tween king Joseph's Spanish government and the French military authorities, all the Spaniards, who had assisted us during the siege, had been prosecuted for treason against Joseph?" But to return to the course of the Russian monarch. "Alexander, having accomplished all his designs, and maintained a supremacy which the rival powers did not dare to dispute, quitted France to review his armies, visit Prussia, receive the homage of Poland, and return to his capital, there to conciliate a growing discontent at his absence, and repair the mischiefs which it had occasioned to private interests and to various branches of the public service. "The Nobles thought he was becoming a foreigner, and they required a Russian monarch; but these were only the ill-humours of a day; the glory acquired to the Russian name, and the vast increase of power added to her sceptre, ensured him the applause and allegiance of a class enamoured of autocracy, elated with glory, and ambitious of national aggrandizement. Alexander, however, did not trust to force alone for the prosecution of his future designs, or the maintenance of his ascendancy. He knew, that family alliances, at variance with national policy, would never preserve permanent influence; but he also was sensible that, when they were made in unison with it, they were additional securies, monitors, and guards. The marriage, which would have united England and Holland, was always conceived, by the continental statesmen, calculated to involve Europe in wars against natural interests, and the negotiations from the commencement were viewed with great and unconcealed jealousy. "The presumed alliance was no sooner broken off than Russia directed her attention to the advantages which she might derive from a family interest being established on the throne of Holland. "Her fleets, shut up in the Baltic half the year by the seasons, were (especially since the destruction of the Swedish and Danish navies) costly superfluities rather than an useful establishment adding to her importance or assisting her interests. The waters of the Texel and the Scheldt would afford powers of navigation, administering to all immediate objects, and contributive to more remote designs. "Holland, as a maritime state, could not be injured by a maritime auxiliary, over whose fleets she was the guardian; and the alliance with Russia assured that military support, which she required for the preservation of her continental possessions. "To Russia, Holland was a tete du pont, or advanced work, which awed France, and which aided the control over Prussia. To Holland, Russia was a protecting ally against both those powers, with a spear and a shield to defend her from England. · Reciprocal benefits, so unequivocal and so considerable, were apparent to both parties; and the Grand Duchess Anne, who might, it is believed, have mounted the throne of France, having accepted the proposals of the Prince of Orange, is destined to succeed to another throne, which she is equally qualified to grace. The position of Wurtemburg was not of equal importance; but still the extension of Russian influence in Germany, where already Weimar, Badea, and Oldenburgh were under its sway, was desirable. A young and gallant prince, whose military services were then considered to be the least of his claims to public esteem, was married to a princess of Bavaria. Separation took place instantaneously after the ceremony, as the marriage had been conpulsive. Divorce was obtained,* and the Grand Duchess Catharine, whose name, activity, talents, and attachment to her native country rendered her the general object of its affection, was established in succession to a kingdom, of whose reigning monarch Napoleon said, if that man had but fifty thousand soldiers, he would weave me a more difficult web than any I have ever had to disentangle.' "Personal feelings, as well as policy, suggested the connexion just solemnized at St. Petersburg with a princess of Prussia-a connexion full of recollections to bind, if any human arrangement can permanently bind, the friendship between crowns. "Having thus traced a summary narrative of the principal points and facts, which cha racterized the policy of Russia, and have tended to her aggrandizement-a summary which will acquire interest the more it is examined and the more it is developed-the question may be investigated which has been proposed, viz. how far any combination of France, England, and Austria, can control the policy Russia may be disposed to pursue ?" To solve this question the writer undertakes to display the progression and present state of the Russian empire. We shall give a very succinct summary of his statements. When Catharine the second mounted the throne in 1762, she received the homage of twenty-two millions of people. She reigned thirty-three years, and during that period had increased the number of her subjects to thirty-six millions. Besides the natural augmentation of population, she had added seven millions of Poles, including Courlanders; two millions and a half of the inhabitants of New Servia, between the Boristhenes and the Don; half a million of Germans and other settlers; two millions in the Caucasus, Siberia, Little Tartary, the Crimea, &c. The short and turbulent reign of Paul witnessed no considerable *The virtues of this princess have since placed her on the throne of Austria. increase or diminution in the aggregate population of the country. In 1800 Alexander commenced his reign over thirty-six millions of subjects. His armies, however, were not sufficiently numerous for the extent of his possessions, nor proportionate