Meanwhile, the year 1822 had produced important results in Greece, because both parties had followed, in some sort, a military plan of operations. After Ali's fall, Khurshid Pacha in Thessaly determined to collect reinforcements from Rumelia, in order to conquer Livadia and Morea, whilst, in February and March, 1822, a Turkish fleet, under Hali Bey, was to reinforce the garrisons in the Morea, so that Jussuf Pacha, from Patras and Lepanto, could support Khurshid's attack upon the isthmus and his invasion of the Morea. But the attempt of the Turkish fleet to reduce the Morea by fresh troops, totally failed, and the opposition of the Suliots kept back the seraskier in Epirus. These events gave Colocotroni time to shut up the troops, which had been landed in Patras, and to send assistance to Acarnania. At the same time, new insurrections broke out in several places, which again divided the power of the Turks. The misfortune of Scio saved the Greek main-land. The numerous Greek population of the flourishing and defenceless island of Scio (see Scio) had declined every invitation to engage in the revolution; but, March 23, 1822, a Greek fleet from Samos, under Logotheti, having appeared on the coasts, the peasants, who labored under the greatest oppressions, took up arms. Great disorders occurred, and the Turks, after having taken 80 hostages from among the richest inhabitants of the city, retired into the citadel. At this moment, the great Turkish fleet made its appearance. In order to punish Scio, the capudan pacha abandoned his plan of operations against the Morea, and landed (April 11th) 15,000 of the most barbarous of the Asiatic troops, after the Sciots had rejected the offer of amnesty. The islanders were beaten, and in a few days the paradise of Scio was changed into a scene of fire and blood. It was with great difficulty, and at the risk of their own lives, that the European_consuls (among whom the courageous French consul Digeon was distinguished), and the captains of some European vessels, were able to save a few hundred Greeks. Part of the people escaped to their vessels; others continued the struggle of despair in the mountains. The European consuls, by means of a pastoral letter of the archbishop, and by the written assurance of the surviving hostages, that the Sciots might trust the offered amnesty, if they would deliver up their leaders and their arms, finally effected the submission of the peasants. Still, murders, burnings and

pillaging did not cease. According to the Turkish lists, down to the 25th of May, 41,000 Sciots, mostly women and children, were sold into slavery. A similar fate was prepared for Ipsara, Tine and Samos. But the Ipsariots, having already made preparations to send their families to the Morea, hovered round the Turkish fleet with 70 small vessels, among which were several fire-ships, called hephastia, which were as ingeniously constructed as they were skilfully directed. Fortythree Ipsariots and Hydriots devoted themselves to death, rowed with their scampavias (a kind of gunboats) into the midst of the fleet of the enemy, which still lay in the road of Scio; and in the night of June 18, 1822, captain George attached fire-ships to the ship of the capudan pacha and to another vessel of the line. The former blew up, with 2286 men; the latter was saved. The capudan pacha was mortally wounded, and carried on shore, where he died. The Turks were at first stupified; but their rage soon broke out, and the last traces of cultivation, the mastic villages, so lucrative to the Porte, were destroyed. In Constantinople, 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 fate they were to expect. The Porte, however, began to perceive that it was destroying its own resources by the system of devastation. The pacha of Smyrna, therefore, received strict injunctions from the 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 continued 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, endeavored to restore order in the whole island. The insurgents also occupied the Turkish troops in Macedonia. The enormities of the Asiatic troops, who traversed this province, to join Khurshid's army, excited 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, captured the im

portant place of Cara-Veria, the ancient Beroa. But the pacha of Saloniki, Abbolubut, finally defeated them with his cavalry at Niausta; the peasants dispersed, and about 150 villages experienced the fate of Scio. 5000 Christian families perished, and the pacha boasted that he had murdered in one day 1500 women and children. Even the Porte disapproved 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 provincial 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 customs, in laying a tax on the productions of the soil; but they met with resistance in almost all their attempts, 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 expected to form at once a peaceful whole? ⚫ Ulysses even ordered a brave officer, the colonel Haverino Palasca, and a capitano, Alexis Nuzzo, sent by government to induce the wild capitano to act in concert with a general plan of operations, to be put to death.

