KING OTHO AND HIS CLASSIC KINGDOM.
The actual condition of Greece is a disgrace to the political civilisation of Europe. There is hope for the Othoman Empire, for the Turks are sensible that they have much to learn; but for the kingdom of Greece there is no hope, unless the modern Hellenes lay aside the self-conceit which induces them to boast of their superior orthodoxy when the question relates to their practical ignorance. Englishmen and Russians, despots and demagogues, princes and people, Europeans and Americans, all agree in pronouncing King Otho’s kingdom a satire on monarchical institutions, constitutional legislation, and central administration. The valour and patriotism displayed by the Albanians of Suli and Hydra, and by the Greeks of Messolonghi and Psara, were the theme of well-merited praise, and were rewarded by liberal gifts of money and other supplies from the friends of Greece in Germany, Switzerland, France, England, and the United States of America. Greece has great obligations to the people of Western Europe, whom she now stigmatises as hostile Latins. It was the voice of the people that moved the Cabinet of London to take the initiative in the negotiations which caused the battle of Navarino, and conferred on Greece the rank of an independent kingdom by the treaty of 1832.
No political experiment during the present century—fruitful as the period has been in producing new States—excited higher expectations or warmer wishes for its success. Twenty-two years have now elapsed since Greece became a kingdom under the sceptre of Prince Otho of Bavaria. He was then a minor, and he was selected to fill the new throne more for his father’s merits than from any promise of superior talent in his own person. King Louis of Bavaria loved art, and his want of political capacity and military power removed any feelings of jealousy on the part of the greater powers in Europe to the addition thus made to the dignity of the house of Wittelsbach. King Otho was known to be a youth of very moderate attainments; but his natural deficiencies being fortunately united to an amiable disposition, it was expected that he would prove a docile monarch, and listen to good counsellors. It has proved otherwise. His limited capacity has not been more remarkable than his obstinacy and perverseness in following a line of policy which has inflicted serious injury on Greece. Notwithstanding a natural love of justice, and a good moral character, his misgovernment has degenerated into corruption, though it has not assumed a character of systematic tyranny. On the whole, his incapacity to perform the duties of his station, and his silly eagerness to assume the appearance of being a despotic sovereign, while he was unable to make any use of the greater part of the prerogatives willingly conceded to him by his subjects, have made him a very apt regal type of the anarchical and rapacious nation he rules. The result is, that the hopes of ardent Philhellenes, the expectations of enthusiastic scholars, and the wishes of cautious statesmen, have all been utterly disappointed by the government of King Otho. More than this, while the King of Greece has shown himself a bad monarch, the Greeks have displayed extreme ignorance in all their attempts to supply his deficiencies. Instead of suggesting better principles for his guidance, they have become the steady supporters of his system whenever he condescended to purchase their support by places and pensions. It seems as if the Bavarian monarchy had infused a morbid lethargy into Romaic society, so rapidly has the central administration of Athens quenched the fervour of patriotism throughout liberated Greece. The Albanian population has lost its valour and perseverance; the Greek has sunk back into that normal condition of rapacious imbecility which has characterised the Hellenic race ever since the time of Mummius.
The revolution which freed Greece from the Turkish yoke broke out early in the year 1821, so that the inhabitants of the kingdom have now enjoyed the advantages of political independence for thirty-three years. A generation has grown up to manhood in possession of a greater degree of freedom than is possessed by most of the continental nations of Europe. Municipal institutions existed, to some extent, under the Turks, and they acquired considerable importance during the revolutionary war. The fullest exercise of the liberty of the press has prevailed ever since the first year of the revolution. Nor has this liberty been greatly abused, though it has often been misused—a circumstance not to be wondered at in a country so torn by faction as Greece has been ever since she commenced her struggle for independence. This fact must be weighed against the many vices and corruptions of the Greeks which it will be our task to notice, for it affords decisive evidence that there still exists among the mass of the population a sound basis of public opinion.
The establishment of free and orthodox Greece as an independent State, under the protection of Great Britain, France, and Russia, was a conception of George Canning’s genius, and it received the sanction of the Duke of Wellington. After Canning’s death, his enemies made it a subject of reproach. It is said that, when his statue was erected in Palace Yard, a royal duke, walking beside it with the late Lord Eldon, began to pour out a diatribe of harmless accusations against the honoured dead, which he summed up, saying, “He caused the battle of Navarin, Eldon, and he was not nearly so big as that statue;” to which the great Lord Chancellor, whose patience had been long tried, expanded his bushy eyebrows, and exclaimed, “No, truly—nor so green:” the statue being then, as some of our readers may remember, more remarkable for the verdant colour of its patent verdigris than for its size. Whether the battle of Navarin was absolutely necessary to save Greece from Ibrahim Pasha and his Arabs, may still admit of dispute; but unquestionably it was the battle of Navarin which did save Greece. When, however, the business of selecting a king, and of organising the institutions of a central administration on monarchical principles came to be performed, the genius of Canning was represented by the torpor of Aberdeen, and the sagacity of Wellington by the belligerent amenity of Palmerston.
The Russian sympathies of Capodistrias succeeded in delaying the final settlement of the Greek question, with the hope of placing Greece in a state of vassalage to the Czar. Lord Aberdeen combated the policy of the Corfiote feebly and unsuccessfully. He barely succeeded in preventing the execution of the Russian schemes, when the dagger of Mavromichalis opened the way for making Greece an independent kingdom by the assassination of Capodistrias.
