to whom the imperial decree,* announcing thofe changes, was addreffed, was to act as deputy-vizier, or Raimakam. Military prepara tions were made, plans of action were formed, and troops were in motion, in both Turkey in Afia and Turkey in Europe. Of the operations in the former, fome account has already been given. Before we proceed to take a view of thofe in the latter, it will be proper to advert to the counfels and movements of the Ruffians, with which thofe of the Turks, in the prefent ftrange convulfion of the world, were, to all appearance, amicably blended. At the commencement of the war, the late emprefs of Ruffia, jealous of an union between Auftria and Pruffia, and not displeased to fee thefe preponderating powers of Germany exhauft their firength in a conflict with France, acceded, at first, to the confederacy of kings, only in name. But the afterwards, on the feceffion of Pruffia, became, in earneft, and had determined to fend a great force to the aid of the allies, as before related. Her fucceffor, on the Ruffian throne, inherited, from his illuftrious ancestors, a paffion for the farther aggrandizement of the empire, and from them too, as well as his own fituation, a difpofition to quafh popular innovation, and to maintain the common caufe of fovereigns. The latter of thefe principles appears to have been that which originally moved Paul I. in 1798, to take an active part with the coalition; though the latter was more and more developed by the progrefs of events, and feems even to have abforbed the original motive of action. He was unhackneyed in the intrigues and duplicity of courts: he avowed and moved ftraight forward to his object; which was the reftoration of the Bourbons to the throne of France. It was in the fame fpirit of hoflility to French innova From this decree, promulgated at the Porte, on the first of September, the following, as ferving to give an idea of the Turks and Turkish government, is extracted:"Now, it being incumbent upon all true believers to combat thofe faithlefs brutes, the French, and it being become a pofitive duty for our imperial perfon to deliver the bleed territories from their accurfed hands, and to revenge the infult which they have offered to Musulmen, no delay whatever is to take place for the arrival of the new vizier; but the moft vigorous measures must be pursued to attack them by fea and land. "Wherefore, by a deliberation with the illuftrious lawyers, minifters, and chieftaine, our fubjects, you must (with a full confidence in God and his prophet) fix upon the effectual means of freeing the province of Egypt from the prefence of fuch wretches. You will acquaint all the true believers, in the respective quarters, that we are at war with the French; and, turning night into day, will apply your utmost efforts to take revenge of them. "You will adopt the most vigilant conduct towards defending the other Mahometan provinces and our imperial frontiers, from the plots and malice of the enemy, by the due reinforcement of every port and place with troops and military stores. "You will likewife direct your zealous attention towards the due fupply of daily provifions to the inhabitants of this our imperial refidence; and will watch over the af fairs of all perfons in general, until the fupreine vizier do arrive. "We shall obferve your exertions, and may the omnipotent God ordain his divine favour to attend our undertakings, and render us fucceísful in the vindication of our caufe. !" See the declaration made by his majesty the emperor of all the Ruffias to the mem is of the German empire, in the fecond part of this volume. tion in modes and manners of life, is not very confiftent with the ftability of abfolute power; uniefs, indeed, he fhould have conceived or ventured to execute a defign of anticipating political fermentation and revolution, by gradual changes and progreflive improvement in the form of government, tions that he laboured, by certain of human nature, and of innnovaa domeftic regulations relating to drefs, equipage, and the ceremonial, of fociety, to preferve a due gradation of ranks, and the fupremacy of the court over the whole. Certain reverences were exacted from paffengers on the streets, not only to the imperial family but the principal officers of ftate. No one below a certain rank was allowed to put more than a certain number of horfes to his carriage. Ukafes, or royal edicts, were publifhed, for wearing cocked hats and directing all perfons to appear in buckles, both in their fhoes and at their knees, in waiftcoats with flaps, coats without capes, and frocks in ftead of neckcloths or handkerchiefs, without any kind of bolfter or ftuffing. No perfon was to wear boots with tops, or half-boots. For difobedience to thefe orders fome perfons were punished with a fhort imprifonment. Thefe regulations were generally confidered as trifling and unworthy of a great fovereign. They wore, indeed, an air of levity and ludicroufnefs: yet, the attention paid by Peter the Great to the regulation of drefs has not been condemned as either frivolous or unimportant. Peter was at pains to introduce new fashions; Paul to preferve the old. It may be even doubted, whether the policy of Paul was not, in this refpec, the wifeft, as being moft confonant with the fpirit of an abfolute government. If Peter the Great had lived to our day, he would have perceived what, perhaps, he did not, in his ardour to civilize and refine his people, forefce or think of, that a fpirit of