request the Senior Naval Officer to send down a gun-boat, with a small reinforcement of the detachment of troops withdrawn from Secondee, which I intend replacing with policemen; as they will be better adapted I think, my lord, in the proposed changes there, which I have submitted for your lordship's consideration. I have, however, requested the officer commanding the troops on the Gold Coast to allow Dr. Horton to remain at Secondee for the present, and until your lordship's decision with regard to the new arrangements is received, as his services would be required to assist in carrying them

out.

9. It will be seen from the date of the King's letter (20th March), that it was written after receiving the news of the success of his army at Yancoomassie on the 10th, and accounts, no doubt, in a great measure for the exaggerated demands which he makes. I shall consult the Council as to the reply to be sent to that letter, and your lordship may rely upon its being most carefully considered. I have, &c.

(Signed) R. W. HARLEY, Colonel, Administrator-in-Chief.

*Not inclosed.

Inclosure 1 in No. 1.

Coomassie, March 20, 1873.

SIR, His Majesty, Kalkaree, sends his best respects to your Honour, also to Messrs. Ossoo Ansah and G. Blankson.

2. His Majesty states that, he being the grandson of Ossai Tutu, he owns the Elminas to be his relatives, and consequently the fort at Elmina and its dependencies being his, he could not understand the Administrator-in-Chief's sending Attah, alias Mr. H. Plange, to tell him of his having taken possession of them for Quake Fram, and notifying him also that in four months, he, the Administrator, would come to Ashantee to take away power from him.

3. He states that he has been made angry by this, and it was this which led to his sending his great captains and forces to bring him, Quake Fram, of Denkerah, who dares to take his Elmina fort, &c., and also the Assins and Akims, who are his own slaves, and who have united with the Denkerahs to take power from him.

4. His Majesty further states that, your Honour's restoring him these tribes, viz., Denkerahs, Akims, and Assims, back to their former position as his subjects, and also restoring the Elmina fort and people back in the same manner as they were before, will be the only thing or way to appease him, for he has no quarrel with white men; but should your Honour come in to interfere, as he hears you are, that you have not to blame him, because he will then start himself.

5. That his Majesty having heard of some false information being brought to your Honour respecting your messengers and the white captives, he has requested their attesting this letter with their own signatures, of their being in health. We have, &c.

For his Majesty,
(Signed) KOFI KALKAREE.

Linguist YAWOO NANKWI,
bis X mark.
AKWESSI APPEAR,

his X mark. KOFI BUAKI,

his X mark.

JOSEPH DAWSON, the writer. FR. RAMSEYER, for himself, his wife, and child.

G. KUHNE.

M. J. BONNAT, Sen. H. PLANGE.

To testify my being alive. To his Honour Colonel ROBERT WM. HARLEY, C.B., Administrator of Her Majesty's Forts, &c., on the Gold Coast.