The only candidate worthy of the throne of Greece was Leopold of Saxe-Cobourg, the present King of Belgium. He was compelled to resign his pretensions on account of the mutilated form of the territory offered to him by Lord Aberdeen and the Duke of Wellington. Lord Palmerston improved the territorial position of Greece by giving it a better frontier than Lord Aberdeen, but it remained still a very bad one, as Colonel Leake pointed out at the time. In 1832, moreover, Lord Palmerston administered his antidote to an improved frontier, in the shape of a Bavarian prince, whom, for some years, he supported with his usual vigour and contempt of consequences. King Otho being a minor, a regency accompanied him from Bavaria to Greece in 1833, to govern in his name. This regency consisted of three statesmen of purblind views—men of the limited political intelligence which distinguishes the artistic city of Munich. Yet Lord Palmerston, in concert with the other protecting powers, consented to strangle the Greek Chambers, in order to vest unlimited power in the hands of these Bavarian regents. Count Armansperg was chosen to do the honours, M. Maurer was intrusted with the duty of organising the civil administration, and General Heideck was allowed to sketch uniforms for the Greek army, and instructed to paint pictures for the cabinet of King Louis. These three statesmen soon quarrelled among themselves, and, with Teutonicbonhomie, called in the Greeks as spectators of their contests. The foreign policy of the regency was quite as ill-judged as their domestic behaviour. M. Maurer, who got the upper hand for a year, was ultra-Gallican; Count Armansperg, who at last succeeded in getting him shipped off to Bavaria, was ultra-Anglican. The follies of the regency, however, did not prevent the three protecting powers from heaping benefits on the Greek nation. A large loan, amounting to two million four hundred thousand pounds, was placed at the disposal of the Royal government. The object which the protectors of Greece had in view, was to remove any difficulties which the finances of Greece might have offered to a reform in the general system of taxation, and at the same time to afford facilities for immediately commencing the construction of roads, and other necessary improvements. The Greek treasury was rendered completely independent of the receipts of the annual revenues for the period necessary to effect a thorough reorganisation of every branch of the public service, civil, military, naval, and judicial. Greece had everything done for her which her friends could desire. But the Greeks, instead of employing their energies, and making use of the liberty of the press to restrain the Bavarians from wasting the loan, aided them to dissipate it in every way by which they could profit. The whole force of public opinion, it is true, was employed in driving the Bavarians from profitable employments; but when success attended the clamours of the Greeks, instead of abolishing the offices which they had previously declared to be useless, they installed themselves in the vacant places, and employed the influence thus acquired to diminish even the scanty sum devoted to national improvements by the Bavarians. Accordingly, we find that the Bavarians did as much for improving Greece during their short period of power, as the Greeks during their long subsequent administration. Yet every traveller hears the Greeks constantly declaring that all the evils in the country are caused by foreign interference. The only truth in their observation is, that they were and are utterly unfit to be trusted with the administration of any money beyond what they levy on themselves in the way of taxation. Nothing, indeed, shows the moral obliquity of the Greeks more than the ingratitude with which they receive every public and private gift.
We considerthatingratitude a sufficient excuse for recapitulating some of the favours which the British Government has conferred on them since Otho the beloved ascended the Hellenic throne. Nothing but the blindest self-conceit, or the blackest ingratitude, can prevent their acknowledging that the English Cabinet has done infinitely more for advancing the commercial prosperity and extending the agricultural industry of Greece, than King Otho’s ministers or the Greek Chambers. The personal interest which several members of our Government took in the success of the kingdom they had contributed to found, induced them to conclude a reciprocity treaty with the King’s government at an early period. To the same feeling we may ascribe the early repeal of the duty on currants imported into the British dominions from the Greek kingdom. This change of duty, by placing the currants, a most important product of the Morea, on the same footing as those of Zante, was a direct boon to the currant-growers of Achaia, a bounty on the cultivation of fruit in the Greek kingdom, a premium to commerce at Patras, and a considerable gift to King Otho’s treasury. Lord Palmerston was Foreign Secretary during these changes, and we therefore request the public writers at Athens, when they think fit to reproach him for quarrelling with their beloved monarch, whom they believe is ever ready to sacrifice his throne for their orthodoxy, to bear in mind that these measures have done more for the agricultural and commercial prosperity of Greece, than any which King Otho or the Greek Chambers have adopted since they freed themselves from foreign domination.
For nearly five years—that is, from the beginning of 1833 to the end of 1837—the Bavarians continued to waste the loan granted by the three powers, partly in large salaries to themselves, and partly in creating places and jobs for the Greeks, to induce the most influential and clamorous to consent to their mode of dissipating the public money. Notwithstanding this, there can be no doubt that Greece received some permanent benefit from the regency. The Greeks were not in a condition to establish an equitable system of laws. M. Maurer endowed the country with this invaluable boon. To him Greece owes its excellent judicial organisation, and its code of civil procedure. Whatever were the defects of M. Maurer as a statesman, he was an able legislator, practically conversant with every detail of legal administration. The judicial system he planted in Greece was so complete in all its parts, that it has become an element in the political civilisation of the kingdom; and it affords the strongest grounds of hope to those who look forward to the Greek nation as the instrument for extending political civilisation in the East. Count Armansperg governed Greece much longer than M. Maurer, but his improvements were not so beneficial. He made court balls and political bribery national institutions.
