Chapter IX

INTERCOURSE OF FOREIGNERS.—FOREIGN CONSULS.—HOW FAR THE NATIVES ARE
BENEFITED BY THEIR INTERCOURSE WITH FOREIGN RESIDENTS.

A considerable number of foreign Europeans reside in both principalities, where they are attracted by a variety of resources.

The principal merchants and bankers, either from birthright or from foreign naturalisation, carry on their business under the immediate protection of European courts; without which the general system of the local governments, so prejudicial to the interests of trade, would give but little security to their operations.

There are at both capitals several German and French coachmakers, carpenters, builders, architects, teachers of European languages and music, physicians, and apothecaries, all of whom have rendered themselves extremely useful to the native inhabitants, and derive no small profit from the exercise of their respective professions. Almost all the importers of foreign furniture, luxuries in ladies’ apparel and other kinds of retail trade, undertakers of subscription-clubs, and of coffee-houses of the better sort, ladies’ shoemakers, mantuamakers, and taylors, are also European foreigners.

A great number of Transylvanian and Hungarian gentry of the inferior rank are attracted by the advantages of renting the Boyars’ estates. According to the treaties existing between the Porte and other powers, foreign subjects are not permitted in any manner to hold, as proprietors, landed property in the Ottoman dominions; the prince of Moldavia observing how little this stipulation had been attended to in his principality, thought it necessary, in 1815, to issue a decree which ordered the expulsion of foreign farmers. The Boyars, whose best estates were under their management, and who had every reason to be satisfied with them, strongly opposed the measure; their representations finally induced the prince to give his tacit consent to their wishes; and, properly speaking, this stipulation of the treaties does not include the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, and ought not to be applied to them.

The progress of the Russian arms previous to the peace of Kaïnargik, had enabled the cabinet of St. Petersburgh to become the arbiter of the fate of Turkey. Whatever might have been the Empress Catharine’s motives for consenting to the conclusion of that peace, she did not remain less sanguine in her favourite project of conquering the empire of the East, and the special clauses in the treaty, which gave her the power of interfering in the affairs of the Wallachians and Moldavians, were calculated not only to secure to her the affections of the people for whom they were most immediately intended, but at the same time to incline the other Christian subjects of Turkey to look upon her as their natural defender, and their future deliverer.

No subsequent events prevented her from employing her right of interference, though, according to circumstances, it may at times have been exercised with more or less energy; and the policy pursued by her successors evidently denotes the continuation of a system which has an important object in view, however distant the possibility of attaining it.[43]

In order, however, to exercise her influence with the activity necessary to ensure success, the empress had insisted also that the Porte should acknowledge the residence in the two principalities of imperial agents, to whom she thought proper to give the title of consuls, as most adapted to screen her views, and to justify her apparent one of enlarging the trade of her empire, and giving protection and assistance to those of her subjects who were willing to extend their commercial transactions to the principalities. This pretext was in fact plausible; for the Russian merchants who had till then been in the habit of trading in those countries, had complained much of the difficulties and vexations they had constantly experienced from the irregularities of the local governments.

However unwilling to recognise the future residence of public agents from the court of Russia, the Porte was unable to oppose it with any prospect of success, and consequently consented.

The court of Vienna soon after followed the example, though from motives of a more commercial nature; and the consuls of Russia once admitted, the Ottoman government could not refuse to acknowledge those of Austria.

The Greeks saw with no little regret the arrival of these foreign agents, who not only checked their authority over the foreign trade, but became also competent witnesses of their political system and administration, and the accredited reporters of all their actions. But, as it was out of their power to oppose the arrangements of the imperial courts, they thought it best to set their submission to the profit of their vanity in receiving the consuls as envoys sent by foreign powers to independent princes. They introduced for their reception the formalities and ceremonial of the public audiences given by the Grand Vezier to European ambassadors at Constantinople, and they revived the custom of the Voïvodes, of being seated on an elevated throne on similar occasions.

Under the republic of France, French consuls were sent for the first time to reside in the principalities, and their establishment has been kept up without interruption under the successive governments of France. On several occasions they were very useful to Buonaparte.

A British consul-general was for the first time appointed in 1802 to reside at Bukorest, chiefly for the purpose of facilitating the overland communications between England and Turkey. After the peace of Tilsit he was recalled, and the consulate was renewed in 1813, with the additional motive of promoting commercial intercourse with the principalities.

The pope has for many years been represented by a bishop in Wallachia, and by a vicar in Moldavia; the latter has recently been promoted to the rank of a bishop.

The number of Roman Catholic inhabitants is considerable; most of the Servian, Bulgarian, and Transylvanian settlers belong to that persuasion. They have two fine churches at Bukorest and at Yassi.

