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no taxes to be raised by the Greek rajahs. Farther than this it could not go, and from the well-known moderate sentiments of the ambassadors, he did not doubt of such an offer they would duly estimate the value. Upon this, the English minister, Sir R. Gordon, assumed a very serious tone; referred to all the earlier negotiations; and gave the Reis Effendi to understand, that that was not the way to re-establish those friendly relations with Great Britain, which the Porte seemed so highly to value. He prayed him earnestly to take the matter again into consideration, and to put him in a condition to negociate upon a more reasonable basis. The Reis Effendi promised to do so, and to communicate to him the resolutions of the Divan.

The military operations of count Diebitsch proved much more efficient negotiators. So long as he was on the north of Mount Hæmus, and had Shumla still before him, the Ottoman government did not believe that the reverses sustained in the early part of the campaign, could be pregnant with such consequences as ought to shake their obstinacy; but when they learned that the Balkan had been passed, that Shumla, instead of presenting an insurmountable obstacle, had been left behind with a garrison cooped up in it, which could venture on no active operation, that the Russian army was hurrying on from victory to victory, and that no force existed to bar their march to Constantinople, the true situation of their affairs was revealed to them. The capital was in consternation, though the public peace was not interrupted. Firmans were issued; calling the whole population to

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arms for the defence of the capital, and the discomfiture of the invaders; but they remained unanswered. The Sultan announced his intention of taking the field in person, and established his head quarters at Ramis-Tchiflick: to that post the sacred standard carried from the capital with great pomp; he attended it in person, but he rode in a carriage; and this, to the mussulmen, unheard of and indecorous innovation, prevented all the good which he had expected from shewing himself present with his army. These measures of parade produced no means of resistance; count Diebitsch was drawing nearer and nearer; he had at last made him self master of Adrianople, and might be expected, in a few days, under the walls of Constantinople. To this inevitable danger, and the urgent solicitations of the enveys of Great Britain, France, and Prussia, the latter of whom had sent a special agent to Constantinople for the purpose of shewing the Turkish ministers the necessity of peace, their pride and obstinacy at last gave way. Two Turkish plenipotentiaries, with powers to treat, arrived at Adrianople on the 27th of August, At their request, count Diebitsch agreed to a suspension of hostilities along his whole line during the progress of the negotiations. The negotiations were opened at Adrianople on the 1st of September; on the 8th they were interrupted, the Turkish commissioners, who had agreed to all the other demands of Russia, having requested time to consult their government on one particular point of the treaty. Count Diebitsch allowed them five days; but, at the same time, he caused his van-guard to make some movements in advance. In the consternation, which the idea of an approaching attack produced in the capital, the Porte saw the extreme danger of its situation. The Reis Effendi invited the ambassadors of England and France, and the Prussian ambassador, M. Von Royer, to a conference, to obtain their advice in this extremity. They could do no otherwise than unanimously advise the speedy signature of the peace, as the only means to prevent the overthrow of the empire. The ministers of the Porte themselves recognized the necessity, and ardently wished that one of the three ambassadors would repair to the Russian headquarters, and testify the readiness of the Porte to accede to any conditions of peace, and only to prevent, in the meantime, the advance of the victorious army to the capital. The ambassadors declined this, because they were not authorized to act as mediators; but, the Turkish ministers, seconded by the ambassadors of England and France, urging the Prussian ambassador to undertake this mission, M. Von Royer proceeded to Adrianople, and, on his assurances, that the Turkish plenipotentiaries would give up their objections, and conclude the peace, count Diebitsch again suspended the movements of his army. The treaty accordingly was definitively signed on the 14th of September.