During the whole of the Bavarian domination, a well-filled treasury, a number of foreign officers and native councillors of state, political sycophants, dressed in handsome uniforms and speaking good French, a hired press, and a liberal distribution of King Otho’s Order of the Redeemer of Greece, with its ribbon and star, to foreign diplomatists and English peers, concealed from Western Europe the discontent, civil wars, and brigandage that fermented in the little kingdom. The bands of robbers that infested Greece during this period became so numerous as to give their system of plunder the character of a civil war. In the year 1835, during the administration of Count Armansperg, a body of about 500 brigands remained for more than a month levying contributions under the walls of Lepanto, in which it kept the garrison blockaded until relieved by a general from Athens with a strong detachment of Bavarian and Greek regular troops. These armed bands repeatedly resisted the central government, which drew all the money of the country to the capital without making any improvements in the provinces. Several foreign officers were charged with the task of re-establishing order. Generals Schmaltz, Gordon, and Church, each made a campaign against the brigands, who rendered Messenia, Etolia, Acarnania, Doris, and Phthiotis in turns the scene of their skirmishes with King Otho’s troops. Besides this extensive system of brigandage, a regular civil war was caused in Maina by the same central rapacity and want of judgment on the part of the Regency. In Maina, the Bavarian troops were defeated, and a considerable number were compelled to lay down their arms.
During the whole of the Bavarian domination, the Greeks enjoyed the liberty of the press. M. Maurer placed the newspapers under some reasonable restraints, and Count Armansperg made one or two feeble demonstrations against them, for he was timid in everything but emptying the Greek treasury. His attacks were easily repulsed, and the Greeks have the honour of retaining the liberty of the press by their own exertions, though they have hitherto not rendered the privilege of much use to the nation. At length, in the month of December 1837, the Chevalier Rudhart, the last Bavarian prime-minister, resigned his office, and from that time King Otho has governed his kingdom with Greek or Albanian prime-ministers. This office has been more than once held by men who could hardly read or write; but the individuals have invariably been persons of some mark in the factions that divide the place-hunters of Athens. The ignorance and want of education of his ministers, which is often made a reproach to King Otho, ought to be considered as a national disgrace, for the court would never have selected men so destitute of administrative knowledge, had they not possessed considerable influence and a numerous following.
Ever since the commencement of the year 1838, the Greeks have possessed a predominant influence in King Otho’s cabinet. They are entirely responsible for the faults of his government from that time; for if the Greek ministers had used their power with a very little honesty, and one single grain of patriotism, they might have retained the direction of the internal administration in their own hands, and effected every improvement the nation could desire. Indeed, if they had ever shown a wish to improve the material condition of the population, it is probable King Otho would have given them his support in their endeavours. But when the King saw them intent only on profiting by office to enrich themselves and create places for their partisans, in order to perpetuate their tenure of office, he very naturally looked about for means to form a royal party, and thus render the court independent of the ministers. We shall soon explain to our readers how effectually his Hellenic Majesty accomplished this object. The Greek ministers never made any serious effort to diminish the weight of taxation, either by economy or by improving the barbarous manner in which the agricultural taxes are collected; they thought only of appropriating the national lands, and creating new places to reward their supporters. Instead of establishing systematic regulations for securing a respect to seniority and merit in civil, judicial, and military appointments, they destroyed the system the Bavarians had established, and disposed of the highest offices in the most arbitrary and unprincipled manner. Judges have been appointed in violation of the law, and men have been made generals who had never served in a military capacity. Worthless politicians and intriguing secretaries were decorated with military titles in order to enrich them with high pay. These men may be seen at the balls in King Otho’s palace, flaunting in vulgar embroidery, and imitating with Greek pertness the sumptuous Albanian dress and Mussulman gravity of the chiefs who filled the halls of Ali Pasha of Joannina. The Greeks alone have enjoyed the profits of the corruption which has reigned in the administration since the year 1838; they are consequently not entitled to throw the blame on foreigners.
In consequence of the misconduct of the Greek ministers and the servility of a council of state filled with official sycophants, the Greek government became such a scene of corruption that the patience of all ranks was exhausted, and an attempt was made to reform the vicious system by a revolution in the year 1843. A representative chamber and an imitation of Louis Philippe’s senate of officials, called in France a House of Peers, were constituted. The deputies were chosen by universal suffrage, but the election of the municipal authorities was left subject to the oligarchical restrictions imposed by the Regency. Ten years have now elapsed since the constitutional system was established, so that for ten years the Greeks have made their own laws and voted their own budgets. At the same time, the enjoyment of the fullest liberty of the press, and the existence of sixteen newspapers at Athens, have enabled every party and class to criticise the acts of the government with unrestrained license. If corruption and venality have been the leading features of political society in Greece during this period, it is evident that the nation has been a party to the abuses, from its refusal to punish the offenders. The mass of those whose superior knowledge and rank have obtained for them the direction of public opinion in political matters, have sacrificed the interests of the nation to advance their own personal schemes of profit. The Greeks ought not to feel surprised at the low estimation in which they are now held. It is entirely their own fault. They have hawked about their nationality at Munich, Paris, and St Petersburg, for illicit gains in a falling market at a very unpatriotic price.