There are also two protestant churches originally founded by Charles XII. of Sweden during his long residence in the principalities. They are superintended by a vicar appointed and paid by the archbishop of Stockholm. The protestant inhabitants are German, and their number amounts to one thousand. All foreign churches, provided they profess the doctrines of christianity, are not only tolerated in the principalities, but allowed a variety of privileges which they cannot enjoy in any part of the Turkish dominions. The metropolies seldom interfere with their affairs, and when any circumstance obliges them so to do, they bear every possible regard to their institutions, and never assume the tone of superiority.

In general, the social intercourse between the natives and foreign inhabitants is carried on upon a much more friendly footing than might be expected from the number of national prejudices that still divide them, in opinions, religion, and established customs. The natural hospitality of the Boyars makes no exceptions with foreigners; and if on one hand this quality loses a part of its merit in being the mere effect of custom, on the other it does not deserve the less credit when totally divested of ostentatious motives.

It would appear that little benefit is to be expected by the inhabitants of a country long occupied by Russian armies, and made the principal theatre of military operations. Yet the late intercourse between those of the principalities, and the Russians, and the prospect of their being incorporated with the Russian empire, have, in many respects, improved their civilisation. A variety of barbarous customs existing before have been abolished; usages and institutions were introduced which tended to their improvement, and the exterior manners of the Boyars have undergone a polish which is not unworthy of more enlightened nations. Those of Moldavia would view with pleasure any political change in their country which offered to them the sure prospect of improvement in civilisation. Those of Wallachia have long since consoled themselves for the improbability of any early change, by taking a very active part in the general system of rapacity, of which it has become the lot of their countrymen of inferior order to bear the weight.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS
ON THE
POLITICAL POSITION OF THE PRINCIPALITIES.

When we reflect upon the deplorable condition of Wallachia and Moldavia, examine the causes of their evils, and cast an eye upon the numerous gifts with which nature has enriched them,—when we compare the effects of demoralisation and ruin, which are the natural consequences of their present system of administration, to the advantages that would accrue to them from a regular and permanent form of government,—it is hardly possible not to regret that the question of a change in their political fate was not proposed and resolved at the late congress of Vienna.

A variety of facts related in the foregoing pages have, perhaps, sufficiently demonstrated the nullity of the independence still acknowledged by the Ottoman Court to the constitution of its transdanubean Principalities, and the little regard it bears to the common prosperity of their affairs. That those countries should resume independency, and maintain themselves in it by their own means alone, would, however, be as absurd, as it is impossible to expect. But that they should be rescued from the hands of those who act as their worst enemies, and placed under the special protection of some great Christian power, under whose influence they might be enabled to employ their resources to their own profit and to that of their neighbours, give to their trade all the extent it is capable of compassing,—under which, in short they might have the hope of soon placing themselves on a footing with the civilised world—formed an object which called forth the attention of Christian Europe, and which, in magnitude and importance, had at least equal claims to it as the question relating to the Ionian Islands, to which the Turks had no smaller pretensions, though neither more nor less valid.

Conformity of religion, and the old standing connections between Russia and the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, point out that power as their natural protector; but, if the security of Europe forbids the recognition of further encroachments of the Russians on Turkey, though at the same time the political change in the principalities had been once regularly admitted, would not a partition made of them between Austria and Russia have been equally beneficial in its consequences, and at all events preferable in every respect to the _statu quo_? Indeed, upon the very principle of impeding the progress of Russia, the occupation of Wallachia by the Austrians was a measure of the first necessity, as sufficiently capable of forming an insurmountable barrier against the Russians. Without it, what obstacle will ever prevent these from extending the whole of their frontier on the side of European Turkey to the Danube? and once entirely masters of the borders of that river, the road to Constantinople is open to them, and the political existence of the Turkish empire is left to depend on the will and pleasure of the Russian emperor.

Austria, as long as she is willing to maintain her present extent of power, would certainly feel herself far from secure at the approach of the Russians on so great a line of her eastern frontiers, and would not tacitly consent to be severed from Turkey in a manner so as to alter materially the course of her communications with that country, and almost to preclude the possibility of affording it future assistance; neither would the rest of Europe, interested in obstructing the further designs of aggrandisement of Russia, view such an event without alarming apprehensions.

The precautions which the best political prudence could have suggested, ought, therefore, to have brought the Austrians into Wallachia, where they should have improved the fortifications at the most essential points. Such a measure, carried into execution, the Russians would in vain have attempted new encroachments; they could not have made one step into Turkey without the permission of the Austrians.

