The devastations of war and of the plague rendered both the Russians and Turks desirous of peace.  On the 2d of August, 1772, the Russian and Turkish plenipotentiaries met under tents, on a plain about nineteen miles north of Bucharest, the capital of Wallachia.  The Russian ministers approached in four grand coaches, preceded by hussars, and attended by one hundred and sixty servants in livery.  The Turkish ministers came on horseback, with about sixty servants, all dressed in great simplicity.  The two parties, however, could not agree, and the conference was broken up.  The negotiations were soon resumed at Bucharest, but this attempt was also equally unsuccessful with the first.

The plot for the partition of Poland was now ripe.  Russia, Prussia and Austria had agreed to march their armies into the kingdom and divide a very large portion of the territory between them.  It was as high-handed a robbery as the world ever witnessed.  There is some consolation, however, in the reflection, that the masses of the people in Poland were quite unaffected by the change.  They were no more oppressed by their new despots than they had been for ages by their old ones.  By this act, Russia annexed to her territory the enormous addition of three thousand four hundred and forty square leagues, sparsely inhabited, indeed, yet containing a population of one million five hundred thousand.  Austria obtained less territory, but nearly twice as many inhabitants.  Prussia obtained the contiguous provinces she coveted, with about nine hundred thousand inhabitants.  They still left to the King of Poland, in this first partition, a small fragment of his kingdom.  The King of Prussia removed from his portion the first year twelve thousand families, who were sent to populate the uninhabited wilds of his hereditary dominions.  All the young men were seized and sent to the Prussian army.  The same general course was pursued by Russia.  That the Polish population might be incorporated with that of Russia, and all national individuality lost, the Poles were removed into ancient Russia, while whole provinces of Russians were sent to populate Poland.

The vast wealth which at this time the Russian court was able to extort from labor, may be inferred from the fact, that while the empress was carrying on the most expensive wars, her disbursements to favorites, generals and literary men—­in encouraging the arts, purchasing libraries, pictures, statues, antiques and jewels, vastly exceeded that of any European prince excepting Louis XIV.  A diamond of very large size and purity, weighing seven hundred and seventy-nine carats, was brought from Ispahan by a Greek.  Catharine purchased it for five hundred thousand dollars, settling at the same time a pension of five thousand dollars for life, upon the fortunate Greek of whom she bought it.

The war still raged fiercely in Turkey with the usual vicissitudes of battles.  The Danube at length became the boundary between the hostile armies, its wide expanse of water, its islands and its wooded shores affording endless opportunity for surprises, ambuscades, flight and pursuit.  Under these circumstances war was prosecuted with an enormous loss of life; but as the wasting armies were continually being replenished, it seemed as though there could be no end to the strife.