Santa Moro with bread, and threatened to roast him alive if the contractor would not give up his son to serve as an eunuch in his seraglio. This brutality was notorious in our quarters; but it was not thought fit to interfere -and the poor man was obliged to sacrifice his child to save the life of his brother. One of our own officers was afterwards fired at, and grievously wounded, by three of his soldiers-and we were satisfied with having the assassins delivered up at Parga,-to be immediately returned to their master, who continued them in his service, and employed them on the same frontier which they had polluted by so base a crime.

This strange forbearance of the English-the resort of travellers of our nation to his court-the formal visits paid him by his Majesty's commissioners, and not returned, gave an unfortunate plausibility to the false reports which he industriously circulated as to the entire devotion of our government to his views, and the bribery by which he had secured the good offices of all our commanders on the spot. He had even the audacity to print in his gazettes, that Sir Thomas Maitland had been invested with the order of the Crescent, entirely through his influence, and on account of his attachment to him and to the interests of the Porte. When it was first rumoured, therefore, at Parga, that they were to be delivered up to their ancient enemy, the most dreadful apprehensions were entertained,—and an earnest supplication addressed to the British commander in the garrison, who answered, in March, 1817, by orders of Sir Thomas Maitland, that as he had not yet received the regular instructions of his government, he could give them no definitive answer; but that they might depend on his doing all in his power for their advantage, provided they did not forfeit their claim to his protection by any violence or bloodshed on their own part.

The substance of the arrangement was now generally known; and as nobody doubted, or affected to doubt, of the manner in which Ali was to treat the place when made over to him, the humanity and honour of our commissioners could suggest nothing farther than to offer an asylum in the islands to such of the citizens as might not be disposed to remain, and to stipulate that Ali, on behalf of the Turkish government, should pay a fair price for the lands, buildings, and plantations that might be thus deserted by their owners; and Sir Thomas Maitland accordingly authorised the British commander to exhibit a letter, in which he pledged himself that the place should not be yielded up till the property of those who might choose to emigrate should be paid for, and they themselves transported to the Ionian Islands;" and a proclamation was afterwards published at Parga, in which the same obligations are expressly undertaken in name of the British government. Ali did not venture openly to oppose a measure of justice, thus powerfully supported and enforced; and appointed Hamed Bey to act as his commissioner in making the necessary surveys and valuations along with Mr. Cartwright, who was named on behalf of our Government But he had recourse to every resource of intimidation and chicane to prevent it from being brought to a conclusion. Mr. Cartwright applied to the British commander in the citadel, to give him a general idea of the total value of the possessions that might be left; and was answered, that, on the supposition that the whole people were to emigrate, it would probably amount to between 400,000 and 500,000l. sterling. The commander afterwards directed a particular survey and valuation to be made of the lands, houses, and plantations, and found that the total considerably exceeded the largest of the sums which we have mentioned. These valuations, however, were objected to,

as having been made without proper authority; and something less than a third part was ultimately awarded. In the mean time, Ali surrounded the city with his troops-insisted on his commissioner being received with fifty horsemen and not only did all he could to seduce some of the lower citizens to rise upon the English garrison, and admit him unconditionally into the town; but proposed to them to poison our water and provisions; and reported to every one, that he never would pay one farthing, but would shortly make good his entry by force, and that the Divan had agreed with Sir Robert Liston to give our generals 60,0007. to put a stop to the plan of emigration; and this produced such a panic and alarm in the settlement, that scarcely any one would proceed with the cultivation of his fields: and a great proportion sold their neglected lots at an undervalue to greedy adventurers. The commissioners, however, at last met in June, 1816, and soon after published each of them a proclamation,-ours repeating so far the assurances of a safe-conduct and fair compensation for the property of those who might chuse to emigrate, but leaving the question of emigration to their own free and unbiassed determination-and that of Hamed urging the citizens to remain in their native town, and declaring that they should enjoy all liberty, security, and comfort;-although, when urged by our officers, as well as the Pargiots, to put his name and seal to this declaration, he positively refused to do so, and would give no further explanation. After these proclamations had been circulated for some days, all the citizens of Parga were brought, one by one, before the two commissioners, and called upon, with much solemnity, to declare their final resolution, when they every one answered, that they were resolved to abandon their country, rather than stay in it with dishonour; and that they would each disinter and carry along with them the bones of their forefathers."

