extend to the lake. A proposal of compromise is the more to be anticipated and guarded against, inasmuch as it is quite possible that Russia may have fixed in the first instance upon this definite claim, both because of the faint shadow of plausibility which the name of "New Bolgrad" seemed at the first moment to supply, and because it afforded a basis for receding into a nominal compromise, in reality not less useful to the ends of her government than the original proposition itself. In a word, a geographical compromise, which would still place Russia on the lake, would involve a political surrender.

We now proceed to glance at the merits of the second and scarcely less important question raised by Russia -namely, her claim to Serpents' Island.

Few subjects of the day are involved in greater historical obscurity than this. In fact, it is only during the last fifteen or twenty years that this island has gained even a commercial importance, through the erection of a light-house. No island, however, underwent such a variety of successive names. The Leuce and Achillis Insula of the ancients, it has become successively the Ilan Adassi, the Fidonisi, and the Serpents' Island of the moderns; and it may possibly have corresponding designations in other languages. It may be observed that the three latter names bear a similar signification. "Fidonisi" is the Greek, or Russo-Greek; "Ilan Adassi," the Turkish name of the island. The latter, which alone needs explanation, is (when literally rendered) "the serpents their island."

An ingenious discoverer once thought that he had found a notice of this island in Strabo. But we believe that Strabo speaks of no other islands than the Cyanean rocks, excepting one at the mouth of the Borysthenes. It would be harsh and obsolete to criticise the geographical accuracy of Strabo, and to remark that the mouth of the Borysthenes-or, in modern phraseology, the Dnieper --contains a whole cluster of islands.

At a considerable period after the date of its surrender into Russian hands, a light-house was erected upon the Isle of Serpents. During the recent war it again passed into the hands of the Turks, much as every other sym

bol of Russian dominion was at that time swept from the seas. Immediately after the conclusion of peace, its new masters-or rather its old masters to whom it had reverted, for such were the Turks-set to work to restore the light-house, which had been neglected during the course of the war.

The history of the claim between Turkey and Russia-or rather, between Russia and England-for this island, is very much like a sharper's game. It is well known that the island was again claimed by the Russians on the ground that no stipulation for its permanent surrender to Turkey had been made in the treaty. Such a claim was altogether indefensible, if only because uti possidetis is the basis of every treaty of peace.

According to the most accurate statement that we have been able to obtain, an expedition, charged with the recovery of Serpents' Island, was sent by the Russian authorities from Odessa, while Admiral Lord Lyons, with the remainder of his squadron, was quietly awaiting the final settlement of the peace in the Bosphorus. All, however, that the Russians were able then to effect, consisted in the landing of a lieutenant in their navy and six or seven men on this barren and inhospitable rock. The Turks were, fortunately, in possession of the light-house when this marauding detachment arrived. The intruders accordingly erected a tent upon the spot upon which they had pitched; and while the crescent floated from the light-house, the double eagle was displayed over the tent. It was pretty clear that this contested dominion was not to end here. Lord Lyons accordingly dispatched a large warsteamer and steam gun-boat to the island, with orders to prevent the landing of any reinforcements, Scarcely had this detachment arrived, when a counter-expedition hove in sight from Odessa. For once the Russians were too late. The British officer in command, acting on the authority of Lord Lyons, refused to the new Odessa embassy any communication whatever with the shore. At length it was conceded that provisions, might be sent to the seven encamped and destitute Russians. The Russian expedition then returned to Odessa, and the British gun-boat

was sent to Constantinople with the intelligence of what had transpired. Lord Lyons, however, anticipated that the Russian sharpers had by no means played their last stake, and he accordingly sent back the gun-boat to the Isle of Serpents, with orders to the British officer in command of the steam-frigate still cruising near at hand, to keep his station.

The event was just what the diplomat-admiral had foreseen. The Russian steamer returned from Odessa, its commanding officer being charged with the definite duty of restoring the light-house. The British commander politely thanked the Russian for the consideration he had so obligingly manifested for the commerce of the Danube, but assured him that his commission had been anticipated from Constantinople, and that the lighthouse was already in perfect order. The Russian next attempted a demonstration for forcible landing. Here, again, he was promptly circumvented. The Russian now had recourse to his last ruse. He intimated his intention of returning to Odessa, and of announcing to his government the failure of his mission."