to those kept up by the other great states of Europe. Their organization too was imperfect. His finances were, moreover, in a deranged and unproductive condition. To what extent Alexander has accomplished all his undertakings, without forgetting the interests he was bound to protect, may be difficult to prove, since there is no direct mode to ascertain the opinion of his subjects by the discussions of a free press; but as far as the prevalence of tranquillity in every province under his sway-as far as ostensible improvements, in all military economy, and general order in all branches of the administration-can authorize the presumption, an extraordinary amelioration must have taken place. "Bodies of recruits, of which three-fifths used to perish in the journey, now arrive with no more than common casualties; and so far from the spirit of the people being worn down by demands for military service and augmentation of taxes, patriotism has acquired devotional ardour, and the state has not found it necessary to impose any additional burthens upon its inhabitants. "The ground on which the town of Odessa now stands did not contain, in the year 1794, one house or inhabitant: now there are one thousand houses in stone, and above forty thousand residents. Eight hundred ships annually sail from the port; and such quantities of corn are exported, that this part of the world, as in the time of the Greeks and Romans, promises to be the chief granary of the Mediterranean. "Tcherkaz, near the mouth of the Don, in the sea of the Azof, is no less prosperous. "Astrakan, at the mouth of the Volga, by the last treaty with Persia (which gives the exclusive navigation of the Caspian Sea to the Russian flag) has obtained equal advantages. "The internal navigation from the White and Baltic to the Caspian and Black Seas has been improved by various great works, and others are in progress. "The city of Petersburgh has been embellished at the expense of five millions of roubles annually; so that three-fourths of the houses are now palaces of stone, and the city itself has become the most magnificent in the world, for its buildings, its quays, its canals, and the pellucid waters of the majestic Neva. "The impulse has not been confined to the European provinces; but Siberia, to which such terrible images have been attached, from the supposed intolerable rigour of its climate, and its associating ideas of misery and unjust suffering, is become a fertilized and productive country, inhabited by voluntary settlers-amongst them many fo reigners; and not only the city of Tobolsk, enriched by every species of European and Asiatic luxury, is growing into a very con siderable capital, distributing civilization of three thousand seven hundred and seventyaround-but Irkoutska also, at the distance four miles from Moscow, and not four hundred from the frontier of China, has become the seat of a considerable and flourishing government. Communications are open in all directions, even to Kamtschadska and the fort of St. Peter and St. Paul, at the distance, (by Okotsk in the Pacific). of eight thousand seven hundred and thirty miles from Moscow. Reports are regularly received from every government, and arrive generally at the prescribed day, and from most of them at the same hour. "In no country in the world is travelling so cheap, or so secure against robbers; and within the last half dozen years, large inns have been erecting, under the order of the Emperor, at all the principal European post stations. Manufactories of all descriptions have been established, and particularly in iron, which is worked with a delicacy that rivals the artists of any country. "Carriages, which heretofore were im. ported from England, are now made under the original instruction of German and English builders, with such good and cheap materials as to render the prohibition of importation a matter of no regret. Cloth manufactories are receiving great encouragement from the government, and the late events on the continent have added largely to the manufacturing and mechanic population. 66 The ports of Cronstadt, of Riga, and Revel, have not only been opened again to the trade with all Europe, but America is becoming a competitor of such importance as to render Russia no longer dependent on the English market and thus the preference promised the English merchants by Peter the Great, when he addressed William the Third in Holland, in the year 1697, and the privi leges subsequently granted, have been cancelled, or rather not renewed, on an alleged principle of general justice. "At the same time, the doctrines inculcated by La Harpe have not been neglected in Russia. Slavery has not only been divested of many of its most disgusting features; but great progress has been made towards its abolition by the regulations as well as the example of the Emperor. The nobles of Esthonia have lately declared, that, at the expiration of a few years, necessary for intermediate arrangements, useful to the peasant as well as to the proprietor, slavery shall no longer exist in their It must not be forgotten, that the communica. tions are greatly facilitated by the sledge conveyance. Merchandise can be transported on sledges in one riage. The journey from Okotsk is performed in winter, which would require two summers water carless than three months. province; and there is every reason to expect a more general extention of this policy will not be long protracted. "A disposition, manifested by the Emperor, to introduce preliminary measures for the establishment of a constitutional government, was rejected by the senate, who de