The commissioners then proceeded to their surveys and valuations; but they soon differed with each other, and with the Governor, and were respectively superseded. A conference then took place between Ali and General Maitland in October, which resulted in a suspension of all procedings till May, 1818, when a new commissioner was appointed on our part, before whom, and the agent of Ali, the whole citizens again repeated their fixed determination to leave their country, in the same terms as in the preceding year; and new disputes arose about the mode of valuing the churches, public buildings, and property belonging to incorporations. The Pargiots, who were now reduced to the greatest distress, sent over a statement of their case, with the necessary documents, to be laid before the British Parliament; but having addressed them to a person who was not a British subject, he did not think himself entitled to make any formal application in their name, though we have reason to believe, that the notice which has been taken of their case in Parliament originated in this communication. In the mean time, the proceedings went tardily on; and at last, in June, 1819, General Maitland, in consequence of the depreciation of property by the neglect and despair of its owners, finally declared the compensation to be paid by Ali, for the Turkish government, to be 142,4257 sterling; and, shortly after, intimated to the citizens, that he was ready to provide for their transportation to the islands.

As soon as this notice was given, every family marched solemnly out of its dwelling, without tears or lamentation; and the men, preceded by their priests, and followed by their sons, proceeded to the sepulchres of their fa

thers, and silently unearthed and collected their remains,-which they placed upon a huge pile of wood which they had previously erected before one of their churches. They then took their arms in their hands, and setting fire to the pile, stood motionless and silent around it, till the whole was consumed. During this melancholy ceremony, some of Ali's troops, impatient for possession, approached the gates of the town; upon which a deputation of the citizens was sent to inform our Governor, that if a single Infidel was admitted before the remains of their ancestors were secured from profanation, and they themselves, with their families, fairly embarked, they would all instantly put to death their wives and children, and die with their arms in their hands,-and not without a bloody revenge on those who had bought and sold their country. Such a remonstrance, at such a moment, was felt and respected as it ought by those to whom it was addressed. General Adam succeeded in stopping the march of the Musulmans. The pile burnt out, and the people embarked in silence; and free and Christian Parga is now a strong hold of ruffians, renegadoes, and slaves.

PARTITIONS OF POLAND.*.

The three works which are now before us contain particulars of the Partitions of Poland which have not hitherto been made public in our language, and which, besides their importance to the general readers of history, seem to us peculiarly interesting in the present state of Europe. We shall therefore take this occasion to lay before the public an abridged statement of some of the most important of these particulars; after premising a short account of the witnesses on whose testimony our narrative will principally be founded.

The Memoirs of M. V. Dohm begin in 1778, and are meant to reach till 1806, during the whole of which time he filled a secondary, but not unimportant, office under the Government of Prussia. After the French conquest in 1806, he became a subject of the short-lived kingdom of Westphalia, under which he held office (as he now tells us) unwillingly till 1810, when he obtained permission to retire, and employed his leisure in the composition of these Memoirs, of which the Part hitherto published extends only to the death of the Great Frederic in 1786,-the least interesting and best known portion of the period in Prussian history which the work is designed to comprehend.

No. 2. is a History of the Three Dismemberments of Poland, by M. Ferrand, formerly a magistrate of the Parliament of Paris, one of the most zealous Royalists of the old school, an enemy of liberty, but a friend of national independence, who, though a warm admirer of the Holy Alliance, yet honestly, but not consistently, reprobates the Partition of Poland as the first step towards the dissolution of the European system. The most valuable part of this publication consists in extracts from the Notes and Collections of Rulhieres, which were intended by that writer as materials for

1. Denkwurdigkeiten Meiner Zeit. Von C. W. V. Dohm. 5 Vols. 8vo. Lemgo u. Hanover. 1814-1819. 2. Histoire des trois Démembremens de la Pologne. Par M. Ferrand. 3 Vols. 8vo. Paris, 1820. 3. Mémoires et Actes Authentiques relatifs aux Négociations qui ont précédées le Partage de la Pologne. (Without the name of the Author, or the Place of Publication 1 Vol. 8vo. 1810.-Vol. xxxvii. page 462. November, 1822.

the continuation of his brillant work. The value of these extracts, and of the general narration, would have been greatly increased, had the author deigned minutely to quote authorities, and to particularize the dates of events; securities for literary probity which we have seldom found in modern French histories, except in the works of M. Sismondi, and in the invaluable History of Venice, by M. Daru; a book which contains more information, new to most readers, than has been presented to the public by any European historian of late years.

No. 3. is a Collection of Diplomatic Correspondence between the three Governments who partitioned Poland, from 1771 to 1774, published anonymously at Weimar in 1810, by the Count de Goertz, for many years employed in some of the eminent stations of Prussian diplomacy. The authenticity and importance of these documents are equally indisputable.

