Volume 1

Travels in Circassia, Krim-tartary, &c. : including a steam voyage down the Danube, from Vienna to Constantinople, and round the Black sea, in 1836.

  • Spencer, Edmund.
Date:
1837
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Travels in Circassia, Krim-tartary, &c. : including a steam voyage down the Danube, from Vienna to Constantinople, and round the Black sea, in 1836. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    15/408 (page 11)
    feel surprised at the domination assumed by Rus- sia over the councils of her feeble neighbours, when we remember the inertness exhibited in the policy of the European powers. Neither can we marvel at her audacity in throwing down the gauntlet of defiance at the feet of Great Britain, by the capture of one of her merchantmen while in the act of trading with the independent tribes of Circassia; an act which has afforded a striking illustration of the truth that nations in this respect are like private individuals,—the man who has once received an insult without resenting it, will certainly be exposed to a repetition of the offence. We may be indignant at the present moment on account of the seizure of the Viven, but let it be remembered that this is not the only instance within the last few years in which Russia has insulted the British flag. The first occurred in 1835, when the Lord Charles Spencer, a trading vessel bound for a port in the Euxine, being driven by contrary winds on the Circassian coast, was taken by a Russian cruiser, and subjected to a series of degrading humiliations similar to