By this treaty Russia restored to the Porte, the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, Bulgaria and Rumelia, with all the fortresses which she had occupied during the war. The Pruth was

to continue to be the boundary between the two empires, from where it touches the territory of Moldavia to its junction with the Danube. From the latter point, to the mouth of St. George, the right bank of the Danube was to be the boundary; all the islands formed by the different branches of the river being declared to belong to Russia. In Asia, the captured Pachalicks of Kars, Bayazid, and Erzeroum, with part of that of Akhalzik, were restored to Turkey; but a new frontier line was fixed in that direction, which left to Russia the town and fortress of Akhalzik, with the rest of the Pachalick of that name. It was stipulated that Wallachia and Moldavia should be confirmed in all the rights and privileges secured to them by antecedent treaties, and that the Porte, within a month, should carry into execution the provisions of the convention of Ackerman in behalf of the Servians. The liberty of commerce throughout the whole extent of the Turkish empire was secured to Russian subjects, and Turkey agreed to pay, within eighteen months, 1,500,000 ducats of Holland, as an indemnity to Russian merchants for losses which they might have sustained in the course of this, or any preceding war. This liberty of commerce was declared not to be liable to be checked in any case, or under any pretence, by prohibitions or restrictions, nor by any regulation or measure, whether of administration or legislation. Russian subjects were to live under the exclusive jurisdiction and police of the ministers and consuls of Russia. Russian vessels were not to be subject to any visit on board, on the part of

the Ottoman authorities, either out at sea or in any of the ports or roadsteads belonging to the dominions of the Sublime Porte. The Porte declared the passage of the canal of Constantinople, and the strait of the Dardanelles free to Russian ships under merchant flags, laden or in ballast, whether coming from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, or returning from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea, of whatever size or tonnage they might be. In the same manner, the Straits were declared free for all the merchant vessels of the powers at peace with the Porte, whether bound to the Russian ports of the Black Sea or returning from them-whether laden or in ballast-upon the same conditions as those stipulated for vessels under the Russian flag. Turkey promised, above all, never in future to stop or detain vessels, passing through the Dardanelles --whether laden or in ballast, whether Russian or belonging to nations with which the Ottoman empire was not in a state of declared war. And if any of these stipulations should be infringed, and the reclamation of the Russian minister on that subject should not obtain a full and prompt satisfaction, the Porte recognised, before-hand, the right of Russia to consider such an infraction an act of hostility, and immediately to retaliate on the Ottoman empire. Independently of the cession of territory in Asia, secured by the new frontier line, Russia was to receive, as payment of the expenses of the war, a sum of money, the amount of which was to be fixed by a separate convention. She was not to evacuate the terri

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tories of which she had taken possession, till the articles, relative to the European and Asiatic boundaries, and to the privileges of Wallachia, Moldavia, and Servia, "could be considered" as fulfilled; and until the complete evacuation of the territories occupied by the Russian troops, the administration and the order of things, established under the influence of the Court of Russia, was to be maintained, and the Porte was bound not to interfere with them in any manner. regard to Greece, an article was inserted in the following words, "The Sublime Porte, whilst declaring its entire adhesion to the stipulations of the treaty concluded in London on the 6th July, 1827, between Russia, Great Britain, and France, accedes equally to the act drawn up on the 22nd of March, 1829, by mutual consent, between these same powers, on the basis of the said treaty, and containing the arrangement of detail relative to its definitive execution. Immediately after the exchange of the ratification of the present treaty of peace, the Sublime Porte shall appoint plenipotentiaries to settle with those of the Imperial Court of Russia, and of the Courts of England and France, the execution of the said stipulations and arrangements."

Except the vague limitation of the time at which the Turkish territory was to be evacuated by the Russian troops, and the absolute exemption from being responsible to Turkish tribunals, secured to Russian subjects, there was not in the treaty much of which Turkey could complain, considering the hopeless prostration to which she had been reduced. The cession of territory in Asia was trifling; and

the treaty bore on the face of it greater marks of moderation, than could have been expected from a conqueror who had the Ottoman empire at his feet. But to the principal treaty were attached two subsidiary acts, or conventions, explanatory of some of its most important provisions, which bore much harder on Turkey, and betrayed a much more grasping and insidious disposition on the part of Russia. The first related to the indemnity to be paid to Russia on account of the expenses of the war, and as compensation for losses sustained by Russian merchants. The latter had been already fixed in the treaty at 1,500,000 ducats; the former was now fixed at the exorbitant sum of 10,000,000 of ducats, upwards of five millions sterling. They were to be paid in instalments, the greater sum in ten equal annual instalments of about half a million each; and the smaller in four instalments of unequal magnitude, increasing as they went on, and at smaller intervals. Upon the payment of the first of this latter class of instalments, Adrianople was to be evacuated; on the second being paid, the Russians were to retreat beyond the Balkan; on the third, beyond the Danube; and when the fourth, and the whole of the other sum of five millions was discharged, they were to quit the Turkish territory altogether. Thus the possession of the principalities was secured to Russia for at least ten years, and the treaty had already provided that, while she remained in possession, the order of things, which she had established during her military occupation, was to remain undisturbed.

