and general style of government the inhabitants could have no reason to be dissatisfied. At all events, it would have been more satisfactory that Austria should have held these provinces as a guarantee for the payment of the stipulated indemnity by the Turk.: The amount, however, of that indemnity, stipulated by General Diebitsch, makes it clear enough that a pecuniary liquidation of the claim is out of the question-if, indeed, such liquidation was not the last thing the General's government wished to obtain. The payment of the exorbitant demand is utterly impracticable-there is no Rothschild to advance money to the Turks, and the whole revenue of three years would scarcely suffice to wipe out this heavy score. But the indemnities required by the treaty are by no means the most grievous and unreasonable part of it. The seventh article lays the foundation for a state of immediate and constant hostility. Its provisions are repugnant to every principle and practice of international law; in fact, they establish an imperium in imperio. By this article, Russian subjects are to live, throughout the whole Ottoman empire, under the exclusive jurisdiction of the ministers and consuls of Russia. The Turkish authorities are to exercise no control whatever over Russian merchants, seamen, ships, or merchandize; they may ship, or trans-ship, or land, goods without giving any notice to, far: less asking permission of, the local authorities; and, if any of the stipulations should be infringed, and the reclamation of the Russian minister should not obtain a full and prompt satisfaction, the Sublime Porte recognizes, beforehand, the right in the imperial. court of Russia to consider such an infraction an act of hostility, and immediately to retaliate on the Ottoman empire.' This we confess does appear to us to be monstrous. By the established law of nations, the civilised powers of Europe agree that their subjects, residing in a foreign country, shall be amenable to the laws of that country; but Russia exacts from her fallen enemy the degrading submission, that her subjects shall bid defiance to the laws and usages of the Ottoman state, and if interfered with, that immediate retaliation shall follow. A Russian, for instance, violates the sanctity of a Turkish harem, and gets a yatigan through his body; the Russian minister is unable to obtain satisfaction, and an immediate declaration of war ensues. This is certainly a pretty specimen of moderation.' We pretend not to divine what steps the great powers of Europe may judge it necessary to be taken on the present emergency; but the aggrandisement of the Russian dominions cannot, we should suppose, be contemplated with complacency. In casting an eye over the map of the old world, and seeing how her territories stretch from the frozen ocean to the Mediterra nean, nean, with her broad shoulders resting on Europe and Asia, and her gigantic body pushing its limbs on all sides into the comparatively small chequered patches which form the several states of the two continents, the difference of their magnitudes reminds us of a whale in the midst of a shoal of porpoises... When we consider that this overgrown power is keeping up something like a million of men in arms, we confess that, without a sincere and honest confederation of civilized nations, It is no chimerical apprehension that western Europe may once more be deluged by the slavish barbarians of the north. However well disposed the Emperor Nicholas may be to cultivate the arts of peace, and exercise the virtues of moderation, which however he appears to have failed to do, with regard to Turkey, in breach event of a solemn declaration, it should be remembered that the good effects of his personal disposition are contingent on his life; and that it is impossible to say what line of conduct his autocratical successor might determine to pursue. Let Austria, in particular, look to this contingency, and endeavour to provide for it. Austria, above all other states, is deeply interested in the treaty made with Turkey. By leaving the two great provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia in the occupation of Russia, with Servia ready to throw herself into the arms of this power, she is virtually sur→ rounded and made vulnerable on three of her sides; open to an invasion at any moment, into Gallicia, Transylvania, Sclavonia, and, in fact, into all Hungary. If there be any faith to be placed in the word of Nicholas, when he disclaimed all aggrandizement of territory, he cannot in honour hold those provinces which the treaty has virtually given him in perpetuity; for being pledged for indemnity which the Turk can never pay,―being garrisoned by Russian troops, and governed by hospodars appointed by Russia,-it looks very like a preconcerted scheme to obtain perpetual possession. If this be not meant, and if the Czar be desirous of putting his boasted moderation to the test, let him consent to their being placed under the protection of Austria, in the same manner as the Ionian Islands are under that of Great Britain. The Christian inhabitants would be rejoiced if altogether transferred to this power; and for such a boon it would be wise on her part, if so required, to abandon the north of Italy, where her very name is held in abhorrence. In every point of view, morally and politically, such an arrangement would appear to be desirable. To Austria it would lay open a line of coast on the Black Sea, extending about a hundred miles between the Dniester and the southern branch of the Danube, and thus restore something like a balance of power on that side between her and Russia; and it would prevent Turkey from ever interfering with the territories situated situated on the northern side of the Danube;-but these are points, among many others of equal importance, which we apprehend it may be necessary to arrange by a congress of the great powers of Europe. The Greek question, it would appear, is left to be reconsidered in London, not only as to the boundaries, but, we trust, also as to the future government of the emancipated districts. The man who by intrigue, by bribery, and by menace, has succeeded in placing himself at the head of the Greek government, is a political adventurer, and a mere tool in the hands of Russia. We say this advisedly. When Russia was required by the allied powers to give up the Ionian Islands, to be placed under the protection of Great Britain, she felt exceedingly sore at this arrangement. At that time the family of Capo d'Istrias had great influence in these islands, and Count John, the present president of Greece, was one of the Russian ministers at Petersburg. The old count and his family, resident in Corfu, with all their adherents, were in open and violent opposition to every measure of the British government; all its views and intentions were misrepresented, and their unfounded grievances and calumnies