Yet we collect from the newspapers published at Athens, that a considerable number of well-educated men of all parties, while they acknowledge the degraded state of their country, assert that the whole blame ought to be ascribed to the three protecting powers. Many of these patriots, it seems, are nevertheless in the receipt of large salaries from the public treasury; yet, though they feel that they are themselves destitute of the patriotism necessary to lighten the burdens of their country, they take the liberty of supposing that Lord Palmerston had the power of making all Greeks honest men by the magic of a protocol. We are not going to waste the time of our readers, as the Greek Senate and House of Representatives have wasted the resources of the country, by exposing the childishness of modern Greek political logic. If the descendants of Lucian’s contemporaries can find relief in their present degradation, by swallowing any dose of vanity they can mix for themselves, we have no wish to deprive them of the solace. But we cannot refrain from advising them to try some other remedy to remove the evils that are undermining the national strength and character. Instead of seeking for apologies to excuse their vices, they had better commence reforming their vicious habits.
Nothing has so much retarded the progress of the Greek race as the inconceivable vanity and unbounded presumption of the class who make letters a profession. Those who believe in the unmixed purity of the Hellenic blood might cite this besotted pride, after two thousand years of national degradation, as a proof that the Greeks of the present day are lineal descendants of those who sold their country to the Macedonians and the Romans, as they have lately attempted to sell it to the Russians. An admixture of foreign blood would probably have infused into the people a wish to look forward to a glorious future, instead of leaving them to gaze at a reflection of the past, distorted by their own senile visual orbits, at moments when action, not contemplation, is their business.
The strange manner in which the modern Greeks misrepresent history for the gratification of their national vanity, is well displayed in their ecclesiastical history. We will select one anecdote from theHistory of the Patriarchs of Constantinople, written by Malaxos, one of the Greeklogiotatọiof the sixteenth century. His work was first published by Martin Crusius in hisTurco-Græcia, and has lately been reprinted in the new edition of the Byzantine historians, in the course of publication at Bonn.
The Greeks are in the habit of boasting that their Church preserved their nationality under the Turks. Considering the subserviency of the great body of the Greek clergy during that period, and the readiness with which they acted as spies and policemen for the Othoman government, we own that we entertain a very different opinion. We think it would be nearer the truth to assert that the people, having perpetuated their existence by the toleration of their conquerors, preserved their nationality by their municipal organisation, and that this preservation of their nationality was the cause of their ecclesiastical establishment surviving. Mohammed II. reconstituted the patriarchate of Constantinople, after he had conquered the city, merely as a branch of the Othoman administration. Mr Masson and other enthusiasts fancy they can discern Presbyterian doctrines in the Greek Church. It may be the case. We have heard that chemists find gold in strawberries; but the gold rarely sits heavy on the stomachs of those who eat strawberries, and we opine that the Presbyterian doctrines of the Greek Church never prevent its votaries from worshipping images. So, in the anecdote we are going to extract from the Patriarchal History, we find that the Greeks regard violations of truth and honour as venial offences, if not absolutely meritorious acts, whenever they are supposed to have turned to the profit of their ecclesiastical establishment.
“During the reign of the Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, when Toulphi Pasha was grand vizier,[133]the attention of the Sublime Porte was called to the circumstance that the duty of the caliph of the Mohammedan faith required the destruction of all places of worship belonging to Infidels in every city which the true believers had taken with the sword. Now, as Mohammed II. had taken Constantinople by storm, it was the sultan’s duty to destroy all the Christian churches within the walls; and all the plagues and fires which had desolated the city, and which, it was observed, generally consumed more Turkish than Greek property, evidently arose from the Divine anger at the neglect of this important command of the Prophet. Sultan Suleiman was said to have consulted the mufti on the necessity of only tolerating places of worship for the Christians without the walls; and it was believed that the mufti had delivered a fetva, authorising the destruction of all the Greek churches in Constantinople. Sultan Suleiman then issued an order to his grand vizier, commanding him to carry the fetva into execution. At this time Jeremiah was patriarch of Constantinople.
“The patriarch heard the report, and, terrified at the news, mounted his mule, and hastened to the palace of the grand vizier, who received him with kindness. The two dignitaries discussed the matter of the sultan’s order, and concerted together a mode of evading its execution. A meeting of the divan was held, at which the grand vizier made a public communication of the imperial decree to the patriarch Jeremiah. But the head of the Greek Church gravely observed, that the circumstances of the mufti’s fetva were not applicable to the city of Constantinople. He declared that before Mohammed II. entered Constantinople, the Emperor Constantine, finding the place no longer tenable, had gone out of the city and presented the keys to the Sultan, who had admitted him to do homage as a subject for himself and the Greek people, before the gates were thrown open to admit the conqueror. On this ground he pleaded that all the concessions made by Mohammed II. to the patriarchs and to the Greek Church were lawful. Well might all the members of the divan wonder at this strange tale concerning the conquest of Constantinople. But many had received large presents from the patriarch, and many waited to hear the opinion of the grand vizier before pretending to doubt its accuracy. The grand vizier declared that the question was so important that it would be proper to adjourn the business to a grand divan on the following day.
