ment of this " praiseworthy object," by the way, which after due examination, is acknowledged to be right and expedient, when the matter comes to be discussed in the Diet.

ger Prüfung als richtig und unbedenklich anerkannten Wege, wenn die Sache in der Bundes-Versammlung zur Sprache kommt, seine Unterstützung zu versagen.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE ARMENIANS,

[The following notice of the Armenians, from a small German work, which gives an Historical Account of the Emigration of Forty Thousand Armenian Families from the Persian province of Azerbijan to the Russian Dominions, may serve as a farther illustration of the facilities which Russia derives in her aggressive system, by seducing from their allegiance the subjects of neighbouring states, and rendering those whom she has made "restless and discontented" with their native countries the instruments of still further compromising themselves and their unhappy countrymen.]

With the exception of the children of Israel, no people have been so scattered over the globe as the Armenians. The Armenian merchants form large and very wealthy communities at Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta, whose total numbers are estimated at twenty thousand persons. Armenian merchants carry on a large portion of the foreign commerce with the kingdoms beyond the Ganges, in Burmah, Siam, and among the Indo-Chinese nations. The most respected and the richest merchants of the city of Sincapore, which has hardly been founded more than a century, are Armenians, and from hence they visit, for the sake of commerce, the larger islands of the Eastern Archipelago, such as Java, Sumatra, and Borneo, as well as the commercial city of Canton, which is alone accessible to foreigners. The Armenians travel and carry on their trade in the chanats or principalities of Central Asia, such as Bokkara, Kokan, and Chiva. Travelling for gain, they traverse Cashmere and the other great possessions of Runjeet Sing, the Lord of Lahore, as well as Afghanistan. At Dschulfa, a suburb of Ispahan, called after the old celebrated town of Armenia, and in other parts of Persia, are to be found no unimportant communities of Armenians. Before the time of Nadir Shah,

twelve thousand Armenian families were to be found there, who at that time had raised themselves, by commerce with India, to importance by their riches and luxuries, of which the many splendid houses and churches which still remain unused, or have partly fallen into ruin, afford ample testimony. This colony, once so rich and populous, enumerates even now, according to the most recent reports, for which we have to thank the active German Missionaries, sent out from the Missionary Society of Basle, only five hundred poor families. Moreover, Armenians are the most considerable merchants at Cairo and Alexandria; and even the head of the Church of Abyssinia is at present an Armenian; and the first ambassador who was sent from Abyssinia to Portugal was an Armenian. This people has religious and commercial establishments in every part of Syria, in European Turkey, in Russia, in Poland, in many provinces of the Austrian Empire, and in Italy.

Armenia embraced, in ancient times, an extensive district of territory from east to west. It stretched from the Euphrates to the eastern part of the Persian province of Azerbijan, and to the Caspian Sea. It was equally extensive from south to north, from Mardin and Nisibis, to the Old Chaldea or the present Pashalick of Trebizond, as far as Georgia and the country of Ashuank, the Albania of the ancient Greeks, and the Daghestan of modern times. Besides this, according to Armenian geographers, many more countries of Western Asia, such as Mesopotamia and Cilicia, are calculated in a more extensive sense as belonging to Armenia; whilst the Armenians have, at one time or other, either inhabited these districts in numerous masses or even governed them. A larger portion of the ancient seat of the Armenians was of late years conquered by Russia: the Armenian people, especially the larger portion, which is not united with the Catholic Church, has also looked for a con

siderable time on this great empire as a new fatherland. Since the last six or eight years, Armenians, on this account, wander in masses from the neighbouring provinces, which were for a short time taken possession of in the last wars with the Persians and the Turks, from Erzeroura, Azerbijan, and Ghilan, to the new possessions of the Czar, to Achilzik, Kars, Erivan, and Nakshivan. In the treaties of peace which Russia dictated to her southern neighbours, who were indebted for their existence to the well-grounded jealousy of the European Powers, in general the free, unimpeded right of emigration was stipulated in favour of the Christian population;—an article which, however indistinct, it commonly was in the treaty, still weakened the internal power of Persia and Turkey more than the surrender of any districts of territory. The importance of this article of the treaties of peace with Persia and Turkey, and the emigration, which took place in consequence of it, of a great number of Christians, especially Armenians, from the neighbouring provinces of Persia and of Turkey into Russia, was partly unknown, partly unremarked, in Europe. I thought it right, therefore, to lay before the friends of contemporary history, in a German work, the translation of "The Description of the Emigration of the Armenians from Azerbijan to Russia, by Sergi Glinka, printed at Moscow, in 1831, in the Lazarewich Institution for Oriental Languages," which appeared in Russian, and in which the proclamation of Lazarew to the Armenians is given in the Armenian language, as well as a fac-simile of the letters of the Persian Crown Prince, Abbas Mirza.

One cannot say that the Russians did actually forcibly carry away from the Persians their subjects. But even if this had happened, the historian would but acknowledge in this transaction the avenging Nemesis. With what cruelty and unrelenting severity did not Shah Abbas I.,

surnamed the Great, conduct himself during the forcible transplanting of the Armenians to the further side of the Araxes and the internal provinces of Persia! In order to inspire terror into the multitude, two of the most considerable Armenians were beheaded, and many others, who attempted to oppose the cruel orders of the Shah, had their noses and ears cut off. Although several thousand Armenians were destroyed in the hasty passage of the Araxes, and also on the difficult journey, still the Armenian population, which was planted in a truly despotic manner in Persia, amounted to nearly four and twenty thousand families. The description of all the calamities and outrages which accompanied this forcible abduction cannot be read in the Armenian histories of those days without horror.

There was no necessity indeed for any compulsory measures on the part of the Russians. It is very natural that the industrious Armenian merchants should prefer to live under the protection of Russia than in Persia, exposed as it is to disorders and oppression of every description. It was not necessary therefore to take such particular pains in order that the Armenians should not in the literal sense of the word be compelled to emigrate. Would that the Russian government, or Count Paskewitsch Erivanski, had but provided for the sustenance of the poor emigrants! The writer of this work has heard from the mouth of a very credible person who was present at the emigration, that more than one half of the deceived wanderers died in the Chanates of Erivan and Nakshivan of a dreadful, excruciating hunger; this is attested also by the general report of Colonel Lazarew to Prince Paskewitch, notwithstanding that the circumstance is glossed over by mild expressions. Is it to be wondered at under such circumstances that the hearts of the Armenians are turned from Russia, and that they look with devotedness to that second, not less great, but