254 Mr. Bell on the groning power of Russia. 
as equally conscious of her own strength, and the growing weakness 
of her rival. The event justified the sagacity of Vergennes, and ma- 
nifested the folly of Choiseul. Never was a clearer display of weak- 
ness on the one hand, and strength on the other, manifested, than 
in that contest,—of military science over rude bravery, untutored by 
discipline, and uninstructed by knowledge. By the peace of Kai- 
nardgi, dictated by Romanzoff, and ratified by both courts, Russia 
optained her long-desired object, of gaining a firm footing on the 
Seas of Azoff and the Euxine. She obtained possession of Azoff 
and Taganrock en the shores of the Meotis, of Jegnicale and 
Kirtch on the Straits of Kaffa, and Kinburn at the mouth of the 
Dneiper, and all the tract between that stream and its western 
tributary the Bog. What was of more consequence still, she obliged 
the Porte to acquiesce in the independence of the Khan of the 
Crimea, and deprived her fer ever of his formidable aid. By ex- 
citing troubles amongst the subjects of the Khan himself, she com- 
pelled him to abdicate the sovereignty of his own dominions, and then 
seized them all, and obliged the Porte to acquiesce, unable for the 
contest, in the injustice of the measure, and obtained a further ces- 
sion of all the tract between the Don and Kooban rivers. Turkey 
was now stripped of all her territory from the Bog to the Don, and 
from the Don to the Kooban. Nothing was now left her of her 
Tartarian dominions, but what lay to the south of the Keoban, in 
Asia. 
By cunning policy she stirred up that weakest and most capri- 
cious of sovereigns, the emperor Joseph, to make an unjust attack 
upon the Turks, at a time when they were unprepared to repel the 
aggression ; and while she contrived to make the weight of Turk- 
ish resentment to fall chiefly on that foolish monarch, she had full 
leisure to undertake the seige of Ockzakotf, and carry it on without 
any obstruction from a Turkish army. In the succeeding cam- 
paigns, Russia had all the success she could desire, and nothing but 
the interposition of our cabinet, and that of Prussia, saved Turke 
from political annihilation. By the peace of Jassy in 1792, Russia 
again obtained a farther accession of territory, and the Dneister was 
made the new boundary. By the treaty of Kainadgiin 1774, by the 
subsequent treaties of 1783 and 1792, she cbtained from the Turks, 
. exclusive of her Asiatic acquisitions between the Don and the Koo- 
ban, 60,0000 square miles of territory, and at least 500,000 new 
subjects. The number would have been much greater ; but the mass 
ef the Tartars, hitherto subject to the Khan of the Crimea, migrated 
to Anatolia and to the Caucasus, south of the Kooban. 
By the first partition of Poland in 1772, she obtained an addi- 
tional territory cf 33,000 square miles, and 1,226,000 new sub- 
yeets. Whilst the attention of Europe was engaged in the French 
revolutionary war, Russia obtained, by two other partitions of Po- 
iand, 208,000 square miles of territory, and 5,212,000 inhabitants, 
in 1793 and 1795. In 1795, Courland was annexed to the Russian 
crown, containing a superficies of 12,000 square miles, with 570,000 
