according to the phrase of the pared in earnest to undertake the Russians themselves, and their siege of Erivan, the only place of twenty - two pieces of artillery importance, on the left bank of the opened at the same instant a des Araxes, which still remained in structive fire. It was only the possession of the Persians. In his superior discipline of the Russian progress he took the fortress of troops that saved them from utter Sardar Abad, in which Hassan destruction; they rallied, and Khan commanded. So soon as the recovered their order. Asan- Russians had prepared to invest it, guinary contest ensued which Hassan sent a flag of truce to lasted from seven o'clock in the solicit an armistice for three days. morning till four in the afternoon; This was refused, and hostilities the Persians, both infantry and were carried on with increased eavalry, attacking with obstinate vigour. Hassan Khan and the impetuosity up to the very mouths whole of the troops in the garrison, of the cannon and points of the amounting to about one thousand bayonets. The Russians finally five hundred, then left it and fled. succeeded so far as to make their They were however partially overway to Etchmiazine, where they taken, and five hundred were arrived with the loss of great part stated by the Russians to have been of their baggage, and between killed, and two hundred made pris twelve and fifteen hundred men soners. General Paskewitsch, hava killed and wounded. A numbering taken possession of the fortress, of prisoners, too, remained in the continued his march, and appeared hands of the Persians. The Rus before the walls of Erivan, on the sians estimated the loss on the side 6th of October. The trenches of the enemy at three thousand were opened on the night of the men, killed and wounded; but 7th. During six days the works there was no reason to believe that were carried on with activity, it exceeded their own, if it was and a battery was erected, which even so great. This was the best on the 12th had done great damage contested action fought in the in the place. The Persians, already course of the war. The Persians terrified by the unexpected reducdisplayed not only more discipline tion of Sardar Abad, were thrown and steadiness in the battle itself, into consternation by the effect of but likewise more military conduct the bombs and battering cannon, in taking up and managing their which the works were by no means position, than the world had yet calculated to resist. On the 19th given them credit for. The corps of October, when the imperial d'armée, for it was nothing more, guard had mounted the breach, the which had sustained the engage- garrison, which till then had dement, giving up all hope of fended itself vigorously, and only a carrying Etchmiazine, after its few moments before was still fightgarrison was reinforced by the ing desperately, laid down their arrival of Krassovsky, abandoned arms and surrendered prisoners of

their works, and rejoined, without Among the prisoners were - loss, the main body of the army. the governor, and his brother, the

General Paskewitsch, having celebrated Hassan Khan, some of been joined by his battering train, the most distinguished Khans, and now collected his forces, and pre- three battalions of the Sarbasian

war.

troops, the flowerof the army of Ab- and the inhabitants, preceded by bas Mirza, in all three thousand their Imauns, came out in a body men. In the fortress were found to receive the Russians. At the thirty-five cannon, two howitzers, moment when the Sarbasians were eight mortars, four standards, a disbanding, the populace vented great quantity of ammunition, and their discontent against the

governa considerable part of the treasures ment by pillaging the palace of of the Sardar.

Abbas Mirza. Alair Khan, desertThe fall of Erivan, and, still cd by his soldiers, endeavoured to more, the dismay which it excited, conceal himself. Being hunted out and the temptations which it held by the Cossacks, he attempted at out to the wavering fidelity of dis- first to defend himself ; but, his affected chiefs, opened up to the carabine having_missed fire, he Russians a passage into the heart surrendered. In Tauris the victors of the Persian territories. Prince found thirty-one pieces of cannon, Eristoff, whom general Paskewitsch nine mortars, one thousand and sixhad sent forward in advance during teen muskets, and a large quantity the progress of the siege, was at of ammunition and provisions. Maranda, on the right bank of the These accumulated disasters inAraxes, and not far from Tauris, clined Persia to a peace which she on the 21st October. He there had wantonly broken. In a few learned that the populace of Tau- days after the surrender of Tauris, ris, discontented at the oppressions to which general Paskewitsch har of the government, and alarmed by moved with the main body of his the approach of a victorious enemy, army, immediately after the capwere ready to receive the Russians ture of Erivan, the Caimacan of with open arms ; that the troops Abbas Mirza, one of the principal had refused to fight any longer ; personages in the Persian ministry, that Abbas Mirza, finding himself announced his arrival with authorthus abandoned, had given orders ity to treat for peace. A Russian to destroy the magazines of provi- negociator having been named by sions and ammunition, and carry the general, the preliminaries were off the artillery which had been speedily adjusted; the principal collected in that his hereditary difficulty having occurred in bringresidence. The prince therefore ing Persia to consent to the payimmediately marched upon Tauris ment of a large sum of money, as to take advantage of the favourable an indemnification to Russia for conjuncture. Alair Khan, son-in- the expenses of the war. These law and first minister of the Shah, conditions were further confirmed and the prime instigator of this by Abbas Mirza himself, and foolish war, expended, in vain, transmitted to Teheran for the ratimenaces and entreaties, violence fication of the Schah. So soon as and rewards, to induce the inhabi- that ratification should arrive, the tants to fight. hen prince Eris- Russian troops were to evacuate toff arrived on the 25th within a the province of Adherbidjan, and few versts of Tauris, and, having retire to the left bank of the formed his troops on the right bank

