Retrospect of the last Twenty-five Years. 595 
without doubt, im this respect that the 
Russians are most backward; but if the 
gradual emancipation of the people 
proceed, the time is not far distant when 
the civil, military and judicial admin- 
istration of Russia will cease to be 
the most corrupt and ‘mercenary, and 
the population the most demoralized in 
the universe. 
In spite of its internal progress, Rus- 
sia has frequently employed its strength 
and credit to aid and hasten the retro- 
grade movement amongst other people. 
False policy has misled them; and 
powers more adyanced in the career 
of knowledge than they, have not been 
exempt from the same mistake. Civili- 
zation may not, for some time, be com- 
plete in the Russian armies; but the 
progress, alone, of its strength, ought to 
be considered as a foundation for the 
hopes of humanity: for this progress 
indicates, also, that of liberty and mo- 
tals. The time is not far distant when 
the Russians will become really a Euro- 
pean nation; and when they will no 
longer employ themselves in destroying 
every thing that is connected with the 
knowledge and liberty, and, therefore, 
with the virtue of mankind.—A time, 
however, to which England ought to 
look forward, not with the jealousy of 
prevention (if that were practicable), 
but with the wisdom of preparation : 
and, chiefly, by assisting, in all. possi- 
ble ways, the freedom and civilization 
of other nations. Every nation—every 
people that Russia, by position or cir- 
cumstance, can menace, if free and 
independent, is, operatively, the ally of 
England: and the time must come, 
when Russia will be the rival of Eng- 
land, even on her favourite element.— 
Already her influence preponderates in 
the politics of the continent; and it 
does so in consequence of the depen- 
dance and thraldom of those’ states 
which England ought to have preserved, 
‘ while she had yet the power, ‘from 
being compelled to retrograde from the 
course of Liberty and Independence, 
GREECE. 
But Greece is also a part of Europe. 
It is becoming once more an interest- 
ing and important'part. That glorious 
Greece, which, groaning for centuries 
under the most degrading and cruel 
oppression, first sought for virtue in 
the sacrifice of every interest to the 
preservation of Christianity; and for 
knowledge, by intercourse with Euro- 
pean nations; and which must owe 
its liberty to the influence of both;— 
Greece makes us fee! that the days of 
heroism are yet not gone; and that the 
feeblest nations, when firm and deter- 
mined, are “ masters of their fates.” 
What then would those persons have 
whose wishes are hostile to Greecé? 
Do they wish the encouragement of 
apestacy? The Turks, to be sure, re- 
compense the apostate, by according to 
him the pardon of his crimes, the inhe- 
ritance of the Christian family whom 
he defrauds (as we did formerly the 
apostate—convert was our more ortho- 
dox term—from Catholicism in Ireland!) 
and admitting him to honour and power. 
Do our Christian potentates desire that 
the sons and daughters of the Christian 
Greeks should still be at the mercy of 
the Turks ?—the victims of their shame- 
ful debauches !—that the only privilege 
accessible to the descendants of those, 
to whom we are indebted for all that 
still kindles our energies and awakens 
our intellectual emulation, should be, 
what has been so long reserved to the 
Fanariotes—power bought by perfidy, 
exercised for pillage, and soon lost in 
the fatal snares of treachery, or strangled 
in the bowstring? Do they desire that 
Grecian commerce, the only mean for 
the acquisition of wealth in Greece, 
should continue to be polluted by the 
rapacity and perfidy with which they 
themselves so loudly reproach the Gre- 
cian character ; but to which, the excess 
of oppression has alone reduced, and 
from which their liberation can alone 
redeem them? Do they wish that the 
only resource of the heroism of ‘that 
once-glorious people should continue to 
be their becoming Alephts, or robbers ? 
and that all distinction between just 
and unjust, should be eradicated from 
their hearts, by the mercenary spirit of 
Turkish tribunals? Is this the moral 
and intellectual state which they would 
preserve and perpetuate in the land of 
ie ee Aristides and Epaminon- 
ast j 
The Greeians are the most ingenious , 
people upon the earth; but, since they 
have been crushed, by the government 
they are now endeavouring to destroy, 
they have not added one mite to the 
common stock of civilization, science 
and discovery—to the general treasury 
of arts or literature; and the world is 
impoverished by all the sum of intellect 
and ingenuity, which their long-con- 
tinued oppression has been permitted 
to prevent them from contributing.— 
But how should Greece do any thing 
4G2 for 
