We must now call attention to the first act of importance of the allied English and French fleets in the Black Sea. This was the bombardment of Odessa, together with the destruction of its fortifications, batteries, military magazines, and the burning or sinking of many Russian ships of war and merchantmen. Just previously to the attack on Odessa, thirteen Russian trading-vessels were captured between the 13th and 16th of April, by the English ships Retribution and Niger, and the French imperial frigate Descartes.

We have already briefly alluded to the town of Odessa in our second chapter, but some further account of what it lately was (condensed from Mr. Shirley Brook's recent little volume),* will afford considerable interest. The appearance of Odessa from the sea is striking its bold cliffs are crowned by white buildings, some of which have a classical character. The most prominent is a mansion of Prince Woronzoff;t and the next object which strikes you is a gigantic staircase, consisting of nearly 200 steps, leading directly down from the centre of the town to the beach. At the head of the staircase stands an elegant statue of the Duc de Richelieu, a French emigrant, who became governor of Odessa, devoted himself to its improvement, and died in honourable poverty. The town is of great extent; its streets are broad, though many are unpaved, and the rest insufficiently so. The dust in the streets is of a peculiar character, and so plentiful, that the slightest breeze covers the passenger with a white powder. At times the clouds of dust are so dense that the opposite houses can hardly be discerned. When rain falls, matters are worse, and the sojourner at Odessa is in mud to the ankles. The town has a museum, a public library, an opera-house, a national theatre, and a newspaper; but the latter is beneath con

tempt, the censorship preventing its containing any real information, and its critical articles being the very washiest of French flippancies.

But Odessa is a busy port, the great focus into which is concentrated the result of the agricultural industry of the southern Russian empire. Wheat is delivered there from enormous distances, to be poured into the ships which have crossed the Black Sea to receive it. It is collected from a vast extent of country; and both water and land carriage are employed to transmit it to the harbour of Odessa. England, France, Spain, Denmark, Sardinia, Naples, Sweden, Sicily, and Turkey-all, according to their respective needs, send vessels to fetch the wheat thus gathered. The place itself has little or no actual connexion with agriculture. Situated without the dreary waste called a steppe, the town is not devoid of patches of land where something approaching to fertility may be occasionally witnessed. But scarcely has the traveller's foot left the widely-extended and wretchedly-paved streets, on his progress inland, than he finds himself in the desert of the steppe.

The highest style of abode presented by Odessa is the palace of the noble; the lowest is the tub of the fruit-woman. The first would do honour to any capital of Europe; the inhabitants of the second are not troglodytes, and that is all. Between these two extremes ranges every variety of residence. The lighting of the town is extremely defective; it is confined to a series of oil-lamps, which just serve to mark out the corners of the streets, and occasionally to preserve the pedestrian from an open drain. For the absence of gas there is no reason at all, except that one which will ever oppose all improvement in Russia. The habit of bigoted or interested hostility to every change has repeatedly interfered when smokes her pipe, chaffers with her customers, and It was burnt during the bombardment. says her prayers. After business is over she ascerThese uncomfortable habitations Mr. Brooks tains in which quarter the wind sits, turns the closed describes in the following humorous manner-end of her tub towards that quarter, and creeps to "The tub residences to which I referred are among rest in peace and tranquillity. But some of these the features of the monster market here, and they women are ambitious, and take to building. They are inhabited by women. Elevation, ground-plan, do not, indeed, demand marble staircases and maand other architectural contrivances, are all com- hogany doors; but they take two tubs, which are prehended in a single effort. A large black cask, laid face to face, at a distance of three or four feet, somewhat resembling a sugar hogshead, is laid on and over the interstice, tubs and all, is placed a its side, and the house is built. A quantity of hay watertight canvas. The fair occupant (and two or is laid inside, and the house is furnished. The lady three whom I saw, though not literally fair, were gets in upon the hay, and the house is inhabited. extremely pretty) has then two rooms, besides a Before the entrance of the mansion she strews the hall; but this luxury is not adopted by the older onions, tomatas, or whatever else she may vend; and class, who think that we ought to adhere to the during the hours of business she sits in the tub, customs of our ancestors."

