AN ACCOUNT OF _THE PRINCIPALITIES_ OF WALLACHIA AND MOLDAVIA: WITH VARIOUS POLITICAL OBSERVATIONS RELATING TO THEM. BY WILLIAM WILKINSON, ESQ. LATE BRITISH CONSUL RESIDENT AT BUKOREST. Dobbiamo considerare queste due provincie, Wallachia e Moldavia a guisa di due nave in un mar’ tempestoso, dove-rare volte si gode la tranquilita e la calma. DELCHIARO—_Revoluxione di Wallachia_. _LONDON_: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1820. Printed by Strahan and Spottiswoode, Printers-Street, London. PREFACE. Amongst the nations of Europe most given to letters, none have so largely contributed to the general list of publications, relating to the condition and progress of the different countries of the world, as the English; and no travellers possess to the same degree as they do the love of describing them, however numerous the accounts that have preceded the period of their own experimental observations. Their journals, nevertheless, hardly ever fail to create interest, and the least share of novelty in form or matter induces the less travelling class of their countrymen to read them with pleasure. Turkey and Egypt in particular have long been favourite themes; and indeed the Ottoman empire in every point of view, whether topographical, historical, administrative, religious, moral, political, military, or commercial, offers an inexhaustible subject for investigation, and an endless excitement to curiosity. No regular and minute description has, however, yet been undertaken of two of its most important and curious provinces, those which divide the principal part of the ancient kingdom of Dacia, under the modern denomination of Wallachia and Moldavia, although in the renewed existence of Greek governments exercising most of the prerogatives of independency, in the struggles of two nations between a strong remnant of Dacian barbarism and the influence of modern civilisation, and in a country comprehending within its own boundaries all the productive resources which fall but separately to the share of other countries, sufficient matter may be found to render them a subject by no means unworthy of notice.