were advocated in the British parliament by Mr. Henry Grey Bennett, and Mr. Joseph Hume; and in Petersburgh by Count John Capo d'Istrias, to whom the old father wrote that, among other barbarities committed by the English, they had designedly imported the plague into Corfu, with the view of reducing the people to such a state of despondency and entire submission, as to allow the Lord High Commissioner to avoid the fulfilment of such parts of the treaty as were not exactly to his liking. This letter from the father to the son was intercepted, read, and forwarded; but the Emperor Alexander knew the English too well to take any public notice of the absurd story of this silly old Ionian. On this ground alone, we do not think that either England, France, or Austria ought to consider Count John Capo d'Istrias as a fit person to be placed at the head of the Greek government. It is, in fact, neither more nor less than throwing Greece into the hands of Russia, between which and Servia, the province of Albania only is interposed. To talk of the independence of Greece under such a man as Capo d'Istrias is a farce. Let us see what has been his conduct since his arrival. At the national assembly of the Greek deputies, for the choice of a ruler, held in June last at Argos, he had the indecency to appear in a full dress Russian uniform, decorated with Russian orders; and to protect his august person against any retaliation on the part of some of the deputies whom he had insulted, and to intimidate the assembly, he surrounded himself with Colocotroni's troops, troops, which also bivouacked on the steps of the building in which the assembly was held thus circumstanced, he had everything in his own way; he made long speeches, but not one deputy ventured to utter a single word. He is accused, how justly we know not, of expending the money sent by Russia and France, in bribes to the electors and deputies; and, in order to secure a majority for himself, he had the unparalleled audacity to bring forward Greek deputies from Candia, Scio, Samos, Negropont, and other islands and places still in the possession of the Turks, and not included within the line of demarcation drawn by the allied powers for the boundaries of future Greece; but these arrangements he privately affects to despise, and talks of his conquests and the determination of the Greeks to extend the boundaries beyond the line proposed by the allies. His conquests, indeed! Had it not been for that impolitic attack, to give it no harsher name, on the Turkish fleet in Navarin, planned, as it would now seem, by a Russian admiral and for Russian objects -had we not compelled Ibrahim Pasha to withdraw his troops, and the remains of the Egyptian fleet to move homewards, and had not a large French force landed on the Morea,-it is clear, almost to demonstration, that the Russian army would never have crossed the Balkan, the Greek question would probably have been settled by the ambassadors then negotiating in Constantinople, and the whole state of the Russian war materially altered. Then might Count John Capo d'Istrias, with his brother, a man still more generally obnoxious to the Greeks than himself, have taken their departure for Russia, without the assistance and eclât of an English line of battle ship, which afforded them a conveyance from Ancona to the Morea; and in return for which piece of service, as well as civility, the said count cannot conceal the bitterness and animosity which he harbours against the English government, and to which he is said to give utterance in his conversation, to a degree of indecency and irritation that is quite laughable. That gallant officer, General Church, to whom singly the Greeks are more indebted than to any other individual, has retired in disgust, declaring, that the actual system of the government of Greece is not in harmony with his opinions or conscience.' If, therefore, it be meant to give to the fickle, and by no means united, Greeks a steady and independent government, we are morally certain that this object will never be accomplished under the administration of Count John Capo d'Istrias. We should be very happy to hear confirmed the rumour of a congress, to be held for the settlement of these important questions. It is time, if the peace of Europe is to be preserved. ᎪᎡᎢ. ART. VIII.-1. Fourth Report of the Select Committee of the Public Income and Expenditure of the United Kingdom. Revenue, Expenditure, Debt. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 10 July, 1828. 2. Histoire Financière de la France depuis l'Origine de In Monarchie jusqu'à l'Année 1828. Par Jacques Brisson. 2 tom. Paris. 1829. 3. Essay on the Sinking Fund. By Lord Grenville. 1829. 4. The Nature and Tendency of a Sinking Fund; in three Letters to the Duke of Wellington. By the Earl of Lauderdale. 1829. 5. Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into and to state the Mode of keeping the Official Accounts in the principal Departments connected with the Receipts and the Expenditure for the Public Service. 1829. THE system of defraying the public services by borrowed money, and of pledging the future taxes for payment of the interest, took its rise in Genoa and Venice, was matured in Holland, and was thence introduced into England by King William'. That prince found here a debt of little more than one million, the interest on which had for some time ceased to be paid; but a series of campaigns, then new to this country, required new expenses, and these occasioned loans which, at the peace of Ryswick, had amounted to more than twenty millions sterling. This money had been raised chiefly in eight per cent. stock, on the security of specific taxes, which were considered sufficient within a few years to pay off the capital, as well as to meet the accruing interest. Accordingly, five of these twenty millions were replaced before the subsequent war of Queen Anne. But the honours of Marlborough could not be won without treasure; and thirty-five millions being raised at six and at eight per cent., peace found us with a debt of fifty-two millions, entailing an annual charge of 3,351,000l. This small yearly claim drew very deeply from our great grandfathers' pockets,-the country gentlemen saw bankruptcy at their elbows, and the peaceful reign of George I. was passed by Sir Robert Walpole in measures of financial arrangement. The taxes pledged to the public creditor were collected into three funds, the joint surplus of which formed, in 1716, the first Sinking Fund. This new machinery was long the nation's hope; but in 1732 it was sacrificed by Sir Robert to his desire of relieving the country party from the weight of the land-tax. Still the peace did, as usual, lower profits, and the interest of the debt was reduced at first to five, and later to four per cent.: so that although, after twenty-three years of repose, its capital was diminished by four |