command of an army of forty thousand men, with which he approached Albania; but the reduction of that province proved not so easy as he had expected: and when the Greek revolution broke out, he had already been two years engaged in ceaseless hostilli- 1 Lac. iii. 92, ties with its indomitable mountain- 94; Lam. vii. eers.1 343, 345. the most heroic, the most tyrannical, and the most cruel of modern times, had, at the head of his brave and faithful, but half-savage Albanians, long maintained a doubtful neutrality, but real independence, with the Porte, and it was the extreme difficulty with which he was at last subdued which opened the eyes of Europe most effectually to the decline of the Ottoman power. He preserved a studious neutral- GREECE, which rendered itself immortal in ity between the Sultan and the rebellious vas- ancient story, and is, perhaps, des 79. sals and indomitable mountaineers; with thirty tined to be hardly less memorable in Statistics thousand disciplined Mussulmans under his or- modern events, is a country of extreme- of Greece. ders, and yet maintaining a secret correspond-ly small dimensions compared to the great figence with the discontented Greeks, he rendered himself an object of importance to, and was courted by, both parties. He turned his hostility, at the instigation of the Porte, against the Souliotes, who had taken up arms in favor of the Russians, and reduced them to subjection with great slaughter; and on occasion of the conflicts of the Sultan with the janizaries, he advanced to the gates of Adrianople at the head of eighty thousand men. Such was his influence at this time with the Divan, that his two sons, Veli and Mouctar, were appointed to important commands in the Morea; while he himself, secure in his inaccessible fortress in the lake of Janina, revolved in his mind dark schemes of conquest and independence. At length the Sultan, having received intelligence of his designs, and dreading his daily increasing power, summoned him to Constantinople to answer some charges preferred against him; and upon his refusal to obey the summons, he prepared, with all the energy of the Ottoman character, to reduce him to submission. Chourchid Pacha, a neighboring satrap, received the gated Soliman himself to murder his brother, which he did, and Ali made over his sister to him over the dead body of her husband. The Sultan having afterward become suspicious of Selim, Pacha of Delvino, Ali's steady friend and protector, and his designs having come to the knowledge of Ali, he resolved to make his own fortune by the ruin of his benefactor. For this purpose he invited Selim to his house, murdered him as he was drinking a cup of coffee, and sent his head to Constantinople. For this signal service he was rewarded with the pachalic of Thessaly. He there soon accumulated great treasures by every species of extortion and oppression, with the fruits of which he bought the pachalic of Janina, in one of the richest and most delicious valleys of Epirus, where he constructed an impregnable fortress, amassed immense treasures, and collected a formidable army. He aided the Porte with these forces in suppressing the insurrection of the Souliotes, but still preserved in secret his old connection with the Greeks, and often drank in private to the health of the Virgin. Yet, still keeping up his system of hypocrisy, he marched with twenty thousand men against the Pacha of Widdin, who had declared for the Greeks, and destroyed him at the very time when he was encouraging in his palace the poetry of the Greek Rhigas-the Tyrtæus of the modern war of independence. During one of his expeditions, his eldest son, Mouctar, being intrusted with the government in Janina, excited the jealousy or suspicions of Ali by an intrigue with a beautiful young Greek named Euphrosyne. Having sent his son off on a distant expedition. Ali surrounded in the night the house of Euphrosyne, and seized her, with fifteen other young women, her companions, who were all thrown into the lake. His wife Emine threw herself at his feet to implore the lives of some of them; instead of according it, he discharged a pistol at the wall so near her, that she fell down dead of fright at his feet. Soon after, he was seized with such admiration for a young Greek girl of twelve years of age, whose vil lage he had delivered to the flames, that he brought her to his harem, espoused her, and inspired such a passion, though five times her age, in her youthful breast, that she remained faithful to him in all his subsequent misfortunes.