improvement in the arts and feiences, and the concomitant fentiments of the dignity With the foul and life of the confederation against the French republic, the king of Great Britain, he entered into a close alliance, by a provifional treaty, done at St. Peterbugh, on the eighteenth of December, 1798. In the name of the moft holy and indivifible trinity, his majefty the king of Great Britain, and his majefty the emperor of all the Ruffias, in confequence of the alliance and friendship already fubfifting between them, being defirous to enter into a concert of meafures, fuch as might contribute, in the most efficacious man ner, to oppofe the fuccefies of the French arms, and the extenfion of the principles of anarchy, and to bring about a folid peace, together with the re-eftablishment of the balance of Europe, judged it to be worthy of their moft ferious confideration and earneft folicitude to endeavour, if poffible, to reduce France within its proper limits, as they fubfifted before the revolution. With the intention of inducing the king of Pruffa to take an active part in the war against the common enemy, they propofed to employ all their endeavours to obtain that end. His imperial majefty was ready to afford him a fuccour of land-forces, and he defined, for that purpofe, fortyfive thousand men, infantry and cavalry, with the neceflary artillery. With regard to the direction of this corps, and its combined operations with the Pruflian troops, the emperor of Ruffia was to arrange thefe with the king of Pruffia, and the arrangement to be made was to be communicated to his Britannic majefty, in order that, by fuch a concert between the high allies, the military operations against the enemy might be made with the greater fuccefs, and that the object propofed might be the more eafily afcertained. His Britannic majefty, on his part, engaged to furnish pecuniary fuccours: 225.000l. fterling, for the first and most urgent expenses; of which 75,000. was to be paid as foon as the troops fhould have paffed the Ruffian frontier; and that the other two moieties, of a like fum each, should be paid at the expiration of two fucceffive periods, of three months cach, thereafter. He agreed also to furnish to the Ruffian emperor a fabady of 75,000l. per month, to be computed from the day on which the corps of troops, above-mentioned, fhould pass the Ruffian frontiers. This fubfidy was to be paid at the commencement of each month, and, being deftined for the appointments and maintenance of the troops, it was to be continued during the fpace of twelve months, unlefs peace fhould be made sooner. Within that fpace of time, the contracting parties were to come to an understanding, whether, in cafe the war fhould not be terminated, the fubfidy above-mentioned should be continued. The contracting parties engaged not to make either peace or armiftice without including each other but if, through any unforefeen events, his Britannic majefty fhould be under the neceflity of terminating the war, and thereby of difcontinuing the fubfidy, before the expiration of the twelve months above ftipulated, he engaged, in that cafe, to pay three months advance of the fubfidy agreed on, reckoning from the day on which the information fhould be received by the general commanding the Ruffian troops. In like manner, if any aggreffion on Ruffia fhould take place, by which the emperor fhould be obliged to recall his army into his own dominions, the fubfidy fhould, in fuch cafe, be paid up only to the day on which the army fhould re-enter the territory of Ruffia. This treaty was to be confidered as provifional and its execution not to take place until the king of Pruffia fhould be determined to turn his forces against the common enemy. But, in cafe of his not doing fo, the contracting parties referved to themselves the right and the power to take, for the good of their affairs, and the fuccefs of the falutary end they might have in view, other meatures analogous to the times and circumftances, and to agree then on thofe which, in fuch a cafe, they fhould judge to be moft necellary. The emperor of all the Ruffias, nevertheless, in order to give a still more ftriking proof of his fincere difpofitions, and of his desire to be, as much as poffible, useful to his allies, promifed, even during the courfe of the negociation with his Pruflian majefty and before its termination, to put the corps of forty-five thousand men on fuch a footing that they might be immediately employed wherever, according to a previous concert amongst the allies, the utility of the common caufe might require. The The zeal of the emperor Paul, in the common caufe of crowned heads, was alfo manifefted in a declaration of war against Spain, in a manifefto, dated the fifteenth of July, 1799; in which, as well as in the manifefto to the German empire, the mind and views of the empefor, at that time, appear to be difplayed unequivocally and with fincerity. "Among the fmall number of European powers (faid he) who, in external appearance, feemed to be attached to the French monarchy, but who, in reality, are only reprefied by the dread of thofe rulers whom God hath abandoned, none has more evidently betrayed that dread, or that pufillanimous fubmiflion, than Spain: not, indeed, by affording them, hitherto, any effectual fuccours or co-operation, but by the actual preparations which he is now making. Fruitlefs have been all our efforts, and they were as forcible as it was poffible to make, to reconduct that