or starosty of Zips, situated among the Carpa- | tains to advance into the interior of the devoted thian Mountains, and formerly belonging to Hungary, who had mortgaged it in 1387 to Poland. Stanislaus Augustus remonstrated with the court of Vienna, but, instead of being withdrawn from Zips, the Austrians there were reinforced, and a right was advanced to the possession of that cantou. The Prussians were not long behind the Austrians; from that valuable conquest, Silesia, Frederick threw forward a veteran corps, which advanced with scarcely the shadow of opposition, as far as Posen and Thorn; and 4000 Prussian cavalry took up their quarters on the banks of the Dniester. At the same time the sultan, sinking under the war, applied to Prussia and Austria to mediate for him with the victorious and imperious Catherine; and Frederick, putting himself forward as a generous negotiator, sent his brother, Prince Henry of Prussia, to St. Petersburg. By this time the czarina had become convinced that she could neither rule Poland through her viceroy Stanislaus Augustus, nor appropriate a part of it without allowing considerations to Prussia and Austria. She listened to the suggestions and arguments with which Prince Henry was supplied by his brother; she was alarmed by the proceedings of Austria, who seemed to be helping herself without asking her consent or caring for the rights of the Polish crown; and before Henry returned to Berlin, she certainly agreed in a scheme of dismemberment, which, as we have said, was much rather the project of Frederick the Great than her own. Prussian emissaries were also busy among the dissidents, assuring the Polish Protestants more particularly that Frederick was the champion of the Reformed religion, and determined to secure to them liberty of conscience and quality of rights. At the opening of the memorable year 1772, the last year of the independence or integrity of the Polish kingdom, the confederates assembled about 6000 men in Great Poland under Zaremba, a Pole; and Viomenil and Choisi, two distinguished French officers, made themselves masters of the ancient city and castle of Cracow. Frederick presently ordered his Prussians to advance into Great Poland. Zaremba, unable to face them with his wretched little army, abandoned position after position, and finally threw up his command, and applied, not to his king, but to the Russian ambassador at Warsaw, for pardon and protection. The French officers in Cracow made a gallant defence; but they were compelled to surrender on the 22d of April. Nearly at the same time news arrived from Vienna that a treaty was certainly signed between Russia, Prussia, and Austria; and fresh columns of Austrians, moving from Hungary, were crossing the Carpathian Moun

country. Upon this the council of the confederacy was broken up, its members fled, and an end was put to all resistance. The Turks, their only allies, so far from being able to assist the Poles, were not able to defend themselves. Their janissaries and their loose hordes of cavalry had everywhere been defeated by the disciplined troops and the artillery of the Russians:' they had lost town after town, and fortress after fortress; making, however, an heroic defence in some of them, as at Ismail; they had been driven back to the Danube and beyond the Danube. Some of their most fertile provinces were occupied by the armies of Catherine; and their fleet had been annihilated in the Mediterranean. Ever since the time of Peter the Great, when Russia first aspired to take rank as a civilized and maritime power, her statesmen had been anticipating the advantages of carrying her flag into the Mediterranean Sea; and the czarina, having no naval squadron in the Black Sea at all equal to the forcing of the narrow channels of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, and foreseeing that their coreligionists, the Greeks, would rise against the Turks at the approach of the Russians, and the distribution of her manifestoes, determined to send all the ships she could equip and spare out of the Baltic, to sail round the continent of Europe, and enter the Mediterranean by the Straits of Gibraltar. If England had been the ally of the Poles-if she had given the widest interpretation to her treaties with the Turks-or if she had resented the encroaching spirit of the Russians— she might have prevented the battle of Tchesmé, with the consequences that followed it; for one well-appointed squadron would have swept the fleet of Catherine from the ocean, and not have permitted a single sail to pass the straits. But the British government of the day was disposed to assist rather than impede the Russians, and British officers supplied to Catherine the deficiencies of her own subjects as seamen. Admiral Elphinstone, Lord Howard of Effingham, and Commodore Greig led the Russian ships to victory. The triumphs obtained by British skill— which never ought to have been so employed— were disgraced by Muscovite cruelty and barbarity. The Russian fleet remained in the Archipelago a good part of the year 1770, the whole of

