1828.] 



Domestic and Foreign. 



411 



paragement ; and the few, who could, by ca- 

 pacity and talent for observation, perhaps, 

 have given the fairest representations, were 

 too full of the relics and ruins of antiquity 

 to record modern events too much dazzled 

 by the brilliant achievements and magnifi- 

 cent effects of older times, not to ascribe too 

 much of the same splendid character to 

 their in all but their resistance to oppres- 

 sion degenerate successors. 



The consul, it is pretty clear, is un- 

 favourably disposed towards the Greeks, 

 that is, he has evidently a bias he has suf- 

 fered by the Greeks had they been quiet, 

 he had been still at Patras and this alone 

 must make us distrust at least his opinions 

 and conclusions. This need not throw dis- 

 credit on the reality of the facts he presents, 

 because few of any respectability of any 

 experience in life, will forge facts ; and, be- 

 sides, if we had not that security, we have 

 another, in the very facilities of detection, 

 which the readiness and abundance of mo- 

 dern communication furnishes ; but facts 

 may easily be discoloured and distorted: and 

 though ever so fairly stated, conclusions 

 which the facts will not legitimately war- 

 rant, may easily be palmed upon careless 

 readers, who look more to the bare conclu- 

 sion than the premises or the truth of the 

 deduction. This is unquestionably Mr. 

 Green's case. Nor is our confidence in 

 him a whit strengthened by the deprecations 

 he puts forth in the preface. " Instead 

 of adopting," says he, "the terms Infidels 

 and Christians, I have made use of those of 

 Turks and Greeks it must not thence be 

 inferred that I am prejudiced against the 

 Greek cause. On the contrary, it is im- 

 possible to be indifferent in such a cause 



it is impossible not to wish the libera- 

 tion of any people from a state of thraldom, 

 so degrading as that of the rajahs under 

 the Ottoman dominion." And yet the 

 fact is, that it is impossible for the readers 

 of this book of his not to conclude him pre- 

 judiced against the said cause or why 

 should he, solicitously as he does, apologize 

 for the cruelties of the Turks, and leave, as 

 he quietly does, those of the Greeks to shift 

 for themselves ? The Turks were the un- 

 questioned oppressors; and the Greeks, as 

 the party attempting to shake off oppres- 

 sion, had a natural claim to sympathy, and 

 the best title to consideration and allow- 

 ance. Cruelties and massacres abound on 

 both sides through the contest; but when 

 the Turks are the agents, Mr. Green la- 

 ments : when the Greeks commit the same 

 atrocities, he is horror stricken. He talks, 

 of the Greeks trafficking in the sale of their 

 Turkish captives, but not a word of 

 the Turks enslaving Greeks. Throughout 

 the correspondence he is perpetually pre- 

 dicting disasters to the Greeks, and ultimate 

 triumph to the Turk. This is all the tone 

 of a pavtizan. The Greeks have not been 

 worse than the Turks, though they may not 



have been much, if anything, better but 

 they have had provocations have been, by 

 his own shewing, oppressed. Mr. Green 

 may have his palliative or, to speak more 

 correctly, he may have good reason for his 

 leaning towards the Turks ; he was offi- 

 cially connected with them where he re- 

 sided they were the masters, and the Greeks 

 the slaves, and equality of intercourse would 

 of course rather be sought with the master 

 than the slave ; but then he should not pre- 

 tend to regard with favour the Greeks, when 

 his feelings are so warmly kindled towards 

 their oppressors, that he cannot even con- 

 troul his language. 



Mr. Green was residing at Patras, as 

 consul, when the revolution burst at that 

 point, in April 1821 at a time when, as 

 appears by his letters, notwithstanding the 

 thickening rumours, he treated the expec- 

 tation of a revolt as a matter of the ut- 

 most improbability. By the advance of the 

 Greeks, he lost his furniture and a valuable 

 horse ; and in June quitted the peninsula 

 for Zante, and from that period was alter- 

 nately at Patras and Zante, but by far the 

 greatest part of the time at Zante, till the 

 fall of Missolonghi, in April 1820, when he 

 finally returned to England. Extending 

 through these five years, in the volume be- 

 fore us, we have a series of letters, com- 

 menting on the chief events, as they oc- 

 curred few of which fell under his own 

 personal observation and for the rest he 

 must have been indebted to the information 

 of others. It must be admitted he was 

 favourably situated, and he talks much of 

 his official correspondence with the consular 

 agents. Captain Blaquiere is charged in 

 no civil terms as being defective in this 

 respect as seeing little with his own eyes ; 

 but really, from Mr. Green's own accounts, 

 we must say, Capt. B.'s opportunities were 

 little inferior to his own. Mr. Green's book 

 must not be taken as a consecutive sketch 

 of the history there are material omissions 

 some only to be accounted for by the bias 

 to which we have adverted for instance, 

 the Turkish massacre and destruction of 

 Scio. 



One thing struck us as odd and we are 

 inclined to ask why Mr. Green took the 

 professional opinion of a civilian and one 

 not officially connected with the government 

 on the legality of the blockade, by the 

 Greeks, of the Gulf of Patras when the 

 Ionian Commissioners had virtually, if not 

 expressly admitted it and when the natu- 

 ral course in any difficulty surely was to 

 apply to the government at home ? This 

 opinion is paraded at full length in the ap- 

 pendix and is made to justify some parts 

 Of his conduct towards the Greeks. 



When the report reached him of Lord 

 Cochrane joining the Greeks this is the. 

 tone he takes 



I am inclined to doubt that his lordship seriously 

 intends joining trie Greeks, or even supposing scU 



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