386 
DON COSSACKS. 
c J i A p - that little of the lamentable characteristics of 
— v — 1 the Russian people 1 can be applied to them. It 
is only in proportion as they recede from their 
natural effeminacy, that any traits have appeared 
to liken them to the men of their country : an 
instance or two of this kind may have been 
mentioned; but, speaking generally of them, 
they have this only fault, if it be not rather a 
misfortune, that of servility to the most abject 
slaves. 
(lj At the time of making this extract from my Journal, our Eng- 
lish papers are filled with the atrocities committed, not merely by their 
common soldiers, but by their general-officers in Finland. An ac- 
count of them is published by the Lord-lieutenant of the county of 
Fasa, to which his respectable name is affixed. Posterity may there 
be informed what Russians were in the beginning of the present cen- 
tury, when a Major-general, Demidof, gave up the town of Vasa, 
during five days, to plunder, merely because he could not retain its 
possession ; and, assisted by another monster in a human form, the 
Governor Emine, galloped through the streets, to give vigour and ac- 
tivity to a scene of murder, horrible cruelty, and devastation ; crying 
out to his troops. Dobra ! dobra ! (Bravo ! bravo !) as they were 
bayonetting the weeping and kneeling inhabitants, mothers with their 
infants, aged and venerable men, ladies of distinction, children, and 
persons of whatever sex, age, or situation. “ It instructs the world,” 
observes the Lord-lieutenant, “ to describe their conduct ; inasmuch 
as it determines their national character ; and determines, with his- 
toric truth, that with barbarian slaves the character remains un- 
changed, notwithstanding the varnish put on by a sort of external 
humanizing, produced by intercourse with civilized nations.” In the 
parish of Nerpis, Major-general Orlof Dcnesof caused three of the 
peasants to be bound together : and this being done, to prolong the 
pain and agony of the poor sufferers, the Russians pierced their 
thighs, arms, belly, and other parts, with bayonets, before they killed 
them. 
