"The Wallachians or Daco-Romans, the chief inhabitants of the district between the Lower Danube and the Dniester, are a greatly mixed population, belonging to the Greek Church and speaking a language derived from the Latin, and in many respects not unlike the Italian. Those of Transylvania and the Bukowina belong to the Austrian, those of Bessarabia to the Russian Empire; those of Moldavia and Wallachia, the only two principalities where the Daco-Roman race has acquired a political existence, have princes of their own, under the nominal suzerainty of the Porte and the real dominion of Russia. Of the Transylvanian Wallachians we heard much during the Hungarian War; hitherto oppressed by the feudalism of Hungarian landlords who were, according to the Austrian system, made at the same time the instruments of all government exactions, this brutalised mass was, in like manner as the Ruthenian serfs of Galicia in 1846, won over by Austrian promises and bribes, and began that war of devastation which has made a desert of Transylvania. The Daco-Romans of the Turkish Principalities have at least a native nobility and political institutions; and in spite of all the efforts of Russia, the revolutionary spirit has penetrated among them, as the insurrection of 1848 well proved. There can hardly be a doubt that the exactions and hardships inflicted upon them during the Russian occupation since 1848 must have raised this spirit still higher, in spite of the bond of common religion and Tsaro-Popish superstition which has hitherto led them to look upon the Imperial chief of the Greek Church as their natural protector. And if this is the case, the Wallachian nationality may yet play an important part in the ultimate disposal of the territories in question."

Regarding my attitude towards homosexuality, I have long taken the view on basic ground of liberty that adults should be free to do what they wish in private, provided they do not interfere with others.

"This splendid territory [the Balkans] has the misfortune to be inhabited by a conglomerate of different races and nationalities, of which it is hard to say which is the least fit for progress and civilization. Slavonians, Greeks, Wallachians, Arnauts, twelve millions of men, are all held in submission by one million of Turks, and up to a recent period, it appeared doubtful whether, of all these different races, the Turks were not the most competent to hold the supremacy which, in such a mixed population, could not but accrue to one of these nationalities."

"We don't mind working with the Reds if they accept the Fatherland. The fight is against capital, not against the deceived worker."