clared for the maintenance of an autocrasy. But if the senate at that time had been as liberally disposed as the sovereign, the frame of a representative government might have been formed to keep pace with the progress of education. "While such are the characteristics of internal improvement, the indications of external greatness, in her foreign relations, are no less unequivocal. "It has been said already, when Alexander came to the throne thirty-six millions of people acknowledged his authority; but at this day, by increase and acquisition, there cannot be less than forty-two millions at the LOWEST calculation; and not of Asiatic houseless hordes, wandering in deserts, but chiefly of Europeans, situated in territories, whose military and political value to Russia does not merely consist in an augmentation of her revenue and her number of souls, but, as will be shown hereafter, in CONTRACTING her line of defence, and at the same time affording her powers of advance to positions, that must, if properly occupied, secure the command of Europe and of Asia !” It is not in the number, but in the loyalty and affection of her subjects, that the She has strength of Russia consists. succeeded in conciliating the attachment of so many millions of people, of different laws, languages, and religions, by leaving to all the enjoyment of the faith, habits, and privileges to which they were born. She has adapted herself to their prejudices, instead of attempting to subdue them. "It was this system of legislation and connexion which preserved the Fins, the Lithuanians, the Courlanders, the Podolians, the Wolhynians, the Sarmates, and the Tartars in general, in their allegiance, and animated the Cossacks of the Don and the Wolga, with enthusiastic zeal in the service of a power against whose dominion they had so long contended." The same system of policy has been adopted towards Poland. She is permitted to bear the name of a kingdom; she has her own laws, her own language, her own troops, and her own revenue, which is applied exclusively to her own use. Now let the reader consider the station taken by Russia, her immene acquisitions, the bold line of her frontiers, and her domineering influence over the whole world. "The importance, however, of these acquisitions cannot be here fully manifested: the map and the intelligence of the observer must supply many inevitable omissions. The object is to show, not what may be, but what is; and with that design, to exhibit the profiles, the points, the pinnacles of the vantage-ground on which Russia now proudly reclines; for who can talk of the repose of ambition? "In the year 1800 Russia rested her right flank on the North Sea; her frontier line, traversing Russian Lapland, ran fifty miles in advance of the White Sea: then covering the province of Olonetz, approached the Lake Ladoga within twenty miles, and fell upon the Gulf of Finland, at the distance of only one hundred and fifteen miles in a direct line from Petersburgh; so that Sweden not only commanded near twothirds of the northern coast of the Gulf of Finland, but ranged herself in view of, and at the distance of not more than thirty miles from the port of Revel, situated in the province of Livonia, wrested from her by Peter the Great, and which she might always hope to re-occupy, so long as she preserved such contiguity. "The frontier of Russia, opposed to the frontier line of Prussia, commenced near Memel; and reaching the Niemen, between Tilsitz and Kovno, continued along that river as far as Grodno, when it ran in a southern direction "upon the Bug river between Drogutchin and Brestlitov; then descending to Wlodowa, on the frontier of Austrian Gallicia, continued along that province until it reached the Dniester, near CHOTIN, when it followed the course of that river into the Black Sea. "On the side of ASIA, the frontier was separated from the TURKISH possessions by the Cuban, a small river, which flows at a little distance from the very narrow strait which divides the Crimea from the continent of Asia, and connects the Sea of Azoe with the Black Sea. It then continued along that river to its source, and passing in front of Georgiesk, and behind or to the northward of the mountains of Caucasus, joined the river Terek, and followed its course into the Caspian. "In the year 1817, the right of the frontier still rests on the Northern Ocean, but, advancing a hundred and sixty miles, touches the frontier of NORWAY, and bends round it for a hundred and ninety miles, until it reaches a line drawn due north from the Torneo, when it descends on that river, and continues running parallel until it falls into the Gulf of Bothnia, intersecting a country through which the Swedish troops always passed into Finland, but where, from the severity of the climate and the poverty of the soil, none can move without previous arrangements. " The difficulty, indeed, of the communication contributed to the loss of the Swedish provinces; since Sweden could not sustain with a population of little more than two millions of people, and a revenue of not much more than one million, the heavy expenditure of men and money*. These dif Before the separation of Finland, the revenue did ficulties, however, will be less felt by Russia, since the command of the Gulfs of Finland and of Bothnia would facilitate the operations. "A line is then drawn through the Gulf of Bothnia, which sweeping round Aland. regains the continent in the province of Livonia, thus giving to Russia the ports of Abo and of Sweaborg, which was the great naval establishment of the Swedes on the coast of Finland, and all the