He was at once an object of hatred for the past,
being a living monument of national independence, ignominiously
surrendered, and an object of jealousy for the future, as one who had
already advertised himself to be a fitting tool for the ultimate
purposes (whatsoever those might prove to be) of the Russian Court.
Coming himself to the Kalmuck sceptre under the heaviest weight of
prejudice from the unfortunate circumstances of his position, it might
have been expected that Oubacha would have been pre-eminently an object
of detestation; for besides his known dependence upon the Cabinet of
St. Petersburg, the direct line of succession had been set aside, and
the principle of inheritance violently suspended, in favor of his own
father, so recently as nineteen years before the era of his own
accession, consequently within the lively remembrance of the existing
generation. He therefore, almost equally with his father, stood within
the full current of the national prejudices, and might have anticipated
the most pointed hostility. But it was not so: such are the caprices in
human affairs, that he was even, in a moderate sense, popular,--a
benefit which wore the more cheering aspect, and the promises of
permanence, inasmuch as he owed it exclusively to his personal
qualities of kindness and affability, as well as to the beneficence of
his government.
Pages:
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260