where throughout the East, Russia has lost that lever from
its too frequent use and its disastrous cft'gcts ; elsewhere she
sends religious bribes, silver chalices, brocade vestments,
painted missals, psalteries, and pensions : on the Principa-
EVACUATION OF TPIE PRINCIPALITIES. 365
lities she imposes a religious tax, amounting to twelve
times their tribute to the Porte, £20,000 is paid to the one,
j6250,000 to the other. It is paid indeed in the shape of
the revenues of Monasteries, &c., and goes to Greek Priests,
but tliesc are not native ; it is Russia who maintains the
Impost, and who uses it to repay political services. Tims it
was that the priesthood took the lead, in their canonicals, in
the ovation prepared for the Turkish troops when they
crossed the Danube in 1848 ; and so entirely are the sympa-
thies of the people and their old traditions associated with
Mussulman greatness, that in the popular song for General
Bern, he is known as Murad Pasha.
It is in these favourable dispositions of the Principalities
towards Turkey, and their aversion to Russia, that for the
last century has resided the security of the Ottoman Empire,
Were these dispositions reversed it would have already been
handed over to the Czar to " preserve its integrity and inde-
pendence." It will suliice to state, that it is impossible for
Russia to act by military force upon the Ottoman Empire
from the Pruth ; and tliat even from the Danube she can
operate only by the aid of the resources she draws from the
Principalities.
As regards the futui-e, an attack upon the Ottoman Empire
is out of the question ; she will operate by means of internal
schism and revolt, and will bring herself within reach so as
to take advantage of it by a prior occupation of the Princi-
palities, for which the ambiguous position she has created for
them by Diplomatic means, Avill aflbrd the occasion. An
attempt of this kind was made in 1850, when her army was
there : it was not successful, but the circumstance is too
instructive not to be mentioned : the plan was so bold and
extensive that, as it has failed, it will with difficulty be cre-
dited; it was believed at the time by persons placed in the
highest positions, and there arc facts too authentic and
numerous to admit of doubt.
Nothing less was devised than a revolution in Bulgaria,
Bosnia, and Serbia, with a simultaneous one in Syria, con-
366 THE DANUBE AND EUXINE. -^ ><
certed with the Pasha of Egypt : the Sultan himself was
to be taken off; a revolution at Bucharest would liave
justified %e reinforcement of the army of occupation by
50,000 men collected at Bessarabia, and so 70,000 Russians
might have marched on Adrianople to place a New Sultan oil
the throne, whilst a squadron dropped down from Sevastapol
to the Bosphorus, to save the Capital and protect the-
Christians.
The scheme failed, because such schemes are more easy to
plan than to execute ; because in fact, at the time it was not
executable. The Bulgarian revolution was impracticable
without the support of Serbia — Serbia acted against it. The
Admiral's ship was blown np in the Golden Horn, but the
ministers had not at the moment arrived on board. A
draught prepared for the Sultan, was swallowed by an
Eunuch ; * the Syrian insurrection failed because Bern had
been sent to Aleppo to be out of the way. The revolution
* There is no secret as to the name of the physician who prepared
the draught — Dr. Spitzer. To the indignation of the Seraglio, the
Sultan would not allow him to be put to death, but dismissed him
to Yienna with a pension. The circumstance having been detailed
in a pamplilet which reached Vienna in June, 1852, a mystification
was put forth on the 28th of August in the Augsburg Gazette^ by
pretending a new conspiracy in that year and confounding it with
that of 1850. I extract a passage.
*' The Sultan's physician. Dr. Spitzer, has been suddenly removed,
and appointed Councillor of the Turkish Legation at Vienna. There
are many stories afloat, the most probable one is that Dr. Spitzer
was offered an enormous sum by the reactionary party if ho would
poison the Sultan, and threatened with a speedy death if he refused.
The Doctor showed the letter to the Sultan, and has been removed
to save him from danger. Last time it was the Sultan's brother,
whom it was attempted to gain over, but who made ths Sultan aware
of what was going on ... , The journey of the Sultan to Chalki,
to visit the new Marine School, was to be taken advantage of to
carry out the views of the conspirators, when the Sultana Vahde
sent a steamer after the Sultan, to make known the conspiracy to
him. Many persons have been arrested, and various Pashas hava
disappeared. People too have recollected that on that very day two
years, when the Sultan was to have gone on board, the Admiral'*
ship blew up."
