510 Affau's in General. [Nov. 
Danube. Line upon line, lesson upon lesson, may ultimately teach 
nations, as well as individuals, to mind their own business, and governors 
to content themselves with oppressing at home. 
From any success on the part of the Turks, nothing whatever is to be 
apprehended: they have long ceased to think of conquests; and as to- 
their oppressions at home, what have we to do with them? Tyranny, 
when it becomes quite intolerable, will, somehow or other, be shaken off ; 
and attempts from without, usually inefficient, have generally added to 
the bitterness of it. The Greeks, as a people writhing under the yoke 
of Turkish despotism, had the unquestionable right of nature to throw 
it off—and, left to themselves, would probably have done so long ago. 
But the busy and the talkative among us must interfere ; and what good 
have they done the Greeks? None; but just the contrary. The Greeks 
are deep sufferers by their folly. Instead of husbanding their own 
resources, and trusting to their own exertions, they were taught to place 
reliance upon foreign friends ; instead of uniting in the general object, 
each was looking to his own immediate interests ; unanimity was broken, 
and nothing done in conjunction in furtherance of the common cause. 
So duped were they by the professions of individuals who affected to 
speak the sense of nations, that no doubt was entertained by them of their 
independence being effected from without, and themselves had only to 
seize the opportunity of studying their own advantage—the public 
business was taken up by others ; and thus it was that the hopes held out 
of ample assistance from all quarters, retarded that career which, without 
them, would have been long ago brought to a successful completion. 
How were the Greeks to distinguish between the English and their 
Government ; and what means had they of detecting the lies that were 
undoubtedly told them? Never was any thing, under heaven, more 
ridiculous than the conduct and management of the Greek cause in this 
country—and little better in France, or Germany, or even in. America. 
Who were the active persons here? A few pennyless, nerveless, muscle- 
less quidnuncs, who spent their breath—all they had—in talking of the 
classic soil of the Greeks—the splendid achievements of their ancestors ; 
—commercial men, who were looking to Greece as a new market ;—un- 
employed soldiers and sailors, gaping for commands ;-—and, finally, a 
flight of loan speculators. The admiration of Englishmen for Greece, 
ancient and modern, ultimately centred in undisguised pursuit of gain— 
gain by jobbing, and gain by employment. Even the gallant Cochrane 
—who has, by the way, of late completely vanished from public view— 
secured £37,000. out of the loans, to indemnify him for any possible loss 
on quitting the Brazil service. But Sir Francis Burdett, Cam Hobhouse, 
and their satellites—we utterly forgot them—their object was solely to 
be meddling—to keep in ora virum. Except so far as they might con- 
tribute to cherish idle hopes, they did no good—nor are ever likely, at 
home or abroad—and are only destined to figure in some new picture of 
Village Politicians, to be painted by Wilkie, now that he is come back 
among us again. 
Baffled and driven back for half a century, as Russia has been, what 
will be the probable effect upon Greece? Will not the Turks, exulting 
in their success, be more than ever inflexible in refusing terms? It is 
possible—but the probability with us is, that, if France persevere—as, 
looking to the force she takes with her, apparently she means to do—jn 
eS eee 
