the Great of Prussia, under pretense of forming a cordon of defense against the pestilence, sent an army into Polish Prussia. As the Empress Catharine the Great was still engaged in her war with the Turks, she was unable to resist the Austrian and Prussian occupation of Polish territory; and she declared to Prince Henry of Prussia, who was then at St. Petersburg, that if Austria seized any portion of Poland the other neighbors were entitled to do the same. Prince Henry communicated this overture to his brother, King Frederick the Great, who resolved to act on this new idea, as he foresaw that it would be a proper means for indemnifying Russia, satisfying Austria, and increasing his own dominions by connecting his detached territories of Prussia proper and Brandenburg. These considerations induced the King of Prussia to negotiate with the courts of Vienna and St. Petersburg. He plainly notified the Emperor Joseph II. that if war should break out between Austria and Russia, he would be the ally of the Empress Catharine the Great; while he informed the Russian Empress that if she would restore the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia to the Sultan of Turkey, and indemnify herself by a portion of Poland, she would avoid a new war and facilitate a treaty of peace with the Turks. Thus after long and intricate diplomacy, Frederick the Great succeeded in recommending to the imperial Houses of Hapsburg and Romanoff a project which was to give Europe the example of the dismemberment of a kingdom on mere pretexts of convenience. An agreement was reached between Russia and Prussia in the Convention of St. Petersburg, in February, 1772; and Maria Theresa was invited to enlarge the Austrian dominions by sharing in the spoils of ill-fated Poland. The Austrian empressqueen long resisted the nefarious project; but her councils were overruled by her Minister, Kaunitz, and by her son, the Emperor Joseph II. of Germany, after a personal interview between Joseph II. and Frederick the Great. When Maria Theresa finally signed the treaty of partition she did it in these words: "Placet, because so many great and learned men will it; but when I am dead the consequences will appear of this violation of all that has been hitherto held just and sacred." The triple treaty between Russia, Prussia and Austria was signed at St. Petersburg, August 5, 1772, by which these three powers seized those portions of Poland adjoining their own dominions. By this First Partition of Poland, Russia absorbed Polish Livonia and the territories between the upper waters of the Dwina and the Dnieper; Prussia obtained Polish Prussia except Dantzic and Thorn, and a large part of Great Poland, embracing the district of the Netz and the fertile lands of the Vistula including Elbing, Marienburg, Culm, etc.; while Austria was assigned the palatinate of Gallicia with Lodomiria, celebrated for their rich mines. Though Prussia obtained the smaller and less populous portion of the stolen territory, the value of her share of the spoils was enhanced by the industry and wealth of its inhabitants, while it also connected Prussia proper with Brandenburg. The three powers agreed to defer taking possession of the partitioned districts until September following, and to act in concert to obtain a final settlement with Poland. By the same treaty the Czarina of Russia agreed to restore the conquered principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia to the Sultan of Turkey, in order to expedite the conclusion of a treaty of peace between her and the Sultan. In the terms of that treaty the courts of St. Petersburg, Berlin and Vienna presented their declarations and letters-patent at Warsaw in September, 1772, and took possession of their respective shares of the spoils without much difficulty, as the Confederates of Bar had already been driven from their last stronghold. Upon taking possession, the three powers published memorials for establishing the validity of their claims over the territories assigned to them by the treaty of partition. King Stanislas Poniatowski and his Min states was no longer secure. istry vainly claimed the assistance and pro- | thrown, and thereafter the destiny of inferior tection of the powers that had guaranteed The system the treaties. The weak king and his Ministers had no other alternative than to submit to everything demanded by the three robber powers. The feeble king was compelled to summon a Diet to confirm their thefts of Polish territory; while an allied Russian, Prussian and Austrian army marched into the territories still left to Poland, in order to overawe resistance. Those Polish nobles whose estates had been seized were expressly excluded from this Diet. Only one hundred and eleven members met in the Diet of 1773 at Warsaw; and, with the insane frivolity of despair, in a series of balls and banquets of unparalleled extravagance, they appeared to celebrate their country's ruin. This Polish Diet remained in session almost two years, A. D. 1773-1775. It vainly protested before