motion by Sir Stratford Canning (afterwards Lord Stratford de Redcliffe), for an inquiry whether Messrs. Bell & Co. were entitled to indemnity for the seizure and confiscation of their ship, the Vixen, by the Russians, while she was trading on the coast of Circassia. Lord Palmerston, Lord John Russell, Dr. Lushington, and other ministerialists, assumed that Turkey had at one time a right of sovereignty over Circassia, which had since been transferred by her to Russia. Dr. Lushington said: "The right of Turkey to Circassia was acknowledged in 1783 by Russia, and surely Russia was justified in taking, by the treaty of Adrianople, in 1829, a cession of her right to that country." Lord John Russell said: "The port of Soudjuk-kalé apparently did not belong to Russia until the year 1783. Up to that period the fact was acknowledged that it belonged to Turkey, in the map put forth by the Russian authorities. In that map a great part of Circassia was laid down as belonging to independent tribes; but three of the places so laid down as belonging to Turkey were, by the subsequent treaty of Adrianople, transferred by name to Russia. These places were Soudjuk-kalé, Poti, and Anapa. They were named specially in the treaty, and thence has arisen a claim on the part of Russia that the whole of that territory which had belonged to Turkey since belongs to her, and has been confirmed to and comes under her dominion." Lord Palmerston also recognized Circassia as being a portion of the Russian dominions, and consequently he justified the seizure of the Vixen.*

Mr. Bell, however, contended that neither Russia nor Turkey had any right, either de jure or de facto, to sovereignty over Circassia, and brought forward the following evidence in support of his views: In 1774, Russia and Turkey, with the view of terminating a war which had been carried on between them with various success, entered into the treaty of Kutshuk Kaynardji, whereby the Tartars of Martens' Receuil des Traités, vol. iv, p. 607.

+ Bell's Journal. Appendix No. XIII.

the Crimea, Bugine, the Kooban, Yedissan, Giambuiluc, and Sedicul, were recognized as free nations, entirely independent of any foreign power, and as being under the government of their own Khan, of the race of Jengheez Khan, who was to govern them according to their ancient laws and customs, without ever rendering any account whatsoever to any foreign power. Turkey agreed not to interfere in their domestic concerns, though, as the Sultan was the supreme head, or caliph, of Mohammedism, which was their faith, their religious affairs should be regulated according to the precepts of that religion. And Russia restored to them all the towns, forts, and places she had taken (excepting Kertsch and Yenikalé) in the Crimea, the Kooban, the territory between the rivers Berda, Conschiwode, etc.; Turkey likewise renouncing her rights over these same places. In this treaty the Circassians are not mentioned by name, but they are included under the general head of Tartars of the Kooban. Circassia, properly so called, is the country lying between the River Kooban and the Black Sea, and, together with the extensive district lying along the north bank of the river, is indiscriminately called "the Kooban." The treaty also recognizes this territory as being under the jurisdiction of the Khan of the Crimea, but, in point of fact, that personage had authority only over the Crimea, the island of Taman, and that part of the Kooban district situated on the north bank of that river; over Circassia he neither had, nor ever pretended to have, any right of dominion.

In 1779, an explanatory convention was made between Russia and Turkey, in which it was stipulated that the Khans of the Tartars might send to the Sublime Porte, on their own behalf as well as on that of their subjects, deputies with "mahzars" (letters) conceived in such terms as should be fixed to serve once for all. In these was to be expressed the acknowledgment of the supreme caliphate of the Mohammedan religion in the person of the Sultan. Turkey bound Martens' Receuil des Traités, vol ii, p 374.

herself not in any manner, nor under any pretext of spiritual commission or influence, to disturb or offer any constraint to the civil or political power of the khans. Nevertheless, four years had scarcely elapsed after the signing of this supplement to the treaty of Kaynardji, when the Empress of Russia (the infamous Catherine II), under the pretext of avenging an insult committed against the Khan of the Crimea by the governor of the island of Taman, marched an army into the Crimea, and, with unexampled fraud and duplicity, deposed the khan himself, carried him away into Russia, and put an end to his independent sovereignty. In justification of this outrage, she published a manifesto on the 8th of April, 1783,* in which she stated that "her duty to herself and the preservation of the security of her empire equally demanded her taking the firm resolution to put an end, once for all, to the troubles in the Crimea; and for that purpose she annexed to her empire the peninsula of Crimea, the island of Taman, and all the Kooban, as a just indemnification for the losses sustained, and the expenses she had been obliged to incur in maintaining the peace and welfare of those territories." +

