Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
So far Lord Palmerston; and the accuracy of the information possessed by
the British Cabinet to combat these strong facts, may be estimated, from
Sir Robert Peel's calling Prince Alexander, a man of thirty-five, and
the worthy inheritor of his father's great qualities, "an infatuated
youth"--on the authority (it is said) of a letter from Mr Fonblanque!
But we must return from the English debates to the progress of the drama
in Servia, where the commissioners found the Servians, in defiance of
the great powers, and in spite of the hopelessness of aid from
Constantinople, preparing for national resistance. The Prince refused to
abdicate, alleging that the firman by which he had been appointed had
never been revoked, and that universal anarchy would result from his
resigning the reins of government, since no _kaimakams_, or regents _pro
tempore_, had been named by the Porte--an omission which is supposed not
to have been altogether unintentional; and the whole nation rose in
commotion at the bare mention of the recall of Wucicz and Petronevich;
the crowd exclaiming, when Wucicz told them that 'the Servian forests
would not be less green were two old trees cut down, "No! a thousand
times no!" and rushing with arms in their hands to the presence of
Hafiz-Pasha, (who had been appointed on Kiamil's recall on the mandate
of Russia for his share in the revolution,) announced their
determination to maintain their prince and his counsellors; to which
Hafiz assented, no doubt, with secret gratification. While the
proceedings were thus stayed by the unexpected resolution shown by the
Servians, Russian emissaries were traversing the country in all
directions, striving in vain to stir up a revolt in favour of the
Obrenovich family, whose former partisans, it was found, were now their
strongest opponents; and inciting the Christians in Bosnia and Bulgaria
to rise against the Moslems, by the hope of obtaining independent
governments under hospodars of their own, like the other principalities.
On the other hand, the Servian population was ready to rise _en masse_
in defence of its liberties, and was further cheered by the report that
thirty thousand of the Slavic races under Austrian dominion were ready
to join them in the struggle for national freedom; while the Porte,
roused to unexpected energy by the accumulation of wrong heaped upon it,
reinforced the garrison of Belgrade with three thousand fresh troops,
and formed encampments to the amount of near one hundred thousand men at
Constantinople and Adrianople, for the ostensible purpose of overawing
the spirit of revolt among the Bulgarians. The National Assembly, which
had in the mean time met at Belgrade, declared the election of Prince
Alexander legal and valid, and refused to abrogate it; and as the agents
of Russia found that their original object could only be effected by an
invasion, an act which (even had the season left time to march an army
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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