Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 001.djvu/318

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318
Register.—Foreign Intelligence.
[June

have now so far improved, that they can make cassimere almost as fine as the English. They have entirely left off coffee, tea, and sugar.


RUSSIA.

The governor of the Russian Company, and the Russian consuls in Britain, have received an official communication from St Petersburgh, containing the following quarantine regulations, which will, we understand, be rigorously enforced.

1. "That no vessels can be admitted into any ports of the Baltic, unless they produce a formal document from the Danish quarantine establishments, either at Elsinore, Nyburg, Frederica, or Tonningen, recognizing them free and exempt from every infection or suspicion whatever.

2. "That the ships or vessels coming to the ports of the White Sea cannot be admitted there, if they are not provided with a similar document from Norway (viz. from Christiansand) or England, from which it may appear, that they have observed in either of those kingdoms a rigorous quarantine, and have been declared there fully purified.

2. "That in order that no fraud or deception should be practised, the Russian government will furnish the forms of quarantine-certificates given at the above mentioned places, to all the custom houses, and commanders of guard ships, in the Russian empire.

(Signed)"J. A. Riemer, Sec.

"Consulate, April 11, 1817."

General Kosciusko, who continues to reside in the town of Soleure in Switzerland, and whose beneficence has procured him the admiration of all the country round, has executed, on the 2d of April, an act, by which he abolishes servitude on his domain of Siechroviez, in the palatinate of Buchzere, in Poland. He declares that his ancient serfs shall in future be exempted from all charges and personal services, and possess their lands as absolute property. An earnest recommendation is added to them, not to neglect, both for their own good and that of the State, the improvement of the liberty they have received, by means of schools and establishments of instruction.


IONIAN ISLANDS.

Corfu, Feb. 1—A most extraordinary affair took place about a week since. A conspiracy was denounced to the governor, in which about twenty of the principal persons in this island was said to be implicated. The plot was, to seize on the citadel at a time when the regiment, the 75th, had marched out—to blow up the works—to kill the governor, and declare the island independent, &c. &c.

Last Wednesday the plot was ripe. At twelve o'clock the gates of the town were shut, and the houses of the supposed conspirators taken possession of by the military. The suspected persons were marched to the palace, to be tried immediately. Many papers were found in their houses, with their plans, &c. and the usual commissions were made out. It was supposed their trials would have been finished that night, when we expected to have received the criminals on board, and next morning have witnessed their execution; but to the astonishment of every body, it was discovered that the whole affair was a contrivance of a young man belonging to the police, and who himself gave the information—hunting, as it would appear, for blood-money. He himself had made out all the papers; and singular as it may appear, had managed to have them secreted in the houses of the different parties whom he denounced. He had even collected a quantity of arms and ammunition, and had employed men in the country in making cartridges near the residence of one of these gentlemen. In fact, a more deep and villainously concerted plan was scarcely ever heard of. What increases, if possible, the atrocity of his crime, he had included in his accusation some of his nearest relatives. This wretch, who had been taken in his own toils, is now under trial, and tomorrow, it is expected, he will receive the punishment which his crime so richly deserves.

The proclamation of General Maitland, dated 11th February, states in substance, that the whole of the supposed conspiracy was the machination of two individuals, Spiridion Lepeniotty, and Nicolo Caracopulo, and that the persons whom these incendiaries had implicated, appeared, after the most careful investigation, to be altogether unconnected with it. From motives which we do not well understand, the sentence of death to which Lepeniotty was liable, has been commuted into one year's solitary confinement, and compulsory labour in chains for seven years afterwards, with banishment at the end of that term. The punishment of his accomplice is to be one year's solitary confinement.

[Want of room has obliged vs to withdraw the remainder of the Foreign Intelligence for this month: It will be given in, our next Number. Editor.