• The Russians of the South.

it has been endeavoured to establish a gas manufactory; and so the inhabitants of Odessa have gone on nightly breaking their shins, and tumbling into their dirty drains, for want of an article no respectable village

is without.

The general aspect of Odessa has frequently been compared to that of Brighton. At the south-easterly end of the town runs a long fortified mole, with a lighthouse at the end of it. It is called the quarantine mole, and shelters a crowd of ships of all nations. In the attack on Odessa, the English and French ships had orders to avoid injuring the quarantine mole, if possible. At the northern extremity of the cliffs surrounding the town stood the imperial mole, which enclosed a number of Russian ships of all kinds, and some large stores or barracks. Between these two moles was a battery at the foot of the cliffs.

Thus much of the town of Odessa, which was fated to punishment in expiation of the massacre of Sinope. Now for the hostilities against it, and the immediate cause of them. News of the English declaration of war having reached the allied fleet (then anchored at Baltshik Bay, near Varna) on the 9th of April, the English steam-frigate Furious was sent to Odessa, for the purpose of taking on board the consuls, and such British or French subjects as might be anxious to leave the town. The Furious carried a flag of truce at her mast-head, and sent forward a boat, also bearing a white flag, to demand the consuls. Some delay occurred before an answer was returned, and the officer in command of the boat thought it right to return to the ship. As he did so, seven cannon-shots were fired from the batteries of the town at the boat, and in the direction of the ship. Happily this piece of treachery was without effect. It is regarded by all civilised nations as a barbarous outrage to fire upon a flag of truce. The white unspotted symbol of peace hung out by those who, influenced by a faith in their common humanity, approach an enemy with pacific proposals, is ever considered as sacred, except by savages. The conduct of the officers who directed this attack is without a precedent in the history of the wars of civilised nations.

Admiral Dundas and Vice-admiral Hamelin immediately proceeded to a consideration of the measures necessary to prevent the repetition of so cowardly and shameful a proceeding. Three war-steamers (two English

VOL. IV.

and one French) were sent to Odessa to demand why the boat with the flag of truce had been fired upon. An evasive reply was given: the vessels then demanded a written. answer; and Baron Osten-Sacken, the military governor there, returned the following note, which we insert, as containing a Russian view of the question :

"Aide-de-camp General Baron D'OstenSacken thinks it right to express to Admiral Dundas his surprise at hearing that shots were fired from the port of Odessa upon the frigate the Furious, bearing a flag of truce.

"At the arrival of the Furious two guns were fired without ball, in consequence of which the vessel hoisted its national flag, and stopped her course beyond the reach of cannon-shot. Immediately a boat was sent out with a white flag in the direction of the mole, and the officer on duty, in answer to the question of the English officer, said that the English consul had already left Odessa. Without further question, the boat took the direction of the ship, when the frigate, without waiting for it, advanced towards the mole, leaving the boat at its left, and approached the batteries within cannon-shot. It was then that the commander of the battery of the mole, faithful to his order to prevent any vessel from coming within reach of the guns, thought it his duty to fire, not upon the flag of truce, which had been respected to the end of its mission, but upon a vessel of the enemy which had approached the land too nearly after having been twice fired upon without ball-the signal to stop.

"This simple explanation of facts, as they have been related to the emperor, ought of itself to destroy the supposition, otherwise inadmissible, that in the ports of Russia there is no respect paid to the flag of truce, the inviolability of which is guaranteed by the laws common to all civilised nations..