-Biographie Universelle, Supplement, i. 172 (Ali Pacha); and LAMARTINE, Histoire de la Restauration, vii. 337, 345. ure it has made in human affairs. Including Gordon's 80. Though so limited in extent, and deficient in inhabitants, however, Greece is extremely defensible in a military point Defensible of view, and second to none in diffi- nature of culty of subjugation by an army with the country. the artillery and carriages of modern warfare. The mountains are extremely steep, covered with forests, sharp-pointed stones, or brakes of thorny plants, and intersected by numberless deep ravines, the beds of winter torrents. Their chains are so numerous, and intersect each other in so many directions, that it is quite impossible to get through the country without passing over some of them. The roads, good enough as long as they pass over the little plains-for the most part the bottoms of ancient lakes, with which the country abounds—become mere rugged paths the moment they enter the hills, bordered by precipices, and continually open to a plunging fire from above, where the enemy may be placed, often unseen, in prickly thickets or rugged cliffs. either weaken itself at every step by detachAn invading enemy must ments, or expose itself to have its communications cut off by the inhabitants, who retire before its advance into sequestered caverns and monasteries of solid construction, placed in accessible situations, and against which cannon can rarely be brought to bear. To transport artillery or heavy equipages is a prodigious labor, rendered the more toilsome, as the bridges were nearly all broken down, and never restored. The Turkish government never think of repairing any thing. Add to this, that every straggler is destroyed by the armed peasants, whose ordinary mode of life, and endurance of privations, make them excellent guerrillas. By the possession of the sea, these difficulties, as in the early part of the Persian invasion, may be overcome; but the skill and courage of the Greek sailors gave them the command of that element; and the Turks, never at home in naval warfare, were distinguished by nothing but cowardice and incapacity in their 1 Gordon, i. maritime contest with the islanders of the Archipelago.1 58, 59. 81. A celebrated English traveler has left the following account of the celebrated Clarke's de- land of Hellas: "The last moments scription of of this day were employed in taking Greece. once more a view of the superb scenery exhibited by the mountains of Olympus and Ossa. They appeared upon this occasion in more than usual splendor, like one of those imaginary alpine regions suggested by viewing a boundary of clouds, when they terminate the horizon in a still evening, and are gathered into heaps, with many a towering top shining in fleecy whiteness. The great Olympian chain, and a range of lower eminences to the northwest of Olympus, form a line which is exactly opposite to Salonica; and even the chasm between Olympus and Ossa, constituting the defile of Tempe, is hence visible. Directing the eye toward that chain, there is comprehended in one view the whole of Pieria and Boeotia, and with the vivid impressions which remained after leaving the country, memory easily recalled into one mental picture the whole of Greece. In this imaginary flight the traveler enters the defile of Tempe from Pieria, and as the gorge opens toward the south, he sees all the Larissæan plain; this conducts him to the plain of Pharsalia, whence he ascends the mountains south of Pharsalus; then crossing the bleak and still "Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild; BYRON, Childe Harold. CHAPTER XIV. GREEK REVOLUTION—BATTLE OF NAVARINO-ESTABLISHMENT OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE. ALTHOUGH the Greeks had for four centuries 1. Elements remaining resurrec tion. "The Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece, But all except their sun is set."* The Turkish pachas never set their feet in these blessed abodes of industry and freedom. Secretly afraid of the naval strength of the Greeks, and aware that their sailors constituted their own entire maritime power, the sultans of Constantinople had long commuted their right of dominion for a fixed annual tribute, which was collected by themselves, and, being regularly paid, took away all pretext for further intrusions. And thus the islands of Greece had long been remarked by travelers as a sort of oasis in the social desert with which they were surrounded, and as making manifest the general Turkish oppression by exhibiting the 1 Gordon's happiness which man could reach in Greek Rethose blessed spots when emancipated volution, i. from its influence.1 35, 36. 3. groaned under the dominion of the Osmanlis, and the heel of conquest had perhaps crushed them with more of Grecian severity than any other nation in Europe, yet they had preserved the elements of nationality, and kept alive the seeds of resurrection more entirely than any other people. Amidst all the severities of Turkish rule they had retained the great distinctive features of nationality, their country, their language, their religion. As long as a nation preserves these, no matter how long the chains of servitude may have hung about it, the means of ultimate salvation are not lost, the elements of future independence exist. The very severity of the Ottoman rule, the arrogance of their Turkish masters, the difference of language, religion, manners, laws, between the victors and the vanquished, had tended to perpetuate the feelings of the subjugated people, and prevent that amalgamation with their oppressors which, though it softens at the time As