EVACUATION OP THE PEINCIPALITIES. 867
et Bucharest did not take place, because Aclimet Effendi
happened to fill tie office of Imperial Commissioner.
At Aleppo, however, an outbreak did take place, and it
affords us the opportunity of tracing the conspiracy to its
source, and of showing the preparations made in Europe for
profiting by the catastrophe had it been more signal and
general.
A certain Armenian, named Yazmadji, implicated in the
attempt to assassinate Kossuth,* and generally reputed to be 3
poisoner, arrived at Aleppo, accompanied by eight Hungarian
renegades. These men were paraded about the public places
in Mussulman costume; in a few days they recanted and
publicly reviled Islam, the deadliest offence to Maho-
medans, they then took refuge at the different consulates.
Other exasperating cn-cumstances were not wanting, and
the insurrection followed. It has been attributed to a
reaction of fanaticism against the new order of things, but
Europeans were not maltreated after Navarino : if it had
been so, how shc-ald the Armenians and Jews have been
spared and the popular fury directed only against the Franks,
Catholics, and Greeks ?
After the rage of the people had been exerted against the
^Franks and the Consuls, the i\jabs of the Desert, with
admirable instinct, arrived. No Yazmadji had been amongst
them, but they had gone to Egypt, and had returned, each
man, with gold in his sack, some ten, some twenty, some thirty
thousand dollars.
Within the shortest time the intelligence of the events of
Aleppo could reach St.Petersburgh, that capital was astounded
at tlie appearance of a leader in the "Northern Bee," the
special organ of the Emperor. There Abbas Pasha was vindi-
cated against charges of treason, whilst at Constantinople
everything was explained by the repugnance of the Arabs to
the conscription !
* A case into wliicli tlie Enghsh EmbasBy instituted an inquiry,
and conolutled for the reality of the charge j at least it allowed that
belief to be exitertained at Per*.
S68 THE DANUBE AND EUXINE.
The alertness of the editor of the " Northern Bee '* wau
not a solitary incident : the instant the news reached London
the English Minister wrote to Paris to suggest the necessity
of measures against the Ottoman Empire. The English
Ambassador hastens to the Foreign Office, General La Hitte
listens with profound attention. The Representative of
Eussia happens to call at the same moment, and is waiting in
an adjoining room. The Protocol is in the very act of
parturition, when the door opens and a chef de bureau enters
and places in tlie hands of tlie General-Minister the official
report of General Bern, which had reached Paris in an
unofficial manner.*
By this document the total loss of life at Aleppo was
reduced to fifteen, and the explosion of fanaticism was
explained as arising from obscure and foreign intriguers;
the measures adopted by the Government were stated to have
arrested the disorders, and its resolution was declared to
punish the delinquents. So fell, still-born, the Protocol, and
the Eepresentatives of England and llussia had to return to
Aheir respecti^•e hotels re wfedd. The French Government,
which is sometimes given to oscillations, having desisted
from smiting the Porte by a " coalition," raised it to the skies
in an article in " La Patrie ; " and the Govea'nment, against
whom in the morning was to be evoked a crusade of revo-
lution and Christianity was, in the evening, held up to the
theatres and clubs of Paris as a model of firmness and
moderation. The CJief de Bureau^ however, not being
sufficiently Russian for the Foreign Department, was trans-
ferred to another : and Bern, who had killed both insurrection
and Protocol, was despatched to the other world, f
* Tins statement was made to me at the time in Constantinople;
I have no means of testing its accuracy ; but it partly rested on a
report of Callimaclii.
t The English Ambassador at Constantinople interposed to
prevent the Porte from conferring any mark of favom* on General
Bern. Into tlie circumstances of his death an inquiry was instituted
by confidential agents who reported that the treatment of his malady
(intermittent fever} had been such as to ensure a fatal issue.
EVACUxVTION OF TIIE PRINCIPALITIES. 369
It is no unlikely thing that such events under such
circumstances should occur. • "W^at else indeed can be
expected with a foreign array in occupation — the occupying
Power being the most artful and unscrupulous of Govern-
ments, and the occupied state the most harmless and
negligent ? The circumstances which I detail are but the
programme to be again rehearsed, and over and over again
<imtil it passes from fiction to reality; No wonder that after
such an escape Turkey should have endeavoured to get rid of
its alarming guests, the marvel only is that it should have
succeeded.