The bravest soldiers among them were the capitani from Maina and Suli, but these had been, mostly, clephtes or robbers, totally independent, and wished to continue the war independently, for their own interests, as they had previously done. Of this class is Colocotroni. Submission to any sort of national organization was foreign to their habits. The inhabitants 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 government without resources, and without the means of exercising authority. Add to this, that the Greeks were continually quarrelling 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 restricted 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 difficult part to perform, because he had not obtained his dignity of proëdros 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 proëdros, with 2000 Peloponnesians and the corps of Philhellenes* (about 300 men, under general Normann, formerly a general in the Würtemberg 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 capturing 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 unsuccessful attack on Thermopylæ in May, had forced his way (June 17) through Tricala to Larissa. Suli, in

* Those Europeans and Americans who had gone to Greece to serve in the insurrection.

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 Normann 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 children) took refuge under the protection of the British in Cephalonia; the rest fled to the mountains. Mavrocordato, with 300 men, and Marco Botzaris, with 22 Suliots, finally threw themselves (November 5) into Missolonghi. "Here," said the former, "let us fall with Greece." Omer Vrione now considered himself master of Ætolia, and advanced, 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, through Livadia (where the Greeks, June 19, 1822, had reduced the Acropolis by famine, after a siege of four months), against the isthmus; and then, after forming a union with Jussuf and Omer Vrione, to crush the insurgents in the Morea. His main body, 25,000 strong, composed principally of cavalry, had already passed Thermopyla, which Ulysses had defended so valiantly in May and June, without opposition. On his march through Livadia, he laid every thing waste, proclaimed an amnesty, and occupied Corinth, which a priest of the name of Achilles, who afterwards killed himself, had basely surrendered on July 19; but when Khurshid attempted to penetrate the passes in person, he was three times repelled by Ulysses, near Larissa, where he died, November 26, just before the arrival of the capidgi bachi, who brought his death warrant. That body of cavalry, however, which had so rashly pushed forward without infantry, and was unable to obtain food or provender, perished in the defiles of the Morea. When it advanced against Argos (from which the central government had fled), formed a junction with 5000 men of Jussuf's army, and sent reinforcements to Napoli di Romania, the danger united all

the capitani. Nicholas Niketas, who was on the point of taking Napoli di Romania by capitulation, Mavromichalis and Ypsilanti retreated to the heights of Argos, laying waste the open country; Ypsilanti, in the ruins of the castle of Argos, held the enemy in check; the Greek fleet prevented the relief of Nauplia, or Napoli di Romania, by the great Turkish fleet, and took an Austrian store-ship, bound to Napoli di Romania; Ulysses occupied the defiles of Geranion; Colocotroni hastened from Patras, which he was besieging, to the scene of danger, called the people to the standard of the cross, assumed the chief command, and, in the latter part of June, occupied the defiles between Patras, Argos and Corinth, by which he cut off the connexion of the Turks in Thessaly with Khurshid. The skirmishing began on all sides, and continued day and night, from August 1 to August 8. On the latter day, the Turkish commander-in-chief, Dram Ali (or Tshar Hadgi Ali Pacha), whose troops had nothing but horse-flesh to cat, offered to evacuate the Morea; but Colocotroni refused the offer. The pacha then determined to break through to the isthmus of Corinth ; but Niketas fell upon the separate corps of the Turks, on the night of August 9, in the defile of Tretes; so that hardly 2000, without artillery or baggage, reached the isthmus, where Ypsilanti entirely destroyed them.* Another corps, which fled towards Patras, was destroyed by Colocotroni; the remaining corps was routed by the Mainots, August 26, near Napoli. Thus more than 20,000 Turks disappeared, in four weeks, from the Greek soil. Some thousands still held the isthmus and the Acrocorinthus, but were soon obliged to evacuate the isthmus, and were destroyed by Niketas, in the defiles, in an attempt to break through to Patras. 500 Turks remained in the Acrocorinthus until November, 1823. The conquerors and the Moreots now perceived, that they must not seek safety behind the isthmus, but must push the war under Olympus. The Turkish fleet, which had lain at anchor for four weeks in the gulf of Lepanto, and had attacked Missolonghi without success, set sail, September 1, with the plague on board. After an unsuccessful attempt to break through the line of 57 Greek brigs, which blockaded Nauplia, it finally came to anchor at the entrance of the Dardanelles, off Tenedos. November 10, 17 daring sailors, of the band of the

Hence Niketas received the surname of

Turkophagos, the Turk-eater.

