while their mafters have endeavoured by negociation and new arrangements, to obviate the fatal confequences of their collifion. It must however be acknowledged, that those heavy clouds which overhung the political horizon are far from being difperfed, and that whenever they burst it must be with a dreadful violence. The extraordinary power and uncommon activity of fome of the continental princes, the jealoufy of others, and the ambition of all, are ill calculated for the prefervation of the public tranquillity. Nations are now become foldiers, and must find employment. Like the ancient Marauders of the Northern Hive, their countries are become too narrow for the fupport of fo many armed men. The prefent ftate of quiet, or rather of inaction, is more to be attributed to mutual diftruft and apprehenfion, and a fagacious caution, that waits for favourable circumstances or accidents, than to a love of peace, or regard for juftice.

The ftate of Poland is ftill undetermined. A diet indeed has been held, delegates appointed, and treaties of ceffion and difmemberment ratified; and yet it would be difficult to fhew that any thing has been really concluded. On one fide, the lofers are obliged to fubmit to an inevitable prefent néceffity, ftill hoping that fome unexpected intervention of fortune, may enable them to reclaim their rights; on the other, the demands of the armed claimants, feem to increafe with their acquifitions and the facility of obtaining them. Thus they both continue in their former fituation; the one having obtained no additional fecurity in his new, nor the other in his old poffeffions.

This has been fufficiently fhewn fince the conclufion of those treaties, by the late conduct of the Pruffians with regard to Dantzick. And though the other two partitioning powers have not yet taken any steps of the fame nature, there is little room to doubt that in proper time and feason they will follow the example. Indeed the measures they have all taken for a continual interference in the affairs and government of Poland, fufficiently explain the nature of their future defigns.

Distracted and torn as this unhappy country continues, it has not during this year prefented those fhocking fcenes of calamity, which had long made it a spectacle, as much of horror, as of compaffion. The vaft armies with which it was covered, having rendered all oppofition impracticable, the pretences for cruelty were taken away; and the multitude of fpectators, compofed of different nations, and under different commands, being a mutual check upon the enormities of each other, the rage for blood dwindled into regular oppreffion. Upon the whole, the condition of Poland is not worfe than it has. been ; nor are the poflibilities fewer, in its favour.

The fortune of Ruffia has not at all been predominant this year with refpect to the war. Their enemies become daily more habituated to arms, and have been beaten into order and difcipline. Distance and fituation were also much against them; and they have been taught by experience the difficulties of a Bul-. garian campaign; a fervice, which can fcarcely be carried on with a probability of fuccefs, without the affiftance of fuch a fleet, as can maintain a fuperiority on the Black

3

Sea.

Sea. The rebellion in the Crimea, and apprehenfions of danger nearer home, prevented, however, fome of the exertions that might otherwife have been made in the war upon

the Danube.

It still remains to be feen, whether it was a wife policy in Ruffia, to attempt increafing the bulk of that vaft empire, by adding new conquests to thofe boundless and illcultivated regions which fhe already poffeffes; and which are perhaps at prefent too large for the grafp of any fingle government. It may poffibly hereafter be thought, that the immenfe wafte of treafure and blood, which has been fo lavishly fquandered in this purfuit, would have been much better applied to the great purposes of population and internal improvement; and that the glare of fruitless victories, are a poor recompence for the diforders excited by the confequent oppreffions of the people, and the real weakness that muft enfue, from fo long, and fo violent an exertion.

It was evident from the nature and fituation of the countries, and the confequences of former wars with the Turks, that conquefts in Moldavia, Wallachia, or Beffarabia, and victories on the Pruth or the Danube, were not likely to be attended with much benefit to Ruffia. The gaining of a port upon the Black-Sea, was indeed an object of the utmost importance; but of fuch a nature as to be attended almoft with infuperable difficulties; both from the fatal afpect which it must bear to the Ottoman empire, and the jealoufy which it muft excite in feveral of the European powers.

It fill remains to be enquired,

whether the new acquifitions in Poland, or the influence gained in that country by the court of Petersburg, be equivalent to the lofs, expence, and danger of fuch a war. Thefe will be found upon examination, to be very inadequate to fuch a price. If Poland ftill continued to be, what it long was, a great and powerful nation, under the conduct of illuftrious princes, and guarded by a, nobility famous for their prowefs and military virtues, fuch an extenfion of frontier would be a matter of real moment, and carry with it great additional fecurity. In the prefent inftance thefe circumftances are totally changed. Ruffia had nothing to apprehend from Poland, and much to gain by it. She has now obtained a large acceflion of territory in Lithuania, of the fame nature with refpect to foil and climate, and much in the fame ftate as to cultivation, with thofe wide-extended, but half-defart countries, which he had already poffeffed in that quarter; and which will still require the time and labour of ages to be peopled and cultivated. Both the old and the new poffeffions produce the fame commodities, have the fame wants, require the fame degrees of improvement, and are incapable of being of any ufe or affiftance to each other.

With refpect to frontier, for the neighbourhood of the peaceable, indolent, and impotent Pole, Ruffia has now extended her boundaries into contact with thofe of her jealous, watchful, and enterprizing rivals; and has thereby laid the foundation (if the preient fyftem continues) for fuch endless altercation and difputes, as muft keep Germany and the North in a con[42]

tinual

tinual ftate of warfare and confufion. The wifeft and most benevolent ftatesman could not have wifhed for a happier barrier than Poland, to prevent the clashing of the German and Mufcovite empires; nor could the demon of diford have thrown out bitterer feeds of contention, than it is now likely to produce.

