from the other side of the Danube, and the Waiwodes had been directed to appoint others in their place. The Servian deputies would be immediately liberated, and Hadi-Effendi, and IbrahimEffendi, members of the Uhlemas, were named the Turkish plenipotentiaries definitively to settle with those of Russia the other matters between the empires which still remained undecided. The Turk was faithful to his word: the Servian deputies were immediately liberated; the withdrawing of the Beschlis could not but wound his pride, but it was immediately executed. To the inhabitants of the principalities it was veiled under the pretext, that, "as the number of the Beschlis in them had been increased in consequence of the civil troubles, and the restoration of tranquillity rendered the presence of so large a number of soldiers unnecessary, it had been thought fit, in order to avoid useless expense, that the Agas should retire with their troops, and that the Hospodar should appoint a Baschbeschli-Aga, commanding a number of Beschlis equal to that which existed before the insurrection." Russia, on her part, named the marquis de Ribeaupierre, and general count Woronzov, commissioners to treat with those of Turkey; and Ackermann, as town of Bessarabia, near the mouth of the Dniester, as the place where the conferences should be held.

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The questions, which remained to be settled by the plenipotentiaries at Ackermann, were much more numerous than the preliminary points which had been fixed at Constantinople, and did not promise to be of more easy ad

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justment. They regarded principally the restoration by Russia of certain Asiatic fortresses on the Black Sea; the free navigation of that sea by the Russian flag; the repayment to that power of losses sustained by her subjects from the Barbary corsairs, amounting, it was said, to a million sterling; the internal government of Wallachia and Moldavia; and the reestablishment of the independent rights of the Servians. These demands, excepting what concerned the fortresses, went directly to secure to Russia a preponderance fatal to Turkey; and the perseverance, with which she resisted the only demand that Turkey made, sprung from the same policy that rendered her inflexible in imposing her own demands upon the Sultan. As the independence of the principalities, that is, a virtual dependence upon Russia as their protector against a Mahommedan, govern→ ment which they disliked, gave Russia, in any attack which she might make upon her neighbour, all the immense aid to be derived from civil commotion, so the possession of the strong-holds, and navigation of the Euxine, gave a thousand facilities to actual inva¬ sion. In the hasty peace concluded between Russia and the Porte, in 1812, the minister of the former consented to restore to Turkey, Anape, Anagri Poti which commands the entrance of the Phasis, and Soukom Kale, and Redoute Kale, two ports on the Black Sea, the one on the side of Abasia, the other on that of Mingrelia. The court of St. Petersburgh was said to have been highly offended with the cession, and to have sent orders to her generals to defer, at least, the re

stitution; some of them had been given up before these directions arrived; Anagri was afterwards amicably abandoned to Turkey, but Soukom and Redoute were still in the hands of Russia. The latter was determined not to surrender them, miserable fortalices as they were, because they carried her frontier to the sea, and were almost essential to its navigation; for she could with difficulty maintain the station which she had established for herself on the eastern shores of the Euxine, if her vessels were not allowed, in severe weather, to take shelter in the bays of those two harbours. The Sultan, again, was equally resolved to recover them, both be cause policy required of him to prevent, if possible, a powerful enemy from fortifying himself on his very frontiers; and because they were the great entrepots of the trade which brought the beauties of Circassia, Mingrelia, and Georgia, to the harems of Constantinople.

Pretensions so discordant, maintained with equal obstinacy on both sides, seemed to threaten a rupture at the very opening of the conferences; the Turkish commissioners spoke of leaving Ackerman, and those of Russia sent to their court for further instructions. Russia, at length, yielded the point as to the fortresses, but insisted with so much the greater pertinacity in every one of her own demands. As in the negotiations at Constantinople, her determina tion was shewn in the form of an ultimatum; the Sultan was called upon to answer yes or no to her demands within a limited time; a refusal, ǎ delay, an evasion, was to be the signal for her armies cross