The Principalities, however, aiford to Turkey the most
advantageous of fields for diplomatic contest. There Russia
can neither put forward her allies, nor, as in Egypt, Syria, or
Greece, play upon their mutual jealousies. Ereed from such
entanglements, Turkey is morally if not intellectually a
match for Russia. It may be difficult to move the Turks,
but once they have resolved, they will adhere to their point
with more pertinacity, and carry it out with as much dex-
terity as any people on earth.
The most oftcnsive feature of the occupation was the
charge for the support of the Russian troops, exacted with-
out Treaty or WaiTant, the expenses of the Turkish troops
conjointly occupying, being entirely defrayed by their own
Government. The resources of the Provincial Government
having failed, the Russian General oft'ered to open for them
a credit on St. Petersburgh, and so by supplying the Russians,
they had become indebted to Russia. It was on this point that
the Porte determined to raise the question and she waited
for an occasion.
The Hospodar of Wallachia, Stirbey, had proposed to place
his son in the Russian diplomatic service : on this Achmet
Effendi, Commissioner of the Porte, had taken offence.
A Hospodar lies on no bed of roses when the Porte declares
itself his adversary ; and to regain its good will it was well
worth making sacrifices. The Hospodar commissioned liis
agent to deliver to the Grand Vizier a memoir in which it
370 THE DANUBE AND EUXINE.
was stated that the Province could no longer bear the burden
of the Russian troops, and urging the Porte to take mea-
sures for their removal, or for the reimbursement of the
Provincial treasury. On presenting it, the agent said, " You.
will see that the Prince is not so black as Achmet Effendi'
would make you believe." The Grand Vizier replied, " Very
well, we will see what we can do for him." A few days
afterwards the Eussian dragoman, M. Aristarchi, went to
the Minister of Foreign Affairs to suggest, that if the Porte
was not inclined to withdraw its troops, and its Commissioner^
it need not proceed on the application of the Prince.
The Porte did however proceed, and transmitted a formal
demand for the Evacuation, which left Constantinople upon
the 15th January. On the 21st, M. TitofF took occasion
informally and verbally to communicate to Ali Pasha that
the proposal would meet with no obstruction, as he had
already received the orders of his Court to make it ! No
steamer had arrived, and no messenger ; no communication
<;ould have reached M. TitofF for the eight previous days.
Either M. Titoff had by anticipation been armed with
powers to meet this contingency, or he acted under an un-
mistakeable necessity presented by the case. That necessity
consisted in the hostile dispositions of the Principalities and
in the respectable disciplined force now possessed by Turkey.
It must also be observed that the immediate object of the
occupation had been accomplished by the subjugation of
Hungary, and that the Eussian troops in contact with the
Turkish, so much better paid and fed, were being inoculated
with disaffection to that degree, that the regiments already
relieved, had been, dispersed and sent in small bodies to
remote stations.
If it was requisite to yield — than was it desirable to do so
with promptitude and gTace, so as to preserve a footing of
confidential friendship, which would give her the control of
the future measures of the Porte, and prevent it front
iakhuj steps by which her future return would he rendered
EVACUATION OE THE PRINCIPALITIES. 371
The Turks having themselves seized and sent away the
leading men opposed to the Russians, and the Government
being in the hands of her partisans or faction, it would
be easy to fire off a revolution; this would be the signal
for the return of her army, or it may return on any other
pretext — then it will return alone, there will be no Turkish
army or Commissioner. The political evacuation can take place
only when the Porte on withdrawing her soldiers shall cause
the provisional system to cease, by giving them a simple and
intelligible charter by which to govern themselves. This
indeed constituted a part of the original plan of the Porte
and would have been carried out if Russia had exhibited any
signs of resistance, or even of hesitation ; but the unexpected
facility of lier assent confounded the Turkish Government
and made them suspect that they had fallen into a trap.
One of the members said " we thought we had hit her a
heavy blow — she smUes and thanks us."
At the critical moment of the negotiation, on the 21st
January, the British ambassador, after having been refused
a private audience, at a public audience represented to the
Sultan, his Ministers as having lost the confidence of England,
and being unworthy of that of their master.* As to Prance,
not that her word matters one way or the other, she was
sending in an ultimatum, and breathing flames about the
Holy Places. Thus Turkey, being relieved from her officious
friends, achieved the greatest diplomatic victory which her
annals have to record ; but that does not prevent the Great
Governments of the West from claiming as a diplomatic
triumph, the having driven back 50,000 Russian soldiers
five hundred miles, and that too, when preparing to sign the
Danish Protocol !