the whole world against this iniquitous scheme -this most audacious violation of the rights of nations. It vainly showed that the pretended rights and claims which the three powers insisted upon had long been relinquished by cessions of territory and treaties of peace. Surrounded and threatened by Russian troops, the Diet at length yielded to force and consented to the dismemberment of Poland. During its two years' session the Polish Diet signed seven treaties-three with Russia, two with Prussia and two with Austria. of political equilibrium became the jest of innovators, and many well disposed men. began to consider it a chimera. Though the principal blame for this iniquitous transaction rests upon Russia, Prussia and Austria, Great Britain and France were to some extent responsible because they permitted this spoliation to be consummated without protest. This and the two subsequent partitions of Poland have ever since been justly regarded as the most outrageous of political crimes. It is very true that the vicious constitution of Poland, and the blind adherence of the nation to the worst institutions of the Middle Ages, centuries after other European nations had developed more rational and stable systems of government, would have insured Poland's destruction in any event; but the sovereigns of Russia, Prussia and Austria, who thus aggrandized themselves by Poland's ruin, could have as easily and with more justice made their power felt by the institution of a better system. After the dismemberment of Poland, Russia guaranteed a new constitution which the Poles adopted; but, as the Polish crown remained elective and the king was rendered more helpless than before, while the mischievous Liberum Veto requiring unanimity in the proceedings of the Polish Diet was retained, the ruin of the unfortunate country was only accelerated, though foreign princes were excluded from the crown of Poland. In thus dismembering Poland, Russia, Prussia and Austria renounced in the most The year 1772 was almost entirely passed formal manner all claims on the territory still in peace negotiations between Russia and remaining to Poland. Thus the First Par- Turkey, and an armistice was agreed to by tition of Poland was a fatal blow at the Eu- the belligerent powers. Under the mediaropean States-System, which had prevailed tion of Austria and Prussia, a peace confor almost three centuries. After so many gress was opened at Foczani, in Moldavia. alliances had been contracted, and after so Another peace congress was afterward held many wars had been undertaken to preserve at Bucharest, in Wallachia. Both of these the weaker states of Europe against the am- congresses led to no results; as the Turks bition of the stronger, three of the great regarded the conditions proposed by Russia powers combined to dismember a kingdom as inadmissible, especially the article relatwhich had never given them the slightest ing to the independence of the Tartars of offense. Thus the barriers between legiti- the Crimea, which they rejected because it mate right and arbitrary power were over- tended to produce a rivalry between the two Khalifs. They settled the nature of the religious dependence which the Khans of the Crimea were to maintain toward the Ottoman Porte; but the Turks would not consent to surrender the ports of Kertch and Yenikale to the Russians, or to grant the Russian demand for the unrestricted liberty of navigation in the Turkish seas. These conferences were broken off in 1773, when hostilities were renewed. The Russians failed in two efforts to cross the Danube into Bulgaria, and lost many men in their conflicts with the Turks. The cam paign of 1774 was decisive. In that year Sultan Mustapha III. died, and was succeeded on the Turkish throne by his brother ABDUL HAMID I., who made extraordinary preparations for this campaign. The Ottoman army of three hundred thousand men greatly surpassed the Russians in numbers, but were not equal to them in discipline and military skill. About the close of June, 1774, the Russians under Marshal Romanzoff crossed the Danube into Bulgaria, and cut off communication between the Grand Vizier and his detachments near Shumla. The Grand Vizier was alarmed by the defeat of twentyeight thousand Turks, who were bringing a convoy of five thousand wagons to his army, by the Russians under General Kamenski. Seeing that his army was about to disband, the Grand Vizier agreed to treat for peace on such conditions as Marshal Romanzoff chose to dictate. By the Peace of Kudschuk-Kainardji, about twelve miles from Silistria, in July, 1774, Sultan Abdul Hamid I. recovered the provinces of Bessarabia, Moldavia, Wallachia, Georgia and Mingrelia and the islands in the Archipelago conquered by the Turks; but he acknowledged the political independence of the Crim Tartars north of the Black Sea, who were to elect their own sovereign from the descendants of Zingis Khan, while they continued to acknowledge the religious supremacy of the Sultan as Mohammed's successor. Russia retained the city and