Little more than fifty years have passed since Poland continued to occupy a high place among the powers of Europe. Her natural means of wealth and force were inferior to those of few states of the second order. The surface of the country exceeded that of France; and the number of inhabitants was estimated at fourteen millions-a population probably exceeding that of the British Islands, or of the Spanish Peninsula, at the era of the first Partition. The climate was nowhere unfriendly to health, or unfavourable to labour; the soil was fertile, the produce redundant: a large portion of the country, still uncleared, afforded ample scope for agricultural enterprise. Great rivers afforded easy means of opening an internal navigation from the Baltic to the Mediterranean. In addition to these natural advantages, there were many of those circumstances in the history and situation of Poland which render a people fond and proud of their country, and foster that national spirit which is the most effectual instrument either of defence or aggrandizement. Till the middle of the seventeenth century, she was the predominating power of the North. With Hungary, and the maritime strength of Venice, she formed the eastern defence of Christendom against the Turkish tyrants of Greece; and, on the north-east, she was long the sole barrier against the more obscure barbarians of Muscovy, after they had thrown off the Tartarian yoke.* A nation which thus constituted a part of the van-guard of civilization, necessarily became martial, and gained all the renown in arms which could be acquired before war had become a science. The wars of the Poles, irregular, romantic, full of personal adventure, dependent on individual courage and peculiar character, proceeding little from the policy of cabinets, but deeply imbued by those sentiments of chivalry which may pervade a nation, chequered by extraordinary vicissitudes, carried on against barbarous enemies in remote and wild provinces, were calculated to leave a deep impression on the feelings of the people, and to give every man the liveliest interest in the glories and dangers of his country. Whatever renders the members of a community more like each other, and unlike their neighbours, usually strengthens the bonds of attachment between them. The Poles were the only representatives of the Sarmatian race in the assembly of civilized nations. Their language and their national literature-those great sources of sympathy and objects of national pride-were cultivated with no small success. They contributed, in one instance, signally to the progress of science; and they took no ignoble part in those classical studies which composed the common litera- Poloniam velut Propugnaculum orbis Christiani.”—“ Polonia Germaniam ab irruptionibus BARBARORUM tutam præstitit."-Puffendorff Rerum Brandenburgicarum, l. v. c. 31.

ture of Europe. They were bound to their country by the peculiarities of its institutions and usages-perhaps, also, by the very defects in their government, which at last contributed to its fall, by those dangerous privileges, and by that tumultuary independence which rendered their condition as much above that of the slaves of absolute monarchy, as it was below the lot of those who inherit the blessings of legal and moral freedom. They had once another singularity, of which they might justly have been proud, if they had not abandoned it in times which ought to have been more enlightened. Soon after the Reformation, they set the first example of that true religious liberty which equally admits the members of all sects to the privileges, the offices, and dignities of the commonwealth.* For nearly a century, they afforded a secure asylum to those obnoxious sects of Anabaptists and Unitarians, whom all other States excluded from toleration; and the Hebrew nation, proscribed every where else for several ages, found a second country, with protection for their learned and religious establishments, in this hospitable and tolerant land.

A body of gentry, amounting to about half a million, professing the equality of gentlemen amidst the utmost extremes of affluence and poverty, forming at once the legislature and the army, or rather constituting the commonwealth, were reproached, perhaps justly, with the parade, dissipation, and levity which generally characterize the masters of slaves; but their faculties were roused by ambition-they felt the dignity of conscious independence and they joined to the brilliant valour of their ancestors an uncommon degree of the accomplishments and manners of a polished age. Even in the days of her decline, Poland had still a part allotted to her in the European system. By her mere situation, without any activity on her part, she in some measure prevented the collision and preserved the balance of the three greatest military powers of the Continent. She constituted an essential member of the federative system of France; and, by her vicinity to Turkey, and influence on the commerce of the Baltic, directly affected the general interest of Europe. Her preservation was one of the few parts of continential policy in which both France and England were concerned ; and all the governments of Europe dreaded the aggrandizement of her neighbours.

In these circumstances, it might have been thought that the dismemberment of the territory of a numerous, brave, ancient, and renowned people, passionately devoted to their native land, without colour of right or pretext of offence, in a period of profound peace, in defiance of the law of nations, and of the common interest of all states, was an event not much more probable than that the same vast country should be swallowed up by a convulsion of naure. After such an occurrence, no State can consider herself as safe. Before that dismemberment, indeed, nations were exposed to the evils of war andthe chance of conquest; but in peace they placed some reliance on each other's faith; and even in the utmost dangers of war they relied on the prevalence of that established policy which then disposed every nation to prevent the entire destruction of any other. The crime has, however, been triumphantly consummated. The principle of the balance of

At the Diets of 1563, 156 and 1569,'Art de vérifier les Dates, ii. 74. It is at the same time that we find them describing te variety of their religious sects-" Nos qui sumus Dissidentes in Religione." The term Disidents then included the Catholics as well as all other Christian sects. The Unitarians were firt excluded about 1650. The subsequent exclusion of the Greeks and Protestants, who were disenters from the Establishment, was one of the immediate causes of the ruin of Poland.