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ing the Pruth. When the Reis. Effendi received the despatch containing these terms, he exclaimed, "they have a mind to put a knife to our throats!"-and so they had. It was only by fear that Russia was working upon Turkey, the only motive which Turkey had hitherto appeared to acknowledge, and the moment was peculiarly favourable to its influ ence. Mahmoud was much less able to turn the knife from his throat by force in September than he had been in May; Constanti→ nople was flowing with the blood of his own Janissaries, mowed down by his own cannon; he had destroyed his old army, and was only preparing the rudiments of a new one; a military rebellion had scarcely been suppressed in the capital, and revolt was to be apprehended from the Janissaries and their adherents in the provinces. To have provoked the invasion of a Russian army in such circumstances, when only the fanatic fury of the populace could have pre vented it from marching to Cons stantinople, would have been mad ness; and Turkey yielded, with the best grace she could, to all the demands of her imperious adver◄ sary. The treaty of Bucharest was confirmed in all its parts, as were all existing conventions relating to Wallachia and Moldavia. Russia consented that these principalities should be governed by boyars, natives of the country, it being provided that the choice should be made by the divan of each principality, and confirmed by the Porte; and even her demands regarding the internal administration of these provinces, in the levying of taxes and ground-rents, and the remission of the latter for two years,

were acceded to. Turkey further bound herself to restore to the Servians, within a year, all the rights and privileges which their deputies had claimed; freedom of trade, permission to travel with their own passports, freedom of religion, equal in the administration of justice, the establishment of schools and printing-offices, the exclusion of Turks from Servia, except garrisons in the fortresses; every thing, in fine, short of a recognition of independence, which could tend to separate the Servians from the Porte, leaving them to regard Russia as their saviour and protector. There was added the general stipulation, that every demand to be made by the Servians, and not incompatible with the duty of good subjects to the Sultan, should be granted. The Porte and the Servians were not likely to agree in what were the duties of christians as good subjects towards Mahommedan rulers; and Russia stood by to profit by their disputes, and encourage her protegés. Turkey engaged,within two months after the claims of Russia, for losses occasioned since 1821 by the corsairs of Barbary, should be given in, to make them good out of the imperial treasury, if the potentates of Africa refused to do so them selves, after firmans should have been directed to them for that purpose. The re-shipment of goods in the ports of the Black Sea was confirmed, and the free passage of ships under the Russian flag was guaranteed.

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Stipulations so hurtful to the pride, and injurious to the interests, of Turkey, extorted, too, by com pulsion, at a moment when resist ance was impossible, were not

likely to be entered into with much sincerity, or to be observed longer than till they could safely be disregarded. In the mean time, however, Russia, in the midst of peace, had secured almost every advantage which, in the existing state of Europe, she could have promised herself from open war. She had not only obtained the confirmation of all that was secured to her by the treaty of Bucharest, but fresh conditions had been imposed, calculated to consolidate her interests, and extend her influence; she had gained largely, and yielded sparingly in return. She restored, indeed, the Asiatic fortresses, and conceded some minor points relating to the internal government of Wallachia and Moldavia; but the convention of Ackermann thus engrafted upon the stipulations of former treaties, was a precedent which, in future disputes between the two countries, might be made the point of departure for another stride towards the attainment of that unchanged, and unchanging, object of Russian policy, the extension of its dominion to the banks of the Danube, if not to the shores of the Mediterranean. Each successive struggle, whether of arms or negotiation, had ended, like this, in narrowing the circle, and beating down the outworks of the Ottoman empire; exciting no jealousies, alarming no fears prematurely, but awaiting, and preparing, a crisis, when, in the fulness of time, Turkey should be as an infant wrestling with a giant.

If such a destiny was preparing for Turkey in the cabinet of Russia, nothing could have been better fitted at least to delay it, than the revolution which the

Sultan now attempted to effect in the military force of the empire, by subjecting it to sterner disci pline, and training it to European tactics. The Janissaries had been, for centuries, the main body of the Ottoman army, and for at least an hundred years, the masters of their Sultan. In them resided the true power of the empire; like the Prætorian bands of ancient Rome, they disposed of the crown at their pleasure, and, like them, they bestowed it, not upon the most worthy, but upon him who was most profuse of his largesses, and most observant of their prejudices and rights. Bold in their numbers, proud in the exclusive privileges, which belonged even to the meanest of their body, they formed a sort of military democracy, of which both the Sultan and their fellow subjects were slaves. The Sultan himself was only their comrade and brother, and his companions belonged to the dregs of the populace. The daily pittance of soup to which every Janissary was entitled, was a sufficient bribe to crowd their ranks with the most degraded victims of idleness and vice. Christian renegades, jews, pagans, criminals themselves, were the recruits of this chosen band, which, once the pride and the prop of the crescent, had become its disgrace and its curse. While they ruled the empire within with a rod of iron, they had become utterly ineffectual for its defence. Addicted to every vice, even their ancient valour had disappeared; discipline was unknown to them; insubordination was the very instrument by which they ruled. Had they even been obedient and brave, their prejudices would have unfitted them for being efficient