40 Ipsariots, dressed like Turks, conducted two fireships under full sail, as if they were flying from the Greeks, whilst two Ipsariot vessels pursued them, firing on them with blank cartridges, into the inidst of the Turkish fleet, and fastened one of them to the admiral's ship, the other to the ship of the capitana-bey. Both were soon in flames; the former narrowly escaped; the latter blew up with 1800 men; the capudan pacha, Cara Mehmet, however, got on shore, before the explosion took place. Three frigates were wrecked on the coast of Asia Minor; one vessel of 36 guns was captured; storms and terror destroyed a part of the Ottoman fleet, and of 35 vessels only 18 returned, much injured, into the Darda nelles. The 17 Ipsariots arrived safely at Ipsara, where the ephori rewarded their leaders, Constantine Kanaris and George Mniauly, with naval crowns. The Greeks were once more masters of the sea, and renewed the blockade of the Turkish ports, which Great Britain now formally acknowledged. The British government seemed to have changed their policy towards the Greeks, from the time of Canning's entrance into the ministry, and Maitland, lord high commissioner of the Ionian isles, displayed less hostility against them. Even Austria and France, who had previously protected neutral vessels against "the arbitrary and unlawful measure of the blockade," now seemed to acknowledge the right of blockade by the Greeks. Greek vessels delivered Missolonghi on the sea side, November 20. The Suliots maintained themselves in the defiles of the Chimera, and the remains of the army of Mavrocordato on the coast of the gulf of Lepanto. The amnesty, proclaimed by Omer Vrione, met with no confidence among the mountaineers; had he not already betrayed two of his former masters ? His expedition against Ætolia entirely failed. Wherever his troops appeared, the peasants burned their villages, collected in bands in the mountains, and continued the guerilla warfare.* Near Missolonghi, finally, which, from Nov. 7, 1822, to the assault of Jan. 6, 1823, he had repeatedly attacked, Omer

*The war, as we have already said, was not carried on by regular battles, but consisted of skirmishes, surprises, &c., as every insurrection of an undisciplined people must; and, generally speaking, it is the way in which men can most effectually defend their own soil against well appointed invaders. The Greeks were well fitted for this sort of war, by their uncommon activity. Their swiftness in running is such, that many of them can overtake a well mounted horseman in a long race. VOL. VI.

3

Vrione was repulsed by Mavrocordato and Marco Botzaris, with great loss; he was obliged to raise the siege, lost his ordnance, and retreated to Vonitza. The most important consequence of this unsuccessful campaign of the Turks, was the fall of Napoli di Romania. (q. v.) On the day of St. Andrew, the patron of the Morea (November 30, old style, December 12, new style), a band of volunteers took the fort Palamidi by assault. This brought the city into the power of the Greeks, who observed the terms of the capitulation, and transported the Turkish garrison to Scala Nuova. The seat of government was to have been established in this bulwark of Peloponnesian independence, when the old discord among the capitani broke out anew, and Colocotroni became suspected of the design of becoming prince of the Morea under Turkish protection.

Meanwhile, Constantinople was disturbed by the riots of the janizaries. The unsuccessful campaign in the Morea, the disasters in Asia, the scarcity in the capital (caused by the interruption of importations by the Greeks), the severe sumptuary orders of the sultan, and the command to deliver up the gold and silver to the mint, the debasing of the coin, and the obstruction of commerce, caused general dissatisfaction among the Mussulmans. Halet Effendi, the faithful friend of the sultan from his youth, who had become obnoxious on account of his plans for quelling the mutinous spirit of the janizaries (who refused to march to the Morea) by means of Asiatic troops and European discipline, and on account of his influence, which excluded the grandees of the empire from the confidence of the sultan, fell a victim to the hate of the soldiery. Sultan Mahmud II (q. v.) found himself constrained to discharge the adherents of Halet-the grand-vizier Salih Pacha, the mufti, and other high officers. He hoped to save his friend by an honorable banishment to Asia (Nov. 10); but he was obliged to send his death warrant after him, and Halet's head, with those of his adherents, was exposed on the gates of the seraglio (Dec. 4, 1822). The hatti-sheriff, which appointed Abdullah Pacha, a friend of the janizaries, grand-vizier, concluded with the words, "Look well to your ways, for, God knows, the danger is great."

