and Germany supply Persia and Anatolia with cloths, ladies' cloths, calicos, cotton yarn, paper, sugar, coffee, glass ware, porcelain, iron, tin, and steel goods. France takes but little share in this trade; but England will soon have crushed her rivals by the great establishment which she has formed at this point. A single caravan, despatched for Tabriz in 1834, was composed of 650 camel loads, 450 of which were pillaged by the Kurds on the road from Erzerum to Tabriz. What means can Russia adopt for rivalling the English in this locality?"

These last words indicate the purpose of all Russia's commercial efforts. She is no rival of England, as far as manufactures or commerce go; her rivalry is political. The question really means, "How can an end be put to English commerce, and what other commerce is to be substituted in its place ?" This, like the statement I have before quoted, is addressed to Germany, and it says-Russia is open to an offer.

I shall now proceed to the means of execution. No history has recorded, no fable has devised, things more marvellous than the events connected with this river. Here will be seen how Russia bends every will, Procrusteses every measure to suit and fit her purposes. I shall have to record my own failures; but, in this case, failure, of necessity, is parent of success. It was not her sight but our blindness that was terrible. There is a time when evil measures prevail, but that time comes, too, when they are brought to light. The series of facts now completed-disconnected during their course by time and distance, here brought together, may furnish that light, and enable eyes to see that have long been closed.

CHAPTER II.

Russian Quarantine on the Danube, and the Coast of Circassia.

THE marshy islands forming the Delta of the Danube are uninhabited and utterly valueless, except as a station commanding the river in war, and for that purpose only in so far as they are fortified. They were ceded to Russia at the Treaty of Adrianople, by which any fortification on them was prohibited. The plague, however, is in those countries the fierce enemy of mankind, and it was an interest common to the contracting parties, and indeed to all Europe, to arrest its ravages. Provision was therefore made for effecting this purpose at the mouth of the Danube, and quarantines were excepted from the sweeping restriction against all constructions whatever within six miles of the river, and so on the uninhabited and useless islands a lazzaretto was built. But if sanitary regulations are established, they must be enforced; and the method of enforcing them is by guns. These were, therefore, placed in such a manner as to command the vessels passing up the river.

The Treaty by which these islands were obtained closed a long series of negotiations and warlike operations in which Russia was allied with England and France; consequently, reciprocal engagements existed as to the terms of future settlement. It is necessary to recall the outline of the events to explain the nature of these engagements.

In 1821, an armed force crossed the Pruth, headed by a Russian general. This was the Greek Insurrection. She required the Porte to withdraw its troops, offering her own

to put it down. On the refusal of the Porte, she appealed to the Sanctity of Treaties, and recalled her ambassador, entrusting her interests to the ambassador of England.

For five years the Greek war and the Russian differences go on; an adjustment then takes place at Ackermann, on thẹ pledge of Russia not to interfere any more in Greece: she had just signed a Protocol (secret) with England to interfere in.

The Greeks had applied for protection, not to Russia, but to England; not against Turkey but Russia.* Mr. Canning sends the Duke of Wellington to concert measures at St. Petersburgh. Thus was imposed on two litigants the mediation of the very power whom both charged with being the source of their ill will. The Protocol of the 4th of April, 1826, is the record of this infatuation.

"His Britannic Majesty having been requested by the Greeks to interpose his good offices in order to obtain their reconciliation with the Ottomon Porte, having in consequence offered his Mediation to that Power, and being desirous of concerting the measure of his Government upon this subject, with His Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, &c."

By being imposed upon the belligerents as Mediatrix, Russia was constituted Arbitress of the Alliance, which had been called into being only with the view of clogging her separate action, who was dreaded as all-powerful, and had for effect to make her so by subjecting to her control the measures of the allies.†

England took precautions to prevent any misapplication of

* M. Rodios to Mr. Canning, August 12, 1824.—"The Government (of Greece) would have persevered in its system of silence were it not forced to break it by a note proceeding from the north of Europe. This note decides on the fate of Greece, by a will that is foreign to it. The Greek nation prefer a glorious death to the disgraceful lot intended to be imposed upon them.”

