ters relative to trade, fhipping, tolls, and duties, had been fettled by the preceding treaty of commerce. The captain bafhaw's fignature is the first, on the Ottoman fide, to this treaty of accommoda,

tion.

Thus had the emprefs Catherine the extraordinary fortune and glory, not only to fill up and realize all the plans and projects of Peter the Great, with refpect to the Palus Maotis, the Black Sea, and the Crimea, but even to enlarge the fcale, and carry his views to an extent, which feems to have furpaffed, fanguine as they were, that monarch's own hopes of attainment. A felicity the more peculiar, as the completion of the defigns, and the immortalizing the name of that great founder and legislature of the Ruffian empire, feems to have been the leading object of her government, and with of her life; and that as he has made his conduct, in all that was laudable, the constant model of her own, fo the feems to be the full inheritor of his fpirit, with refpect to magnanimity, and to the defire of raising to the higheft pitch the power and glory of her country.

As the recovery and refloration of every thing Greek, is the predominant paffion of the court of Peterburgh, fo the Crimea, and its dependencies, are in future to be known by the name of Taurica; particular places are likewife reftored to their ancient appellations; and the celebrated port and city of Caffa, has now refumed its long forgotten name of Theodofia. Since this acceffion of dominion, new towns, with Greck or Ruffian names, are rifing faft in the defarts, and are peopled moftly by colonies

of Greeks and Armenians. Neither has the emprefs fpared any care or expence to procure emigrants of all nations to fettle and colonize her wide and remote Caucafean regions, which were once fo prolific, in producing fwarms to over-run and defolate Europe. But the completion of this defign must be a work of time indeed; and fubjected to numberlefs hazards, as well as difficulties, in its progrefs.

It fill remains to be seen, whether the late treaty of pacification will be more lafting in its effects than the two former. Numberless caufes of contention ftill remain ; and if there were none other, what greater need there be, than those which are neceffarily produced by unrestrained neighbouring power, when oppofed to weakness, and that weakness encumbered with the cuf tody of the richest and most defirable poffeflions?

In fact, the equilibrium between the three great powers on the borders of Europe and Afia has been fo violently fhaken, that nothing lefs than fome very confiderable change in their comparative circumftances and fituation, can in any degree reftore the true balance, nor can any thing lefs afford a profpect of permanent peace and fecurity to the prefent weaker party. It was peculiarly unfortunate, if not fatally ominous, to the Ottoman empire, that the period of its degeneracy and decline should have been that in which its two ancient rivals and neighbours have risen to unexampled power and greatnefs. Their calier rife would have prevented that decline.

A new face of affairs is, however, appearing in that empire. Arts

and

and learning are encouraged, printing preffes are established by the emperor's order, and prejudices are wearing faft away. If, then, the prefent fultan and his minifters hould be clofely followed up by men of equal merit and ability, who fhould complete and carry into perfection thofe great fchemes of reform and improvement in their forces by fea and land, which are now in profecution, and that the future prince fhould inherit the warlike difpofition and military virtues of his ancestors, it would by no means be impoffible, that before many years were over, fuch a change might take place in the affairs of the Ottoman empire, as would not a little aftonifh the world. They have the means of accomplishing great things fill in their hands; and they have now a clearer view of the dangers of their fituation, of the defects in their government and difcipline, and of the causes of their declension and weakness, than they ever before had. They may poibly afford a new and memorable inftance, that adverfity is the firt of all fchools for the inftruction of mankind.

This treaty with Ruffia was fuc ceeded by an accommodation of fome fort, for the prefent, with the emperor; but leaving numberless matters open for future difcuffion, as time might ferve, and occafion offer. The Imperial minifter demanded a participation of all the commercial advantages granted to Ruffia, by the late and by former treaties, and the Porte found it neceffary to comply. The Danube, and all the Turkish feas, were accordingly opened to the navigation of the Imperial fubjects, with free ingrefs and regrefs to and from the Mediterranean, and

commerce in the Archipelago; befides great indulgences and advantages to the merchants, with refpect to fearching their fhips, to tolls, duties, and cuftom-houfes. A confiderable part of Walichia was likewife ceded; and it was evident, that the Porte was not in a humour, or more properly in condition, to refufe any thing.