"BARON OSTEN-SACKEN, "Aide-de-camp General to his majesty the emperor."

indescribable aggression committed by the
authorities of Odessa upon one of our frigates
and her boat, both carrying a flag of truce;
inasmuch as, notwithstanding this flag, the
batteries of the town fired several shots
on the frigate as well as on the boat,
at the moment when this boat was leaving
the quay of the mole, to which it had
repaired with confidence; the two vice-
admirals commanding the combined squa-
drons of France and England think them-
selves entitled to demand a reparation from
your excellency. Consequently, all the
British, French, and Russian vessels now at
anchor near the citadel or the batteries of
Odessa must forthwith be delivered up to
the combined squadrons. If, at sunset, the
two vice-admirals have received no answer,
or a negative answer, to this communica-
tion, they will be compelled to resort to
force to avenge the flag of one of the com-
bined squadrons for the affront offered to
it, although the interests of humanity in-
duce them to adopt this alternative with
regret, and they cast the responsibility of
such an act on those to whom it belongs.

"HAMELIN, Vice-admiral.
"D. DUNDAS, Vice-admiral."

waltzers. The Russian guns from the mole
answered with great steadiness, and with
some effect. In about an hour, the French
steamer Vauban was riddled in several
places, and set on fire by red-hot shot.
In this condition she retired from the
contest, and steamed towards the fleet;
but the fire being subdued, she returned to
her post.* Fierce and continued as that
incessant fire from the steamers was, it did
not succeed in silencing the mole. But
the Russian fire became slower; and about
one o'clock a shed at the back of the tongue-
battery having caught fire, a few minutes
a terrific explosion and a gigantic column of
smoke and dust announced that the im-
perial magazine had blown up. Great part
of the mole on which it stood was rent in
pieces by the violence of the shock. This
result was received by three cheers from
the French and English crews.
It was
caused by the red-hot shot of the Terrible,
which stood nearer in towards the town
than the rest of the ships; and consequently
was more exposed to the fire from the
Russian batteries. This vessel fired no less
than 572 rounds of shot and shell, besides
fifty-one rockets.

The assailing squadron was thus relieved To this demand no answer was returned. from their most formidable opponent, the The allied fleets had made their appearance, battery on the imperial mole. Signals were and cast anchor before Odessa on the 21st, made to stand in further, and continue the having resolved to chastise it by means of attack; and the allies turned their attention bombardment, usually one of the most ap-more immediately to the Russian vessels in palling operations of war. Early on Satur- the harbour, pouring upon them deadly day morning, the 22nd of April, the follow-streams of shot and shell. A Russian frigate ing vessels advanced to the attack:-the was soon on fire, and after burning to the Mogador, Vauban, Descartes, Caton (French); the Sampson, Terrible, Tiger, Retribution, Furious, and a detachment of rocket-boats, under Commander Dixon. The Sanspariel and Highflyer acted as a reserve; the rest of the allied fleets remained spectators, at a distance of about three miles and-a-half.

The attacking force opened their fire upon the imperial mole at about twenty minutes to seven. Every steamer poured forth her broadside, and then wheeled round in a circle of about half-a-mile in diameter, each taking up the fire in succession. A spectator describes these great floating castles as wheeling and twisting about like so many

The following passage is an extract from a letter by an officer of one of the vessels engaged at the bombardment of Odessa:-"The Vauban was obliged to leave the scene of action, having been set on fire by a red-hot shot, which penetrated the outer planking, and rolled down between it and the inner

water's edge, blown into shatters. Two new frigates on the stocks were also burnt, together with from twenty to thirty merchantmen. Some smaller vessels of war are supposed also to have been sunk or burnt.

After the imperial mole had been blown up, the guns from the batteries on the quarantine mole opened a fire upon the fleet. This was replied to with interest; but though the batteries suffered considerably, they were not silenced. Each of the vessels not engaged in the action had sent a rocket-boat, firing 24-pound rockets, to attempt the destruction of the stores,

lining, towards the bottom of the vessel. Having burnt its way through inside, it was soon removed and all put to rights again; but they were rather apprehensive of the ship blowing up, from its proximity to the magazine, which they cleared away immediately."