The number of Roman Catholic inhabitants is considerable; most of the Servian, Bulgarian, and Transylvanian settlers belong to that persuasion. They have two fine churches at Bukorest and at Yassi.
There are also two protestant churches originally founded by Charles XII. of Sweden during his long residence in the principalities. They are superintended by a vicar appointed and paid by the archbishop of Stockholm. The protestant inhabitants are German, and their number amounts to one thousand. All foreign churches, provided they profess the doctrines of christianity, are not only tolerated in the principalities, but allowed a variety of privileges which they cannot enjoy in any part of the Turkish dominions. The metropolies seldom interfere with their affairs, and when any circumstance obliges them so to do, they bear every possible regard to their institutions, and never assume the tone of superiority.
In general, the social intercourse between the natives and foreign inhabitants is carried on upon a much more friendly footing than might be expected from the number of national prejudices that still divide them, in opinions, religion, and established customs. The natural hospitality of the Boyars makes no exceptions with foreigners; and if on one hand this quality loses a part of its merit in being the mere effect of custom, on the other it does not deserve the less credit when totally divested of ostentatious motives.
It would appear that little benefit is to be expected by the inhabitants of a country long occupied by Russian armies, and made the principal theatre of military operations. Yet the late intercourse between those of the principalities, and the Russians, and the prospect of their being incorporated with the Russian empire, have, in many respects, improved their civilisation. A variety of barbarous customs existing before have been abolished; usages and institutions were introduced which tended to their improvement, and the exterior manners of the Boyars have undergone a polish which is not unworthy of more enlightened nations. Those of Moldavia would view with pleasure any political change in their country which offered to them the sure prospect of improvement in civilisation. Those of Wallachia have long since consoled themselves for the improbability of any early change, by taking a very active part in the general system of rapacity, of which it has become the lot of their countrymen of inferior order to bear the weight.
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS
ON THE
POLITICAL POSITION OF THE PRINCIPALITIES.
When we reflect upon the deplorable condition of Wallachia and Moldavia, examine the causes of their evils, and cast an eye upon the numerous gifts with which nature has enriched them,—when we compare the effects of demoralisation and ruin, which are the natural consequences of their present system of administration, to the advantages that would accrue to them from a regular and permanent form of government,—it is hardly possible not to regret that the question of a change in their political fate was not proposed and resolved at the late congress of Vienna.
A variety of facts related in the foregoing pages have, perhaps, sufficiently demonstrated the nullity of the independence still acknowledged by the Ottoman Court to the constitution of its transdanubean Principalities, and the little regard it bears to the common prosperity of their affairs. That those countries should resume independency, and maintain themselves in it by their own means alone, would, however, be as absurd, as it is impossible to expect. But that they should be rescued from the hands of those who act as their worst enemies, and placed under the special protection of some great Christian power, under whose influence they might be enabled to employ their resources to their own profit and to that of their neighbours, give to their trade all the extent it is capable of compassing,—under which, in short they might have the hope of soon placing themselves on a footing with the civilised world—formed an object which called forth the attention of Christian Europe, and which, in magnitude and importance, had at least equal claims to it as the question relating to the Ionian Islands, to which the Turks had no smaller pretensions, though neither more nor less valid.
Conformity of religion, and the old standing connections between Russia and the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, point out that power as their natural protector; but, if the security of Europe forbids the recognition of further encroachments of the Russians on Turkey, though at the same time the political change in the principalities had been once regularly admitted, would not a partition made of them between Austria and Russia have been equally beneficial in its consequences, and at all events preferable in every respect to the statu quo? Indeed, upon the very principle of impeding the progress of Russia, the occupation of Wallachia by the Austrians was a measure of the first necessity, as sufficiently capable of forming an insurmountable barrier against the Russians. Without it, what obstacle will ever prevent these from extending the whole of their frontier on the side of European Turkey to the Danube? and once entirely masters of the borders of that river, the road to Constantinople is open to them, and the political existence of the Turkish empire is left to depend on the will and pleasure of the Russian emperor.
Austria, as long as she is willing to maintain her present extent of power, would certainly feel herself far from secure at the approach of the Russians on so great a line of her eastern frontiers, and would not tacitly consent to be severed from Turkey in a manner so as to alter materially the course of her communications with that country, and almost to preclude the possibility of affording it future assistance; neither would the rest of Europe, interested in obstructing the further designs of aggrandisement of Russia, view such an event without alarming apprehensions.
The precautions which the best political prudence could have suggested, ought, therefore, to have brought the Austrians into Wallachia, where they should have improved the fortifications at the most essential points. Such a measure, carried into execution, the Russians would in vain have attempted new encroachments; they could not have made one step into Turkey without the permission of the Austrians.