Viewing page 16 of 285

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

20] ANNUAL REGISTER

peatedly taken, and he has successively defeated the Turkish officers, whenever they have ventured to meet him. May we, for its singularity, add the following whimsical circumstance, which is related of this extraordinary man. It is said, that at this great age, he every year marries a fine young girl of thirteen or fourteen; it however remains a doubt, whether this be the effect of constitution, or avarice; for it appears that the monks of the order of St. Francis in the Holy-Land, having usually given a present at the marriage of a chiek, to gain his favour and protection, it became at length, to be considered as an obligation, and Chiek Daher is paid a thousand crowns a year by the friers, for his marriages.
   Ali Bey found his patriarchal friend surrounded by his children and nephews, and strengthened by the accession of the Mutualis, and some other barbarous tribes, whom he had lately subdued, and now taught to subdue other. The war has been since carried on in the same loose and irregular manner as before; but can exist no longer, than the present troubles in which the Porte is involved; for the lofs of Egypt must then prove fatal to Ali Bey.
   The conduct of the great partitioning powers, gradually unfolded their designs during the negociations at Foczani. They proceeded silently in carrying on thes arrangements which they had lately concluded; while they see,ed restrained by their enormity from making a public avowal of them. It seemed as if they endeavoured to feel the general temper and disposition of Europe; and by a climax of successive exorbitancies, to prevent the surprize which attends novelty, and prepare the public for those greater which were still to succeed. Deformity wears off by acquaintance; and perhaps they found it necessary to familiarize themselves with thier own designs, before they could arrive at a resolution of exposing them nakedly to the view of the world.
   We have fomerly seen, how the breaking out of the plague in Poland, together with the war carried on in that country, afforded a pretence to the Austrians and Prussians, to draw lines, and form great bodies of troops upon its borders. These troops by degrees entered farther both into Poland and Prussia; and through the mutual jealousy that then subsisted between those powers, the motions and numbers on the one side, were in a great measure regulated by those of the other. As the movements and designs of the King of Prussia are at all times alarming and suspicious, they were at this time particularly so to the Poles; who from his intimate connection with Russia, as well as his own particular disposition, could make no doubt of his entering into, or furthering, her most pernicious designs. Their opinions and affections were very differently disposed with regard to Austria. As the Empress-queen was well known to be adverse to the whole conduct of the court of Petersburg with the respect to Poland, and her jealousy, both of that and the court of Berlin, were equally well understood, her military movements were observed with the greatest of pleasure, by all the Poles, almost, of whatever party; as it was from her natural opposition to those two inimical powers, her avowed piety, and|
|||
For the YEAR 1772. [21

and supposed true judgement in political manners, that they expected, sooner or later, the deliverance of their country.
   The Prussian troops from their first entrance into the dominions of Poland, without the pretence or colour of war, acted in every respect, as if they had come to revenge unparalelled injuries, in the country of the most odious enemy; and even exceeded what is practiced upon those occasions, between civilized nations. Their monarch seems upon this occasion to have exhausted the whole of his fertile genius, in finding out new modes of rapine, oppression, and tyranny. No forms were observed; no measures were kept; and even the ordinary appearances and trappings of justice, were shamelessly thrown by.
   It has been computed, that at a moderate estimation, he carried off in the course of the year 1771, from the province of Great Polan and the adjoining districts, twelve thousand families, who were sent with their effects, to stock the barren land and bleak wilds of his hereditary dominions. In the same year he published an edict, commanding every person, under the severest penalties, and even corporal punishment, to take in payment for forage, provisions, corn, horses, &c. the money which should be offered by his troops and commissaries. This money was either silver, bearing the impression of Poland, and worth only one third of its nominal value, or else ducats, struck in imitation of the Dutch ducats, (which from their intrinsic worth are current in every part of Germany and the North) that were seventeen per cent. below them in value. With this base money, he bought up corn and forage enough, not only to supply his army for two whole years; but also to stock magazines in the country where the provisions were bought, which were afterwards converted into markets, where the inhabitants were obliged to come and re-purchase corn, at an advanced price, for their daily subsistence to pay for it with good money; his commissaries refusing to take back the same coin, which they had before obliged the people to receive. It is said, that the king gained in this singe article of extortion and injustice, seven millions of dollars; which, though an amazing sum, and that the calculation may be large; yet if we recollect, that by being master that year of the Vistula, he became possessed of all the corn in Poland that was intended for the Dantzick market, besides what his troops could lay hands on in Great Poland and Prussia, and remember at the same time the exceeding scarcity and great price of the commodity, both in Germany and all the neighbouring countries, we may perhaps find reason not to think the sum much exaggerated.
   Excessive contributions were at first extorted, which were afterwards doubled and trebled, both in Great Poland and Royal Prussia. Unheard-or gabelles were at length imposed, and the protestant cities of Dantzick and Thorn surrounded with custom-houses,  at which exorbitant duties were levied upon all the necessaries of life, as they were carried in market. In a word, the exactions from the abbies, convents, cathedrals, and nobles, were so exorbitant, and at length grew so much beyond their abilities,|
[B 3]