Araxes.

After the Shah had of the river Adjatchai, sent forward expressed his assent to the condia detachment to take possession of tions of the treaty, and part of the the city, the Sarbasian troops fled, money was on its way to Tauris, his

majesty, guided, as the Russians al- discharge of the soldiers who had leged, by the influence of Turkey, served the legal time, the dismissal all at once changed his policy. In- of those who were disabled by age stead of forwarding the ratification or sickness, and lastly, the discharge and the money, he directed a which had been granted to part of special plenipotentiary, Mirza the soldiery in the preceding SepAboul Hassan Khan, to repair to tember, as a mark of imperial the place of conference, and declare, favour, had caused a very considerthat unless the Russian army with able diminution in the fleets and drew in the first place to the left armies. In order to fill up these bank of the Araxes, and evacuated deficiencies, and to maintain the the province of Adherbidjan with- army at all times on a footing corout delay, the Shah would not pay responding with the situation of any indemnity, and would not the empire, it was judged indisratify the peace, the conditions of pensably necessary to order a levy which he had already accepted. of recruits in the present year. The The declaration which Mirza was conscription was to be enforced in to make, admitted but of one the proportion of one man for every answer. As soon as, on his arrival five hundred inhabitants. The at the camp of general Paskewitsch, levy was to commence on the 1st he had communicated the new November, except in Georgia and determination of the Shah, the Bessarabia, and was to be comcommander-in-chief announced to pleted in two months. The recruits him, that the conferences were were not to be under eighteen, nor broken off, and that military opera- above thirty-five years of age. At tions would be recommenced. the same time the relation in which Abbas Mirza was thunderstruck at the Jewish subjects of the empire this infatuated resolution : both he stood as to military service, was and the Persian plenipotentiary altered. Hitherto the Jews had looked with alarm at the necessary been exempted from personal consequences of the renewal of service, and a pecuniary tax was hostilities; and the latter was imposed upon them in its stead. On again despatched with all speed to the present occasion, that exempTeheran, in order to induce his tion was abolished, and they were sovereign no longer to delay the ordered, like all the other subjects conclusion of the peace, and the of the empire, to serve in person. payment of the indemnity agreed The government assigned as one upon,

cause of this change, a desire to In the month of September theem- promote civilization among the peror Nicolas ordered a general levy descendants of Israel. “We are conof recruits for the army throughout vinced,” said the emperor, in the the whole empire, in other words Ukase, “ that the improvement and a universal conscription. The knowledge, which the Jews will decree stated, as the reasons of this acquire by their military service, measure, that, for three successive will, on their return home, after years, no levy had been raised, and their legal period has expired, be agricultural occupations had ex- communicated to their families, and perienced, during this period, no will greatly tend to accelerate the interruption. Meantime, the ordi- progress of their civil establishment nary annual decrease by deaths, the and domestic life.”

:

GREECE.General State of Greece-Successes of Karaiskaki in Livadia-Operations in the Siege of Athens-Meeting of the National Assembly-Capo d'Istria named President, Lord Cochrane Commander of the Fleet, and Colonel Church Generalissimo of the Armies Plan to raise the Siege of Athens-Karaiskaki killed-Total defeat of the Greek Army before Athens-The Acropolis surrenders-Military Events in Western Greece-Britain, France, and Russia interpose to put an end to the War-Manifesto of the Porte rejecting their Mediation-Treaty of London-The Porte refuses to accede to an Armistice Egyptian Fleet arrives at Navarino-Armistice with Ibrahim Pacha Negotiations at Constantinople-The Turkish Fleet attempts to sail for Patras, and is obliged to put back-Ibrahim ravages the Morea-Battle of Navarino-Proceedings at Constantinople-Demands of the Porte in consequence of the Battle of Navarino -They are refused, and the British, French, and Russian Ambassadors leave Constantinople-Proceedings of the Greeks-British Order in Council against the Greek Marine.