1 The Russian discipline, artillery, and tactics were then only good as compared with those of the Turks. The battles in these campaigns were fought at a frightful cost of human life on both sides, without generalship, without science, with little or no intelligence. "The generals of Catherine," says Frederick the Great "were ignorant of castrametation and tactics; but those of the sultan had still less knowledge; so that, to have a just idea of this contest, we must figure to ourselves a party of one

eyed people thoroughly beating a party of blind men."--Mémoires, depuis 1763 jusqu'à 1775.

the year 1771, and part of 1772. The commerce powers was to appropriate. Prussia and Austria of England, of France, of Holland, of all states boldly pretended that their obsolete claim gave trading with the Levant, was interrupted, and, them a right to what they took; but Russia for the time, ruined. France was inclined at first adopted in her manifesto a totally different tone, to prevent, and afterwards to resent these in- representing that the expenses she had incurred juries; and by giving the Russians and their to keep Poland in order could only be discharged rotten ships a deep grave in the Archipelago, by a cession of territory. All three agreed in which she might easily have done with one-half stating to the world that the anarchy and freof her Toulon fleet, she might have somewhat quent troubles in Poland had reduced the country revived the spirits of the Turks, and perhaps to its present deplorable condition, and threatdelayed for a short time the fate of their allies ened the total dissolution of the state, an event the Poles; but France was deterred by her which would probably destroy the harmony and alliance with Austria, an alliance made closer friendship at present subsisting between the great than ever in the year 1770 by the marriage of powers the neighbours of Poland. These cousi the dauphin (afterwards Louis XVI.) with the derations, they said, put them under a necessity Austrian Archduchess Maria Antoinette, by her of taking a decisive part at such a critical junefear of provoking England (who would have con- ture, and compelled them with one accord to sidered any demonstration at that time as an adopt such effectual measures as would re-estabavowed intention of taking part in the Falk-lish tranquillity and good order. The whole of land Island quarrel and backing Spain), by the the territory taken and divided among these genwretched state of her finances, and by the desire erous and conscientious pacificators was almost of Louis XV. to close his reign in peace. Mean- the third part of Poland, and comprised some of while the successes of the Russians by land had the richest provinces of that kingdom. Prussia continued uninterrupted; and when the Poles got the whole of Pomerelia, part of Great Poland. were at their last agony, the sultan was soliciting the bishopric of Warmia, and the palatinates of the mediation of Frederick of Prussia, one of the Marienburg and Culm, with the complete comco-partitioners, to obtain a peace from Catherine. mand of the lower part of the Vistula. Russia The three powers therefore proceeded to the work took for her share the greater part of Lithuania, of dismemberment, with no other check or im- with all the wide country between the rivers pediment than such as arose out of their own Dwina and Dniester. Austria took the country clashing pretensions, or the eagerness of each to along the left bank of the Vistula, from Vielicza get as much of the spoil as he could. The court down to the confluence of the Vistula and the of Vienna seemed to be the least impatient for river Viroz, the whole of the country called Red the breaking up of an ancient kingdom, but this Russia (now Gallicia), the palatinate of Belz, and was probably nothing more than the effect of the a portion of the province of Volhynia. In square proverbial slowness of that cabinet. Frederick miles Russia got the largest portion, and Prussia and Catherine certainly concluded their bargain the smallest, the acquisition of the latter power first. His Prussian majesty was exceedingly being only about 800 square miles; but the imanxious to get included in his share the rich, portance to Frederick of the country he acquired commercial, and in every sense important, city was immense, for it united the kingdom of Prussia of Dantzic. To this the czarina would not agree, with Pomerania and the marches of Brandenand Frederick, after many struggles, gave up the burg, which before it had separated in a most point, comforting himself with the conviction awkward manner, so that Voltaire was accusthat, as he was to be the possessor of the course tomed to compare Frederick's dominions to a pair of the river Vistula, of its embouchure on the of long gaiters. "It is extremely worthy of reBaltic, and of the port of Dantzic, he must even-mark," says an English traveller who was in the tually obtain possession of the town also; and thus, thinking that it was not worth while to delay so important a negotiation for the sake of an advantage which was only deferred,' he, by means of Van Swieten, the Austrian envoy at Berlin, hastened the march of Austrian diplomacy, and the treaty of partition between the three powers was signed at St. Petersburg on the 2d of August, 1772. It was followed in the month of September by declarations, manifestoes, and specifications of the territories which each of the

1 Frederick's own Works; Mémoires depuis 1763 jusqu'à 1775.

country soon after this first dismemberment, "that, of the three partitioning powers, Prussia was formerly in a state of vassalage to Poland; Russia once saw its capital and throne possessed by the Poles; and Austria, scarcely a century before, was indebted to a sovereign of this country for the preservation of its metropolis, and almost for its very existence." The helpless King of Poland could scarcely credit that the

2 The territory of Poland, before the partition, was estimat at 13,500 square miles (fifteen to a degree)-the partitioners, in all, took from it very nearly 4000 square miles!