Spain had no fooner got difengaged from the war with England, than fhe began to prepare for new military adventure. Neither the general ill-fuccefs which had long attended her expeditions to the cost of Africa, nor the particular lofs and difgrace fustained by the grand arinament which the had difpatched against Algiers in the year 1775, were fufficient to deter her from another attack upon that piratical city. Her hips being in fome degree fill manned in confequence of the late war, and a great number of bomb-ketches, gun-beats, and other armed veffels, which had been defined against Gibraltar, ftill in readiness, were undoubtedly incentives to this enterprize.

The marine force intended for this fervice was confiderable, and from its nature extremely numerous; no difpofition, however, appeared, to hazard another army upon that inaufpicious coaft; the prefent defign being entirely confined to a fevere. bombardment and cannonade by fea. The conduct of this enterprize was committed to Don Ar tonio Barcelo; who, after a formal difplay of fome pious or religious ceremonials, intended to obtain a bleffing upon the Chriftian arms in their conflict with Infidels, proceeded with his armament from Carthagena, on the 2d of July,

1783

1783. Through an unfortunate difpofition of the winds and weather, the fleet, notwithstanding the fhortnefs of the paffage, was detained for 27 days at fea; a circumftance which, befides the lofs of a month peculiarly chofen as favourable to the defign, could not but be exceedingly untoward in many respects, encumbered as he was with a multitude of small veffels, and these crowded with men, and overlayed with artillery. The fleet did not arrive in the bay of Algiers until the 29th of July; and the fea was then too rough to admit of immediate action.

He found the Algerines well prepared for his reception; and difcovered every indication of a bold and moft determined enemy. On the first of Auguft the admiral formed his line of battle, and made the neceffary difpofitions for an attack; 18 bomb-ketches, with 13 gun-boats on their wings, compofed the van; thefe were fupported by a line of xebecks, bilanders, and other veffels of war, moftly peculiar to the Mediterranean; and thefe again intermixed with, or attended by, a number of boarding-boats ftrongly manned, and fome fmall fire-vef fels, to prevent the approach of the Algerine gallies to the battering veffels; the whole being covered by the ships of the line, and frigates of war. The cannonade and bombardment were commenced at half past two o'clock, and were continued, without intermiffion, until funfet: 380 fhells were thrown in that time, and about an equal number of fhot fent; the fire being fiercely returned by the Algerine batteries through the

whole time, with near 1100 cannon fhot, and about 30 bombs.

The attack was renewed on the following, and on every fucceeding day, except one, until the 9th of the month. On that morning, a council of war being held by the admiral, the exhaufture of ammunition, and the growing latenefs and danger of the feafon, were found fufficient reasons for an immediate return to Spain. In the course of these attacks, which were not unfrequently repeated on the fame day, 3,732 bombs, and 3,833 cannon-shot, were discharged by the fleet against the town; and these were returned by the Algerines, with 399 fhells, and 11,284 cannon-fhot. This vaft expenditure of ammunition produced no correspondent effect on either fide; the town was indeed repeatedly fet on fire, but the meafures of prefervation were fo well adapted, and fo vigorously purfued, that the flames were foon fubdued. The Algerines made feveral bold fallies with their gallies and fmall veffels upon the Spanish battering line; but the fuperiority of fire on that fide was fo great, and it played from fuch various directions, that they were constantly repulfed. The example of Gibraltar feemed to have operated upon them in the ufe of red-hot balls; but they were not deftined to produce a fimilar effect. On the other fide, the Spanish marine afforded evident proofs of the improvement it had received from the late war; fhewing infinitely more courage, alertnefs, and firmness, than in the attack of 1775.

The year 1783 was fatally marked by the defolation of fome of the moft celebrated, the moft beau

tiful, and the moft fertile provinces of Europe. The two Calabrias, once the favoured feat of the mufes, and fo long renowned under the diftinguished appellation of Magna Grecia, were now doomed, along with part of Sicily, to be the melancholy fcene of the most tremendous, the Jongeft continued, the moft fatal with refpect to mankind, and the moft deftructive to the face of the country, fucceffion of earthquakes, that had yet been known, even in thofe volcanic regions. They were indeed fo dreadful, that they ferved rather to imprefs ideas of the final diffolution of all things, than to induce any hope from analogy, founded on the experience of for mer convulfions of the earth.