“The report having spread among the whole population of Constantinople, that the Government intended to destroy all the Christian churches, every class of society was in movement. Long before the meeting of the divan, crowds of Turks, Greeks, Armenians, and Jews assembled at the Porte to hear the result of the deliberation. The whole space from the gate of the serai to the court of St Sophia’s was filled with the multitude. The Patriarch Jeremiah was waiting to be admitted to the divan, and soon after the members had taken their places he was summoned to enter. When he reached the centre of the hall, he made his prostrations to the assembled viziers, and then, standing erect, declared himself ready to answer for his church. All admired the dignity of his presence. His white beard descended on his breast, and the sweat fell in large drops from his forehead. The Greeks declared that he emulated the passion of Christ, of whose orthodox church he was the representative on earth. The archonts of the Greek nation stood trembling beside him.
“At length the grand vizier spoke. ‘Patriarch of the Greeks, a fetva of our law has been delivered, and an order of the padishah has been issued, prohibiting the existence of any church in the cities which the true believers have conquered sword in hand. This city was taken by storm by the great Sultan Mohammed the conqueror. Therefore, let your priests remove all their property from the churches in their possession, and, after shutting them up, deliver the keys to our master’s officers, that the churches may be destroyed.’ To this summons the patriarch replied in a distinct voice, ‘I cannot answer, O grand vizier! for what happened in other cities; but with regard to this city of Constantinople I can solemnly affirm that the Emperor Constantine Palaiologos, with the nobles, the clergy, and the people, surrendered it voluntarily to the Sultan Mohammed.’ The grand vizier cautioned the patriarch not to assert anything which he could not prove by the testimony of Mohammedan witnesses, who were able to certify the truth of what he said. The patriarch immediately engaged to produce witnesses, and the affair was adjourned for twenty days.
“The Greeks were in great alarm. Everybody knew that the patriarch had engaged to prove a lie; so that the only hope of safety appeared to be in the perpetual adjournment of the question. To effect this, the wealthiest Greeks—Phanariotes and merchants—offered to supply the patriarch with the sums of money necessary to bribe the grand vizier and the members of the divan.
“But the Patriarch Jeremiah and the grand vizier Toulphi did not wish to admit any strangers into the secret of their proceedings. So the patriarch sent men of experience to Adrianople, who met agents of the grand vizier, and at last two aged Mussulmans were found who were willing for a large bribe to testify that the patriarch had spoken the truth. These witnesses were conducted to Constantinople, and presented to the Patriarch Jeremiah, who embraced them, and took care that they should be well fed, lodged, clothed, and carefully watched, until they appeared before the divan. When they had rested from the fatigues of their journey, they were conducted to the grand vizier, who spoke kindly to them, told them the patriarch was his friend, and exhorted them to give their evidence without fear.
“On the day appointed to hear the evidence, the Patriarch Jeremiah presented himself before the divan. The grand vizier asked if he was prepared to produce the evidence he had promised, and the Patriarch replied that the witnesses were waiting without to be examined.
“Two aged Turks were now conducted into the hall. Their beards were white as the purest snow, red circles surrounded their eyes, from which the tears fell incessantly, while their hands and feet moved with a continual tremor. The viziers gazed at them with astonishment, for two men so far advanced in years had never been seen before on earth standing side by side. They looked like two brothers whom death had forgotten. The grand vizier asked their names, and encouraged them by making some other inquiries. They replied that they were both about eighteen years of age when Constantinople was taken by the Sultan Mohammed the victorious. Since that time they knew that eighty-four years had elapsed, and therefore they were aware that they had reached the age of a hundred and two. They then gave the following account of the conquest of Constantinople:—
“The siege was formed by land and sea, and long and bloody engagements took place, but at last several breaches were made in the walls, and it was evident that the place would soon be taken. Preparations were making for a final assault, when the Emperor of the Greeks sent a deputation of his nobles to the sultan to demand a capitulation. The sultan, wishing to save the city from destruction, and to spare the blood of the true believers, granted the infidels the following terms of capitulation, which the witnesses pretended to remember with accuracy, because a copy had been publicly signed by the sultan and read aloud to the troops: ‘I, the Sultan Mohammed, pardon the Emperor Constantine and the Greeks, and grant their petition to become my subjects, and live in peace under my protection. I allow the nobles to retain their slaves and property, and I declare that the people shall live free from all illegal exactions, and that their children shall not be taken to be enrolled in the corps of janissaries.[134]This charter shall be binding on me and my successors for ever.’ With this charter the Greek deputation returned to the emperor, who came out immediately, and falling on his knees before Mohammed the Second, presented to him the keys of the city. The sultan then raised Constantine, kissed him, and made him sit down on his right hand. For three days the two princes rejoiced together, and then the emperor led the sultan into the city.
“As soon as the members of the divan heard this account of the taking of Constantinople from the two old men who had witnessed the events, they drew up a report and transmitted it to Sultan Suleiman. The sultan, convinced that everything must have happened as the old Mussulmans deposed, immediately ordered that the Christians should be allowed to retain possession of their churches, and that no man should molest the patriarch of the Greeks under any pretext.”
