by the late congrefs at Cherfon; where the bands of union were to be cemented and drawn more straitly between two of the moft formidable powers in the univerfe; whofe ambition was at leaft equal to their power; and whofe object in this meeting was understood as aiming at nothing less than the fubverfion of that empire. And, as if this combination of the two Imperial powers of Ruffia and Germany had not been in itself fufficiently alarming and dangerous, the poor king of Poland, who had already been the victim to their mutual enmity, was now, upon their ambition taking a new direction, called to participate, in fome fmall degree, in the fruits of their union. He could not indeed add much, nor perhaps any thing, to the fcale of hoftile power against the Ottomans by actual exertion; but this was not, in fact, the kind of aid which the great allies wanted, and wished to draw from him. Their own forces were fufficiently numerous to anfwer all the purpofes to which, from the nature of things, armies could be applied with effect. Poland in repofe, was equal in value to the activity of any other ally. By its fituation it was capable of uniting the two empires in fuch a manner as to render their force one, and enable their combined or feparate armies to make their impreffion in any one or different parts of three-fourths of a vaft circle, by which they would then embrace fo great a part of the Turkith frontiers. Its products were no lefs valuable. Befides abundant room for winter quarters, hofpitals, magazines, places of refreshment, and all thofe other appendages neceffary to great armies, the country was to be confidered as a vaft granary, teeming with every kind of provifion; nor were its military refources defpicable with respect to men; but in regard to horfes, cattle, and forage, they were unequalled. Thus was Poland capable of becoming a moft useful member of the confederacy; an acceffion of hoftile ftrength, which to the Ottomans would be the more intolerably grievous from the recollection, that all their late miffortunes, along with the prefent unprofperous ftate of their affairs, originated in their apparently generous endeavours to preferve the freedom and independence of that republic, and to prevent the alienation of her dominions, in oppofition to the rapacious views of those very powers, with whom she was now to be leagued against them. It was even rumoured at the time, that the king's friendship (limited as his authority is) had been fecured, in one of the conferences held on the memorable progrefs to Cherfon, by the prefent of a very large fum of money (amounting to near half a million fterling) in Ruffian roubles; and although that report was probably unfounded, yet it had fo much effect, that he was publicly charged, at the enfuing diet, with having, at that conference, entered into private conditions inimical to the republic; a charge, to which the excellency of that prince's character, and his known patriotifm, would feem a fufficient refutation; for although the decided part which, with fome apparent rifque to himfelf, he has taken in fupport of the Ruffian views and intereft, undoubtedly afforded fome colour to the charge, yet it would be more equítable to attribute his conduct in that refpect to his real political fenti[A] 2 ments, ments, and rather to fuppofe that he confulted what he confidered as the present intereft or the future fecurity of the remains of his mangled country. It should likewife be remembered, that he owed his feat on the throne to the emprefs of Ruffia; and that gratitude being one of the most predominant, among the many excellent qualities which adorn his private character, he has never fince omitted any opportunity of fhewing his fenfe of that obligation; and has, perhaps, in fome cafes, confounded the virtues of the man too much with the duties of the fovereign, under that impreffion. We have fhewn in a former volume the very interefting appeal, under the form of a declaration or manifefto, which the grand fignior made in the year 1786, not only to his own fubjects, but to the whole race of Mahometans, fhewing the common danger to which they were liable fhortly to be expofed, and calling upon them, by every thing dear or facred to men, to prepare and unite, with hearts and with hands, in order to repel the defigns of their implacable enemy, whofe views were not directed to conqueft, but to extermination, and who, if they were permitted to fucceed, would ftop at nothing fhort of the utter annihilation of the Ottoman name, and the extinction of all true believers from the face of the earth. It is little to be doubted that an appeal of fo new and extraordinary a nature, coming from a fovereign fo great, and a name which had for fo many ages been in the higheft degree revered, cloathed in the most pathetic language, and ftating circumftances of fuch evident