territory of Azov, the two Kabartas, the fortresses of Kertch and Yenikale in the Crimea, and the Castle of Kinburn, at the mouth of the Dnieper, opposite Oczakoff, with the neck of land between the Bug and the Dnieper, on which the Empress Catharine the Great afterward founded the city of Kherson to serve as an emporium for her commerce with the Levant. Russia also obtained the free navigation of the Black Sea and the right of passage through the Dardanelles for purposes of commerce. Bukowina, which Russia had conquered from Turkey, was ceded to Austria. Prince Ghikas of Moldavia was put to death by order of the Sultan of Turkey for having opposed the cession of Bukowina to Austria; and that province was confirmed to Austria by subsequent conventions between Austria and Turkey, A. D. 1776 and 1777, which also defined the boundaries between the two Empires. The Peace of Kudschuk-Kainardji was glorious for Russia, but disastrous to Turkey. By acknowledging the independence of the Crim Tartars, the Turks lost one of their chief bulwarks against Russia. They were exasperated at seeing the Russians established on the Black Sea and allowed unrestricted navigation in all the Turkish seas. Thenceforth they had reason to fear for the security of their capital, as the Russians might assail it with impunity and intercept its supplies whenever the least disturbance might arise between the two Empires. In 1774 a formidable rebellion against the Empress Catharine the Great, headed by Pugatscheff, a Don Cossack, calling himself Peter III., broke out in the region of the Volga; but the revolt was speedily suppressed, after the loss of three million lives; and Pugatscheff, betrayed by his best friend, was beheaded in Moscow in 1775, and his body was cut to pieces. In 1782 the Kalmuck Tartars, numbering half a million, affronted at the Russian Empress, abandoned their homes in European Russia, and, wandering eastward several thousand miles, settled themselves in the dominions of the Emperor of China. Russian ambition was not satisfied by the Peace of Kudschuk-Kainardji, as the policy capacity as the ships of other nations that carried on commerce in the Turkish ports. of the Empress Catharine the Great aimed at | Russian vessels of the same form, size and the dominion of the Black Sea and its shores; and the years which followed that treaty of peace were marked by frequent disputes concerning the independence of the Crim Tartars. The Ottoman Porte was too haughty to admit the independence of the Crim Tartars, which the Feace of Kudschuk-Kainardji had sanctioned. The Sultan was exasperated at seeing the Russians parading their flag even under the walls of Constantinople, and he made use of various stratagems to evade the execution of those articles in the treaty which did not meet with his approbation. Russia considered the independence of the Crimea as a step toward the execution of her ambitious projects, and with this view she deposed the Khan Dowlat Gueray, who was favorably disposed toward the Sultan of Turkey, and put Sahin Gueray in his place; the latter being devoted to the Russian interests. Sahin Gueray was deposed by Selim Gueray, who made himself Khan of the Crimea, with the assistance of the Ottoman Porte; whereupon the Empress of Russia sent an army under Marshal Suwarrow into the Crimea in 1778, thus restoring her protegé by force of arms. The Sultan of Turkey now made great preparations for war with Russia, and a rupture between the two Empires appeared inevitable, when the mediation of M. de St. Priest, the French ambassador at Constantinople, brought about an agreement between Russia and Turkey, called the Explicative Convention, concluded at Constantinople, March 21, 1779. By this arrangement the independence of the Crimea and the sovereignty of Sahin Gueray were acknowledged and confirmed anew. Russia and Turkey agreed to withdraw their troops from the Crimean peninsula and also from the island of Taman. Turkey promised particularly never to assert any pretexts of spiritual alliance to interfere with the civil or political power of the Khans of the Crimea. The free intercourse between the black Sea and the White Sea was expressly secured to all The Explicative Convention did not restore any permanent good understanding between the Muscovite and Ottoman Empires; as fresh difficulties soon arose in the Crimea, where another revolution resulted. in the deposition of the Khan Sahin Gueray by the party which adhered to the Sultan of Turkey, A. D. 1782. Thereupon a Russian army under Potemkin marched into the Crimea and restored the deposed Khan, while a Russian fleet sailed from Azov and cut off all communication between the malcontents and the Turkish capital. The Empress Catharine the Great, who now considered the time opportune for the annexation of the Crimea to her dominions, caused her troops to occupy that peninsula and the whole of the Cuban, or Little Tartary, and drove the Turks from the island of Taman, which they had occupied for the purpose of opening a communication