ARTICLE III.

Dernières intrigues de la Russie en Vallachie et en Molda

vie. Paris 1838. Report on the Commerce of the Ports of New Russia, Molda

via, and Wallachia, made to the Russian Government in 1835, in pursuance of an investigation, undertaken by order of Count Woronzow. By JULES DE HAGEMEISTER; translated from the Original. Published at Odessa. By T. F. TRIEBNER. London: 1836.

Of the various considerations bearing upon, or rather constituting the great eastern question which now engrosses the attention of Europe, those connected with the present state of the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia are amongst the most prominent and the most urgent. Important by their geographical position, their large population and fertile soil, these provinces acquire a still greater interest from the political relations in which they stand to Turkey, Russia, and even to Austria. Their unfixed, temporary, and, if we may use the term, transition-state is clearly evidenced in the nominal sovereignty possessed over them by the Porte, and their real subjection to the Czar, who, by the treaty of Adrianople, assumed the title of their protector. And when we remember that on the first breaking out of hostilities between these two powers, Moldavia and Wallachia must from their position become the theatre of the war; and that on its result will depend, not simply their final destiny, but the decision of numerous political and commercial questions of vital moment to Europe—that of the navigation of the Danube, on the importance of which there can be no dissentient voice, being one of them we do not, we conceive, over-estimate the subject, by inferring that it calls for prompt attention; and that a brief inquiry into the present political condition of these provinces, and their future prospects, will be of interest to those of our readers who are concerned in forming a complete and correct view of the great eastern question.

Rejecting a detailed account of the original settlement and history of Moldavia and Wallachia as irrelevant to our object,

it will yet be necessary briefly to advert to them. These provinces, together with Transylvania, formed part of Dacia, which was added to the Roman empire by Trajan*. They were peopled principally from the Latin provinces; and whatever were the origin of the inhabitants (some writers maintain that their name and their language were originally Sclavonic) the affinity of the dialect now spoken in the principalities to the language of the ancient Romans, shows that the Roman conquest exercised at least a powerful influence on the whole Dacian community. These provinces however did not remain long under the sway of Rome. Adrian did not consider it good policy, to preserve conquests so remote; and accordingly, in order to effect their separation from the empire, he destroyed the bridge which Trajan had constructed over the Danube. Thus cut off, they refused afterwards to yield allegiance to Commodus; and having been wholly abandoned by Aureliant, they were successively invaded by the Goths and other northern tribes, with which the natives became so intermingled, that it is difficult to say to what race they now really belong. It appears, however, that so early as the twelfth century they had adopted the name of Blachs or Wallachs,-a name which according to the Polish historian

, Narusrewicz is derived from the Polowcians, whom the Hungarians called Ollochs.

In the beginning of the fourteenth century, when the hospodar Bozerad reigned over Wallachia, Charles, king of Hungary, invaded the principalities at the head of a powerful army, with a view to the permanent conquest of the country; but being completely defeated by the Wallachians he was obliged to abandon his ambitious projects, and to leave Bozerad in the quiet possession of his states. After the death of Bozerad, who during his wise and long reign had consolidated the independence of Wallachia, his two sons, Stephan and Peter, succeeded; but their mutual jealousy soon gave

* “ The new province of Dacia was about thirteen hundred miles in circumfe

Its natural boundaries were the Niester, the Teyss or Thibiscus, the “ Lower Danube and the Euxine sea.”—Gibbon's Ilistory of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. i. p. 7. and p. 30.

occasion for the interference of a foreign power in the internal affairs of Wallachia. Peter, the younger of the rival brothers, being supported by the Hungarians, succeeded in driving Stephan from the hospodarial throne; when the unfortunate prince applied in his extremity to Poland, 1359, and covenanted with Casimir the Great, the Polish king, to become his vassal if reinstated by his means. With this object Wallachia was twice entered by a Polish army, which however, on each occasion, sustained a serious defeat.