injury, as would have interested the feelings of strangers, and even those of a different communion, must have operated most powerfully in all those wide regions where the Mahometan creed predominated. Such was the ftate of things, and fuch the season of apprehenfion and alarm, that every Muffulman was already, in imagination, fnatching up his weapons, and rufhing to the common defence, when the report was fpread abroad of the imperial Catharine's intended triumphal proceffion to Cherfon, to receive the homage of conquered nations, and to celebrate, with an oftentation unknown to later ages, the triumph of her arms, and her inauguration to new kingdoms and empires. The vaftnefs and prodigality of the original defign, with the powerful army which was included in it, were of themselves fufficient to fpread amazement and terror on all fides; but when to this was added the effect produced by the language of flattery and of vanity on the fpot, and the amplification incident to all reports, in proportion to the length of their courfe, it is not to be wondered at if this fpectacle was magnified and rendered more terrific in the conception of diftant and ignorant nations. But it was not merely the gratification of feminine vanity in celebrating a triumph over a fallen enemy, however diftafteful and odious fuch a celebration muft neceffarily be, that chiefly affected the Ottomans with regard to this progrefs. A report was fpread, and the opinion very generally received, * Annual Register, Vol. XXVIII. Historical Article, p. 151. "that that the Empress of Ruffia's ambition foared fo high, that the acquifition of provinces or kingdoms were little farther estimated by her, than as they might lead to the attainment of her grand object; and that this was nothing less than the placing of her fecond grandíon, prince Conftantine, on the throne of the ancient Greek emperors at Conftantinople; and thereby eftablishing, in her own family, two mighty empires, capable, perhaps, of fubverting Europe and Afia. The chriftian name of that prince was brought as circumftantial evidence in fupport of this opinion; and the conduct of Ruffia in various refpects, fince the conclufion of the peace of Kainardgi, the conditions of which he had fo frequently violated, were brought as farther corroborations. Particularly her continual endeavours to weaken the Ottoman empire, by loofening her dependencies on every fide, both in Europe and in Afia, and exciting the vaffal princes to withdraw from their allegiance; her debauching the Greeks in all places, through the agency of her confuls, and rendering them ripe for rebellion; her infidious arts to excite infurrections in Egypt, by offering to render the turbulent beys fovereigns of their refpective provinces under her protection; and her unceasing efforts to corrupt even thofe Muffulman officers, who held public employments, civil or military, in all parts adjoining to the frontiers. The ruined Tartars too, who had been driven from the Crimea, and their other ancient feats, filled all places with their complaints of the pufillanimity of the Porte in thus abandoning them, and called loudly upon heaven and earth for Now the juftice and vengeance. intended and avowed enthronement of Catharine, would be affixing a final feal to all the ufurpations of Ruffia fince the peace of Kainardgi; for as fuch the Porte confidered, or affected to confider, the feizure of the Crimea, and of the neighbouring countries; infifting, that, as they had only been obtained by fraud and circumvention, in the midst of peace, no claim could lie against them by the laws of arms as a conqueft, and it would not be pretended that the Ruffians could have any prior right to them; and as to the fubfequent convention, which feemed to give a fanction to the feizure, they afferted it was only a temporary measure, adopted for the prefent to divert the evils of war, until an equitable arrangement of frontier between the two empires could take place, the Tartars should be restored to their rights, and their future independence firmly established. It was further faid, that it would be an extraordinary violation of all laws, human and divine, for the Porte to pretend to barter or affign the rights and dominions of others; and it would render the injuftice ftill more flagrant and odious, if they concurred, in any degree, in ftripping the race of Timur, their perpetual allies, and eventual fucceffors to the Ottoman throne, of the patrimony which they derived from their glorious ancestors. Such were not the principles upon which government acted; juftice and good faith, whether with refpect to Muffulmans or Christians, were the invariable maxims of the Porte. It was a fingular circumstance with respect to the Crimea, and feemed like a dramatic fiction for the punishment of falfe ambition, [A] 3 the that the wretched Sahim