with the Crim Tartars. The Czarina issued a manifesto explaining the motives which actuated her in annexing the Crimea, the Cuban and the isle of Taman to the Russian Empire, and requiring the Khan Sahin Gueray to resign formally the sovereignty of the Crimea, June 28, 1783. When the Crim Tartars resisted, thirty thousand of them were massacred by the Russians. The annexation of the Crimea to the Russian Empire was a terrible blow to the Ottoman Porte. The populace of Constantinople loudly demanded war against Russia; but the Divan, who was conscious of Turkish weakness, sought every expedient to avoid hostilities. Russia made immense military and naval preparations; and the Empress Catharine the Great had thorough understanding with the Emperor Joseph II. of Germany, who was now also hereditary sovereign of Austria, Bohemia and Hungary. England, then under the administration of the younger William Pitt, vainly endeavored to incite the Turks to take up arms against Russia; but they were restrained by France and Austria. After some negotiation, a new treaty between Russia and Turkey was signed at Constantinople, January 8, 1784. By this treaty Russia obtained the sovereignty of the Crimean peninsula, the island of Taman, and all that part of the Cuban which lay on the right bank of the Cuban river and which had formed a frontier between the Russian and Ottoman Empires. Turkey obtained the fortress of Oczakoff and all its territory, to which the Crim Tartars had some claims. Thus ended the Tartar dominion in the Crimea-a dominion which had existed there since the days of Zingis Khan's successors, and which had once been so terrible to Russia. The Empress Catharine the Great formed all of that vast country on the north side of the Black Sea into two new governments-Taurida and Caucasia. Paul Potemkin-the all-powerful favorite of the Czarina of Russia, and the chief director of her policy in Crimean affairs-founded the new capital Kherson, for the two new governments of Taurida and Caucasia. The happiness and prosperity of the inhabitants ceased with their freedom. The once splendid city of tents degenerated into a camp of gypsies, and the houses and palaces of stone fell into ruins. In May, 1787, the Czarina Catharine the Great visited her newly-acquired provinces of Taurida and Caucasia to do honor to Potemkin and to receive the homage of her new Tartar subjects. She embarked at Kiev, and sailed down the Dnieper with a sumptuous flotilla of twenty-two vessels. She was joined in her journey by King Stanislas Poniatowski of Poland, the victim of her wiles, and by the Emperor Joseph II. of Germany, who accompanied the Russian Empress in disguise and discussed with her their common plans for the spoliation of Turkey. In order to produce the impression that the newly-acquired territories were prosperous and blooming, Potemkin caused temporary villages to be erected along the route of the Czarina's journey, and peopled them with inhabitants brought from a distance and dressed in holiday attire, while herds of cattle and sheep grazed in the intervening pastures, and country festivals were held along the road; but no sooner had the brilliant procession passed than hamlets, people and herds disappeared like a scene in a drama. This affair fully illustrates the illusive character of this entire reign so far as civilization is concerned. The evident design of the Empress Catharine II. of expelling the Turks from Europe, and founding a new Christian empire. with Constantinople for its capital, and a member of the imperial House of Romanoff for its prince, and the aggressive conduct of Russia in the region of the Black Sea, alarmed the Ottoman Porte. For a long time the greatest animosity had existed be tween Russia and Turkey. The Turks could not endure the humiliating conditions which Russia had imposed upon them. The high tone which the court of St. Petersburg had assumed in its official communications wounded the pride of the Ottomans; and the remarkable journey of the Empress Catharine the Great and the Emperor Joseph II. excited intense alarm in Constantinople. where it was believed that the journey indicated a premeditated design of the imperial Houses of Romanoff and Hapsburg to annihilate the Ottoman Empire and to divide the spoil between them. England and Prussia dexterously fanned the smouldering flame in the Turkish capital; as they desired to be avenged on Russia for the obstacles which she had thrown in the way of renewing their treaty of commerce, and for the advantageous conditions which she had granted to France by the commercial treaty which she had concluded with that power. British jealousy had been excited by the great activity which Russia had displayed in carrying on her commerce in the Black Sea since she had obtained entire liberty of commerce by her treaties with Turkey, England fearing that her own commercial relations with the Ottoman Empire in the Black Sea might be destroyed. The Turks also complained of the hostile conduct of the Russian consul in Moldavia, |