216 
Government have thought fit to adopt the 
severest precautions ; cannon, soldiers, and 
a variety of other requisite ammunition, 
have been. despatched wholesale towards 
the North, which .now presents the ap- 
pearance of a country under military des- 
potism. Thus much for the distress and 
decay of trade; a word or two with respect 
to its resources. There is in England a 
strong vital spirit of commercial specula- 
tion, together with an industry and perse- 
verance in the accumulation of money, that 
must soon find its own level. It is not as 
af her resources were drained—far from it, 
they are only stagnant awhile, or have been 
‘diverted into foreign channels, which re- 
‘quire time in order to alter their course. 
‘The present embarrassments of our com- 
mercial constitution are the exhaustion 
that necessarily succeeds a plethora; we 
have been for some years of too full a 
habit of pocket and are now undergoing the 
weakening operation of letting blood. If 
this be not the case, how are the end- 
less foreign wars, the late multitudinous 
joint stock companies, foreign and do- 
mestic, in every possible department of 
trade, to be accounted for? ‘The fact is 
certain; the remedy equally so—patience, 
and a steady confidence in our own internal 
resources. 
On the Continent, affairs are luckily of a 
more pacific character. France is quiet ; 
and unbounded in her professions of be- 
nevolence towards the other great Euro- 
pean powers, England particularly ; while 
her amiable sovereign is harmlessly amusing 
his leisure in reforming the minds of his 
subjects, through the admirable medium 
of the Jesuits. Marshal Soult has turned 
Jesuit ; many of the ministry are jesuiti- 
cally given; and even a celebrated actor 
(by way of experiment—speculation rather) 
has taken a fancy to the same innovation. 
Of Spain we have little to observe—and 
that little is unfavourable. It is, in fact, a 
bye-word for anarchy; so much s0, as to 
warrant the idea of its having been the 
original site of chaos, now returning to its 
primitive state of confusion. In Portugal 
all goes on quietly enough ; the Emperor 
of Brazil has resigned all dominion over it ; 
having wisely discovered that a prince 
beyond seas has but a slender chance of 
Tove or obedience from his distant subjects. 
In Russia the talk is all about the ensuing 
coronation of Nicholas; for which purpose 
the Duke of Devonshire, accompanied by 
a splendid retinue of the English nobility, 
has set forward in a steam-boat to Saint 
Petersburgh. The remains of the late 
Empress Elizabeth have just reached this 
latter place, where they were interred with 
all the honours appertaining to royalty. 
Letters from Greece (like those from 
Spain) give a dismal account of the inter- 
nal state of the country. Fort after fort, 
town after town, is fast falling into the 
hands of the remorseless Ibrahim ; and 
Political Occurrences. 
[Aua. 
that unique specimen of allithat is diaboli- 
cal in our nature, the apostate renegado 
Colonel Séve, now Soliman Bey, traverses 
the country at his discretion. This latter 
wretch, originally in the service of Na- 
poleon, has devoted himself heart and 
soul to the extermination of the Greeks, 
and has in consequence wormed himself 
into the good graces of that twin genius, 
Ibrahim Pacha. But the hour of retribu- 
tion — and an awful one it must be—is 
at hand! May we live to see it! At 
Constantinople the most important revo- 
lution known in any country for centuries 
has just taken place. We allude to the 
overthrow and extermination of those 
Pretorian Guards of the East—the Janis- 
saries. Every reader of Gibbon must be 
familiar with these household troops, once 
the pride of the sultans and the terror of 
their foes. In process of time, however, 
it seems that they have become dissolute 
and relaxed in their discipline, and so 
daringly independent of the laws, that 
they had only to ask for some favourite 
pacha or vizier’s head for a foot-ball, and 
it was instantly sent to them, with -the 
sultan’s compliments. In the present 
instance, however, they were mistaken 
in the idea of their own importance. They 
had, it seems, demanded the head of some 
obnoxious pacha; when the sultan (to 
their inconceivable astonishment) sent for 
answer—an army of 4,000 men, at the head 
of which he marched himself in person. 
The standard of the prophet was then 
publicly unfurled; the Musulmen flocked 
by thousands round this holy emblem of 
their reigion—the alarm-bells were rung— 
the artillery drawn up—exercised—in two 
days (after a desperate struggle) the quar- 
ters of the Janissaries were destroyed ; 
and nothing remained of these once proud 
and lordly household troops but a name, 
and that name devoted to eternal execra- 
tion. The conduct of Sultan Mahmoud, 
throughout this important business, is ad- 
mitted onall hands to have been exemplary. 
An instant’s delay would have been fatal to 
him. He knew this; and with the bold- 
ness of decided genius, seized the favour- 
able opportunity, and stamped himself‘as 
aman on whom the eyes of Europe will 
in future be fixed with inquisitive atten- 
tion. Were we to endeayour to draw aside 
the thick veil that hangs like a cloud upon 
futurity, we would fearlessly and un- 
hesitatingly predict that now, when the 
principal obstacle to Turkish improvement 
is removed—in the destruction of the 
Janissaries, who were bigotedly averse to 
European discipline—that now the Ma- 
hometan power may become once’ again 
regenerated, take its former long-lost rank 
in the scale of mighty nations, as in the 
glorious days of Amurat and the Mahomets, 
and make the crescent triumph. over the 
cross in the blood-watered plains of an- 
nihilated Greece. 