Guerai, 3 exile affigned to the depofed or difgraced princes of his family. As we fhall have no farther mention to make of this unfortunate adventurer, it may perhaps afford fome gratification to curiofity to relate, in this place, that, after fpending feveral months unmolested and at large, in that beautiful island, he was fuddenly affaulted, and (after a gallant defence, in which he killed three of them) cut to pieces by a fet of ruffians. As these affaffins did not pretend to have any commiflion or order from the Porte for the perpetration of this deed, and did not appear like the ufual minifters of justice, it feems probable that they were operated upon merely by the rage of enthufiafm, as thinking him a neceffary facrifice to the mifchiefs which he had brought upon his country and religion. Under the circumstances and impreffions which we have mentioned, it will not be wondered at that the difcontent of the Porte was too great to be concealed, when the Ruffian minister announced the intended progrefs of his mistress to Cherfon; although he endeavoured to foften the communication, by declaring, that fome neceffary internal regulations were the only objects of his fovereign in this vifit to a part of her fubjects. The late menace of prince Potemkin, that he would march at the head of an army of 70,000 men to the frontiers, and that the emprefs would attend in perfon, to enforce her claims, and to fettle all differences between the two empires, could not fail to increafe their mixed indignation and alarm. An army was immediately or dered to affemble in the neighbourhood of Oczakow; dispatches were forwarded forwarded to every part of the empire to prepare for war; and the grand fignior himfelf is faid to have written a circular letter to the seven claffes of the militia, wherever fpread, exhorting them to fight valiantly; declaring that those who fell in defence of the holy law of their prophet, would be received as faints in the next world, while thofe who bravely vanquished the enemy fhould be confidered as heroes in this. In the mean time the people were outrageous with government for its fupineness in fuffering the emprefs to profecute her journey to Cherfon; indeed all Europe was furprized at the forbearance of the Porte, if war was determined, in not obftructing that boafted and infulting progrefs, or, in fact, vainglorious triumph. Mauro Cordato, the hofpodar of Moldavia, had long been, with reafon, fufpected of treachery, and the Porte was well informed of his carrying on a fecret correfpondence, through the medium of the Ruffian conful, with both the Imperial courts of Vienna and Petersburgh. Al though this conduct had hitherto been paffed over without apparent notice, it was now thought neceffary, upon the approaching feafon of trial, not only to deprive him of the means of future mifchief, but to punish his past treachery. The Porte did not act with its ufual promptnefs of decifion upon this occafion; for he was ftripped of his office, without fecuring his perfon, two days before the order arrived for his head. The wary Greek, well fecing his danger, profited of the neglect, and, under pretence of an airing, accompanied by a party of truly friends, finely mounted, and all perhaps involved in it, efca ped from Jaffy, and arrived fafely in the Ruffian territories. The Porte reclaimed its fubject and offending fervant to be delivered up, according to the terms of the fubfifting treaties, which had fully bound both parties in all fuch cafes. But the Ruffians not only peremptorily rejected the demand, but the removal of Cordato from his office, the defign upon his life, and the application for his delivery, were ranked with the many other injuries charged against the Ottomans, and held out either as fufficient grounds for a war, or as inftances of the greatest forbearance. Nothing, that did not affect the immediate prefervation of the empire, could have been fo urgent or fo important to the Porte at this time as the affairs of Egypt. The Captain Pacha had already fucceeded fo far in his endeavours for the entire reduction of the rebel beys that their fituation was apparently defperate, and it feems probable that another year would have enabled him totally to overthrow the Mamaluc power; when his own excellent plan for the future government of that country, befides fecurity from foreign danger, and the establishment of domestic tranquillity, would have rendered it an inexhauftible mine of wealth and refource of ftrength to its poffeffor. But the prefent neceflity fuperfeding all future confiderations, and the courage and conduct of the Captain Pacha, as well as his counfel, being deemed indifpenfable in the intended fcene of action, he was haftily recalled from Egypt to more dangerous, if not more active fervice, and to the encounter of a moft formidable enemy, poffeffing fuch [4] 4 long |