Mr. Canning replies:

"The opinion of the British Government is that any plan proceeding from the Cabinet of St. Petersburg can be drawn up only with friendly intentions towards Greece."

See extract from M. Von Prokesch at the end of this Chapter. Note II

this unconsciously transferred power; and at least the proof of her good faith shines forth in the following moral and benignant period:

"His Britannic Majesty and his Imperial Majesty will not seek in this arrangement for any increase of territory, nor any exclusive influence nor advantages in commerce for their subjects which shall not be equally attainable by all other nations."

Russia now proposed that the Protocol should becc me a Treaty, stipulating in certain contingencies measures of

coercion.

Mr. Canning stood aghast. He perceived at a glance the consequences, but it was too late. He had been overreached in the Protocol,* and could not face the threatened exposure to his colleagues. (The despatch instructing the Russian Ambassador, as to how he was to be handled, has been published in the second number of the "Portfolio," new series.) He put his hand to the Treaty on the 6th of July (1827), and in a couple of months died of a broken heart. Yet that Treaty, be it ever remembered, did bind each of the allies not to acquire territory, nor to sUFFER IT TO BE ACQUIRED.

Within a few weeks of the Treaty for the "Pacification of the East," the Turkish navy is annihilated. The Porte demands satisfaction, and suspends intercourse with the Ambassadors. "These functionaries retire, and the Porte believes itself already at war with England, France, and Russia." Then the Powers " solemnly take upon themselves the obligation that the successes their superiority seems to promise them in this struggle shall not lead them to seek any exclusive advantage whatever."

belligerent duties and She invades the pro

Russia, however, relieves them from the care of "exclusive advantages." vinces in the beginning of the next year, and notwithstanding the extinction by the allies of the Turkish naval force, to

* Negotiated to prevent the separate action of Russia, and stipu lating the right of separate action for each. The double infatuation passes belief.

the astonishment of Europe, the campaign is a drawn one. "The experience," says Pozzo de Borgo, confidentially addressing his chief, we have just made must now reconcile all opinions in favour of the resolution which has been taken. If the Sultan has been enabled to offer us so determined and regular a resistance, whilst he had scarcely drawn together the elements of his new plan, how formidable should we have found him had he had time to give to it more solidity."

Her contemporaneous view of her engagements to her allies is rather amusing; the avowal of her agents is frank,* and their language always naïve. One sentence will suffice. The two Russian Ambassadors in London write on the 13th of June:

"The news which Count Pozzo de Borgo has sent us, on the position of the French Ministry, which is every day more and more uncertain, have determined us not to alienate completely the Cabinet of London before the answers from Constantinople relieve us from anxiety." They, therefore, assure Lord Aberdeen, "That, in case of succèss the Emperor would be under an obligation to consult his allies, and that a definite state of things would not be established without their assent and concurrence." On this they require a public manifestation which shall discourage the resistance of the Porte!" Lord Aberdeen strives to extract in the first instance some knowledge of the proposed conditions of the peace, in which he was to concur, but the Russian diplomatists, duly estimating Lord Aberdeen's penetration, confine themselves to generalities; as every substantive communication on so delicate

a subject would draw down real dangers."

No doubt it was toil and embarrassment enough for the

"With respect to the free navigation of the Bosphorus," says the Russian ambassador to Lord Aberdeen, in June, 1829, "it constitutes one of our necessities, for to it the prosperity of a part of the domains of the Emperor is united by an indissoluble link. We cannot permit the caprice of a vizier, or a favourite sultana, to arrest at will the whole movement of commerce, the whole progress of public and private industry in many of our provinces." This to the British Minister is an argument, not a revelation.