a natural consequence of this extraordinathe severity of conquest, does so only by pre- ry and sudden influx of material venting its chains from being ever thrown off. prosperity, there had arisen in the Recent spread They had lost all-all but the sense of oppres- islands of Greece, and even in some of information, sion and the desire of vengeance. of the principal towns of the con- and passion for Notwithstanding the oppressive government tinent, an ardent thirst for knowl- independence. and boundless exactions of the edge, and an anxious desire to be readmitted Recent favor- Turks, the Greeks in some places into the European family, to which they felt able circum- had come to enjoy a very high de- they belonged by religion, language, and recstances in the gree of prosperity, and various cir- ollections. Crushed and trodden under foot cumstances had contributed in the by the Asiatics, their hearts were still Euroearly part of the nineteenth cen- pean; ruled in their bodies by the Mussulmans, tury to increase in them to a great extent the their souls were free with the Christian. The material sources of national strength. The isl- mosque was seen in the cities, but the monastery anders of the Archipelago had come to engross still stood erect in the mountains. The Cresthe whole coasting trade of the Levant; their cent flamed in the eastern, but the Cross was traffic was carried on in 600 vessels, bearing arising in the western sky. To assuage the 6000 guns, and manned by 18,000 seamen. thirst for knowledge which arose with an exHydra and Ipsara, the chief seats of this flour-tended intercourse with foreign nations, and a ishing commerce, had become large towns, rapid increase in the means of purchasing it, strongly fortified, containing each 30,000 in there had sprung up schools in many of the habitants on their barren rocks, the refuge, like principal cities of Greece, and translations of the sand-banks on which Venice was built, of several of the best modern works had already independence in the hour of disaster; while been printed in the Greek tongue. They inthe beautiful fields of Scios, peopled by 80,000, credibly augmented the general fervor. exhibited every feature of a terrestrial para- newly-instructed Greeks found to their astondise. Fanned by the charming breezes of the ishment that they were the descendants of a Archipelago, illuminated by its resplendent people, inhabited a country, and spoke a lansun, surrounded by a placid sea, which re- guage celebrated beyond any other in the literflected its azure firmament, and was check-ature of western Europe, and from the genius ered by the white sails of innumerable barks -these islands seemed to realize all that the fancy of the poet had figured of the abodes of the blessed: 2. condition of Greece. This trade had augmented in the most surprising manner, and been attended with extraordinary profits, in consequence of the Continental blockade during the last ten years of the war, and the vast commerce which was carried on through Turkey into Hungary, and all the centre of Europe, which had come to exceed £3,000,000 of exports from Britain. The of which nearly the whole illumination of the world had sprung. The image of ancient free * BYRON, Don Juan, Canto iii. "Outre les Ecoles déja fondées à Salonique, au Mont Athos, à Chio, à Smyrne, a Kydonie, à Bucharest, à Jassy, et même à Constantinople, où se rendaient des professeurs formés dans les meilleures écoles d'Allemagne et de France, il y avait dans les villes un peu considérable de la Grèce, des lycées, des gymnases, des bibliothèques, et jusque dans beaucoup de villages, des écoles d'enseignement moutuel, malgre la repugnance de la Porte Ottomane et même, dit-on, du clerge Grec."-Annuaire Historique, iv. 378. 1 Ann. Hist. iv. 378; Gordon's Greek Revolution, i. 37, 38; Lac. iii. 91, 92. dom, the triumphs of ancient art, the glories of | classes than their own. Nearly the whole ancient warfare, which had come down to them | Greek priests belonged to this class, and it in their own country only through the dark embraced no less than one hundred and sixteen and uncertain streams of tradition, now stood prelates of their persuasion. The fourth class clearly revealed in the works of their own an- contained only sixteen names, and it was never cestors, written in their own tongue, and pre-known who they all were, which only augmentserved with pious care by the Christians of the ed their influence; but it was known to conWest. The contest between the European and tain Count Capo d'Istria's, and it was whisperthe Asiatic was seen to have been as old as the ed that among it were many illustrious names, siege of Troy; the animosity of the Christians in particular the Czar, the Crown Prince of Baagainst the Mussulmans to have burst forth varia and Würtemberg, the Hospodar of Walwith inextinguishable ardor during the fervor lachia, and many other of the first men in the of the Crusades. No one doubted that, on the East. These were mere rumors, however—the first hoisting of the standard of independence, real members of that select body, whoever