A considerable number of foreign Europeans reside in both principalities, where they are attracted by a variety of resources.
The principal merchants and bankers, either from birthright or from foreign naturalisation, carry on their business under the immediate protection of European courts; without which the general system of the local governments, so prejudicial to the interests of trade, would give but little security to their operations.
There are at both capitals several German and French coachmakers, carpenters, builders, architects, teachers of European languages and music, physicians, and apothecaries, all of whom have rendered themselves extremely useful to the native inhabitants, and derive no small profit from the exercise of their respective professions. Almost all the importers of foreign furniture, luxuries in ladies’ apparel and other kinds of retail trade, undertakers of subscription-clubs, and of coffee-houses of the better sort, ladies’ shoemakers, mantuamakers, and taylors, are also European foreigners.
A great number of Transylvanian and Hungarian gentry of the inferior rank are attracted by the advantages of renting the Boyars’ estates. According to the treaties existing between the Porte and other powers, foreign subjects are not permitted in any manner to hold, as proprietors, landed property in the Ottoman dominions; the prince of Moldavia observing how little this stipulation had been attended to in his principality, thought it necessary, in 1815, to issue a decree which ordered the expulsion of foreign farmers. The Boyars, whose best estates were under their management, and who had every reason to be satisfied with them, strongly opposed the measure; their representations finally induced the prince to give his tacit consent to their wishes; and, properly speaking, this stipulation of the treaties does not include the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, and ought not to be applied to them.
The progress of the Russian arms previous to the peace of Kaïnargik, had enabled the cabinet of St. Petersburgh to become the arbiter of the fate of Turkey. Whatever might have been the Empress Catharine’s motives for consenting to the conclusion of that peace, she did not remain less sanguine in her favourite project of conquering the empire of the East, and the special clauses in the treaty, which gave her the power of interfering in the affairs of the Wallachians and Moldavians, were calculated not only to secure to her the affections of the people for whom they were most immediately intended, but at the same time to incline the other Christian subjects of Turkey to look upon her as their natural defender, and their future deliverer.
No subsequent events prevented her from employing her right of interference, though, according to circumstances, it may at times have been exercised with more or less energy; and the policy pursued by her successors evidently denotes the continuation of a system which has an important object in view, however distant the possibility of attaining it.[43]
In order, however, to exercise her influence with the activity necessary to ensure success, the empress had insisted also that the Porte should acknowledge the residence in the two principalities of imperial agents, to whom she thought proper to give the title of consuls, as most adapted to screen her views, and to justify her apparent one of enlarging the trade of her empire, and giving protection and assistance to those of her subjects who were willing to extend their commercial transactions to the principalities. This pretext was in fact plausible; for the Russian merchants who had till then been in the habit of trading in those countries, had complained much of the difficulties and vexations they had constantly experienced from the irregularities of the local governments.
However unwilling to recognise the future residence of public agents from the court of Russia, the Porte was unable to oppose it with any prospect of success, and consequently consented.
The court of Vienna soon after followed the example, though from motives of a more commercial nature; and the consuls of Russia once admitted, the Ottoman government could not refuse to acknowledge those of Austria.
The Greeks saw with no little regret the arrival of these foreign agents, who not only checked their authority over the foreign trade, but became also competent witnesses of their political system and administration, and the accredited reporters of all their actions. But, as it was out of their power to oppose the arrangements of the imperial courts, they thought it best to set their submission to the profit of their vanity in receiving the consuls as envoys sent by foreign powers to independent princes. They introduced for their reception the formalities and ceremonial of the public audiences given by the Grand Vezier to European ambassadors at Constantinople, and they revived the custom of the Voïvodes, of being seated on an elevated throne on similar occasions.
Under the republic of France, French consuls were sent for the first time to reside in the principalities, and their establishment has been kept up without interruption under the successive governments of France. On several occasions they were very useful to Buonaparte.
A British consul-general was for the first time appointed in 1802 to reside at Bukorest, chiefly for the purpose of facilitating the overland communications between England and Turkey. After the peace of Tilsit he was recalled, and the consulate was renewed in 1813, with the additional motive of promoting commercial intercourse with the principalities.
The pope has for many years been represented by a bishop in Wallachia, and by a vicar in Moldavia; the latter has recently been promoted to the rank of a bishop.
The number of Roman Catholic inhabitants is considerable; most of the Servian, Bulgarian, and Transylvanian settlers belong to that persuasion. They have two fine churches at Bukorest and at Yassi.
There are also two protestant churches originally founded by Charles XII. of Sweden during his long residence in the principalities. They are superintended by a vicar appointed and paid by the archbishop of Stockholm. The protestant inhabitants are German, and their number amounts to one thousand. All foreign churches, provided they profess the doctrines of christianity, are not only tolerated in the principalities, but allowed a variety of privileges which they cannot enjoy in any part of the Turkish dominions. The metropolies seldom interfere with their affairs, and when any circumstance obliges them so to do, they bear every possible regard to their institutions, and never assume the tone of superiority.
In general, the social intercourse between the natives and foreign inhabitants is carried on upon a much more friendly footing than might be expected from the number of national prejudices that still divide them, in opinions, religion, and established customs. The natural hospitality of the Boyars makes no exceptions with foreigners; and if on one hand this quality loses a part of its merit in being the mere effect of custom, on the other it does not deserve the less credit when totally divested of ostentatious motives.
It would appear that little benefit is to be expected by the inhabitants of a country long occupied by Russian armies, and made the principal theatre of military operations. Yet the late intercourse between those of the principalities, and the Russians, and the prospect of their being incorporated with the Russian empire, have, in many respects, improved their civilisation. A variety of barbarous customs existing before have been abolished; usages and institutions were introduced which tended to their improvement, and the exterior manners of the Boyars have undergone a polish which is not unworthy of more enlightened nations. Those of Moldavia would view with pleasure any political change in their country which offered to them the sure prospect of improvement in civilisation. Those of Wallachia have long since consoled themselves for the improbability of any early change, by taking a very active part in the general system of rapacity, of which it has become the lot of their countrymen of inferior order to bear the weight.