In the meantime the war between Russia and the Porte went on but slowly. Early in the year the czarina made some attempts to detach the Greek subjects of the sultan from their obedience, and a rebellion was fomented by her means in Albania, and an extensive plan was arranged by the Greeks for emancipating themselves from the Ottoman yoke. A memorial, offering the sovereignty of Greece to Constantine her son, was laid before the czarina, but before the plan could be matured she was induced to postpone her attempts upon Turkey. It was late in the autumn before Suvaroff received reinforcements, supplies, and positive orders to commence operations, and he then invested Ismael, which he captured; slaying 24,000 Turkish soldiers, and destroying 7,000 of the inhabitants. The loss of the Russians themselves was estimated at 10,000 men, including a great number of officers, some of whom were of the highest rank.
The King of Sweden opened the campaign early in this year, and penetrated within one hundred miles of St. Petersburg. Alarmed at the approach of her enemies, the czarina sent 10,000 Russians, under the command of General Ingelstrom, to obstruct their progress. Ingelstrom attacked the Swedes in their lines at Karnomkoksi, on the Saima Lake, but he was defeated with the loss of 2000 men. Gustavus still advanced, while his fleet, under the Duke of Suclermania, sailed up the Gulf of Finland, penetrated into the harbour of Revel, in the hope of demolishing that great naval arsenal, and a division of the Russian fleet which lay at anchor in that harbour. He was frustrated by a storm, and, subsequently, he was twice attacked by Russian squadrons, which on both occasions enclosed his fleet; but each time he extricated himself from danger, though with great loss cf ships and men. Having recruited his shattered forces, Gustavus took the command of the fleet himself, and having encountered a large Russian fleet, after a bloody battle, which lasted two days, he gained a decisive victory. This defeat alarmed the czarina, and being abandoned by Austria and threatened by England and Prussia, she entered into negociation with Gustavus, and by the month of August a treaty of peace was concluded between them. By this treaty those of Abo and Nystad were confirmed; each power was to retain what it possessed before the war; and Sweden renounced all claim to the possessions which had once belonged to it, and which it had overrun during the present war. Russia also granted permission to export grain from Livonia; and it was mutually agreed to appoint commissioners to settle in an amicable manner the line of frontier between the two countries: the two courts further promised themselves that they should strengthen their connexion by a close alliance, and agreed to forget what was past.
In Paris, during this year, the national assembly pursued its legislative labours. All ecclesiastical possessions had, at the close of the preceding year, been declared national property, and the reformers soon after laid their hands on the domains of the crown: with the exception of some castles, which were to be left to the king, the rest were transferred to the state. To facilitate the sale of the possessions of the crown and the church, paper money was created, which was at first ordered to last only six years, but which was subsequently declared current money—as good as gold. These measures were followed by the suppression of all orders and cloisters; by the suppression of the parliaments; by an entire change of the judicial system; by the admission of Jews to the rights of citizens; by the abolition of all the titles of the noblesse, coats of arms, and decorations of the order of chivalry; by an order that the estates of Protestants who fled from France on the iniquitous repeal of the edict of Nantz, should be restored; by a division of France into eighty-three departments, subdivided into two hundred and forty-nine districts, each of which was composed of from three to five cantons; and by a change in the national representation, which was made to harmonize with this new division. To all these decrees the king, who had no alternative, gave his unqualified sanction, and in return the national assembly fixed the civil list of the king at 25,000,000 of livres, besides the possession of castles of pleasure. Harmony seemed to be restored, and to establish it a festival of confederation was ordained, which, on the first anniversary of the capture of the Bastille, was held in the field of Mars, when the king and 500,000 Frenchmen swore on the altar of the country to observe the new constitution. But notwithstanding all this show of harmony, a secret fermentation remained. The abolition of titles and the insignia of rank inflamed the anger of the aristocrats, and the manifestations of their wrath increased the hatred of the commons. A new emigration took place, and officers, as well as nobles, fled for their lives. The emigrants assembled in arms at Coblentz, Worms, and Ettenheim, from whence, maintaining a close connexion with their friends or dependants at home, they cast firebrands into the interior of the kingdom. Nor did the priesthood quietly submit to the civil constitution which the national assembly imposed upon them: they refused to take the oath, and stirred up many against public authority and the new constitution. The friends of liberty were alarmed and exasperated at the open and secret preparations of this twofold and implacable opposition. In this state of irritation all that was known was friend and enemy; and these relations effected the triumph of the fanatic and the fall of the moderate. One of the first who fell was Necker, to whose counsels the nation was indebted for most of the concessions of the king, and consequently for its success: Necker lost all his popularity, and fled from a country which he had contributed to ruin. The king, also, soon again declined in popular favour; the sentiments of his heart did not accord with his public declarations, and this becoming manifest, the popular party was disquieted and enraged. Mirabeau, whose ardour for revolution had begun to cool, and who now saw that the constitution was far too democratic for a monarchy, leagued secretly with the fallen court, and laboured with all the force of his popularity to raise it from its degraded state, and to recover for the crown a portion of strength necessary for its existence. But it was too late. Before this, clubs had been formed among the members of the national assembly, in order that better directed and more energetic efforts might be made in securing the objects of the revolution. Pre-eminent among these clubs was that of the deputies from Bretagne, which held its sessions in the suppressed cloister of the Jacobins, from which cloister the members of the club received the name of Jacobins; a name which finally obtained a bad celebrity in the world’s history. Similar clubs were also formed in most of the important cities of the kingdom, which maintained, with that at Paris, the closest union of sentiments and efforts. The bonds of society in France were, in truth, loosened, and no human skill could restore them: the bridle had been taken from the mouth of the fiery steed, and no human arm could arrest his headlong course. Marat, Danton, and Robespierre-men of blood—with others of the same stamp, had already made their execrable names known in the clubs of the Cordeliers and Jacobins, which finally united, and these were the men who were, for a brief period, to rule the destinies of France.