As to the obtaining or preferving of an influence in Poland, her late measures have been attended with as little advantage in that re-, fpect, as in any other. Ruffia before, folely guided and directed the councils of that country, nor could fhe have been deprived of the great fecurity and advantage which the derived from that unbounded influence; but by the most mistaken conduct and falfeft policy. She now divides her authority with the other members of the triumvirate, who will be fufficiently careful that fhe does not retain more than her fhare; nor will her dividend in a future partition of the remains of that republic, be in any degree an equivalent for the advantages which he has foregone, in lofing that fupreme influence and direction by which the guided the whole.

Thofe fchemes which were trumpeted throughout Europe, of totally conquering and fubverting the Ottoman empire, however they might have been held out to flatter the imaginations of the people, or to answer purposes in negociations for loans, could not have been feriously adopted by any flatefman. If the practicability of fuch an event, were even admitted, it could anfwer no good purpofe, and would probably be highly pernicious to Ruflia. The eternal boundaries

which Nature has placed between thofe empires, their distance, fituation, and vaft extent, the extreme difference of climate, and in the manners, customs, and religions of the inhabitants, are infuperable bars to their coalefceing; and render it as impoffible for Petersburg to rule the Ottoman empire, as it would be for Conftantinople to govern the Ruffian.

The war in the Mediterranean, has this year been attended with little honour, and with no other advantage than what proceeded from the taking of prizes. As a war of this nature is always very prejudicial to commerce, and has in this cafe been particularly fo to the French merchants, it has given much umbrage to the two great branches of the houfe of Bourbon. And as the death of Ali Bey, and the return of Egypt to its duty, has cut off one of the principal fources of advantage that could be expected from it, and that the paffage of the Dardanelles feems no longer to be thought practicable, it may ftill be a matter not unworthy of confideration, how much farther it may be confiftent with prudence, to irritate the refentment of those princes; and whether any advantages now to be expected from a continuance of the war, in the Levant, are equivalent to the rifque of a rupture with France and Spain. This fleet however, has been lately reinforced, and it is faid will be rendered formidable in the enfuing fummer.

The ceffion of the dutchy of Holstein to Denmark, is to be. confidered in no other light, than as a facrifice to the prefent war, and is therefore to be brought as a difcount, on any future advantages that Ruffia may obtain by it. At

the

the fame time, nothing can be a clearer demonftration of the apprehenfions which the latter had conceived, with refpect to the defigns of a near northern neighbour, than the great price which fhe has upon this occafion paid for the friendship

of the former.

It was one of the most favourite and darling projects with Peter the Great, to obtain, at any expence, and by any means, a German principality, with a vote in the diet of the empire. The watchful, and prudent jealoufy, with which even his nearest allies regarded this defign, prevented its accomplishment. They readily joined him in ftripping Sweden of its plumes, and adorned themselves with a part of them; but prudently declined the honour of his becoming a nearer neighbour. This object, of which he was disappointed in himself, he however wished to obtain for his fucceffors, and it accordingly influenced his conduct in the marriages of his children, in confequence of which, the late unfortunate Emperor, Peter the Third, united in his own perfon, the dutchies of Slefwick and Holstein, with the empire of Ruffia.

Such is the vanity of human defigns and wisdom, that this object of fo much care and folicitude, though his original paternal inheritance, venerable for its antiquity, and of fome confideration for its value and extent, is relinquifhed by the prefent fucceffor without any equivalent; Delmenhorst, and the county of Oldenburgh, being in no degree to be confidered as fuch. It muft however be acknowledged, that thefe dutchies are of infinitely greater confequence and value to Denmark than to Ruffia; and that

this ceffion removes a bone of endlefs contention from between those ftates.

The defpotifm of the Ruffian government, can only fecure obedience, while the rods and the axes are immediately before the eyes of the people; but as foon as diftance, or any other circumftance, fcreens them from the immediate exertion of power, all difcipline, order, and fubmiffion are at an end, and those who were immediately before its most abject flaves, become at once the most arrogant contemners of all laws and obligations. To this untoward difpofition, (which, where religion does not rivet the chains, is the infeparable attendant of defpotifm) the Ruffians owe a new war, which has this year broken out in the Crimea; where the Don Coffacks, with others of their fubjects, having revolted, and joined with the Tartars, and thofe few Turks who were left in the coun-. try, have become fo formidable as nearly to mafter the whole, and thus have rendered abortive, all their former fucceffes in that peninfula.

A rebellion of a more dangerous nature has lately broken out in the borders of the kingdom of Cafan, owing, it is faid, to the extraordinary impofitions laid on for the fupport of the war, and the continual draughts of men carried off for the fupply of the armies. For this purpofe, notwithstanding the great improvements in knowledge and fcience which have taken place in Ruffia, it was not yet thought too late, to raise a new Demetrius from the dead. A Coffack, whofe name is Pugatfcheff, has affumed the name and character of the late unfortunate Emperor Peter the

[43]

Third.