and we flatter ourselves indeed that the Conference, this strange usurpation in an independent state, is about to suspend its functions.

Meantime the Residents have presented themselves before the Senate, to announce again the evacuation of Cracow by the Austrian troops, declaring that they only waited to see the new militia organized. But this organization is impeded by themselves in a thousand ways, and the inhabitants refuse to enlist, having recently seen the deportation to America of the greater part of the soldiers and officers of the militia.

The government of the kingdom of Poland has just reduced, from six to two florins, the tariff of Hungarian wines entering through Gallicia, leaving the old duty to remain on those which enter by way of Cracow. This is truly desolating for the commerce of our city, which, during three centuries, was the most considerable entrepôt of the wines of Hungary. The Senate of Cracow has thought itself able to complain of this inequality of duties.

Count Nesselrode has just transmitted to the Senate "the verbal answer of His Majesty, who has deigned to declare that he had given the order to diminish the duties on the frontiers of Gallicia, from regard to a friendly power; but that the city of Cracow could not claim in his sight any title to a similar privilege."

[It is with regret that we have so long delayed to present our readers with a statement of the present relations of the European powers with the coast of Barbary. We had long ago felt the necessity of preparing the public mind for events which are likely to take place immediately. We were on the point of concluding our remarks upon the Unkiar Skelessi Treaty, with the new complications that are about to arise out of it by the affairs going on along the coast of Africa, when the following letter was put into our hands, which we publish, as we are pressed for time.

We confine ourselves to making one remark, viz. the delicate and difficult position in which England is placed by this new complication. Of course, she cannot interfere on the side of France. She must interfere, and yet if she takes up arms against France, that war may be brought about which Russia has so long desired and hoped she might involve us in, by means of the affairs in the Spanish Peninsula.]

FRENCH EXPEDITION TO TUNIS

SIR,

To the Editor of the Portfolio.

London, 16th July, 1836.

It has struck me as a remarkable circumstance, that, while the affairs on the coast of Barbary have been for a long time preparing a crisis likely to affect in a material point of view the grand question which you have undertaken to elucidate, you have hitherto devoted to them no attention.

In the boundless field of inquiry that lies before you, doubtless you have some difficulty in choosing the point to which to direct the attention of your readers. But, I trust, that the information contained in this day's paper will show you the necessity of exposing the intrigues that have been so long working in that quarter, unknown to the public, or misrepresented.

If these few observations shall have the effect of directing your attention to them, I trust you will pardon my intruding upon your time.

There are many erroneous ideas entertained in this country respecting the Regencies, as they are generally called, which require to be cleared up.

First, with respect to their irreclaimable piratical habits.

Before we can suggest a remedy, it is necessary to know the origin of a disease, and, therefore, it is necessary to know why these states originally became pirates, or rather, as the sequel will show, why they placed themselves in hostility with every Christian nation.

Algiers, the principal of these powers, was founded by the unfortunate victims of Spanish fanaticism, and they seated them

selves there for the purpose of regaining the possessions from which they had been expelled. As the struggle there had been placed upon the grounds of religion, so they kept up an hostility against Christian powers. This hostility was still maintained by Charles the Fifth and Philip the Second, until the island of Malta was consigned to the Knights of St. John, it forming the outpost of Christian piracies, the Regencies, the outposts of Mahometan piracies. Thus religious fanaticism and consequent hostility was kept up on one side and the other, as cause and effect. The crusading spirit yielded in the other parts of Christendom to the diffusion of knowledge and to other occupations; not so at Malta, where the vow of the Christian knight was eternal warfare against the Infidels. Up to the latest date of the possession of that island by the Hospitaller Knights, the Archipelago was filled with the piracies of these military monks, for which the Algerines retaliated in their turn. At last, the island was taken out of the hands of this fraternity and, had any measures been pursued, excepting those that have been pursued by England and France, all hostility would have died away.

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Owing to the dissensions that occurred at Algiers during the reign of one of the earlier Turkish Sultans, it was agreed upon all hands that it was better for them to place themselves under the protection of the Porte. It was then enacted that, on the death of the ruler of the Regency, the principal men were to assemble and elect his successor; the Porte approving or disapproving. But subsequently, the Porte was allowed to nominate with the approbation of the leading men. In process of time, however, in consequence of complications introduced into the Turkish Empire, the central authority was enfeebled, and the Pashas of different provinces held their authority contrary to the wishes of the Porte. We in Europe mistook this anomalous state of things, as it appears to any one reasoning from a centralized government for the independence of the Regency. But it is as great a mistake to talk about their independence as of the independence of Djezzar Pasha, or of Ali Tebelen of Jannina. On all occasions, internal differences were referred to the arbitra..

tion of the lord paramount; they, on their part, thus acknowledging a dependence on the Porte as well as the payment of tribute, which sometimes they withheld but never disavowed, and the Porte, on the other hand, claiming its sovereignty by the names of Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers, appearing annually in the official list of nominations. This custom survives to the present day; Tripoli and Tunis appearing in that annual list, with the name of the Bey or Pasha governing; Algiers with a blank.

France was the first that showed practically her misunderstanding of the noncentralizing system pursued by the Porte, and sent agents who were to discuss directly all matters of disagreement between her subjects and the Barbary States. We followed her example, and not only rendered our agents there independent of the ambassador at Constantinople, but also made them correspond with a department which, in other respects, has nothing to do with foreign matters.

The Russians and Austrians pursued a different line. They did not acknowledge the independence of states that did not assert their independence. As the Porte claimed sovereignty over them, they demanded from it directly satisfaction for every injury, and we believe that there is not an instance on record of their having failed in obtaining full and complete satisfaction. I am sure that if England and France had acted in the same way, piracies would very soon have ceased in the Mediterranean. We should have been saved from having been brought into collision with the Mussulmans of Africa; our commerce in this quarter would have been extended a much better understanding would have been established between ourselves and the natives, and thus the interest of our own commerce, as well as that of civilization generally, would have been promoted. We talk of these people as being essentially piratical and irreclaimably anti-social; and vet no efforts have been made to conciliate them, nor means taken to civilize them. Christianity has always assumed a hostile form towards them. Besides, our habits and their's are so extremely opposed, and there is so much of mutual repulsion between us, that it is evident the only means whereby they could be civilized would be through the medium of the Turks.

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