

GREECE. (REVOLUTION.) 



lucrative to the Porto, were destroyed. In Constanti- 

 nople, Turks bought Sciots merely for the purpose of 

 putting them to death at pleasure. The merchants 

 of Scio, resident at Constantinople, and the hostages 

 which were carried thither, were executed in secret 

 or in public, without any kind of legal process. Thus 

 the Morea and the Archipelago were taught what 

 late they were to expect. The Porte, however, be- 

 gun to perceive that it was destroying its own re- 

 sources by the system of devastation. The pacha of 

 Smyrna, therefore, received strict injunctions from 

 tin- sultan to maintain order and to protect the Greeks. 

 In Scio, the new governor, Jussuf Bey, gave back 

 the lands to those Greeks who returned. In Cyprus, 

 where the murder of the Christians had been conti- 

 nued until the end of 1822, Salih Bey, a humane 

 officer of the pacha of Egypt, finally protected the 

 district under his command from utter devastation ; 

 and, in 1823, the new governor, Seid Mehemet, en- 

 deavoured to restore order in the whole island. The 

 insurgents also occupied the Turkish troops in Ma- 

 cedonia. The enormities of the Asiatic troops, who 

 traversed this province, to join Khurshid's army, ex- 

 cited an insurrection among the mountaineers, who 

 had previously remained quiet. Under the capitani 

 Diamantis, Tassos, and others, they occupied the 

 passes of the Olympus, and, March 24, 1822, cap- 

 tured the important place of Cara-Veria, the ancient 

 Beroea. But the pacha of Saloniki, Abbolubut, finally 

 defeated them with his cavalry at Niausta ; the peas- 

 ants dispersed, and about 150 villages experienced 

 the fate of Scio. Five thousand Christian families 

 perished, and the pacha boasted that he had murdered 

 in one day 1500 women and children. Even the Porte 

 disapproved of these measures, and the pacha was 

 condemned to be strangled ; but, surrounded by his 

 body-guard, in the fortress of Saloniki, he escaped the 

 execution of the sentence. (The Porte afterwards, 

 however, appointed him seraskier of Rumelia, and in 

 November, 1823, he marched with 15,000 men from 

 Larissa to Zeitun.) Whilst Scio was desolated, and 

 Macedonia bled, the central government at Corinth, 

 under Mavrocordato, president of the executive 

 council, was engaged, in connexion with the provin- 

 cial governments, in organizing the administration of 

 the country, provisionally, by the law of April 30, 

 1822 (the first year of independence), introducing 

 order into the army, raising a loan, promising the 

 soldiers land (by the law of May 7, 1822, May 19, 

 ' new style), and, as there existed no taxes except cus- 

 toms, in laying a tax on the productions of the soil ; 

 but they met with resistance in almost all their at- 

 tempts, particularly from the old capitani, who had 

 been entirely independent during the government of 

 the Turks. Each desired to command and to fight on 

 his own account, and for his own profit. Thus the 

 avaricious and ambitious Colocotroni, the fierce 

 Ulysses,* and the haughty Mavromichalis, and even 

 Ypsilanti, yielded with reluctance to the new order 

 of things. The deficiency of human language, which 

 obliges us to use the same word for things which are 

 very different, constantly creates misunderstanding, 

 and we must warn our readers not to connect with 

 the words government, ministers, law, &c., applied to 

 Greece at this time, such ideas as they annex to the 

 words when used of European or North American 

 affairs. If a nation, which has been for centuries in 

 a state of oppression and lawlessness, rises, it must 

 undergo many changes before the elements of order 

 are developed. Under the Turks, the Greeks had 

 no connexion with each other ; how could they be 



1 Ulysses even ordered a brave officer, the colonel Haver. 

 ino Palasca, and a capitano, Alexis Nu/./.o, sent by govern- 

 ment to induce the wild capitano to act in concert with a 

 geueral plan of operations, to be put to death. 