* The day before, the Kussian Minister sent to the cliiefs of the
adverse party, to inform them of the step which next day the
English Ambassador would take, and of the language he woul<i
hodl.
PART II.
THE LEVANT AND RED SEA.
CHAPTER I.
Commercial Besourccs atid Legislation of Twrlcey,
The Greek Byzantine Emperors, wlioin the populace of
Constantinople raised at pleasure to the throne, or hurled
into the dust, had above all things to provide — cheap bread.
The neighbouring provinces were consequently prohibited
from exporthig wheat ; but this, like all other attempts
against nature, instead of supplying the capital, depressed
and exasperated the provinces, and ended by ruining the
Empire.
. The Turkish system was simplicity itself; it enacted by
law, and sealed by religion, that rule of administration which
belongs to the earliest times. L'nfortunatcly, however, tlie
Greek system was not entirely blotted out with the Greek
Empire, and, without the necessity, the Sultans followed
the pr/tctice of their predecessors, so far as to prohibit the
expoi-tation of grain.
This state of things lasted 376 years, from 1453 tiU 1829^
when, after many ages of security, Constantinople was once
more placed between foes on the North and South, traffic by sea
was stopped, and she was in want of bread. She had still the
two continents open, but the corn administration (Moubaya),
invented to feed the capital, blockaded it as eftectually by
land as the Russian squadrons by sea. Under the presence
of absolute famine the old laws were suspended, and instantly
plenty reappeared.
874 TilE LEVANT AND EED SEA.
Since Eussia obtained access to tlie Black Sea, her atten«
ion has been given to the cultivation of wheat. Her soil,
her climate, the distance -at which she is placed, a difficidt
navigation, and a frozen sea during several months of the
year, presented to such an enterprise great obstacles : the
Bosphorus, tqo, was then closed against this commerce.
Her perseverance has triumphed over all, even to the causing
of the prohibition to be repealed by the Porte for the passage
outward of her corn, while for that of Turkey it was retained
in force. Across the narrow, seas of the Ottomans, and be-
tween their vast uncultivated plains, Eussia sent her cargoes
to the markets of Europe, and received in ret^u-n those monies
which place • her in the position to aim at the empire of a
reasoning but stupid age — a warlike but venal world.
The Turkish Empire is composed of countries that in
former times were the most flourishing on earth. The con-
ditions of the teiiure of land, the relations between proprietor
and occupier, present no systematic impediment to prosperity.
It possesses the most remarkable natural facilities for trans-
port. The sea, which only washes the borders of other states,
penetrates Into its centre, and gives it a maritime coast of
about 1200 leagues, or twice and a half that of England, and
five times that of France. The rivers communicating with
these seas traverse the most fertile regions. Egypt has her
Nile : the rich plains of Syria touch or approach the sea
coast, reaching the Gulf of Acre to the south, and joining the
Orontes on the north ; to the east flows the Euphrates. The
mountain chains of Asia Minor run all east and west, so as
to allow the plains and watercourses to penetrate from the
sea to the interior ; by the four rivers that run to the west
and the two that run to the north, the elements are afforded
of a system of internal water-carriage through its whole
extent. Eoumelia is traversed by the great artery of Central
Europe, the Danube, which a canal of five leagues woidd
cover with craft, letting the Black Sea into the land, carrying
it right up to Hungary, and so uniting to the Bosphorus, the
repose and prosperity of the Ausfrricltv Empire.
COJirMERCIAL LEGISLATION. 375
These provinces are placed under the most happy sky :
they neither know the rigours of winter, nor the intensity of
«immer : a fnigal and docile population of nearly forty mil-
lions is sprinkled over a soil not yet broken to labour, or
fashioned by art.