3 Coxe. The saviour of Vienna was John Sobieski,

to these continental affairs, we may briefly mention here the conclusion of Catherine's war with the Turks. Through the representations of Prussia and Austria she consented to negotiate with the sultan; and, after some direct intercourse on the banks of the Danube between General Romanzoff and the grand vizier, a suspension of hostilities was agreed to, an armistice was signed at Giurgevo on the 30th of May, 1772, and a con

One

three powers intended this perpetual dismemberment; and when he saw the fact and recovered from his astonishment, he could do nothing but address useless protests and prayers to France, Spain, England, and all the other powers of Europe. That lively sympathy which some of these states affected a few years later for the cause of our American colonists was shown by none of them for the Poles. In the month of April, 1773, after the Polish senate had been dis-gress was arranged to be held in the month of persed by the united troops of the three parti- July at Boczani, in Wallachia, a few miles north tioning powers, a sort of diet assembled at War- of Bucharest, the capital of that province. Casaw to ratify all that had been done. It was therine's plenipotentiary was Count Gregory Orsurrounded during its deliberations by Russian loff, who appeared at the congress with a pomp troops, and it was dictated to by Stakelberg, and magnificence that quite dazzled the Turks. Benoit, and Rewiski, the ministers of the courts He was all over a blaze of jewels; every part of of St. Petersburg, Berlin, and Vienna, who told its his dress was studded with diamonds; and he members plainly that any man who opposed their wore upon his breast, in the midst of an infiniwishes would be considered as the enemy of his tude of orders, the diamond-circled portrait of country and of the three powers; and that, if the Catherine, his mistress in a double sense. diet or the country attempted any resistance, the hundred and sixty domestics in splendid liveries armies of the three powers would at once take followed this northern modern Leicester, and he possession of the whole kingdom. As a reward was preceded by troops of hussars in gorgeous for submission the promises of the manifestoes uniforms. His demands were suitable to his were repeated, and the diet was assured that proud bearing: he asked for the whole of the their imperial majesties and the King of Prussia Crimea and all that vast tract of country on the would guarantee the remainder of the kingdom. coasts of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azof, beThe president or marshal of the diet, Poninski, tween the Danube and the Don; for an unlimited had sold himself to the allied powers, and many freedom of navigation on the Black Sea, and of the members were equally venal, or convinced through the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles; for of the indisputable fact that resistance would be nearly all the fortresses that had been taken from useless. But still there remained a small enthu- the Turks; and for an indemnity, in money or in siastic band, chiefly from Lithuania, the country additional territory, for the expenses the czarina of Kosciusko, who ventured to raise their voices had incurred in the war. The sultan was also against the dismemberment and the outrages called upon to acquiesce in the dismemberment offered to the honour and independence of the of Poland, and to engage on no account whatsonation. Reyten, the leader of this weak band of ever to assist the Polish exiles, of whom not a patriots, was by the orders of Count Stakelberg, few had fled to Constantinople. Humbled as arrested and sent out of the country, to wander they were, the Turks would not consent to these through Europe an exile and a maniac; and on hard terms: the congress of Boczani broke up the 17th of May the diet agreed to appoint a in July; and Count Gregory hastened back to commission to act in conjunction with the am- St. Petersburg, to find that during his absence bassadors of the three powers, in regulating the Catherine had supplied his place with another Lew frontier lines and settling the changes to be lover-the still more splendid Potemkin. Negointroduced into the Polish system of government. tiations were, however, soon renewed between Poniatowski remained without the shadow of Romanzoff and the grand vizier; a new congress authority-a mere king by name- -the ambassa- was appointed to meet at Bucharest, and the ardors of the three powers continuing to dictate to mistice was extended to the month of March, the permanent council as they had done to the 1773. In the meantime Russia had concluded a diet. Many members of the confederates of Barr separate treaty with the Tartars of the Crimea, besides the unfortunate Reyten, became wan- which gave her the absolute command of that derers and outcasts, with no fortune but their long-coveted country. The negotiations at Buswords, for the property of the exiles was in charest ran out to a great length and ended in Dearly every case confiscated. We shall find nothing. The Turkish commissioners proposed some of the bravest of these Poles fighting under a prolongation of them and of the armistice; but George Washington in America, when the Eng- the Russians refused, and took the field in the lish colonies there raised the standard of inde- month of March, 1773. The Danube, the centre pendence. of the operations, was again tinged with blood, That we may not have to return for some time and choked with the bodies of the dead; but for