It has been said that the Russian plenipotentiaries at the congress of Vienna observed so profound a silence with respect to Turkish affairs, and so carefully avoided any opportunities of hearing them named, as to prove evidently, that in her concerns with that Power Russia wishes to remain her own arbiter. Perhaps, by that conduct, she prevented what she feared; for, had the partition of Wallachia and Moldavia been proposed to her, with the cession of the latter province to herself, could she possibly have brought forwards any reasonable objections? The arrangement would have appeared so suitable to all parties, that she could not have opposed it without betraying ambitious and subversive views; Turkey must have consented, if she bore any regard to her own future safety; and the inhabitants of the principalities, notwithstanding that they would in both have preferred the patronage of Russia to any interference of Austria, would soon have begun to feel the importance of the change in their favour.

What are the effects of the present system?—

The policy of the Turks in the principalities, renders them detestable to their inhabitants. They send men devoid of principles, bereft of all feelings of humanity, to exhibit a farce of sovereignty over them, and to display an arrogant and insulting power, in order to intimidate them into submission, and to impose with less difficulty an almost intolerable yoke. These agents of authority are looked upon by the two nations, whom they are sent to govern, not as their natural well-wishers, but as the chief enemies of the State; and the Turks being justly considered as the true authors of all their evils, the hand of vengeance is constantly raised over them, waiting for the opportunity when it can act with most efficacy.[44]

Russia is perfectly aware that such sentiments and dispositions constantly prevail amongst the Wallachians and Moldavians. The authority which she holds from her treaties with the Porte, enables her to interfere in all manner with their affairs, and to create, through their means, motives of discord between herself and Turkey whenever she finds a moment propitious to a rupture; and she may even, when she thinks proper, give an apparent urgency to such circumstances to justify any sudden seizure of the two provinces, operated without any previous declaration of war, and before the Porte could have entertained a suspicion of her intentions.

Turkey then, in being possessed of Wallachia and Moldavia on the present footing, is only favoured with a momentary advantage, very disproportionate to the danger of being involved through them in war against Russia, an event which must necessarily follow any attempts on the part of the latter to seize on the principalities, and which, according to the present political arrangements existing in Europe, would not fail to create again general convulsion.

From these considerations, it would appear evident, that as long as the transdanubean provinces continue to be a source of discord between Russia and Turkey, and as long as the important question relating to them remains unsettled, peace and tranquillity in Europe will only be of imaginary stability.

In the pacific sentiments which so eminently distinguish the Emperor Alexander, we have, indeed, a solid guarantee against any hostile attempts on Turkey; but the life of man being so precarious, is the hope of a long and uninterrupted peace to rest on the mere knowledge of that sovereign’s personal character? And even if the Emperor Alexander should, contrary to present expectations, march his armies again into Moldavia and Wallachia, for the purpose of taking permanent possession of them, could we, in strict justice, accuse him of ambition in the performance of an act which common humanity dictates to any Christian power?

It is asserted that the success of the late great efforts against Buonaparte had, in a great measure, depended upon the Porte’s forbearing to take a part against Russia, and that the allies, in order to induce the Turkish cabinet to adhere to the resolution it had evinced of remaining neutral, had promised to guarantee, whatever might happen, the integrity of the Ottoman empire; that the Porte, subsequently relying on this promise, declared itself entirely foreign to the objects in discussion at the congress of Vienna, and consequently was not invited to send ministers to it.

Now, that the co-operation of Turkey, with or against Russia and her allies, could have made the least impression on the destinies of Europe, at a time that the nation itself seemed so decidedly averse to the resumption of a war, and that the state was exhausted, appears most doubtful; but that the participation of the Turks in the transactions of the Congress might have settled affairs in a much more solid and lasting manner, is extremely probable. It is at that universal tribunal alone, formed for the vast purpose of creating a just and unchangeable equilibrium in the political affairs of Europe, that the Turks might have been made to understand and to feel the necessity of renouncing to possessions beyond the Danube, which, as they have no longer the means of maintaining and defending them, must, in their hands, continue to be a source of unceasing contentions, and a subject of wars, which will not only endanger the safety of the Ottoman empire, but also compromise the tranquillity of all Europe; and that the Danube being, in fact, the natural frontier of their present extent of empire in that part of it, is alone calculated to offer them security. And those tottering Ottomans, whose existence in Europe is already tolerated with too much indulgence, and who must be aware, notwithstanding the high opinion they entertain of their own importance, how much they are at the mercy of Christian powers, would they have ventured to combat any decisions of the congress which deprived them of a comparatively small extent of territory to enable them to preserve the remainder of their possessions in Europe? Could they have insisted upon the strict observance of former promises, when circumstances so important, concurring even to their own safety, revoked them, and whilst they themselves have, in many instances, been guilty of infractions to their very treaties?

No opportunity was ever, or will, perhaps, be again so favourable to the decision of this important question, as the Congress of Vienna; however, it passed there under general silence. This silence may indeed have originated in motives of great weight, but it could only have been of a momentary necessity, and probably it will not a little contribute to the causes of the first hostile shot that will be fired on the continent of Europe.