PROGRESS OF REVOLUTIONARY PRINCIPLES IN ENGLAND.
It has been well said that the season of hope and delusion ought now to have been over—that whatever right-hearted and right-headed Englishmen might have thought of the French revolution at the opening of the States-general in May, 1789, they ought not at the close of this year to have regarded it with any other sentiments than those of horror, disgust, and pity. But “rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.” Although it was as clear as the sun at noon-day, that the events which had taken place in France were but the precursors of some horrible catastrophe—that the French regenerators sought not wholesome and legitimate reformations, but the ruin of their country, yet it is a lamentable fact that their admirers in England were now greatly on the increase. On the very day that the festival of confederation took place in Paris, six hundred gentlemen in England assembled to celebrate the event which it commemorated. The chairman of this assembly was Earl Stanhope, who acted as president of the Revolution Society in London: a society which, after extending its ramifications throughout the country, entered into an active correspondence not only with the National Assembly, but with the societies in all parts of France, instituted for the promotion of revolutionary principles. Among the associates of this society were men of all ranks and professions—men who could lay no claim to a practical acquaintance with politics, or the working of governments, and who knew little or nothing of human nature. Happily for the country, however. Burke and other writers put forth all their strength to show the danger which lurked in the Revolution Societies of England, and government opposed a mighty barrier to the progress of their dangerous principles. These wrought the salvation of the country. The most powerful antagonist to these societies, who worked by means of the press, was Burke, who, toward the end of this year, published his great work on the subject, entitled “Reflections on the Revolution, &c.” a work which sounded the knell of the old Whig confederacy. Some of this party yielded at once to the force of his arguments, while others retreated as they saw the development of the principles against which they were directed. In fact, the result of this work was to make the old appellations of Whig and Tory assume a widely different meaning from that which had hitherto been attached to them: by the term Whig was now understood the favourers of such democratic principles as existed in France; by that of Tory, those who were alarmed at the progress of the French revolution. The bold and uncompromising stand which Burke made against these principles led to a final rupture between him and his old friend Fox, and consequently to the permanent separation of the great Whig party: from this time there was a division in the camp; a breach which could not be healed.
WAR IN INDIA.
During this state of affairs in Europe, a war which directly concerned England broke out in India. Tippoo Sultaun, whose hatred towards the English was mortal, in the year 1789 sent a secret messenger to France, to invite the French government to send six thousand of their best troops to the Carnatic, with which he engaged to drive the British forces out of every part of Hindustan. This messenger was favourably received by the people, and even some of the king’s ministers were in favour of the project. Louis, however, had not forgotten the lesson he had been taught by interfering in the American war—an act for which he was still indeed suffering—and he turned a deaf ear to the plausible representations which were made to him in order to obtain his consent. But before Tippoo received an answer from the French monarch, he had commenced operations, by attacking the Rajah of Travancore, who had long been the close ally of the English. Before the end of the year 1789 Tippoo had overrun and took possession of the greater part of the rajah’s dominions, and subsequently he defeated a detachment of the company’s army, under Lieutenant-Colonel Floyd. His progress, however, was soon stopped. The Bengal government, having formed a close alliance with the Mahrattas, the Nizam of the Deccan, and other native powers, raised two armies; one in the Carnatic of 15,000 men, under General Medows, and another of 7,500 men, in the presidency of Bombay, under General Abercrombie. Thus threatened, Tippoo evacuated the Travancore country, and retreated to his strong capital, Seringapatam. But he had provoked the war, and it was not to close with his retreat. In June, 1790, Medows, with the Carnatic army, marched towards Seringapatam, and took several important fortresses in his route. Medows, however, was obliged to retrace his steps by intelligence that Tippoo had again burst into the Carnatic, and was carrying fire and sword to the walls of Madras. Tippoo was soon obliged to retire beyond the mountains; and in the meantime General Abercrombie, with the Bombay army, landed at Tellicherry, and reduced all the places which the enemy possessed on the Malabar coast, in which he was aided by the Nairs, and the other petty Hindu rajahs, who were glad of an opportunity of rescuing themselves from Tippoo Sultaun’s rule. In the end the Rajah of Travancore was re-established in his dominions, and then the campaign closed: but the war was not yet over.