tune was not invariably on the side of the czarina. | grand vizier in his fortified camp at Shumla. Prince Repnin, with a considerable corps, was Upon these reverses the sultan again sued for taken prisoner, and led in triumph to Constan- peace; and on the 21st of July the grand vizier tinople; Romanzoff, in crossing the Danube about and Prince Repnin signed the treaty of Kainarji, the middle of June, lost an immense number of which was ruinous and most humiliating to the men, and had the mortification of seeing the Rus- Ottomans, though certainly less so than the terms sian horse completely defeated by the irregular would have been which Orloff had proposed at Turkish cavalry. As he advanced towards Silis- Boczani. By this treaty the Crimea was dissetria, Shumla, and the Balkan Mountains, as if in vered from Turkey, under the decent pretext of the intention of forcing that famous passage, the its remaining an independent power under its natural difficulties of which have at all times khans; Russia obtained the absolute cession of been grossly exaggerated, he was constantly as- Kinburn, Kertch, and Jenickala, and of all the sailed in front, flank, or rear by flying troops of district between the Bug and the Dnieper; the spahis, who allowed him so little rest that his navigation of the Turkish seas for her merchant men could seldom take the bit out of the horses' vessels, including the passage through the Darmouths. When his van arrived at Silistria they danelles; with all the privileges and immunities found the approaches to that place guarded by enjoyed by the most favoured nations. She rethree immense divisions or armies, under three stored to Turkey everything she had taken in pachas. The Russians drove these Turks from Wallachia and Moldavia, but she kept Azof and their entrenched camps into the town; but in so Taganrog, the two most important ports on the doing they sustained another prodigious loss, and Black Sea; and, beyond the wide margin of the must have been utterly defeated but for a rash, treaty, she kept up a party among the Greeks of impatient movement of the Mussulmans. In- Bucharest and Jassy, which would at any time stead of taking Silistria, and forcing the defiles of lay Wallachia and Moldavia open to her ambition. Mount Hæmus, Romanzoff, after fresh losses occasioned by sorties and surprises, found himself compelled to decamp silently in the night, and to begin a most disastrous retreat to the Danube and beyond it. Although the Russian army was speedily reinforced, other disasters followed. Romanzoff was again compelled to raise the siege of Silistria by the grand vizier, who issued from his fortified camp at Shumla; and Suwaroff and Prince Dolgarucki were repulsed at Varna after a long and bloody engagement, and then routed and driven from their entrenchment by the Bostangi Bashi from Adrianople. At the beginning of December they recrossed the Danube; but this time their retreat was a disorderly flight, and they left all their stores and a good part of their artillery behind them.

The insurrection of the Cossacks under Pugatchef, the rising of some of the Tartar tribes, the ravages of the plague, the apprehension of war with Sweden, and other causes, paralyzed the operations of Catherine's armies on the Danube until the month of June, 1774, when General Soltikoff fought a drawn battle with the Pacha of Rutschuk, and Kamenski and Suwaroff defeated the Reis Effendi, and took all his train of artillery, which had just been cast at Constantinople under the direction of the famous Baron de Tott. After this Romanzoff succeeded in investing the

The British parliament re-assembled on the 26th of November, 1772, when the partition of Poland was known to all the world. Yet the king's speech did not contain a single allusion to that startling innovation. As if approving all that had been done, his majesty expressed his satisfaction at seeing there was reason to hope that the war which had so long unhappily prevailed in one part of Europe was now drawing to a conclusion. The addresses of both houses di little more than echo the speech. There was in either of them a single word about the dismem berment and political annihilation of Poland: not a word about the monstrous excesses in the Archipelago, not a syllable upon the dangerous encroachments and mighty pretensions of the czarina. The commons only thought it neces sary to express their satisfaction at his majesty's having been enabled, during the course of the year, to reduce his naval establishment. The Chatham Correspondence at the time is equally silent on the subject; and neither in the letters of the great orator nor in those of Lord Shelburne and his other friends do we find a word about that great political iniquity, the partition of Poland. Mr. Burke appears to have been almost the only public man that felt very warmly: and even he reserved his eloquence upon the subject to a later period.