troops in European warfare. The same fanaticism which bound them to their religion wedded them to the cumbersome and imperfect system of oriental tactics; improvements in the art of war were resisted with tumult and revolt, like heretical innovations upon their faith; the manœuvres of an European army they could neither understand, nor practise, nor counteract; their arms, and the modes of exercising and wielding them, continued to be what they had been centuries before. Bringing into the field no one appurtenance of a soldier, military or moral, but the gaudy trappings of barbaric magnificence, and the undisciplined fury of religious antipathy and ruling, when at home, by revolt and riot--they were useless for defence, and the bane of all regular and efficient government. The Sultan, who should disband them, re-model his army, and reduce it to a state of welltrained discipline, as well as lead it into a course of military improvement, would at once free himself from subjection to a rabble, and be entitled to the gratitude of the empire.

But the attempt was surrounded with dangers. To interfere with the privileges, restrain the licentious ness, oppose the pleasure, or alter the customs of the Janissaries, had more than once cost a Sultan his throne and his head. The first attempt to introduce European discipline had been made by the former Sultan, Selim. The nucleus of the force which he endeavoured to establish, and which was termed Nizam-gedittes, or soldiers of the new regulations, was formed of the wrecks of the garrison which so bravely defended St. Jean d' Acre."

When this new corps took the field in Bulgaria and Romelia, for the suppression of the numerous banditti that infested these provinces, their superiority over the Janissaries was speedily seen. They defeated the mountaineers in numerous conflicts, routed them effectually, and finished, in two months, a task, to which the Janis saries, backed by the household troops of the Pachas, Sanjacks, and Ayans, had never been found equal. Their success rendered the advantage of the European discipline indisputable; they were handsomely remunerated; and means were adopted for augmenting their number, by a kind of conscription, principally for the purpose of curbing the turbulent Janissaries. The jealousies, however, of the latter, and the prejudices of the people, roused so general a fermentation, that the order of the Sultan could not be executed. Successively attacked by the Janissaries, the Oulemas, the Yamacks, and the Topschis, the Nizam-gedittes suffered the fate of all establishments made inopportunely. Selim was, in 1807, obliged to suppress them, after having witnessed, with his own eyes, the massacre of all those ministers and counsellors who were suspected of being their partizans. His own dethronement immediately followed; Mustapha was proclaimed emperor, and his elevation was the signal for the dispersion of the Nizam-gedittes. Their barracks were plundered, and the object of the institution was abandoned until the succeeding year, when Mahmoud, the present Sultan, mounted the throne. Mus-, tapha Bairactar, who was then vizier, had perceived, in his last

campaign with the Russians, the advantages inseparable from European tactics. To compose a regular army, he began by attempting to introduce reform among the Janissaries themselves, and several companies of Seymens, that is, select soldiers, were immediately formed. Unfortunately Bairactar, was, of all men, the least adapted for gaining proselytes to his own plans. Instead of alluring the Janissaries, who came to offer themselves to be enrolled among the select soldiers, by presents and caresses, he treated them with insufferable arrogance, refused them all peculiar privileges, and acted, upon the whole, as if his wish had been to oppose, not to further, the measures which he himself had recommended. The consequence was, that the new corps fell into speedy contempt. Bairactar, after rendering himself detested by all, was murdered in one of the most serious insurrections of which Constantinople has afforded an example; the Seymens were abolished, as the Nizamgedittes had been before them; the discipline of the Franks seemed for ever renounced; and an anathema was even denounced against those who should propose the revival of any plan for its adoption.

But recent events had taught Mahmoud and his counsellors the necessity of reform still more feelingly than it had been felt by his vizier and his predecessor. The pliancy with which he found himself compelled to bow before the threatening attitude of Russia, impressed him painfully with the sense of his weakness; and the success of the Greek insurgents was still more irritating to pride