192] ANNUAL REGISTER, 1812. 



it shall possess virtue and courage 

 to maintain the advantages it has 

 gained, and the issue of the great 

 subsisting contest shall leave them 

 free from the control of foreign 

 sway. 



It was not to be expected that 

 a change in the constitution from 

 absolute to limited monarchy 

 should be acquiesced in by the 

 Court without a struggle ; and 

 various intimations have been given 

 of attempts by the Queen's party 

 to excite dist'.irbances, and to 

 destroy that English influence 

 through which the change has 

 been effected. It is probable that 

 a greater resistance would have been 

 made, had not Lord W. Bentinck 

 possessed, in the disposal of the sub- 

 sid)', a powerful means of restrain- 

 ing violent measures. The im- 

 possibility of paying the Sicilian 

 army without its aid obliged the 

 Queen very reluctantly to leave it 

 entirely under his command, and 

 thus deprived her of that support 

 to arbitrary power which seldom 

 fails to be given by a military 

 force entirely organized and ap- 

 pointed by the Crown. After all, 

 her disaffection to the new order 

 of things must have remained in 

 activity, since we are told, in 

 letters from Sicily, dated October 

 the 30th, that the Queen was or- 

 dered to reside at Saint Marga- 

 rita, a retired situation on the 

 southern side of the island, and 

 was prohibited from coming to 

 Palermo; and that there was an 

 intention of sending her to Vi- 

 enna in the summer. 



The affairs of Turkey, apart 



from its war with Russia, have 

 afforded little wortliy of record 

 during the present year. Con- 

 stantinople has been afflicted with 

 one of those periodical returns of 

 pestilence, to which it must be 

 ever liable, while the system of 

 fatalism prevents the use of any 

 precautionary measures against 

 that scourge; audit is said that 

 an unusually large proportion of 

 its population has been swept 

 off by the disease. Smyrna, like- 

 wise, and other cities in the em- 

 pire, have suffered under the same 

 calamity. It does not appear that 

 any thing effectual has been done 

 towards the suppression of that 

 formidable class of sectaries, the 

 Wahabees. In the spring, intel- 

 ligence was received of the defeat 

 of Jussum Pasha, in an engage- 

 ment with them near Medina. He 

 lost some thousand men, and re- 

 tired in disorder to the banks of 

 the Red Sea, where he was wait- 

 ing for reinforcements. 



The peace with Russia, however 

 necessary, having been attended 

 with some cession of the Turkish 

 territory, was regarded as disho- 

 nourable at the Porte, and the go- 

 vernment gave some of the usual 

 tokens of its displeasure. Prince 

 Deiuetri Morousi, formerly Hospo- 

 dar of Moldavia, one of the Otto- 

 man Plenipotentiaries, who signed 

 the treaty, was beheaded at Schum- 

 la, the Grand Vizier's quarters, by 

 orders from the Grand Seignior, as 

 having been a partizan of Russia; 

 and the richest individual in Rud- 

 shuck fell a sacrifice to a similar 

 imputation. 



CHAPTER 