expected to fonn at once a peaceful whole ? 1 h? 

 bravest solJiers among them were the capitani from 

 Maina and Suli, but these had been, mostly, clephta 

 or robbers, totally independent, and wished to con- 

 tinue the war independently, for their own interests, 

 as they had previously done. Of this class is Colo- 

 cotroni. Submission to any sort of national organiza- 

 tion was foreign to their habits. The inliabitants of 

 the Morea were mostly wretched peasants, who had 

 always lived in such a state of bondage, that they 

 were only fit to engage an enemy under shelter, or 

 when their numbers were greatly superior, but could 

 never be brought to fight in open combat on equal 

 terms. They were, moreover, poor, and few among 

 them could be induced to make any sacrifices. At 

 the same time, they thought liberty delivered them 

 from all taxes ; and, indeed, what had they to pay ? 

 War, putting a stop to production, left the govern- 

 ment without resources, and without the means of 

 exercising authority. Add to this, that the Greeks 

 were continually quarreling among themselves. The 

 editor was present at a fight between the capitano 

 Niketas and some Moreots, for the possession of some 

 cattle. Under these circumstances, the words law 

 and government must be understood in a very re- 

 stricted sense. The editor's Journal, above referred 

 to, relates particularly to the state of Greece at this 

 period. All that enabled the Greeks to continue their 

 struggle was the wretchedly undisciplined character 

 of their Turkish enemies. Mavrocordato had a dif- 

 ficult part to perform, because he had not obtained 

 his dignity ofproedros on the field of battle. Yet, 

 by the influence of Negris, he received the command 

 of the expedition to Western Hellas (Epirus), with 

 full civil and military power. The proedros, with 

 2000 Peloponnesians and the corps of Philhellenes * 

 (about 300 men, under general Normann, formerly a 

 general in the Wurtemberg service), joined, on June 

 8, the Albanian bands of the brave Marco Botzaris, 

 for the purpose of covering Missolonghi, the strong- 

 hold of Western Hellas, of relieving Suli, and cap- 

 turing Arta. Here they had to contend with the 

 pacha of Yanina, Omer Vrione, and the pacha of 

 Arta, Ruchid, whilst the Turkish commander-in- 

 chief (seraskier) Khurshid, who had made an unsuc- 

 cessful attack on Thermopylae in May, had forced 

 his way (June 17) through Tricala to Larissa.. Suli, 

 in Albania, was relieved; but, after the bloody battle 

 of Peta (July 16, 1822), where the capitano Gozo 

 treacherously fled, and the Philhellenists, who made 

 the longest stand against the enemy, lost 150 men, 

 with their artillery and baggage, Botzaris and Nor- 

 mann were obliged to throw themselves into the 

 mountains. Mavrocordato in vain called the people 

 to arms ; the other commanders refused to assist 

 him ; general Varnakioti went over to the enemy, 

 and the internal dissensions among the Albanians 

 enfeebled the strength of the Greeks. The castle of 

 Suli was surrendered to the Turks on Sept. 20. Part 

 of the Suliots (1800 men, with their wives and chil- 

 dren) took refuge under the protection of the British 

 iii Cephalonia; the rest fled to the mountains. 

 Mavrocordato, with 300 men, and Marco Botzaris, 

 with twenty-two Suliots, finally threw themselves 

 (November 5) into Missolonghi. " Here," said the 

 former, " let us fall with Greece." Omer Vrione 

 now considered himself master of^Etolia, and ad- 

 vanced, with Ruchid, at the head of 11,000 men, to 

 Missolonghi. Jussuf Pacha sent troops from Patras 

 and Lepanto against Corinth, and Khurshid, who, in 

 Larissa, had received reinforcements from Rumelia 

 and Bulgaria, determined to advance from Thessaly, 



* Those Europeans and Americans who had gone to 

 Greece to serve in th'j insurrection. 