The British officers watched the return of the steamer, and observed it duly steering in the northerly direction of Odessa. But scarcely had it cleared the furthest shore of the island, when it was observed mysteriously rounding the promontory, and gradually veering into a direct westerly course. The British captain, scarcely less shrewd than his admiral, immediately penetrated the Russian design. He promptly sent off his steam gun-boat with a letter to the Turkish commander at the mouth of the Danube, whose jurisdiction extended over the Isle of Serpents, informing him of what had transpired, and charging him on no account to surrender the island to any demand from the Russians. The British steamer passed the Russian, steering straight for the mouth of the Danube, and its officer in charge got the ear of the Pasha a quarter of an hour before the double eagle could succeed in making the shore. The Pasha, a weak and yielding man, was thought an easy prey to a disciple of Gortschakoff. His Excellency, to the surprise of the Russians, appeared "wide awake;" and the emissaries

from Odessa, discomfited alike in their coup de main and their coup d'état, were at length in reality obliged to make for the Russian coasts.

Here ended this part of the story. The Russian intrigue was now diverted into a new channel; and we believe the Isle of Serpents has subsequently become the subject of a variety of stipulations, each of which has, of course, recognised the possession of the Danube as its real aim.

We abstain from entering upon any dry legal disquisition in reference to the merits of this question, inasmuch as no one in Great Britain is prepared to think that there can be two sides to the question. Whatever may be the extent to which interested cavil may be carried, the question really lies in very small compass. In regard to Bolgrad, the Russians must be bound by the maps which were used in the Conference. We trust that the identity of these maps is susceptible of easy proof. When we remember the device of Walsingham nearly three centuries ago, we cannot but be alive to the fact that great caution should be observed on this head. If the minister of Queen Elizabeth, in the sixteenth age, was capable of setting on foot an intrigue, by which the pocket of the Pope of those days was rifled in the course of his Holiness's after-dinner nap, his keys stolen, and with their aid his secret correspondence abstracted, much more probably are the Russian diplomatists, in the nineteenth, capable of changing the French maps if they can only succeed in their intrigues as well as Walsingham. The identical mapif, indeed, there was only one, belonging to the French War-office, which was finally used at the Congress-is, we trust, in safe custody. We will not believe that Count Walewski would lend himself, whatever be the force of the suspicions of his integrity, to any deceit on this head. Yet there may be humbler instruments in the public offices in Paris, for the realization of such a scheme of Orloffian or Gortschakoffian thimblerig. Let the allied diplomatists take care that the map now to be produced is the identical map of the Conferences of March, not a fac-simile in all other respects but that of the recognition of a second Bolgrad.

II. The question of the Austrian

occupation has been so far anticipated by the preceding observations as to require very little special discussion. We must here observe that we regard the determination of the different powers to recal, for a definite object, the Congress which was dissolved in March last, as on the whole likely to prove a happy stroke of policy. The truth is, that the diverging interests of the powers concerned in a final settlement of the Eastern Question had begun to threaten great complication. The evacuation of the Principalities prominently illustrates this remark.

Although there can be no doubt that Austria and Russia each made the attitude of the other a pretext for her own designs, it is also true that there existed a reciprocal ground of jealousy, and that the indefinite character which the period of occupation had gained, tended to increase the obstinacy of Russia. In fact, until the recent difficulty had brought matters to a crisis, each power appeared to hold its separate policy. Austria desired continued occupation; France maintained an intrigue for the union of the Principalities; Russia sought to usurp by diplomacy that authority over the Danube which she had lost in war; Sardinia (as we fear) was ready to sell her Eastern policy to the highest bidder in Italian influence; Prussia viewed the question in a tortuous relation with her interests in Neufchatel; while Great Britain alone appeared to act in the unbiassed interest of Turkey. It was obvious that this state of things required either the decision of a Congress, or an irresistible preponderance among the powers concerned (which would have been tantamount to it), in order to arrive at any settlement whatever.