By the other supplementary

convention, alterations of great importance, and permanent in their nature, were introduced into the administration of the principalities themselves. The Porte surrendered every thing on the left bank of the Danube,-soil, cities, fortresses, even to the privilege of permitting so much as an individual Mahometan subject of the Sultan to reside there, or to retain, beyond the term of eighteen months, one foot of land, however fairly and lawfully acquired. The Hospodars were to enjoy their dignities for life, instead of the definite period of seven years. They were to govern within their respective principalities as they and their Divans might think proper, without the shadow of interference from the Porte or any of its officers. They were empowered to keep up establishments of troops independentlyofthe Sultan, though, throughout the document, he was still spoken of as their Sovereign. The Turkish government relinquished all claim to those contributions in kind, which it had hitherto received from the principalities. As an indemnification for this sacrifice, it was to be allowed an annual sum of money, the amount of which was to be afterwards determined, but which, as well as the regular tribute, was not to commence until two years after the total evacuation of the principalities by the Russian troops, that is, until after ten years, the term provided by the treaty for making the last payment on which the evacuation of the principalities was to depend-which term it was the obvious tendency and seeming purpose of this long suspension of all pecuniary aid from the principalities to the Porte to protract,

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and with it the evacuation by the Russian armies. The Turkish government farther bound itself to confirm every administrative measure which the Russians had adopted during their military tenure of these provinces, provided always, that such decrees do not in any way infringe upon the rights of sovereignty vested in the Porte!"-after every prerogative of sovereignty in the Sultan had been formally taken from him. The article, which gave Russians in Turkey an absolute exemption, in every case, and in all respects, from the Turkish authorities, was in itself a direct attack upon the Sultan's sovereignty, even within his own acknowledged dominions, to which no prince could have been brought to submit but by the most pitiable necessity. The only sovereignty that existed as to them, was that of their own minister and consuls. They might behave with insolence and turbulence to the Turkish authorities; they might set the daily example of disobedience to the native magistrates; they might be encouraged or directed, for political purposes, to foment discontent and defy the law; and yet Turkey was to have no means of dealing with the offenders, except through the medium of persons who would always be their partial friends, and might very possibly be their counsellors and accomplices in guilt.

Besides this heavy war, which Russia brought to so fortunaté a conclusion, circumstances seemed at one time to threaten her with another Persian war. Towards the end of the preceding year, M. Grybydoff had arrived in Tehran, as ambassador of Russia, to carry into effect some articles

of the treaty between Russia and Persia, respecting the Armenian and Georgian subjects of the former, who, he demanded, should return to their country. He seems to haveconducted himself with harshness and haughtiness; to have been fond of acting as the representative of a victor who had dictated the peace, ce, and whose subjects were to be uncontrolled in the country on which it had been imposed. In the course of his journey to Tehran, he collected all the Armenians he could find, without troubling himself to inquire very scrupulously whether they were persons to whom the provisions of the treaty applied. At Casbine he carried his interference so far as to punish a Mahommedan, on the groundless charge that he had been accessory to another person's purchasing an Armenian slave. This so strongly excited the indignation of the people, that the authorities advised him to depart, otherwise they would not be responsible for his personal safety. Arrived at Tehran, he was received with all the honour due to his station; but there, too, his despotic practices soon rendered him unpopular. Among others, he demanded the delivery of two Armenian women, who had formerly been Turkish slaves, and had been brought from Van during the last war between Turkey and Persia. These women did not seek his protection; on the contrary, they wished to remain at Tehran; but he chose to consider them as Armenian subjects, and insisted they should return to their country. The king remonstrated, and even condescended to send the women to the ambassador's residence, under the

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