A great number of Transylvanian and Hungarian gentry of the inferior rank are attracted by the advantages of renting the Boyars’ estates. According to the treaties existing between the Porte and other powers, foreign subjects are not permitted in any manner to hold, as proprietors, landed property in the Ottoman dominions; the prince of Moldavia observing how little this stipulation had been attended to in his principality, thought it necessary, in 1815, to issue a decree which ordered the expulsion of foreign farmers. The Boyars, whose best estates were under their management, and who had every reason to be satisfied with them, strongly opposed the measure; their representations finally induced the prince to give his tacit consent to their wishes; and, properly speaking, this stipulation of the treaties does not include the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, and ought not to be applied to them.
The progress of the Russian arms previous to the peace of Kaïnargik, had enabled the cabinet of St. Petersburgh to become the arbiter of the fate of Turkey. Whatever might have been the Empress Catharine’s motives for consenting to the conclusion of that peace, she did not remain less sanguine in her favourite project of conquering the empire of the East, and the special clauses in the treaty, which gave her the power of interfering in the affairs of the Wallachians and Moldavians, were calculated not only to secure to her the affections of the people for whom they were most immediately intended, but at the same time to incline the other Christian subjects of Turkey to look upon her as their natural defender, and their future deliverer.
No subsequent events prevented her from employing her right of interference, though, according to circumstances, it may at times have been exercised with more or less energy; and the policy pursued by her successors evidently denotes the continuation of a system which has an important object in view, however distant the possibility of attaining it.[[43]]
In order, however, to exercise her influence with the activity necessary to ensure success, the empress had insisted also that the Porte should acknowledge the residence in the two principalities of imperial agents, to whom she thought proper to give the title of consuls, as most adapted to screen her views, and to justify her apparent one of enlarging the trade of her empire, and giving protection and assistance to those of her subjects who were willing to extend their commercial transactions to the principalities. This pretext was in fact plausible; for the Russian merchants who had till then been in the habit of trading in those countries, had complained much of the difficulties and vexations they had constantly experienced from the irregularities of the local governments.
However unwilling to recognise the future residence of public agents from the court of Russia, the Porte was unable to oppose it with any prospect of success, and consequently consented.
The court of Vienna soon after followed the example, though from motives of a more commercial nature; and the consuls of Russia once admitted, the Ottoman government could not refuse to acknowledge those of Austria.
The Greeks saw with no little regret the arrival of these foreign agents, who not only checked their authority over the foreign trade, but became also competent witnesses of their political system and administration, and the accredited reporters of all their actions. But, as it was out of their power to oppose the arrangements of the imperial courts, they thought it best to set their submission to the profit of their vanity in receiving the consuls as envoys sent by foreign powers to independent princes. They introduced for their reception the formalities and ceremonial of the public audiences given by the Grand Vezier to European ambassadors at Constantinople, and they revived the custom of the Voïvodes, of being seated on an elevated throne on similar occasions.
Under the republic of France, French consuls were sent for the first time to reside in the principalities, and their establishment has been kept up without interruption under the successive governments of France. On several occasions they were very useful to Buonaparte.
A British consul-general was for the first time appointed in 1802 to reside at Bukorest, chiefly for the purpose of facilitating the overland communications between England and Turkey. After the peace of Tilsit he was recalled, and the consulate was renewed in 1813, with the additional motive of promoting commercial intercourse with the principalities.
The pope has for many years been represented by a bishop in Wallachia, and by a vicar in Moldavia; the latter has recently been promoted to the rank of a bishop.