nces as occasion seemed to require; the Russian leaders
the while consolidating their hold upon the provinces thus occupied by
deposing the hospodars, levying taxes and rations for the troops, taking
the direction of the militia and municipalities, and when payments were
made for anything giving only Russian paper, which it was never intended
to redeem. Vast quantities of corn were accumulating upon the Danube and
at Odessa, which could not be exported. The Russian armies must be fed;
and it was a part of the policy of the occupation to detain these stores
for any emergency that might arise. With all these evils pressing
down the unfortunate Wallachians and Moldavians, forced enlistment was
resorted to; and the boyards who refused complicity with the treasonable
hospodars were placed in the Russian ranks. To crown all the horrors
which filled with fear these wasted and tortured lands, cholera, which
broke out in the corps of General Luders, communicated itself to the
people of the country, and every town and many districts, from the
windings of the Danube to the confines of Podolia, were swept by the
cold hand of the unseen messenger of woe. As statements of all these
calamities reached Western Europe, the people of England were
indignant; and although the desire for peace was intense, the increasing
indignation of the British people was loudly expressed. None of
these things moved their government--their faith was in protocols
and protests, both very gentle and harmless; and the Western powers
literally did nothing effective during the summer and autumn until the
10th of September, when the French ambassador, as if in sudden alarm,
and without any orders from his government or concert with his colleague
of the British embassy, ordered three frigates to ascend the Sea of
Marmora and anchor in the Bosphorus. The English minister, after much
importunity, adopted a similar measure; but pains were taken to make the
Czar and the world believe that this measure was intended to protect the
Porte from its own subjects, and not from him. Indeed, the allies seemed
to name Russia with "'bated breath;" while Russia was filling the world
with boasting, fabricating reports of successes over the tribes
of Central Asia, pushing a force even to Bokhara, and menacing and
wheedling Persia by turns. The _Petersburg Gazette_ threatened that if
England went to war, peace should be dictated to her from Calcutta; she
was treated by the emperor a