Now, the whole of this tale is an absurd forgery. Moreover, the ignorance of the Greeks who framed it is even more extraordinary than their utter disregard for truth. The accomplished sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, and the learned grand vizier, Loufti Pasha, are represented as stupid Turks, destitute of all knowledge of the history of the Othoman Empire. Greek vanity is flattered by an exhibition of the way in which Romaic genius nullifies the power of the padishah, by availing itself of the corruption in the Turkish administration. But the strangest feature in the fable is the moral obtuseness of the Hellenic mind, which solicits admiration for the frauds and falsehoods of their patriarch. The inventor of the tale had in all probability heard that Loufti Pasha was an Albanian by birth, but was ignorant of the fact that he was a man of learning. He could not have known that, when in exile at Demotika, Loufti wrote a history of the Othoman Empire, which is still preserved. Indeed, a comparison of the flourishing state of Turkish literature with the degraded condition of Greek literature in the sixteenth century contrasts in a singular manner with the contempt displayed by the Greeks in their illiterate records for the accomplished and warlike Othomans. But the Greeks have always viewed the history of other nations through a mist of prejudices which has bewildered themselves far more than their enemies.
This anecdote presents a faithful picture of the Hellenic mind, and of Greek political and historical knowledge, three hundred years ago. We shall now endeavour to place before our readers an equally correct picture of their mode of thinking and acting at present.
The constitutional system of government has proved as complete a failure in Greece as the absolute monarchy which terminated at the revolution of 1843. Our description of the actual condition of the country will explain the particular causes which have corrupted the representative system and the central administration. The court of King Otho is really quite as much the predominant feature in the political condition of Greece as his palace is in the landscape at Athens. Both are great deformities in scenes of great interest. There is a grotesque mimicry of royal state at the monster palace of the little capital of liberated Greece. A marshal of the palace and a master of the ceremonies, a grandmaîtresse, military and naval aides-de-camp, ordinance officers, ladies of honour, and young ladies-in-waiting, courtiers who cannot write, and courtiers who cannot ride; court carriages in a kingdom without mail-coaches; royal steam-yachts, but no packets even with oars; crosses, ribbons, and stars; salaries, places, and pensions;—everything which ruins a government, and nothing which enriches a people.
The power of the crown is great. It is supported by a civil list of one million of drachmas annually, in a state which has a net revenue of twelve. The enormous amount of this civil list may be estimated from the facts, that the salaries of the Greek ministers are only twelve thousand drachmas a year, and of the Greek senators only six thousand. Besides the influence which this exorbitant wealth confers on the monarch, he possesses still greater social influence, for the whole of the upper classes at Athens consist of paid officials, every one of whom is liable to lose his place at a word from King Otho, who, with very little exertion on the part of that royal memory on which kings pride themselves, may recollect every man who resides at his capital qualified to enter his palace. The desire of King Otho to extend his personal influence, and centralise power in his own hands, is so great, that every individual who receives a public appointment, however insignificant, whether at Athens or in the provinces, is compelled to wait on his majesty to thank him for the favour, which he naturally pretends to consider as a reward for his attachment to the royal Bavarian, not as a reward for his services to Greece. King Otho has been an apt pupil of Louis Philippe in the political corruption that renders the constitutional system subservient to the royal power in a thoroughly centralised administration.
In one branch of political corruption King Otho may boast that he has outdone all European sovereigns. It is true, he found in the Hellenic mind a rich soil, but he may claim the merit of having worked it like a first-rate farmer. The local institutions to which the friends of Greece looked for a firm basis for liberal institutions, have in his hands been rendered the instrument for converting popular elections into royal nominations. When the Bavarian regency destroyed the communal system of Greece, they replaced it by municipalities of greater extent, and rendered the local authorities dependent on the Minister of the Interior. King Otho availed himself of the central control created by the municipal law, to make the mayor and local magistrates everywhere dependent on his personal favour. The mayors are now agents and spies of the court. This is effected in the following manner: By one of those preposterous regulations, framed by statesmen to delude the people with a show of conferring on them free institutions, the nomination of the mayor is vested in the central government. An oligarchical college of electors selects three members of the municipality, and from these his majesty selects the most subservient to occupy the place. By availing himself skilfully of this absurd law, King Otho has filled the towns of Greece with magistrates entirely dependent on his will—men whom their fellow-citizens, if universal suffrage prevailed in the municipal elections of the mayors as it does in the more important elections of deputies to the legislature, would not allow to remain an hour in office. These nominees of the court are placed in possession of considerable salaries by the will of the central government, and as they are dependent on the court for their office, they act as its devoted agents. The consequence is, that King Otho is enabled to employ the funds of the Greek municipalities in maintaining a species of court policemen over the whole country. The influence thus gained may be estimated from the circumstance that upwards of two millions of drachmas are thus withdrawn from their legitimate use, in making roads and facilitating communications by land and water, and are devoted to pay a band of royalsbirri. Many persons in England have felt astonished that a man of such moderate talents as King Otho could render such effectual service to Russia, as to agitate the whole of Greece by making an invasion of Turkey appear a national movement. But the fact is, that the power possessed by the central government through the municipalities is so great, that we have to thank the extreme incapacity of King Otho and the general corruption of the instruments he employed for rendering the attack on Turkey as inefficient as it proved. The King gave the signal for a general recruiting to aid the Russian cause, but his instruments in the provinces employed the opportunity in attending to their own interests, before giving themselves much trouble about making a diversion for the profit of the Czar or the Bavarian. King Otho on this occasion paid the usual penalty of those who work by corruption.