The first shock, which happened about noon, on the 5th of February, 1783, was by far the most deftructive, if not the most tremendous in other refpects. Several caufes concurred to render this fhock particularly fatal. It came on fuddenly, without any of the ufual indications; it was about the Italian time of dinner, when the people were moftly in their houfes; but beyond all, the motion of the earth in that fhock was vertical, rifing fuddenly upwards from its foundations, and as fuddenly finking again. By this fatal motion, the greatest buildings, villages, towns, and entire cities, were inftantaneously involved in one common deAtruction; nothing remaining to be feen, but vaft heaps of undiftinguifhable ruins, without any traces of treets or houfes. An inhabitant of Cafal Nuova, happening to be on a hill over it at the time of the shock, and looking eagerly back to the town, could fee no other remains of it, than the ap

pearance of a cloud of white fmoke. occafioned by the flying mortar, which had ben diffipated by the crafh of the houses.

The Calabria Ultra, particularly that part on the western fide of the Appennines, was the peculiar vice tim of this firft fhock. Its dreadful effects were not confined to the deftruction of mankind, and to little less than the annihilation of populous and flourishing villages, towns, and cities, but the whole face of that beautiful country was mangled and disfigured. Mountains were rent; vallies clofed up, the hills that formed them being thrown from their places, and me:ting their oppofites in the center; the courfe of rivers was necffarily changed, or the water, being entirely dammed up, was formed into great and increafing lakes.

Of thofe towns and cities where the greateft deftruction of mankind took place, we are not to pass over Cafal Nuovo, where the princefs Gerace Grimaldi, with more than four thousand of her fubjects, perifhed in the fame inftant. At Bagnara, above three thoufand of the inhabitants were loft. Radichina, and Palma, counted their lofs at about three thousand each; Terra Nuova, at about fourteen hundred, and Seminari ftill more. The inhabitants of Scylla thought they had reafon to rejoice in efcaping from their houfes, on the celebrated rock of that name, at the inftant of the first fhock; and following the example of their prince, defcended to a little harbour at the foot of the hill, where getting into boats, or ftretched upon the fhore, they thought themfelves free from danger. But in the course of the

ig hi

night a ftupendous wave, which is faid to have been driven furiously three miles over land, upon its return fwept away the unfortunate prince, with 2473 of his fubjects. It may not perhaps be entirely unneceffary to obferve, that the barons in the kingdom of Naples, poffefs an abfolute fovereignty over their vaffals.

The country moftly ruined by the firft fhock, and where the greatest mortality took place, was the celebrated Sila, of the ancient Brutii. The north-eaft angle of Sicily, including the city of Meffina, were likewife in a confiderable degree victims to that fhock; but the greatest violence of its exertion, and its moft dreadful effects, were in the plain on the weftern fide of the Appennine. Several fucceeding fhocks, through the months of February and March, were little lefs tremendous, and extended their effects ftill farther than the first. They included the Calabria Citra, and thofe parts of the Ultra which had efcaped the firft mifchief. But notwithstanding their violence, the deftruction was by no means equal, and the lofs of lives happily bore no manner of proportion to the first dreadful mortality. The people, warned by that calamity, had every where abandoned their houfes, and lived in barracks; and the motion of the earth being fomewhat different in the fucceeding fhocks, though buildings were

fhaken down and ruined, yet they were not intirely involved, nor whole towns obliterated in one erufh, as in the first.

The earth, in all that part of Italy, continued for feveral weeks, more or lefs, in a conftant ftate of tremor; and feveral fhocks, with

different degrees of violence, were every day felt; fo that the unhap py people, already worn down with calamity and grief, through the lofs of their property, and of their deareft relations, were ftill kept in a continual ftate of apprehenfion and terror.

The whole of the mortality, according to the returns made to the fecretary of ftate's office in Naples, amounted to 33,567. Thele returns, drawn up in the confufion and mifery that prevailed, could not be accurate; and it was fuppofed by the best judges, that the real lofs, including ftrangers, amounted, at least, to 40,000. Thefe eftimates only take in the immediate victims to the earthquakes; thofe who perifhed through want, difeafes, anguish, and every fpecies of fubfequent diftrefs, not being included. Some idea of the general diftreffes may be gathered, from thofe which were fuffered by Don Marcello Grillo. This gentleman poffeffed great landed property, befides 12,000 pieces of gold, which were buried under the ruins of his houfe in the city of Oppido. Yet, with all thefe advantages of fortune, he was for feveral days and nights houfelefs, and expofed, without food or fhelter, to the exceffive rains which then conftantly fell; and was in this courfe inftructed in the relative duties of humanity, by being beholden to a hermit for lending him a clean shirt.

The king and government of Naples ufed all poffible means for relieving the immediate diftreffes of the people, as well as for enabling them in fome degree to recover from the ruin in which they were fo calamitoufly involved: The conduct of the archbishop of Reggio

upon