The annexation of that portion of Circassia called the Kooban, by Russia, was, however, effected only on paper; and by another treaty with Turkey, concluded on the 8th January, 1784,‡ the empress ceded the fort of Soudjak-calessi to the Porte, and renounced her claims to sovereignty over all the Tartar nations between the River Kooban and the Black Sea, which territory is, in fact, Circassia proper. Dr. Lushington's assertion, therefore, that the right of Turkey to Circassia was acknowledged by Russia, in 1783, was unjustifiable and absurd; yet it was the ground taken by the British government for not pressing against Russia the claim for indemnity for the seizure of the Vixen. The ignorance of the

Martens' Receuil des Traités, vol. iv, p 444.

+ Ibid., vol. iii, p. 352. Convention Expiicatoire entre la Russie et la Porte. Annual Register for 1781.

facts of the case manifested by Lord John Russell was astonishing; he seems really to have known nothing about Circassia or her relations with Russia and Turkey.

By the treaty of Adrianople (14th September, 1829),* the frontier line between the two empires in Asia was defined to be that "which, following the actual limits of Gouriel to the Black Sea, ascends towards the borders of Imeritia, and thence in the straightest direction to the point of junction of the frontiers of the pashaliks of Akhaltzik and Kars with those of Georgia, leaving in this way to the north, and, within this line, the town of Akhaltzik, and the fort of Akhalkalaki, at a distance of not less than two hours' journey. All the countries to the south and west of this line of demarcation towards the pashaliks of Kars and Trebizond, with the greater part of the pashalik of Akhaltzik, were to remain in perpetuity under the dominion of the Sublime Porte; whilst those which were situated to the north and east of the said line, towards Georgia, Imeritia, and Gouriel, as well as all the littoral of the Black Sea, from the mouth of the Kooban to the Port of St. Nicholas inclusively, were to remain in perpetuity under the dominion of the empire of Russia."

The insidious wording of this clause enabled the Russians to prosecute their designs against the Circassians. These had long been perceived by the Turks, who, in 1784, built the fort of Anapa, near the Strait of Yenikalé, on the coast of Abasia, at the foot of the Elburz mountains, to keep the Russians in check, and to maintain communication with the Circassians, whom they secretly instigated to make war upon the Czar. This fort was taken by the Russians in 1807, and held by them for five years; but was restored to Turkey, in 1812, by the peace of Bucharest. During the peaceful interval of fifteen years which followed that treaty, the Turks used every effort to indoctrinate the Caucasian nations with

• Martens' Recueil des Traités, vol. viii, p. 143. Bell, Journal, Appendix XIII.

+ Martens' Receuil, vol. iii, p. 397.

Islamism, although the latter had for a long time previously been Mohammedans, for the most part. The hatred which they all bore to the "yellow-haired Giaours" made this an easy task; but, notwithstanding the close union of policy and sympathy thus created between the Turks and the Circassians by the proximity of a common foe, and although Anapa was a Turkish fortress on Circassian soil, the Turks did not claim any right to interfere in the domestic affairs of the native tribes, but recognized them as perfectly independent.

Then came the war of 1827, which was ended by the treaty of Adrianople above cited. This settled the independence of Greece, and limited the respective boundaries of the Russian and Turkish empires in Asia. Let it be borne in mind that it was the boundary of the Turkish empire which was in question, and that was settled by the cession of Anapa to Russia, and by the running of the border line, as mentioned in the treaty. No question arose as to the Circassians; but by inserting the words "the littoral of the Black Sea," the Russians pretended that all the countries lying between that sea and the Caspian had been ceded to them. They had shortly before this wrested Georgia from Persia, and thus had inclosed the independent tribes of the Caucasus in a network of Russian possessions. Having cut them off from Turkey and Persia, they then proceeded to subject them. But enough has been adduced to prove that, up to this period, and, indeed, until their final subjugation, the Circassians were independent of both Russia and Turkey, the blundering statements of English politicians to the contrary notwithstanding. Their war of resistance against subjugation, though unsuccessful, produced as many examples of heroism as any other war on record, and is, unfortunately, another proof that the poet's aphorism of Freedom's battle being ever won at last, though often baffled, must be accepted with considerable allowance for exceptional cases.

But their hostility to the Russians, and their profession of Mohammedism, were not the only ties between the Circas