serf is naturally clever, and can "turn his hand" to almost anything.
The inference that freedom would exalt his mind and improve his
condition is one that was logically drawn at St. Petersburg and Moscow,
though they reason differently at Richmond and Montgomery. An army
recruited from slaves could not, in these times, when even bayonets
think and cannon reason much more accurately than they did when Louis
XIV. was a pattern monarch, ever look in the face the intelligent
trained legions of France or England or Germany. A combination of
political circumstances, similar to those of 1840, might give victory to
a grand Russian army, like that laurelless triumph which was then won
in Hungary, when the victors were nothing but the bloodhounds and
gallows-feeders of the House of Austria; but of _military_ glory the
present Russians could hope to have no more. To regain the place they
had held, it was necessary that they should be made personally free.
That they might be the better prepared to enslave others, they were
themselves to be converted into men. The freedom of the individuals
might be the means of supplying soldiers who should equal the fanatics
who followed Suvaroff, or the patriots who followed Kutusoff, or the
avengers who followed the first Alexander to Paris. The experiment, at
all events, was worth trying; and the Czar is trying it on a scale that
most impressively affects both the mind and the imagination of mankind,
who may learn that his works are destined greatly to bear upon their
interests.

In war, it is not only men that are wanted, and in large numbers, but
money, and in large sums. Always of importance to the military monarch,
money is now the first thing that he must think of and provide, or his
operations will be checked effectually. War is a luxury that no poor
nation or poor king can now long enjoy. It is reserved for wealthy
nations, and for sovereigns who may possess the riches of Solomon
without being endowed with his wisdom. Having impressed so many agents
into its service, and subdued science itself to the condition of a
bondman, war consumes gold almost as rapidly as the searches and labors
of millions can produce it. The only sure, enduring source of wealth
is industry,--industry as enlightened in its modes and processes as
imperfect man will allow to exist. Russia is an empire that abounds with
the means of wealth, rather than with wealth itself. It is a country, or
collection of countrie