374 
CHAR 
XIII. 
Causes of 
their in- 
crease. 
DON COSSACKS. 
Volga, of Grebenskoy, of Orenburg, of the Ural 
Alps, and of Siberia ; where they have received 
yet other appellations, and reach even to the 
mountains of China, and to the Eastern Ocean. 
It is necessary to confine our attention to the 
principal hive, whence, with little exception, 
all those swarms have migrated. 
Nothing has contributed more to augment 
the nation of the Don Cossacks, than the freedom 
they enjoy. Surrounded by systems of slavery, 
they ofter the singular spectacle of an increasing 
republic ; like a nucleus, putting forth its roots 
and ramifications to all parts of an immense 
despotic empire, which considers it a wise 
policy to promote their increase, and to gua- 
rantee their privileges. As they detest the 
Russians, a day may come, when, conscious of 
their own importance, they will make their 
masters more fully sensible of their power'. 
A sage regulation in their military constitution, 
from a very early period, induced them to grant 
all the privileges they enjoy to all prisoners 
of war who were willing to settle among them. 
(1) After slightly noticing their most important revolts under Razin 
and Boulavin , towards the end of the seventeenth, and in the begin- 
ning of the eighteenth century, Storch observes, e< L’histoire de ces 
rebellions cst asset intercssante pour occuper un dc nos historiens ntn- 
dernes — See p. 26 of the Notes to Storch' s 1'ableau de la Russie 9 
tom. I. 