T

HROUGHOUT the contest which the Greeks had so long maintained against the Ottoman empire, their real strength had been found in the weakness of their adversaries. The smallness of their numbers and the poverty of their resources, the jealousies which divided their leaders, and the want of discipline which distinguished their armed bands, would soon have rendered useless the natural strength of their country as well as the valour of their despair, if these sources of debility had not been counterbalanced by equally manifest disadvantages on the side of their opponents. The Turkish armies, which took the field during the first campaigns, were still more deficient than the Greeks in the knowledge of European warfare, and were infinitely more enamoured of their ignorance. The threatening position, which Russia had assumed,

fixed the attention of the Porte on its northern frontier and Danubian dependencies. The revolt in Greece had been first disregarded: then, it had been inefficiently opposed, in the mistaken notion that it was merely an ordinary tumult : it had been allowed to acquire a strength which would have demanded for its suppression the utmost energy of the Turkish government, and that at the very moment when a war with Russia seemed a more probable event than ever. It was not till the power of a distant vassal of the Porte had been brought into play, that the fortunes of Greece began to decline. On the banks of the Nile, an ambitious and warlike Pacha had been gradually creating the most formidable native armies that had appeared for centuries beneath the standard of Mahomet; the sands of Africa sent forth the troops

which revived in the vallies and tan had been maintained in Greece defiles of Greece the sure triumphs for the last eighteen months. He of European discipline. It was had not been contented with one still more strange to see a vassal, exertion, or a great, but solitary, who, like the Pacha of Egypt, was sacrifice : men, provisions, and fond of power, and little scrupu- treasure, had been renewed during lous about the means of attaining that period more than once. His it, not merely submitting to his os- fleets were fitted out for the use of tensible dependence on the Grand the Porte, in the basins of AlexanSeignior, but expending his wealth, dria, with as much activity and and transporting his best armies to regularity, as if their equipment a distant province, to fight the had been going on in the Bosphorus battles of a master, whom it was under the eye of the Grand Seignior his policy, and, one should think, himself. From the first landing of would have been his inclination, his troops in the Morea, success had to cripple and humiliate. Provided returned to wait upon the crescent, as he was with all the muniments and every day since had seen the of war in a much more effective fortunes of Greece sinking nearer state than they had ever been to their former servile and degraded possessed by the Sultan, he would estate. have had little to dread, even if At the close of 1826, these forthe Divan had been occupied with tunes had assumed a gloomier asno other cares than to watch and pect, than they had hitherto disrestrain the progress of his ambi- played at any stage of the conflict. tion. But, harassed and distracted The insurgents had lost the fruits of as the Turkish government was, on

all theirexertionsin western Greece; every side-in Greece, by a grow- the bravest of them had fallen in ing rebellion which had swept her the vain defence of Missolonghi; fleets from the sea and driven her Napoli de Romania was almost the armies from the field-in Wallachia, only strong position which they still Servia, and Moldavia, by an ille retained in the Morea ; and the concealed spirit of discontent which government itself had betrayed the rendered these provinces a bur- sense of insecurity by transferring then on the monarchy—and around its seat to the Íslands. Dissenthem, and along the shores of the sion and jealousy reigned among Euxine, by the armies of Russia, their leaders; for, where the whose policy was ever languishing seeds of these ruinous dispositions for a feasible pretext to push its have once been sown, disaster and conquests beyond the Danube—the disappointment are sure to cherish Sultan could have offered no suc- their growth. Each laid on his cessful resistance to the defection of rival the blame of the series of his great vassal, or prevented Mo- calamities which threatened to terhammed from easily converting his minate in their speedy subjugation, pachalick into an independent mo- or sought to turn them to the acnarchy. But, hitherto, Mohammed, count of some private end. None notwithstanding all the seductions set the example of cordial coof circumstances, had held fast his operation, of honest and determined integrity. It was with his trea- unity of purpose. The members sures, and with the blood of his of the ostensible government were armies, that the cause of the Sule quarrelling among

themselves about