With such a surface for the growth of corn, with such
facilities for its transport, Turkey would unquestionably have
seized upon the commerce of the world, if the sentence had
not gone forth against her : " You shall not traffic in the
stores of your granaries, the flax shall dry upon the stalk, the
olive shall rot under its tree, the forests shall never descend
from the mountains, nor the brass and ii'on, the gold and
silver, emerge from their entrails.'* This sentence the SultaJi
Mahmoud undertook to reverse, but the times were no longer
when an Ottoman Sultan was his OAni master. He did not
dare to say to his people, "Enjoy the gifts of Providence ;"
he did luot dare to say to the nations, " Come and trade with
my people."*
Tui-key nevertheless had for the basis of her system free-
dom of trade : this freedom was avowed and consecrated in
• A recent work on Turkey has the following : —
** If some of oiip enterprising countrymen, acquainted with com-
mercial pursuits were to visit these provinces of European Turkey,
they would find a rich field, as yet unexplored : I Ibund a most
anxious desire on the part of the iuliabitants to establish a more
intimate commercial connection with Great Britain for the disposal
of their timber, com, and ^cattle, which seemed to lie upon their
hands -without the possibility of a sale.
" In the interior of Bulgaria and Upper Moesia, the low prices of
provisions and cattle of every description is almost fabulous com-
pared with the prices of Western Europe. A fat sheep or lamb
â– UBually costs from cighteenpence to two shillings, an ox forty
gliillings, cows tliirty shillings, and a horse, in the best possible tra-
Vclhng condition, from foiir to five pounds sterling. Wool, hides,
tallow^, wax, and honey, are equally low. In the town and hans by
the road side, evei7thing is sold by weight ; you can get a pound of
meat for a halfpenny, a pound of bread for the same, and wine, which
m pSmo soli by weight, costs about the same money."
"8'76 THE LEVANT AND EED SEA.
the treaties with all countries. The productions of foreigners
were not loaded with duties ; she did not wage a war of ex-
change against her neigiibours ; she did not dream of the
protection of national industry ; tlie talons of the Use did not
gripe salt and tobacco ; and no octroi blockaded the dwell-
ings of men.
Whence the mysterious contrast ? Why this monstrous
yoking of a living man and a carcass ? The cause is ex-
plained by its effects : in Turkey nothing could be bought
that Eussia sold ; but for all articles which Russia did not
sell, the markets were open without stint or limit. This
prohibition has made Russia what she is ; it was a singular
effect of her greatest militaiy triumph, that the war which
placed in her hands the second capital of the empire ended
with reversing the balance between the victor and the v;ui"
quished ; for after the removal of the restriction on the corn
trade occasioned by the pressure of her blockade, no European
vessel would have passed on to the Black Sea, but would
have laden on the shores of the Mediterranean.
The reimposition of the restriction was now a new enters-
prise, and its accomplishment a new victory : it was achieved
in tlie Treaty of Adnoupe, by means of a stipulation for un-
limited freedom of trade. Every Ivussian, or every subject of
the Porte, who chose to go to Odessa for a passport, or to
seek the protection of a Ilussian consulate, might traffic far
and near free from all charges, save that of the nominal
Ilussian tariff". Eussia at the time had not one native sub-
ject or merchant in Turkey, but soon the whole country was
covered with her " subjects ;" they possessed themselves of
all the channels of industry ; they broke through the whole
order of administration ; eveiy difference was solved in their
favour by a threat, for to this commercial stipulation Eussia
had appended for any remissness or neglect the unparalleled
penalty of "reprisals."* The Porte at last fell back oa
* Vllth Article of the Treaty of Acli-ianople. — Eussifm subjects
niil enjoy thi-ovigliout the whole extent of the Ottoman Empire, a»
COMMERCIAL LEGISLATION. 377
Troliibition ; the old capitulations, while tiiey conferred on
«trangers the privilege to come to buj^ and sell whatever
tliey chose, were not enuncititions of principles but merely
grants of favour, and they specially reserved the right of
j»rohibiting the exportation of any article in cases of scarcity/'
Tlie revival of such a pretension may appear a very weak'
device, and one which would only expose Turkey to new
humiliations and embarrassments. The prohibition of the
article v,i\s of course with a view to the sale of firmans for
its exportation, those who purchased them stood in the light
of servants of the government. As article after article came
•thus to be monopolised, the dissensions with Russia were
brought to a close by the extinction of the trade out of
which they had originated, or by tlie transfer cf the indivi-
duals from the class of Russian subjects to that of Turkish
farmers. The Treaty of Adrianople was now more flagrantly
violated than by the small abnormal duties hitherto imposed;
nevertheless the terrors of the " casus belli " clause were
vrell on land as at sea, the full and entire liberty of Commerea which