XVII. 1776. refuge, and which was immediately attacked and BOOK carried sword in hand by the Russians, who massacred great numbers of the inhabitants. On receiving intelligence of this event at Constantinople, M. Obrescow, resident of the court of St. Petersburg, was at an extraordinary meeting of the divan required to sign articles, importing satisfaction for the injuries sustained, and the immediate withdrawing of the Russian troops from Poland; and on his refusal, the ambassador was committed (October 1768) prisoner to the castle of the Seven Towers. The war which ensued between the two empires exhibits an almost continued series of triumphs on the part of the Russians*. After the reduction of the provinces north of the Danube, the Russian commander, marshal Romanzoff, passed that great river, and carried his victorious arms into the kingdom of Bulgaria, where the * When M. de Vergennes, ambassador from France to Constantinople, wrote in reply to the orders he had received to use his utmost influence to make the Porte declare war against Russia; "I will make the Turks take arms when. ever you please, but I must previously inform you they will be beaten; that this war will turn out contrary to your intentions, by rendering Russia more glorious and more powerful;" he shewed himself, undoubtedly, a greater politician than the duc de Choiseul.-Private Life of Louis BOOK Turkish crescent, elevated on the ruins of the XVIL. 1776. ✓ christian cross, had reigned for centuries unmolested. By sea the efforts of the court of St. Petersburg were no less extraordinary. A fleet under count Orloff, with many able English officers on board, sailing from the Gulph of Finland in the summer of 1770, entered the Mediterranean, and totally defeated the Turkish fleet in the channel of Scio; the shattered remains of which retiring for safety to the harbour of Chesme, on the coast of Natolia, were by means of fire-ships in the night after the battle entirely destroyed, and all Europe saw with astonishment the Russian Eagle flying triumphant over the Archipelago, and menacing with attack the city of Constantinople itself. The Turkish government was at the same time alarmed by a general revolt of the Greeks in the Morea; by a rebellion in Egypt, headed by the famous Ali Bey; by another in Syria, conducted by Cheik Daher; and a fourth in Georgia, under prince Heraclius ; so that the enormous fabric of that unwieldly and ill-compacted empire seemed to totter to its fall. These various insurrections were however finally suppressed, and peace concluded with Russia at Kainardgi, July 1774, on the humiliating terms of ceding to Russia the whole country between the Bog and the Nieper; of consenting to the absolute independency of the Crimea; and of XVII. allowing to the shipping of Russia a free navi- Book During the continuance of this war, a grand XVIL 1776. BOOK On the accession of the empress of Russia to this conspiracy of sovereigns, manifestoes were published A. D. 1772, by all these powers, stating their claims and pretensions to such provinces as happened to be most commodious for their purpose, and lying contiguous to their own territories. To Russia was allotted the whole country westward of the rivers Dwina and Nicper. The emperor seized upon a vast tract of land, extending from the frontiers of Moravia to the province of Volhynia, and situated in a direct course to the northward of Hungary and Transylvania, on which the pompous appellations were bestowed of the kingdoms of Gallicia and Ludomiria. The whole of royal Prussia, with some adjoining districts of Great Poland, fell to the share of the king of Prussia, all of which he claimed as his clear and indisputable right; it being, as this monarch was pleased to affirm in his manifesto, notorious, "that the kings of Poland did many ages ago violently disscise the dukes of Pomerania, the dukes of Stettin, and the dukes of Dantzick, his majesty's ancestors, of those dominions, which his majesty, as sole heir and universal successor of all these dukes, now so justly and equitably reclaimed." In vain did the king and diet of Poland protest against these unheard-of claims and extravagant pretensions. In vain did they appeal to all Europe, that the dominions of the republic were not only secured BOOK to them by the prescription of centuries, but 'were guaranteed by the most solemn treaties; and that, should an act of such enormous perfidy and injustice be permitted or connived at, every principle of public faith would be subverted, and nations must hereafter acknowledge no other law than that of force. The diet was in the end compelled to ratify these claims: and at the same time important alterations were made in the constitution of the republic, by which the power of the crown was still farther reduced, particularly in the establishment of a permanent execиtive council, in which the monarch presided with only a single voice. All these atrocious proceedings so nearly and deeply affecting the balance of power on the continent, were viewed with apparent indifference by the great potentates of Europe; particularly by England, then intent on her desperate projects of American subjugation; although in latter times the possession of a single town has been thought so materially to affect that balance, as to justify a war for the sole purpose of effecting its restoration. A grand alliance, projected by the cabinet of Versailles, between the courts of Versailles, London, Madrid, and Turin, in order to counterbalance that |