Thus, in our view, the question has been brought much nearer to an adjustment by the very danger which threatened a disruption of the peace. Until that danger manifested itself, the great alliance which had subsisted between nearly all Western and Central Europe was utterly dissolved. France was alienated from us by a difference of international policy Austria by a divergence of internal interests. The first result of open duplicity in Russia was the firm union of the Cabinets of London and Vienna. For once the diplomacy of Napoleon

III. forsook him; he lost the initiative which he had before so adroitly assumed; and was compelled to fall back into the Austro-British alliance. Much has been gained towards the settlement of the Principalities by these events, for they have tended to identify the Austrian occupation in that quarter with our occupation in the Black Sea; and it can hardly now be questioned that when the one terminates, the other must terminate also.

We have, it is true, here regarded the results of a Congress as necessarily of a conclusive and pacific character. It is clear, at any rate, that they must be definitive. This Congress cannot separate without either a settlement or a war. That the former will be the event can hardly be doubted. Would Great Britain and Austria ever have submitted to European discussion what they deemed plain and incontrovertible, unless they had seen clearly that the result of that discussion would be merely a confirmation of their policy? Russia, on the other hand, there is every reason to believe, finds her position wholly untenable; and whatever dupery she may yet design, it is quite conceivable that she may be already prepared to acquiesce in that inevitable decision on the part of a Congress which her pride recoils from receiving on the part of any single power.

III. We now proceed, thirdly, to the question of the reorganization and prospects of the Principalities.

The first question arising under this head is that of their political union. This point appears to have been left wholly undecided by the first Congress; and it is one which was presumptively left to the international commission which was constituted by the treaty to devise a scheme of polity for these provinces.

The course prescribed by the Congress was as follows. It was generally stipulated that these provinces should be placed under the suzerainty-not the sovereignty-of Turkey; that the contracting powers should enjoy, conjointly with the Ottoman Porte, a protectorial authority over them, and that they should have their own local government. Beyond this, it was provided by one of the articles, that the seven powers (as we have already intimated) should send a commission

to confer with a Divan to be convoked in either Principality by the Sultan, on the specific character of the new polity.

The Congress, therefore, merely laid the basis, and left to the commission and the Divans the charge of raising the superstructure. But busy intrigue soon took this question out of the hands alike of the Commission and the Divans. The union or continued separation of the two provinces formed a question to which all others were subordinated. France proclaimed loudly for their union-the French Consul at Bucharest went so far as to toast that cause at a public dinner. Russia adhered strenuously to the same policy; and the strange concurrence of the two powers on this head was probably no more than an attribute of the alliance which had sprung up between them. Great Britain, Austria, and Turkey, meanwhile were equally resolved on a separate go

vernment.

It was thus difficult to imagine a more ridiculous spectacle than the International Commission when it reached Constantinople. Everything was at a dead lock. If any importance were attached to a free expression of opinion by the two divans, no such expression could be gained in the presence of the Austrian army. For once, England and Austria threatened to clash in the affairs of the East. Lord Palmerston wished to establish a liberal constitution at Jassy and Bucharest. Count Buol, on the other hand, had no desire to create incentives to popular revolution on the frontiers of Hungary. There was no prospect of an Austrian evacuation; and even if there had been, France was so fully committed to the Russian policy of union, that it would have been impossible practically to advance a step. In these circumstances, the seven commissioners found their usual consolation. Sir Henry Bulwer spent his time very pleasantly at Broussa, and, we doubt not, the other diplomatists were equally fortunate.

We apprehend that the European interest in the question of the union of the Principalities is but an integral part of the European interest in the Ottoman empire itself. Their constitutional separation is, in our view, absolutely necessary to the in

dependence of Turkey. If these provinces were established under a single government, they would be too strong to continue an integral part of the Turkish empire, and too weak to maintain their independence against Russia. In fact, this is a truth which has already received an analogical demonstration. It will be remembered that the treaty of Kainardji, in 1774, erected into an independent Tartar state those territories lying between the Dniester and the Straits of Kertch, which it had disjoined from the Turkish empire. The Principalities, placed under a single government, would, in our view, be in a substantially similar position to that

of this Tartar state. Yet, in 1783only nine years afterwards-this state, being no longer under Turkish protection, was incorporated into the Russian empire. The protection of Turkey would, indeed, titularly survive, whatever were the form of government agreed on at Bucharest and Yassy. But it would virtually be extinguished for want of reciprocal interests; and Russian dominion, maintained by every sort of intrigue, would grow more powerful than ever.