CHAPTER VI.-CIVIL AND MILITARY HISTORY.-A.D. 1773-1774.

GEORGE III.

Difficulties of the East India Company—Summary of the session-American discontent continues-Committee of correspondence established to promote it-Its powerful agency-Insurrectionary manifesto of the people of Boston--The resistance increased by Franklin's communications from London-The colonists demand the removal of the governor of Massachusetts-A British schooner boarded and destroyed by the people of Rhode Island-Arrival of two British ships at Boston with cargoes of tea-Determination of the Bostonians that the cargoes should not be landed-Popular meetings and insurrectionary resolutions-Rising of the mob-They board the ships and destroy the tea-Effect of the tidings on the British parliament--Its examination of the American revolutionary papers-Debate on the measures necessary to be adopted-Resolution passed to retain the colonies in obedience to Britain-Franklin's conduct in London as agent of the Americans-He is brought before the privy council-His determination in favour of American independence confirmed-His character, and that of his political proceedings-He is dismissed from his office of postmaster-general for America-Bill passed to remove the colonial government from Boston to New Salem-Another bill passed depriving Massachusetts of its popular elections-Opposition in parliament to the two bills-Chatham's ineffectual appeal in behalf of the Americans-Bill to provide for the government of Quebec-It passes through the lords-Contention produced by it in the House of Commons-It receives the royal assent-The people of Boston aud Massachusetts continue their hostile proceedings-They are headed by Mr. Samuel Adams-Account of himGeneral Gage, the new governor, arrives in Boston-Resolution of Boston to suspend all traffic with BritainDemocratic spirit of the Virginians-Their assembly appoints a public fast-The governor dissolves the assembly-Its members adjourn, and continue their resolutions-The fast held-The assembly of Boston ordered to remove to Salem-Its leaders hold a secret meeting-Its proceedings and resolutions-Rapid and wide diffusion of revolutionary principles-Gage summons the military into Boston-Indignation excited by their arrival-Preparations of the Americans for a military resistance-Impediments opposed to the royal troops-Insurrectionary resolutions passed at a meeting of the popular delegates-Jefferson's "Summary View of the Rights of British America"-It is superseded by a more moderate manifesto-Elections for a general congress-It meets at Philadelphia-Its proceedings.

HE East India Company, which, ever since the year 1767, had been paying government £400,000 per annum, in consideration of the extensive privileges granted by the charter, had fallen into pecuniary ifficulties. The company reduced their dividend › six per cent., and applied to parliament for the an of £1,500,000 to relieve them from their resent necessities. It was impossible to refuse e loan without risking great distress and great iscontent at home, and absolute ruin in India. n the 9th of March, Lord North moved a series resolutions, asserting the necessity of parliaentary assistance, and the propriety of a loan. le fixed the sum at £1,400,000, and suggested a umber of regulations as proper to prevent the ecurrence of similar embarrassments, and to eform all abuses in the government of India. ittle foreseeing what it would lead to, he afterards moved that the Company should be peritted to export tea to America without paying y export duty; and the Company took this as important boon, as they had at the moment owards of 17,000,000 lbs. of tea in their wareouses in England. The attacks upon Lord Clive, ne real founder of our empire in the East, and her matters connected with India debated

during the session, we reserve for our continuous view of East India affairs.

Mr. Charles Fox, who had returned to office in the preceding month of December, was again warmly supporting all Lord North's measures. The Earl of Chatham continued to prompt and animate Colonel Barré and the other hot leaders of the opposition in the House of Commons.

In putting an end to the session, his majesty expressed his great satisfaction at the zeal, assiduity, and perseverance which had been displayed: he regretted the continuance of the war between Russia and the Porte; but made not the most distant allusion to the fate of Poland: he declared he had a close friendship both with the czarina and the sultan, but no engagements with either: he applauded the effectual relief and support which had been offered to the East India Company; and stated that some progress had been made in reducing the national debt.

Ireland continued in an uneasy state, although the Marquis of Townshend had been succeeded as lord-lieutenant by a much more popular nobleman, Lord Harcourt. But the storm raised by the Whiteboys and Hearts of Steel was not to be compared to the tempest, further west, conjured up by the sous of liberty upon the apparition of Lord North's tea, and upon his attempt