they the Christian nations would crowd as zealously were, were too well aware of the influence of around it as the tribes of Hellas had done round the unknown to permit their names to be rethat of the King of men, and join vealed; but the course of events gives reason them in the assault of Constanti- to think that some at least of these illustrious nople as zealously as they had fol- personages were in the association, and formed lowed Godfrey of Bouillon to the part of its highest grade. For very obvious breach of Jerusalem.' reasons, the seat of the grand circle, or ruling Though these, however, were the secret feel- committee, was in Moscow, and their orders 4. ings of the Greeks, they did not were written in cipher, and signed with a seal Formation of venture to express them openly; bearing in sixteen compartments as many initial the Society of the sabre of the Turk was still sus- letters. The society had secret signs and modes the Hetairists. pended over their heads, and it of recognition, some common to all the memmight at any moment fall, and involve them in bers, others known only to the higher grades, one common ruin. Unarmed, at least on the each of which had separate signs, 1 Gordon, i. continent, with all their fortresses in the hands known only to themselves; and all 42, 43, 44, of the Mussulmans, and the only military force contributed according to their means 46; Lac. iii. in the country at the disposal of their oppres- to the common objects of the society. 93. sors, it was evident to all that open insurrection would be the signal for general ruin. Great hopes were entertained that something would be stipulated in their favor at the Congress of Vienna; but jealousy of Russia, of which it was thought infant Greece would merely be an appanage, prevented any thing of the kind being attempted in that assembly. In these circumstances, the Greeks took refuge in the usual resource of the weak in presence of the strong: they formed secret societies. A great association was formed of Greeks, not only in their own territory, but in Constantinople, Bavaria, Austria, and Russia—the object of which was to effect, as soon as circumstances would permit the attempt to be made, the entire independence of Greece by their own efforts. Several distinguished Russians were members of this society; in particular, Count Capo d'Istria, a Greek by birth, and whose situation as private secretary to the Emperor Alexander nat2 Ann. Hist. urally encouraged the hope that iv. 377; Gor- the objects of the society were, in don, i. 42, 43; secret at least, not alien to the inLac. iii. 91. clinations of that great potentate.2 Like all other secret societies, this of the He5. tairists had several different gradaDifferent tions. The first class, into which all gradations Greeks without exception, who dein the He- sired admission, were eligible, were tairists. only informed that the object of the society was to ameliorate the social condition of the Greeks. The next class, called the Systemenoi, or Bachelors, were selected with more discrimination, and were apprised in secret that the object of the society was to effect an entire revolution, and severance from Turkey. The third class, which was termed the Priests of Eleusis, were cautiously informed that the period of the struggle approached, and that there existed in the Hetairia higher of the society. As Capo d'Istria bore so important a situation as private secretary to the Emperor 6. Alexander, he was very careful of Extraordinary the part which he ostensibly bore secrecy prein the proceedings of the society. served regardHe took a share openly only in ing the affairs the measures for the extension of knowledge and the relief of suffering, aware that the impulse thus given would speedily lead to other objects in which it was not advisable for him to take a visible lead. Notwithstanding the usual levity of the Greek character, such was the intensity of the feeling from which the association emanated, that the secret of its existence was preserved in a most surprising manner. It was betrayed, indeed, by a faithless brother, a Zantide butcher, to Ali Pacha; but that astute potentate, who foresaw a storm brewing at Constantinople against him, and never doubted that the Emperor Alexander was at the head of the society, preserved the secret revealed to him as a claim for protection in time of need. The Mussulmans, surrounded on all sides by the association, remained in utter ignorance of its existence; and when the insurrection burst forth in 1821, they were taken as much by surprise, and were as much astounded as if the earth 2 Gordon, i. had suddenly opened under their 47, 49; Lac. feet.2 iii. 93, 94. The eyes of all the Hetairists were fixed on Russia, not merely from a community 7. of religion, but from the decided line Their eyes of policy which for nearly a century are all fixed past that power had adopted toward on Russia. the Turkish empire. It was notorious to all the world that the cabinet of St. Petersburg had long been set on territorial aggrandizement in Turkey, and that the Porte had found in