XXI. 4788. BOOK power has the Porte offended? Whose territories have the Ottoman troops invaded? In the country of what prince is the Turkish standard displayed? Content with the boundaries of empire assigned her by GoD and his prophet, the wishes of the Porte are for peace; but if the court of Russia be determined in her claims, the Sublime Porte, appeal. ing to the world for the justice of her proceedings, must prepare for war, relying on the decrees of Hea ven, and confident of the interposition of the Prophet of prophets, who will protect his faithful ser vants in the hour of every difficulty." The Russian court however appeared no less resolute to maintain and substantiate, than that of Constantinople to resist her claims; and prince Po temkin, a nobleman of great influence and authority at the court of Petersburg, was delegated to take possession of the countries in question, in the name of the empress. A war now therefore ap peared inevitable; but, happily for the interests of humanity, the two leading kingdoms of Europe were at this period governed by wise and beneficent ministers, who sincerely wished to secure to mankind the inestimable blessings of universal peace. Cession of From motives which reflected the highest honor by the on those celebrated statesmen, the comte de Ver Kussia. gennes and Mr. Fox offered the mediation of their the Crimea Turks to respective sovereigns to effect an accommodation: XXI. 1789. and the Porte, perceiving itself in a manner aban- BOOK doned by France her antient ally, and wholly unable to contend against that tide of adverse fortune which threatened to overwhelm the empire of the Ottomans in final and remediless ruin, at length most reluctantly assented to the cession of the provinces actually in the possession of Russia; and a treaty or convention to this purport was signed in the month of January 1784. 1 Thus did the court of Petersburg, with no ex pence of blood or treasure, acquire an invaluable addition of territory, affording an unbounded scope for the aggrandizement of her commercial and maritime power, and which extended the limits of her empire from the frozen sea of Archangel to the utmost shores of the Euxine. A new city, called Cherson, had been already founded by the empress in the centre of her Turkish conquests, destined probably, at some future period, to become the emporium of wealth and the seat of power. The former designations of the ceded countries were now, by the imperial mandate, abolished. Those barbarous names so offensive to classic fastidiousness were no longer heard, and the antient appellations, after the lapse of a thousand years, restored. The Crimea became the Taurica-Actiar was changed to Sebastopolis-Caffa was lost in Theodosia--and the Bog was happily superseded by the Hypanis. BOOK 1788. Death of The political state of the remaining countries of Europe either requires no distinct animadversion, or would lead to discussions not within the limits of Joseph I. the king of present history. It may however be transiently Portugal. remarked, that an event very little to be lamented took place February 1777, in the death of don Joseph I. king of Portugal. His reign was marked in the records of history only by weakness and calamity; it was deeply stained with domestic blood, and rendered detestable by worse than Dionysian devices of cruelty. The earthquake of 1755 had laid his capital in ruins, and shook the kingdom, in a political as well as physical sense, to its centre. The conspiracy of 1757 awakened all the malignity of ceaseless suspicion, and filled the dungeons of the state with the most virtuous of her citizens. Saved from ruin in the ensuing war with Spain by the interposition of England, this monarch could not forget nor forgive the magnitude of the obligation; and the commerce of the British merchants, under the arbitrary and capricious conduct of the marquis de Pombal, his favorite minister, suffered under continual oppression. He was succeeded by his eldest daughter, donna Isabella, married by virtue of a papal dispensation to don Pedro, brother to the late king. At her accession the prison-doors were thrown open, and eight hundred persons were set at liberty; but these were XXI. said to bear a very small proportion to the numbers BOOK who had perished in those regions of darkness and despair, under the sufferings and horrors of their confinement. 1783. parliament, Pursuant to the intimation in the concluding Session of speech of the last session, the parliament of Great Nov. 1783. Britain was convened at an early period of the winter, November 11, 1783; and his majesty stated, as a principal object of their consideration, the situ ation of the East-India Company. "The utmost exertions of their wisdom (he said) would be required to maintain and improve the valuable advantages derived from our India possessions, and to promote and secure the happiness of the native inhabitants of those provinces." The address passed without opposition. Mr. Pitt, in his speech on this occasion, warned the ministers, "that, as to the affairs of India, it would not be enough to attempt measures of palliation and of a temporary nature; that would only increase the danger by removing it to a distance, and he expressed his surprise that this important business had been so long postponed." Mr. Fox, well pleased at this language, acknowledged "that the state of India was such as would ill brook delay in their deliberations, and he was happy to give notice that on that day se'nnight he should be prepared to make a motion relative to India." BOOK On the 18th of November, accordingly, Mr. Fox moved for leave to bring in a bill for vesting the affairs of the East-India Company in the hands of India bill certain commissioners, for the benefit of the pro 1789. Mr. Fox's moved. prietary and the public. The plan proposed by Mr. Fox was marked with all the characteristics of his ardent and daring mind. The total derangement of the finances of the Company, and their utter incompetency to govern the vast territories of which they had, by very questionable means, obtained the possession, was too evident to admit of contradiction. The evil was notorious; the only difficulty was to devise an adequate remedy. This famous bill proposed no less than to take from the directors and proprietors the entire administration, not of their territorial merely, but of their commercial affairs, and to vest the management and direction of them in the hands of seven commissioners named in the bill, and irremovable by the crown, except in consequence of an address of either house of parliament. These were earl Fitzwilliam, president of the board; viscount Lewisham, eldest son to the earl of Dartmouth; the right honorable Frederic Montague; the honorable George Augustus North; sir Gilbert Elliot, sir Henry Fletcher, baronets; and Robert Gregory, esq. who, it could not fail to be remarked, were divided upon the mo del and in the same proportion as the members of the cabinet. These commissioners were to be as |