Under the influence of Catherine's liberal institutions, the military colony completely fulfilled the hopes of the government, and made rapid progress. The rich pastures of the Kouban were covered with immense multitudes of cattle, and agriculture, too, attained some degree of importance. The population also augmented considerably. The lands of the Kouban, as formerly those of the Don, became an asylum for a great number of fugitives, and the neighbouring provinces had often to complain of the escape of their slaves. But for the last twenty years the Black Sea Cossacks have been suffering from the effects of the new measures for equalisation and uniformity, and, like the Cossacks of the Don, they are now on the eve of being subjected to the ordinary laws and institutions of the provinces of the empire. The first encroachment on their privileges, was their employment on active service during the late wars with Turkey and Persia. They were obliged to furnish four regiments, which lost an enormous number of men, and nearly all their horses. This first step taken, the government advanced rapidly in its course of reform, and in a few years the Cossacks were deprived of their right of electing their own functionaries, who were thenceforth nominated by the emperor alone. These administrative changes, conjoined with the military duties, which have increased to a most onerous extent in the course of the war against the mountaineers, have had a very depressing effect on the spirits of the population; and at this day the Cossacks of the Kouban are far different men from those fiery Zaporogues, whose vigorous aid was so eagerly sought by Russia, Poland, and Turkey. The military life is become a loathsome burden to them, and they now only fight by constraint or in self-defence. The Russians, accordingly, accuse them of cowardice; but the government, by destroying their privileges, and the commanders-in-chief by the scorn with which they treat them and the continual activity they impose on them, do all that in them lies to dishearten and debase them. It is they who are always put foremost in every expedition; every commanding officer sacrifices them without scruple, and makes targets of them for the balls of the mountaineers. Is it reasonable, then, to expect alacrity and high courage on the part of men for whom military service is the breaking of every family tie, the destruction of all domestic prosperity, and who have not been left, in exchange for so many sacrifices, even the shadow of national independence?
At the time of my last journey to the Caucasus in 1840, the Cossacks of the Black Sea numbered about 112,000 souls, of whom 68,000 were males, residing in sixty-four villages, and on 36,000,000 hectares of land held in common property, like the country of the Don in former times. The colonial army counted at that period according to the registers, eleven regiments of cavalry, ten of infantry, of 800 men each, and two batteries of artillery, one of them mounted, making altogether a total of 20,000 men, nearly the third of the male population. No doubt, the army can never in any case reach the official amount of force, its ranks being continually thinned by disease and war; and although young men are forced to enter the service at the age of seventeen, and are often kept in it thirty or forty years, still it would be quite impossible to bring more than 12,000 or 14,000 into the field at once, without endangering the total destruction of the population. In a pecuniary point of view, no men could well be more unfortunate than the Cossacks of the Kouban, whether in campaign against the mountaineers, or merely cantoned as reserves in their villages, they receive absolutely nothing for their services. The regulations, indeed, declare that the regiments actually called out shall receive pay at the rate of six rubles annually for each private, thirty-five rubles for every non-commissioned officer, and 250 for every subaltern officer; but infallible means have been found for preventing these moderate allowances from ever reaching those to whom they are promised. The posting establishment throughout the Cossack country costs the government just as little as the maintenance of the troops, since horses, harness, hay, and corn are all furnished gratis by the colony. The postilions even receive no pay whatever; they are only allowed a little flour and groats, and for every thing else they and their families must shift for themselves during their whole term of service. As for the progon (the posting-money paid by travellers), it belongs to the Cossack exchequer, and composes, with the proceeds of the farm of brandy, salt, and the fisheries, the sole revenues of the country.