We must not blame King Otho too severely for making use of corrupt persuasion as an instrument of parliamentary government. The proceedings of our Ministers rise up before us as an apology for the Greek monarchy. A Coalition of all the administrative talent of Britain cannot conduct the non-centralised government of the empire without a little local jobbery. Even Lord Aberdeen’s own department publicly owns the necessity of throwing a few corrupt sops to a hungry and restive body of Liberal representatives. In the Treasury report, recommending some reforms in our post-office, the following words will be found,—it seems a very plain statement of adherence to the principles on which King Otho influences the Greek municipalities: “My Lords (of the Treasury—i. e., Messrs Aberdeen & Co.) are of opinion that it is for thepublic interestthat the appointments should be made as at present by my Lords, after consulting, through the recommendation of the members for the county or town, the convenience and wishes of the population.” Population in this sentence, we presume, means the class who usually job such matters, for we have never before heard it asserted that the mob was the best judge of administrative capacity.
The fact that a man so notoriously deficient in political wisdom as King Otho has succeeded in establishing a system, giving him a predominant influence over the Greeks, is a sad evidence of the extreme venality of Greek society; for there can hardly be a doubt that the Greeks suggested to their King the employment of the national resources in purchasing the service of individuals instead of devoting them to the improvement of the nation.
We have but few observations to make on the late treacherous attack of King Otho and his subjects on their neighbour and ally, the Sultan Abdul Medjid. There could not be an act of greater folly; and even amidst the incapable and cowardly exhibitions of modern times, it is the national movement which has been conducted in the most incapable and cowardly manner. Of the complicity of King Otho there never was a doubt, in spite of the denials of the Greek and German press. The courts of London and Paris have refrained from giving publicity to all the documents which fell into the hands of the Turks proving this complicity, as it was not their wish to increase the embarrassments of the hour by declaring the throne of Greece vacant. Regarding the attack on Turkey, however, in the light of a diversion for the advantage of Russia, it might have rendered important assistance to the Czar. Had it been conducted with energy and ability, it might have inflicted a serious blow on the Othoman Empire. When King Otho violated the treaties to which he owed his throne, and appealed to force as the arbiter of his future relations with Turkey, he expected, not without some chance of success, to become master of the line of fortresses that defend the frontiers of Turkey towards Greece. Volo, Domoko, Arta, and Prevesa, were almost without garrisons; and it was only by the extreme incapacity of the Greek leaders, and the misconduct of those who invaded Turkey, that these fortresses escaped capture. The court of Athens acted on the conviction that the Russian army would force the Balkan in a few weeks, and appear before the walls of Constantinople without encountering any serious resistance. It consequently believed that it would not be in the Sultan’s power to detach a force sufficient to protect Thessaly and Epirus. Once in possession of the fortresses which command these provinces, the King believed that England and France would be compelled to treat with him, and leave him in possession of the spoil. Fortunately for the Othoman Empire, both the Emperor Nicholas and King Otho are very bad generals. Both appear to have calculated that the armed rabble of Greeks in fustanello could perform the duties of an army. And King Otho now finds that he has sacrificed the most valuable portion of his subjects’ commerce to Russian interests, without any advantage to his cherished scheme of making himself an absolute monarch.
The political morality of King Otho, in his foreign as in his internal affairs, deserves the severest condemnation. His behaviour to Turkey has met with the most galling punishment. He retains his crown by the sufferance of those whom he has betrayed. His folly has ruined the commerce of his subjects, and transferred the neutral trade, which might have enriched the Greeks, to the ships of the Austrians, Genoese, and Neapolitans.
Let us now contrast the conduct of the Greek monarch with the behaviour of the President of the United States in a similar case. Cuba is quite as desirable a possession to the Americans as Thessaly and Epirus are to the Greeks. In both countries a large part of the population eagerly desires the conquest. There is, however, this difference: The Greeks could not make any impression on their enemy, even though they took him by surprise; but the Americans would probably soon gain possession of Cuba, if their government only winked at the enterprises of private citizens. Had the President of the United States been as impolitic and selfish as King Otho, he might have encouraged piratical attacks on Cuba. The position of General Pierce bore a strong resemblance to that of the King of Greece, but his conduct was diametrically opposite. Even though General Pierce is now engaged in demanding from Spain reparation for acts of violence committed on the property of American citizens in Cuba, and though it is possible that the disputes between the two countries may soon lead to hostilities, the President of the United States uses the following terms in his Message to the Senate:—
“The formal demand for immediate reparation (from Spain) has only served to call forth a justification of the local authorities of Cuba, which transfers the responsibility to the Spanish government.... Meanwhile information was received that preparation was making within the limits of the United States, by private individuals, under military organisation, for a descent upon the island of Cuba, with a view to wrest it from the dominion of Spain. International comity, the obligations of treaties, and the express provisions of the law, alike required, in my judgment, that all the constitutional power of the executive should be exerted to prevent the consummation of such a violation of positive law, and of that good faith on which mainly the amicable relations of neighbouring nations must depend.
“In conformity with these convictions of public duty, a proclamation was issued to warn all persons not to participate in the contemplated enterprise, and to invoke the interposition in this behalf of the proper officers of government.No provocation whatever can justify private expeditions of hostility against a country at peace with the United States.”