Adoption of a Constitution in Greece, and third unsuccessful Campaign of the Turks against the Greeks, in 1823. The central government of Greece, in which Mavrocordato and Negris were distinguished,

aimed at two objects. Fully sensible of the truth of the words of a Greek author, "as all the states of Greece wished to rule, all have lost the sovereignty," they endeavored to establish union at home; on which, at the same time, they founded their hope that Europe would, at length, look with approbation and confidence on the restoration of an independent Greek state. In this view, the Greek government at Corinth issued a proclamation to the Christian powers (April 15, 1822); but the negotiations on the Greck affairs, at Vienna, and afterwards at Verona, took a turn unfavorable to the Greeks, or rather remained unfavorable, when the Porte, by its declarations of February 28 and April 18, 1822, seemed to be disposed to be more lenient. The "holy alliance" then thought that the continuance of the Porte as a legitimate power, and the acknowledgment of Greek independence, were incompatible; yet the powers thought themselves obliged to interpose with the sultan in favor of the civil and religious security of the Greeks. Count Metaxa was sent as envoy of the Greek government to the congress of Verona (see Congress); but he was only permitted to go to Roveredo. Jan. 2, 1823, he wrote from Ancona to pope Pius VII, describing the miserable condition of Greece, imploring his intercession with the monarchs, and declaring at the same time, that the Greeks were willing to submit their rights to the examination of the congress, and to be ruled by a Christian sovereign, under wise and firm laws, but would never again consent to any sort of connexion with the Turks. The government of Argos declared the same, in a memorial of Aug. 29, 1822, directed to the congress. The answer to these entreaties is contained in the following passage of the circular of Verona (Dec. 14, 1822): Les monarques, décidés à repousser le principe de la révolte, en quelque lieu et sous quelque forme qu'il se montrát, se hatèrent de le frapper d'une égale et unanime réprobation. Mais écoutant_en même tems la voix de leur conscience et d'un devoir sacré, ils plaidèrent la cause de l'humanité, en faveur des victimes d'une entreprise aussi irréfléchie que coupable (The monarchs, decided to suppress the principle of revolt, in whatever place or under whatever form it might appear, hastened to condemn it with equal and unanimous disapprobation. But, open at the same time to the voice of their conscience and of a sacred duty, they have pleaded the cause of humanity in favor of the victims of an undertaking as inconsiderate as

guilty). The dissensions in Greece, it cannot be denied, were a strong objection to the acknowledgment of Greek independence. Colocotroni refused the central government admission into Napoli di Romania, and deliberated, with other ambitious capitani in Tripolizza, on a division of the Morea into hereditary principalities.* The central government, however, succeeded in preventing the dangers of a civil war, and called a second national assembly at Astro, in January, 1823. In regard to the election of deputies, the laws of Nov. 21 and Dec. 3, 1822, had already established two divisions, that of gerontes or elders, for from 10 to 50 families, and that of senators according to eparchies. Mavrocordato principally contributed to the restoration of concord, at the time when the declaration of the congress of Verona was communicated by the British embassy at Constantinople to this effect: "The Greeks must submit to their lawful sovereign the sultan." At the same time, information was received of a new Turkish expedition, destined to attack the Morea by land and sea. The number of deputies was now increasing at Astro; even Ulysses and other capitani repaired thither, with their bands, from Tripolizza; so that the national assembly at Astro consisted of 100 deputies, at the opening of its sessions (March 14). Mavromichalis was elected president; Theodore Negris, secretary. Even Colocotroni submitted to the assembly. The members of the legislative and executive councils were then elected. Condurioti of Hydra was chosen president of the former; Petro Mavromichalis, bey of Maina, of the latter. Both bodies determined to raise from 40,000,000 to 50,000,000 of piastres for

It has been one of the causes of the misfor

tunes of the Greeks, that the capitani, with little in view but their own interest, have been, generally speaking, the only leaders who coincided in spirit and feelings. with the great body of the people. The other leading men, educated abroad, and imbued with foreign opinions, have, in many cases, shown great ignorance of the state and The abortive trials to establish a form of governcharacter of the people with whom they acted. ment for Greece, at different times, have given proof of this. The ill success of these trials, however, has been, in no small degree, owing to a want of sound political elements in the people. which have so often obstructed the establishment The same cause has given rise to the difficulties of wise and settled forms of government in France and South America. On the other hand, the orderly character of the people in the North American colonies, and their long exercise, in fact, of periment when they instituted an independent the rights of freemen, gave success to their ex

government.