om it must be admitted
that we have here done ample justice in all their proceedings. But they
were the same Russians who, under Peter the Great, were reported to have
stolen the boots from the feet of their sleeping hosts; the same whose
hands the Roumanians had kissed when in 1829 they had released them from
the Turkish yoke; who it 1853 overran the Principalities with a view to
their permanent occupation, and who a few months after the events above
recorded betrayed their allies, and, for the risk they had run of once
more sacrificing their national existence, deprived them of Southern
Bessarabia, a province inhabited almost entirely by Roumanians.

Still the war brought its compensating advantages. The Dobrudscha which
the Roumanians received in exchange for Bessarabia, is proving a more
valuable acquisition both for trade and for strategical purposes than
was at first anticipated.

The Treaty of San Stephano, which was executed between Russia and Turkey
on February 19 [March 3], 1878, and was practically confirmed by the
Berlin Conference, contained amongst its other provisions this one (part
of Article V.): 'The Sublime Porte recognises the independence of
Roumania, which will establish its right to an indemnity to be discussed
between the two countries;' and (part of Article XII.): 'All the
Danubian strongholds shall be razed. There shall be no strongholds in
future on the banks of this river, nor any men-of-war in the waters of
the Principalities of Roumania, Servia, and Bulgaria, except the usual
_stationnaires_ and the small vessels intended for river police and
custom-house purposes.' And Article XIX. gave to Russia that part of
Turkey bordering on the Danube, known as the Dobrudscha, which Russia
'reserves the right of exchanging for the part of Bessarabia detached
from her by the treaty of 1856,' and which, to the great indignation of
the Roumanians, she subsequently forced them to relinquish in 'exchange'
for her newly acquired territory.

But _n'importe_. Roumania was free; and this time she had fought for and
won her complete independence.

VII.

There is something unsettled in the nature of an independent
principality. The title fails to convey the idea of a free and sovereign
people, and we are always disposed to regard it as the possible province
of some annexing neighbour. So thought a writer on Roumania four years
ago, at the close of the war of liberation. 'Situated as it is, as an
independ