Those who have advocated the union of the Principalities sincerely in Turkish interests, show that they have egregiously miscalculated their military strength. They have represented them as capable of resisting the advance of a Russian army. Now it is notorious that the Moldo-Wallachians are one of the least warlike populations in Europe. Their interests are pastoral, agricultural, and commercial; they detest the Russians, the Austrians, and their own nobles and religious houses, for a similar reason. Each has thwarted in turn the free enjoyment of their rights in peace. We ourselves exceedingly doubt if Moldo-Wallachia could ever command thirty thousand men in arms, except upon great emergencies. Every one knows the facility with which Russia could bring three or four times that number to bear upon such a force. To confuse Moldo-Wallachia with Servia is, therefore, as great a blunder as can well be imagined.

Indeed every reason seems to concur in favour of separate administrations. It will be much more difficult for Russia to intrigue with two trans

The

Danubian governments than with one. Again, the territory, if united, would be found very inapt for a single administration. Wallachia stretches from east to west; Moldavia from south to north. capital would necessarily be fixed either at Yassy or Bucharest; and both the one and the other would be extremely remote from extensive portions of this united state. Moreover, the claims of each city for its own government would be invincible. If an administration were set up at Bucharest, a camarilla would reign at Jassy; and if the administration were at Jassy, the camarilla would assuredly be at Bucharest.

Although, therefore, the new congress has been summoned for the definite purpose of interpreting certain points in the existing treaty; and while we are fully aware of the general danger of extending its functions, we nevertheless hope that the question of the union of the Principalities will be finally discussed and decided in the negative. The subject may then be sent down to the Commission and the Divans, so far narrowed as to enable their inferior authority to settle the actual constitution.

We must here claim attention for the Firman, dated the 10th of October last, by which the Sultan gave effect to a provision in the treaty arranging that these divans should be convoked by him. This firman has been but very lately published, and has hardly yet been acted on. Its most singular clause is that which provides that these bodies shall cease and determine within six months. Such a restriction is quite absurd. The Sublime Porte takes six months to devise the firman, and it then expects another six months to suffice for a full deliberation of the subject, by a body perhaps the most complicated in its form ever called into existence. On the 10th of April, the firman will expire up to that time the Austrian occupation will probably continue; and consequently there can be no expression of opinion from these divans, or no expression at least worth having, up to the time when they will cease to exist.

We are content, however, to take the most favourable view, and to hope for a prolongation of their functions. But even with this prospect, the ac

ness.

tual composition of the divans is liable to great exception. No doubt, there is some show of theoretical fairThe treaty prescribed that they should represent all ranks of the community. Each divan consequently acknowledges six or seven classes. These are, 1. the clergy; 2. the boyards, or chief nobles; 3. the inferior landholders; 4. the peasantry; 5. the corporations, and so on. In the elections to several classes we notice impolitic restrictions. Thus, the boyards are to elect those only for their representatives whose families have been accounted noble during three generations. Scarcely any restriction could tend to maintain that castelike superiority in the dominant class which we are anxious to modify, more effectually than this. Again, it is provided that the peasantry shall be represented by those only who hold land to the value of some £3 a-year; in other words, virtually by their own order. Now the most enlightened class in Wallachia is the legal class. For these, and for all others who work mentally and not manually, there is no provision whatever. If the peasantry had been allowed the option of choosing lawyers to represent them in the divans, there is no doubt that their services would have done much to countervail the influence of the nobles and of the religious houses, who are pretty sure to league together to perpetuate serfdom if they can. That the church should be found uniting with the nobles in this policy is one of the worst features of MoldoWallach society.

The number of serfs actually held by the religious houses is very considerable; and when Prince Ghika endeavoured, a few years ago, to abolish serfdom in Moldavia, he encountered more opposition from the priesthood than from the nobility.

What Moldavia and Wallachia now require is, a constitution framed in the true interest of enlightened progress. Unless the elements of society which are naturally antagonistic to the anti-Christian prepossessions of the nobles and of the religious orders, are called into greater authority, there can be no development of the vast capacity of these lands. Unless, again, the distinctions of class which now serve to perpetuate the nationality of the race be preserved