power into the true path of honour and glory, and to unite with us. We declare war against the king of Spain; and we confequently give orders for fequeftrating and confifcating all the Spanish merchant-fhips which are at prefent in our ports; and we likewife charge all our commanders, both by fea and land, to treat as enemies the fubjects of his Spanish majefty, wherever they may meet with them." His imperial majefty, in the fame temper and tone, laid an embargo on the Hamburgh fhips in the Ruflian ports; and, in a menacing attitude, attempted to draw off not only that fmail, yet important, republic, but Sweden, Denmark, and even Pruffia, from their fyftem of neutrality to the fide of coalition. While his Ruffian majefty exerted his whole authority and influence to rouze a general attack on the French republic, he received into his friendship and protection those who had fuffered from its tyranny and oppreflion. To Lewis XVIH. as he was called by his adherents and his court, he gave an afylum in the capital of Courland. He received a number of emigrant French nobles into his military fervice: and, above all, he extended his protection and munificent patronage to the difperfed and ejected knights of Malta. The grand bailiff, the grand crofs, and other diftinguished members of this order, affembled at St. Petersburgh, in October, 1798, elected the emperor grand mafter of their order. His majefty, who is faid to have folicited, accepted this dignity, and exercifed its prerogatives, in conferring, with great pomp and folemnity, the order itfelf, as well as its different degrees, titles, and offices, on various perfons of diftinction. Count Litta, envoy-extraordinary from the pope, and the prince Serra Capriola, envoy from Naples, were honoured with the grand crofs. A new inftitution, under the name of a grand priory, was established at Petersburgh, in favour of the knights of Malta, and endowed with an annual revenue of 216,000 rubles. This was to ferve as a refidence and rallying place for all the knights. The motives, affigned by his imperial majefty for this act of munificence, were a regard to the common caufe of Chriftianity and Chriftendom, to which the illuftrious knights of Malta had been fo eminently fubfervient, to preferve that order, and to enable them to recover the pof feffions feffions that had been ravished from them by injuftice and violence; and to add a new incitement to the loyalty and bravery of the Ruffian nobles, by the hope of being admitted, in confequence of fignalized merit, into the illuftrious fraternity of the knights of St. John of Jerufalem. But, from this order no perfon of noble defcent, and otherwife properly qualified, according to the rules of the order, of any country in Chriftendom, was to be interdicted. To the ancient and ftanding laws of the order, his majefty added a number of regulations respecting his own new founda tion. The ukafe for this establishment was accompanied by a proclamation, declaring that any gentleman, of any Chriftian country, duly qualified, might be received as a knight of St. John, in the imperial refi-, dence of St. Petersburgh, and refide there in that character, and enjoy the emperor's particular favour and protection. "We flatter ourselves (fays his majefty) that, having through Divine Providence and hereditary right come to the imperial throne of our ancestors, we have it in our power to protect, maintain, and even increase and extend, the fplendour of an order fo ancient and renowned among the orders of chivalry, convinced that, by fuch a conduct, we fhall render an important fervice to the univerfe! The laws and regulations of this order infpire a love of virtue, form good morals, ftrengthen the bonds of fubordination, and prefent a powerful remedy against the prefeut mania for innovation, and the unbridled licentioufnefs of thinking. In fine, this order is an engine for aug menting the power, fecurity, and glory, of ftates." The emperor, in February, 1799, fent a note to all the foreign minif ters refident at Petersburgh, requefting them to make known, to their refpective courts, that he had accepted the title of "Grand mafter of the fovereign order of St. John of Jerufalem," of which St. Peterf burgh was henceforth to be the feat and chief refidence. Orders were alfo ifued to the ministers of Ruffia, not to receive any letters, addreffed to his imperial majesty, in which the title of " Grand master of the fovereign order of St. John of Jerufalem" fhould be omitted. On this new inftitution, for the prefervation of an ancient order, though its patron and head was neither unmarried nor a catholic, the aged, infirm, and unfortunate pope, Pius VI. in the monastery of Caffien, near Florence, beftowed his approbation, fanction, and paternal and apoftolical benediction, on the fifth of November, 1798. This account of the new grand priory at St. Petersburgh, would have been altogether difproportionate to the fcale of this narrative, if fubfequent events and pretenfions, recently brought forth, had not given them much importance. The emperor of Ruffia, with the difpofitions, and under the engagements, above mentioned, made war on France by fea and land. A Ruffian fquadron, of twelve fail of the line, was fent to co-operate with the British fleets, in the German Ocean, off the coaft of Britain; and another, on the twenty-fifth of Auguft, 1799, appeared in the canal of Conftantinople, where it. was joined by a Turkish fquadron. The combined fleet, confifting of |