THE DANUBIAN PRINCIPALITIES.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5157, 2 October 1877, Page 3

THE DANUBIAN PRINCIPALITIES.

(From The Times, May 31.) Sir P. Colquhoun, Q.C., writes to us :—“ If war does nothing else, it at least teaches geography. Pew knew where Wallachia and Moldavia, now christened Ronmania, lay ; perhaps not many know even now, and fewer still the history of those provinces ; it appears the Prince himself does not, or will not, know it. Before the Ottomans sat down before Vienna these provinces were ruled by native Princes, and long before this and the days of Trajan, Dacia was used as a place of exile for Roman gentlemen who had offended the Emperor. Ovid wrote his “ Tristitia ” in Mmsia, now Roumelia, on the other side of the Danube, not far from the Dobrudscha, whence he vainly endeavored to soften the hearts of the Emperors Augustus and Tiberius. That the Roman colonisation of the Principalities must have been very strong is evidenced by the present language being almost as nearly allied to the Latin as Italian. When the Ottoman army was before Vienna, .it is storied that Maurocordatos, then Dragoman of the Porte, accompanied the army of Kara Mustafa, and was sent into Vienna on some diplomatic mission. It is said the Emperor appealed to him in the name of Christianity to prevent the Ottomans overrunning Europe, which would have been the case had Vienna fallen. The Turks had a legendary belief that if a city held out more than forty days it was impregnable. Maurocordatos persuaded Kara Mustafa to delay the assault. In the meantime John Sobieski, King of Poland, arrived and delivered the city. For this treacherous service Maurocordatos was created a Count of the Holy Roman Empire, a dignity still enjoyed by his descendants. The Wallachians and Moldavians, at that time distracted by internal struggles for the Princedom, placed themselves voluntarily under the suzerainty of the Porte, then a powerful State, for protection against themselves, with the condition that a Christian should be appointed Hospodar, and no Mahometan allowed to settle in the country. The first was Maurocordatos, and it thenceforth became the right of the Tergeman Kffendi, who was always a Fanariot Greek. No sooner was a Dragoman appointed Prince than his successor intrigued to obtain his dismissal and his own appointment. Ipsilante was the last under this regime, and after him native princes were appointed by the Porte. Russia had already begun to interfere, and had occupied the Principalities more than once. The Principalities were first combined under Couza, who was succeeded by the present ruler, and Europe was satisfied to interpose a neutral territory between Russia and the rest of Europe. The tillers of the soil were, till within a very recent period, pnedial slaves, and the gipsies were led in gangs, and sold in this eminently Christian country. When Prince Charles talks of “ vnssaldom” he forgets that that word imports “ noble tenure,” and that many Kings

of Prance were vassals of their own subjects. He also ignores the fact of the Wallachians and Moldavians having placed themselves voluntarily under the suzerainty and protection of the and there are many Bayzards who still remember the contemptuous treatment they experienced from the Russian Governors during their occupation of the country as a “ material guarantee.” Such is shortly the history of the Principalities since 1683, and the high-flown language of Prince Charles under Russian coercion is transparent to such as know this fruitful land and its wretched inhabitants.”