numerous islands which cluster between Aland and the main land, and which are inhabited by a rich and happy population. But the island of Aland is distant from the shore of Sweden only twenty-four miles, from the Archipelago of islands in advance of Stockholm not above thirty, and not above sevenly from Stockholm itself; while the intervening sea is frequently frozen, so that carriages may pass. "Thus Russia has completely CHANGED her relative POSITION with Sweden. Instead of her former vulnerable and humiliating defensive attitude, she not only menaces but awes; and not only awes; but, from a variety of contingent circumstances, all favourable to her authority, she commands. On the Niemen, the frontier remains in statu quo for about one hundred miles; when it traverses the Memel or Niemen river, and running along East Prussia, strikes the Vistula Dear Thorn, from whence Dantzic is distant about seventy miles, and BERLIN only one hundred and seventy. "The line then crosses the Vistula, and advances to Kalish, a point nearly equidistant from Dresden and Berlin; thence taking a southern direction,and passing within thirty miles of the Oder, it bends in an eastern course along the district of Cracow, which it respects; but at this point its distance from a third capital, Vienna, is again only one hundred and seventy miles; the Gallician frontier is then rounded, when the line traverses the Dniester, allongates the Bukovine frontier", until it reaches the river Pruth; thus circumventing all that part of Poland except the Duchy of Posen, which belonged to Prussia by the partition-treaties. "In this position, which may be called the very heart of Europe, she rides alongside the Brandenburgh possessions with the lofty and fearful superiority of one of her hundred and twenty gun ships over a Prussian galliot, when there is no escape from pressure, and when the weaker must be crushed or overwhelmed. 64 Notwithstanding the possession of the fortresses of Dantzic, Graudents, and Colberg. Prussia can never attempt to defend any territory north of the Oder; and her line of fortresses on that river is now the only rampart of Germany, a rampart too of no value if there are not supporting armies in the not exceed one million and a half, and the debt was considerable. The whole military force amounted to about fifty thousand men. The Bukovine is a small district lying between Transylvania and Moldavia, and which has belonged to both these provinces: it contains about one hundred and thirty thousand inhabitants, now under the Ausntria government. field equal, or nearly so, to the attacking force, and especially in the arm of cavalry; which is almost impossible; since Russia, without any extraordinary exertion, could bring one hundred and twenty thousand (regular and irregular) cavalry into action on the Prussian frontier. "It is no wonder, then, that Prussia interweaves the myrtle with the olive, that she may preserve the ground for the laurels she has won! Had she a hundred daughters, and Russia as many sons, she would willingly unite them all. "On the side of the frontier, from Cracow to the Pruth, the kingdom of Poland reposes on a friendly population, and not merely friendly, but one in which the white eagle is building, as it were, a native aerie: a territory which, in time of peace, occasions jealousy to the present possessor; and which, if the disaffection of the people were less unequivocal, could not be defended in time of war; notwithstanding, political considerations render Sclavonian contact with the Carpathian mountains perilous to the Aus trian monarchy. "The Russian frontier having reached the Pruth, continues along that river (so disas trous in her history) to its confluence with the Danube; when this great artery of Austria, and main support of the Turkish frontier, rolls its streams, now also tributary to the flag of Russia, into the waters of the Black Sea. "In this position Russia is distant only one hundred miles from Transylvania, about two hundred and fifty from Constantinople by water, and three hundred by land, in a direct line; whilst the two interjacent provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia are in fact regulated by her policy, though the Ottoman Porto retains the nominal sovereignty. “Russia had endeavoured to obtain the line of the Sereth, when she found that Austria was not willing that she should occupy the whole of the provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia, and throw her frontier upon Illyria and the higher Danube; a boundary-line which, in fact, would have uncovered not only Illyria, but the Banat, Transylvania, and Hungary; and brought her within a little more than two hundred miles of Constantinople. "It may be said, however, that Persia would march to the aid of the Mussulmans, although the religious quarrel between these nations renders them deadly enemies when Christians do not menace the overthrow of both; but Persia by the late treaty, made under the AUSPICES OF ENGLAND, is herself prostrate at the feet of Russia.