But when the victorious Amurat I., (1360–1389) crossing the Isthmus, had overrun and subdued the provinces of Romania and Thracia, from the Hellespont to mount Hämus, and established his metropolis in Adrianople*, the hospodar of Wallachia, Peter (the same who had opposed the Polish armies with so much vigour and success), alarmed at the danger which threatened him from the Turks, hastened to throw himself under the protection of Poland.

To this end he repaired in 1386 to Leopol, (Lwów,) together with his sons, Alexander and Roman, in order to take the oath of fealty, and do public homage to king Ladislas Jagiello; and from this moment may be dated the sovereignty of Poland over Wallachia. This voluntary submission of Wallachia to the Polish crown, and the recognition by their hospodars of the sovereignty of the Polish monarchs, involved Poland in that series of bloody and often disastrous struggles with the Turks, which she was obliged to continue, with but short intervals, during a period of two hundred years,-first for the protection of her vassal provinces, and afterwards for the defence of her own territory.

Soon after Peter's submission to Poland, Bajazet I., surnamed Ilderim (1389—1402), invaded Wallachia, with the view of extending his dominions beyond the Danube. The king of Poland being engaged at that time in a war with the knights of the Teutonic order, could not spare any assistance to the hospodar, who, unable to resist the arms of Bajazet, agreed to pay him a tribute of 2000 ducats, and to acknowledge the sovereignty of the Ottomans t.

Thus originate the claims of Turkey to the possession of Wallachia and Moldavia ; claims which led to that long and bloody warfare between Poland and the Ottoman Porte, to which we have alluded, and which was perhaps the primary cause of the ruin of both.

Indeed, during this period, Wallachia passed continually from the hands of one power into those of the other, according to the fortune of their arms. She became not merely the theatre of the contest between the two great antagonists, Poland and Turkey, but she was also the object of the intrigues of every ambitious and unprincipled native. Civil wars frequently desolated the country, foreign troops were often invited into it by the hospodars themselves; and yet, amidst all these calamities, the Wallachians have always succeeded in preserving intact their nationality, their language, their religion, and their local laws. They succeeded, moreover, in preserving their distinct political existence; and whether tributary to Poland or to the Ottoman Porte, they were never looked upon as subjects of either power, but were always considered as a distinct nation, governed by their own prince, and bound only by those ties with the sovereign states, which were imposed upon them by existing treaties.

At length, in 1621, Poland finally ceded these long contested provinces to her old antagonist, Turkey. On this, the Turks fixed their camp on the Dniester; and the plains

prey of ravages similar to those which had so long devastated Wallachia and Moldavia. Poland, thus constrained to oppose on her own soil the irruptions of the Turks into the heart of Europe, was obliged to turn a deaf ear to the appeals of the hospodars, who frequently rose in arms against the Sultan. Thus, notwithstanding these efforts, they have remained connected with the Porte, with little interruption, since the period of their final cession to that power*. Still, though Moldavia and Wallachia continued to be governed by their own princes, and their national laws, they were often exposed to the violence and brutality of the despotic Ottoman government. The lust of conquest, which animated at that period the councils of the seraglio, operated as a check on the development of the natural resources of the principalities. Obliged to contribute to those expeditions of the sultans which were undertaken for “ the conquest of Europe," and exposed from their geographical position to the constant passages of numerous armies, whose wants they were forced to supply, they were far from enjoying abundance or happiness. But the most melancholy period of their history begins with the decline of the Turkish empire. The defeats which the Porte sustained in Poland, Austria and Hungary, the rebellion of her powerful pashas, and the long absence of superior genius in her rulers, brought upon Turkey that general weakness and disorder in the government which is the main cause of the ruin of every state. The Fanariots whom the Ottoman Porte now appointed to govern the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia not only abused their authority with impunity, but very frequently violated those stipulations of the hati-humaïoums, which bound the Sublime Porte to respect the local laws and national institutions. Hence the despotism of the Fanariots increased in proportion to the disorder and imbecility of the government at Constantinople, of the anarchy or supineness