it the most formidable enemy of Islamism. Twice had Catherine excited an insurrection in Greece; the Turkish fleet had been delivered by the Russians to the flames in the bay of Tchesmé; Constantine had been christened by that name, precisely because the Empress designed him for the successor of Constantine Palæologus, the last of the Cæsars; and the intervention of the European powers in 1789 had alone prevented that design being accomplished, and the Cross being restored to its original place on the dome of St. Sophia. It was impossible to doubt that the power which had in this manner so clearly evinced its disposition to extend its influence in the Levant, would avail itself of the present opportunity which appeared so favorable to shake the Ottoman power to the foundation, by establishing an independent state in Greece. It was equally evident that it was from Russia alone that any substantial support would be given on this occasion; for whatever were the inclinations of the inhabitants of the other European states, their governments were too strongly impressed with the danger to the independence of other nations from Russian 1 Gordon, i. power to concur in any measures 49, 50, Ann. which undermined the only empire Hist. iv. 378, that presented an efficient barrier against it in the East.1 379. of Sir Thomas Maitland, the governor of the the town. A very melancholy event, in the year 1819, 8. had strongly awakened the sympathy Cession of of the inhabitants of western Europe, Parga in and revealed the ardent feelings with 1819. which the Greek people were animated in regard to their native soil. The town of PARGA, on the sea-coast of the mainland, opposite to the Ionian Islands, the last remnant of the once great territorial possessions of the Ve- The scene which ensued was of the most heartnetian republic, on the coast of Albania, had rending description, and forcibly re- 10. long been considered as a dependence of the called the corresponding events in Heart-rending state of which they had come to form a part; ancient times, of which the genius scene at the and in the interval between its cession to of antiquity has left such moving evacuation of France, by the treaty of Tilsit, in 1807, and its pictures. As soon as the notice was June 10, 1819. transference to Great Britain by that of 1814, given, every family marched solit had contained a French garrison, and its in- emnly out of its dwelling without tears or lahabitants had begun to taste the blessings of mentation; and the men, preceded by their powerful Christian protection. The treaty of priests, and followed by their sons, proceeded to 1815, however, unfortunately made no mention the sepulchres of their fathers, and silently unof Parga; but, on the contrary, stipulated an earthed and collected their remains, which they entire surrender of the mainland of Turkey to put upon a huge pile of wood which they had the Porte. In consequence of this circumstance, previously collected in front of one of their the government of Constantinople demanded churches. They then took their arms in their the cession of Parga as part of the mainland; hands, and, setting fire to the pile, stood moand in this they were zealously seconded by tionless and silent around it till the whole was Ali Pacha, within whose territory it was situ consumed. During this melancholy ceremony, ated, and who was extremely desirous of get- some of Ali's troops, impatient for possession, ting its industrious and thriving citizens within approached the gates of the town, upon which his rapacious grasp. On the other hand, the a deputation of the citizens was sent to inform inhabitants of Parga, justly apprehensive of the the English governor, that if a single infidel consequences of being ceded to that dreaded was admitted before the remains of their ancessatrap, solicited and obtained a British garri- tors were secured from profanation, and themson, which in 1814 took possession of it, and selves with their families safely embarked, they effectually preserved its inhabitants from Mus- would instantly put to death their wives and sulman rapine and rapacity. The inhabitants children, and die with their arms in their hands, joyfully took the oath of allegiance to the En-after having taken a bloody revenge on those glish crown. Thenceforward they regarded who had bought and sold their country. The themselves as perfectly secure un-remonstrance was successful; the march of the Mussulmans was arrested, the pile burnt out, and the people embarked in silence, 2 Edinburgh When it was rumored, after the treaty of with their wives and children. The Review, Ixiv., 1815, that Parga was to be ceded to the Turks, Mussulmans soon after entered, but Art. 1; Ann. the inhabitants testified the utmost alarm, and they found only a single inhabitant Reg. 1819,195, made an urgent application to the British offi- in the place, and he was drunk, ly- ii. 432, 433. cer in command of the garrison, who, by ordering near the yet smoking pile. 2 Ann. Hist. ii. 450; Ann. der the ægis of the victorious BritReg. 1819, 194. ish flag.2 196; An. Ilist. |