* "Russia has descended from the mountains! She is no longer struggling against the bos tility of nature and barbarians in the regions of the Caucasus; she has advanced into the plain. and sweeping with her frontier round Georgia, absorbing the Persian provinces of Daughistan and Shirvan, so as to consoli◄ The British ambassador obtained the best terms he could; but his inability to procure better, corroborates the assertion of the text, with respect to the present helpless situation of Persia. date and cement all her possessions, she has raised a pillar of her empire at the mouth of the river Kur; and to complete her triumph, to remove all rivals, and monopolize commerce, she has stipulated that her flag, and her flag alone, shall sweep the Caspian. "Thus Persia is humbled to the dust, and her court to eastern dependence and bondage It is true, that Persia, unfettered by Turkish prejudices, has long solicited, and has at length obtained, the instruction of Europeans, of French officers, officers of the army of Napoleon proscribed by Louis; and it is not probable that they have carried with them feelings of ill will to Russia so strong as those towards England; that they would rather storm the frozen Caucasus than join in an expedition to share the spil of Asia, and avenge in the East their humiliations in Europe. "To reach Tchiran, the capital of the Shah, the columns have to march only three hundred miles; and by the navigation of the Caspian they can be disembarked within one hundred! Thus an army might sail from the Ballic through an internal navigation from Petersburgh to Astracan, and landing on the southern shore of the Caspian, pitch their tents within four hundred miles of the Persian Gulf; from whence the voyage to Bombay is only from twenty-four to thirty days, in both Monsoons; and to Madras, but eight or ten days longer in the S. W. Mon "This, then, is the territorial attitude of Russia. But can any power sustain a force sufficient to garrison a frontier, whose points d'appui are the Northern Ocean and the Caspian, as well as the frontiers of China and Armenia; on whose line Swedes, Austrians, Turks, and Persians, are arrayed with feel ings and interests at war with the would enslave them? power that "Can Russia, who in the year 1799 had a disposable army of only fifty thousand men; in the year 1807, not more than eighty thousand to defend both capitals; and in the year 1813, only three hundred thousand on her whole territory, after several years preparation; can she, notwithstanding a destructive invasion and wars of such great waste and expenditure, have collected and re-equipped armies sufficient to defend her acquisitions and improve her advantages? The answer is, She can; and Europe and Asia must acknowledge the truth of that assertion; for, both quarters of the globe are overshadowed by the mass of six hundred and forty thousand men, which an establishment of one million two hundred thousand ranges *Nearchus, the captain of Alexander the Great's fleet, from ignorance of the compass, being obliged to hug the coast, was still only sixty-one day's actually in his voyage from the Indus. Peter the Great is said to have had one hundred thousand men at Narva; but they were troops of that description which present themselves under the mage of sheep, whose numbers never concern the wolves, and which eight thousand Swedes, being disciplined, conquered, in order of battle, exclusive of militia, Tartar cavalry, &c. "The fact is, that Russia, after posting thirty thousand men of appropriate force, with artillery, &c. in Finland, eighty thousand on the frontier of Gallicia, sixty thousand in Moldavia, thirty thousand on the frontier of Armenia, as many in Persia, and leaving a reserve of one hundred thousand men to sustain these armies, possesses still a disposable force of above two hundred thousand infantry, eighty thousand cavalry, and one thousand two hundred guns better horsed for service than any artillery or cavalry in the world;-an army, than which, there is none more brave, and with which no other can march, starve, or suffer physical privations and natural inclemencies. She has moreover a population equal to the needed supply, and to a great portion of whom the habits and sufferings of war are familiar; while no power in Europe can raise, equip or maintain their forces, with such disdain of the price of blood." "Such," exclaims our author, "is Russia; such has been her gigantic growth within a short century." After this parade of her power, he undertakes to delineate the policy which she will probably pursue. "Alexander now wields the huge sceptre of Russia, and displays an ability equal to the task. His philosophical views have indeed those who have known him in other days, been enfeebled by pernicious advisers; but tute an unfeeling policy, of which the pillars still cling to the hope that he will not substiare tyranny, ignorance, and fanaticism, for which must still have possession of his heart, te sentiments of that genuine philanthropy though they do not animate his councils. "If, indeed, Alexander had resisted the enemies of liberty and human happiness-if fessed, to see governments and nations so he had persevered in the wish he once prothe executive representatives of represented constituted, that sovereigns should be only character of the individual chief, but on genstates, whose action depended not on the eral, fixed, and self operating principles; he lustrious and imperishable title of the "Bewould have added to his glory, the more ilnefactor to Mankind." "Now he appears only in the character (and his enemies triumph in the result) of a conqueror, who engages the consideration of the universe by the immensity of his power to do real mischief and problematical good. "How he will employ the vast force at his disposition is certainly a most interesting question. Whether he will take the line of the Vistula or even Oder for himself: push Prussia into Holland; instigate France to imitate England, and complete and terminate her revolution by the election of a sovereign from the family of Nassau; or whether he will enter into negotiations with Austria for a new arrangement of Europe, |