The quartering of troops is another subject on which, as I have not previously remarked, it may not be uninteresting to give a few particulars. Reuilly says, "under the Empress Catherine, the Tatars obtained an exemption from every kind of tax, and of the quartering of troops, as well as the privilege of not furnishing recruits. But they undertook to maintain two regiments ofBechley, or cavalry, amounting to nearly 5000 men. Paul the First having abolished the regular troops, it was proposed to subject the Tatars to the same taxes as the rest of the empire, which exciting emotion, the present Emperor restored them to their privileges, and instead of the maintenance of the two regiments, ordered that they should supply the troops quartered there with wood." The fact is, the Tatars do not maintain, but furnish two regiments ; and in the war with France, they furnished four regiments, which were commanded by Prince Balatook: they were a line body ofmen, 800 in each regiment, and their brave conduct was highly extolled. Prince Balatook has been lately exerting all his interest to be made Hetman of the Tatars, and for a time it excited much commotion in the government of the Grim : he, however, has not yet succeeded to his wish. Besides the furnishing the two regiments, which is their quota in the peace establishment, the supply of wood is required ; and they are also subject to the quartering of troops in their marches and counter marches through the peninsula, which is sometimes their route for Georgia, when detachments are marched from Moldavia, or Bessarabia, or the western part of the empire, beside the interchange of those stationed in the peninsula.
In 1789, the number of troops in the Crimea are stated to have been thirty thousand, ofwhich five thousand were Cossacks : the present military establishment is only ten thousand. Ofthe military force in 1767, under theKhans MaksoodGueray, and his successorKrim Gueray, Baron de Tott thus writes :
"Thebestcalculation we can make is from a view of the military forces which the Cham is able to assemble. We shall soon see this prince raising three armies at the same time ; one of a hundred thousand men, which he commanded in person ; another ofsixty thousand, commanded by the Calga; and a third offorty thousand, by the Nooradin. He had the power of raising double the number, without prejudice to the necessary labours ofthe state." Although during my residence there, I once or twice heard of projected insurrections, I could o not, from what I saw, or what I heard upon good authority, find that any spirit of the kind existed: much too powerless are these people now, to rise up against the still increasing and giant strength of their master ; and if, with the disuse of their warlike weapons, the disposition to use them be not fled, the bold spirit which distinguished them under the reigns of their Khans, seems now confined to the worst part of their community, who are ferocious and daring in evil alone, Yie Yie Murza, a Tatar nobleman living in the neighbourhood of Port Patch, (the village to which the Tatars belonged whose execution I described), was suspected upon very strong grounds, of being a sharer in the plunder of these marauders. To answer this, he was summoned to the tribunal at Akmetchet, whither it is said, he took and distributed at his first visit, twenty thousand rubles. And eventually to raise the sums necessary to save himself from personal punishment, he first sold his sheep and his stud of mares, and lastly an estate.
As I have more than once mentioned feltyagers, it may be proper to explain what is the particular department of these officers : they are exclusively employed upon the Civil Service, and are more peculiarly destined to that part of it which has reference to the secret execution ofthe orders ofadministration in the differentprovinces; such as the sudden removal of governors of provinces, or their principal agents, or other obnoxious characters suspected by government. These felt-yagers are universally selected for strength of body, personal courage, and prudence. They usually conduct their prisoner, bound hand and foot, to Siberia, or occasionally to the prisons of the metropolis. They travel with their charge with the greatest rapidity, and are not only officers ofrank, but armed with the most absolute authority, to obtain all they require on the road, to expedite their passage through the country.