Page images
PDF
EPUB

I.

From M. Molé to Count Campuzano.

(TRANSLATION.)

MONSIEUR LE COMTE,

6th October, 1836.

General Alava had placed at the disposal of General Harispe, for the military service of Spain, funds, of which a sum of one hundred and twenty or one hundred and fifty thousand francs has remained unemployed. Several reports which have reached the King's Government on the present position of the legion but too clearly confirm what had been previously said of the extreme destitution of this corps, so distinguished for its bravery and its discipline. Under these circumstances, of which it would be superfluous to explain the consequences, the King's Government conceives it may be useful to serve the interests of Spain, to suggest the proposal that the funds remaining disposable in the hands of General Harispe should be applied, as soon as possible, to the most pressing wants of the Foreign Legion. I, therefore, have to request you to have the goodness to recommend to the Cabinet of Madrid a request, against which I can the less foresee any objection, as the definitive application which it is proposed to make of the sum in question will not be at all at variance with the destination which the preceding administration in Spain had assigned to it.

(Signed)

Le Ministre des Affaires Etrangères.

To Monsieur le Comte de Campuzano.

MOLE.

II.

From Count Campuzano to M. le Comte Molé.

(TRANSLATION.)

MONSIEUR LE COMTE,

Paris, 8th October, 1836.

I have the satisfaction of being able to inform your Excellency, in reply to your letter of the 6th instant, which only reached me yesterday evening, that, by the courier whom I had at that moment sent, I warmly recommended the state of the Foreign Legion, in consequence of a conversation I had had with General Bernard, and in which I had learnt the state of destitution of that corps, so distinguished by its bravery and by its discipline. It will thus be an easy duty for me to bring the object of your Excellency's letter to the knowledge of my Court.

In this persuasion, I beg your Excellency to receive the assurances, &c.

(Signed) LE COMTE CAMPUZANO DE RECHEM. To Monsieur le Comte Molé, Ministre des

Affaires Etrangères.

To the Minister of the Interior.

(TRANSLATION.)

MONSIEUR LE MINISTRE,

Bayonne, 10th October, 1836.

In consequence of the recurrence of the fraudulent practices of the exportation of horses, and conformably to the reiterated instructions of your Excellency, the individuals composing the guard of surveillance have been on special duty day and night. Independently of the Custom-house

officers, the special commissioners perform alternate duty with the subalterns and brigadiers of the gendarmerie to establish ambuscades; and the troops of the line are called upon to assist in this duty, and to multiply its efficiency on a greater number of points; but, when one has to combat the action of a whole population trained to this sort of traffic, in a country eminently adapted to smuggling, one cannot hope for greater results than those which have been obtained. The present state of things is as follows:- The merchants take care that the horses shall arrive at Bayonne, or in the villages, on the market days. The traders of the frontiers arrive; those who can afford it purchase a horse; those who have not sufficient funds give a pledge for payment, or the same individual has several passed to his account on paying a premium, which varies from forty-five to seventy francs. When the horses are once thus separated, they spread over the frontier, and from that time the whole family of guides is employed by espionage in lighting the paths, the woods, the ravines, that they must traverse. Lights, cries, whistles, (the meaning of which is known to the horsemen), give them warning. The uniforms of the gendarmerie and of the troops of the line facilitate the discovery of the ambuscades. The Custom-house officers disguise themselves more easily, and conceal themselves with more skill; but the country is so well known by the smugglers, that they almost always guess, if they have lost sight of them for a moment, the spot where the discovered posts may have been re-established. Still, notwithstanding these difficulties, the subjoined report of the Director of the Customs proves, that out of sixty-six horses who have attempted to pass, nine have been seized, and four have been turned back.

(This account is from the 31st of August to the 5th of October, 1836. The result is in substance, that attempts at

exportation have been made at Sarre, Rassebone, Larressore, Ainboa, Arcanguez, Arassa, Urdos de Raigorray, Lasse, Harnavalt, &c.)

I may affirm that not more than seventy horses reached the other side of the frontier until the 7th of this month. (Here follow details, of which we reserve the publication for a future period.)

. . . The price of each horse is considerably increased on his arrival on the other side of the frontier.

Still this smuggling trade was carried on, on account of private persons, who with two horses ransomed themselves, or their sons, from the service. Don Carlos, on the demand of the Commander-in-chief, Villaréal, has just changed this regulation, by exacting one thousand two hundred francs instead of horses; because, as happened last year, these young horses can with difficulty support the climate, and two or three months pass before they become capable of rendering good service.

Three-fourths of those which were exported last year died during the winter, without having been employed in the service.

People dread in Spain the requisition for horses, and many of them are taken to the Carlists, who pay pretty well for them, and thus receive them accustomed to the climate. I am certain of the truth of this report.

The circumstance above-mentioned explains the fact of the resumption of the smuggling trade, and I have even learnt this morning, from persons coming from the country, that families are in a state of destitution, because they have been refused by the officers of the Carlist cavalry.

Finally, your Excellency's orders are a new motive for us to redouble our watchfulness.

[blocks in formation]

EFFECT OF "THE PORTFOLIO"

ON THE

POPULATIONS OF TURKEY, CIRCASSIA, AND GEORGIA.

EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM CONSTANTINOPLE.

September 20th, 1836.

The publication of the "Portfolio" has produced amongst the nations of the East a sensation to which there is no parallel. Translations of it are constantly being made into Turkish; and although they are not printed, they are handed about from family to family; but the fact, the mere fact of such a publication, is quite sufficient for the Turks. They know the Russians. What they want to learn is something about England: and the publication of Russian Despatches in England, laying bare what they have no doubt of, viz., the projects of Russia, fills them with exultation and hope; and is worth ten thousand homilies.

*

But chiefly is it on the Circassians that this publication has produced a powerful effect. They look on it as their own, fancy it as possessed of some talismanic power, fling it among the Russians, and threaten them with it. It has also found its way into Georgia. The betrayal of the conspiracy of the Georgian Princes was stated in one of the Numbers as having been made by Mehemet Ali. Now the Russians have industriously spread the report throughout Georgia that it was Abbas Meerza who betrayed that instrument to Russia, so as to exasperate the Georgians against the Persians, and to put an end to every future chance of co-operation between them. The number of the "Portfolio" which states the transaction as it really oc curred has been translated into Georgian and sent to Tefflis.

We have just received a most interesting report from Circassia, which will be given in our next Number.-ED.

« PreviousContinue »