Contrast these words with King Otho’s declaration to the ministers of Great Britain and France, that his royal conscience would not allow him to restrain the marauding forays and piratical expeditions of his subjects against Turkey, and that rather than attempt it he would himself march at their head.International comityandthe obligations of treatiesnow compel the two protecting powers to employ against King Otho and the Greeks that force to which they appealed as arbiter of their relations with Turkey, and they must be forcibly obliged to observethat good faith on which mainly the amicable relations of neighbouring States must depend. Unless, therefore, the Greek King and the Greek nation can give ample security that no provocation will again induce them to commence private acts of hostility against Epirus and Thessaly while the Greek kingdom is at peace with the Othoman Empire, the tranquillity of Europe requires that the independence of Greece should be suspended, and the country remain in the power of a foreign force, until a government be firmly established which will respect the principles of the law of nations as laid down by the President of the United States in his Message to the Senate.
The Greeks in general apologise for their treacherous attempt to surprise the Turks, by declaring that the liberated territory is too small to constitute an independent State. They seem to overlook the corollary which the European cabinets may be inclined to deduce from their violation of “international comity and the obligations of treaties,” and extinguish their independence rather than increase their territory. But the falsehood of the assertion is too apparent to deserve refutation. The kingdom of Greece is more thinly peopled than any other State in Europe; but this want of population is caused by its communications, both by land and sea, being in a worse state than they are in any other country. Idle clerks in public offices, and armed men who frequent coffee-houses, form a numerous section of the town population, and these men consume all the revenues of the State, which ought to be devoted to public improvements. Indeed, the financial and political condition of King Otho’s dominions is so bad, that it would be an act of inhumanity to transfer any portion of the population of the Sultan’s territory to the Greek government. If Chios or Samos were annexed to Greece tomorrow, the inhabitants would find their financial burdens greatly increased, and their trade very much diminished, without any corresponding improvement in their political condition for the present. The benefits they would acquire might nevertheless awaken hopes of a better future. They would be placed in possession of the liberty of the press, and of a good judicial system, so that when the corrupting influence of the court of Athens, of the Phanariot place-hunters, and of the palikari, ceases to exist, amendment may be expected by the enthusiastic. Judging from actual appearances, King Otho’s dominions seem to be much too large, both for the amount of the population, and for the administrative capacity of the government. Even Athens, Syra, Patras, Nauplia, and Chalcis, are little better than undrained dirty towns, destitute of proper municipal organisation and local police, while the other towns in the country are merely overgrown villages. With the exception of a few drives for the court carriages round Athens, and a road for the Austrian traffic across the isthmus of Corinth, there is not a good cart-road in the kingdom, and very few tolerable bridle-roads even from one town to another. Twenty islands of the Archipelago, each containing a town, are not visited by any regular packets, and it frequently happens that six weeks elapse without their receiving any news from the capital. It is almost needless to say that a population living in such a state of isolation must be in a stationary, if not in a declining, condition. If the numbers are kept up, the buildings of past times are allowed to fall to decay, and all the accumulated capital is rapidly deteriorating. Every traveller who has visited the islands of the Archipelago, and the towns in the interior of the Peloponnesus, must have noticed many proofs of this decay, quite independent of the dilapidation caused by the revolutionary war, or the civil broils which followed it.
Other proofs of the incapacity of the existing government of Greece to conduct the centralised system, as established in the limited territory it now rules, may be found in the civil wars already noticed, in the general anarchy and contempt for the rights of property that prevails, and in the enormous numbers of criminals in all the prisons of the kingdom. We have now before us Athenian newspapers of the month of July, filled with complaints of acts of brigandage almost within sight of King Otho’s palace. Some years ago a party of pleasure was robbed during a picnic at Kephisia; and the newspapers have frequently recorded cases of boiling oil having been poured on women to compel them to show the robbers where the family hoards were concealed. We have seen an occurrence of this kind recorded in Attica while the Chambers were in session. The inference from these facts seems to be, that King Otho, the Greek Chambers, and the existing central administration, are incompetent to establish order and security for life and property in the territory they now pretend to govern. We ask whether it is possible for Great Britain and France to entertain the question of an augmentation of such a kingdom?
We may now turn from examining the position of King Otho and the Greek government in relation to their foreign policy, and take a glance at the social and political condition of the nation. We must commence by enumerating what the people have neglected to do. This will serve to show how great the difficulties now are in the way of improving the country. During the ten years of representative government which have now elapsed, the Greek deputies have made no systematic efforts to improve the condition of the agricultural population, though three-quarters of the inhabitants of Greece are chiefly dependent on agriculture for their subsistence. No attempt has been made to reform the barbarous method of collecting the land-tax in kind, which retains the population in the stationary condition into which it fell on the decline of the Byzantine Empire. The municipalities have been allowed to become the vehicles of court corruption, and no measures have been taken to enforce regular publication of their receipts and expenditure. No criminal statistics are published. Instead of appropriating annually a sum of money for the construction of roads, bridges, quays, and ferry-boats, which are so necessary in a mountainous and insular State, the national interests are sacrificed to the gains of individual senators and deputies. New places are annually created, and the trade of Greece is transferred to Austrian and French steam-companies. The greatest commercial advantages ever placed at the disposal of any people have been neglected by the Greek nation, and perhaps completely thrown away by their late devotion to Russia. Yet the Greeks, who see the number of foreign steamers daily increasing in their ports, boast with their usual childish vanity of their superiority over every other people in naval skill. They even throw out hints in their political writings that the real cause of Lord Palmerston’s dissatisfaction with King Otho was founded on a reasonable jealousy of the Greek navy, and a patriotic fear lest the subjects of that monarch should deprive England of her commercial supremacy! Yet while boasting in this Hellenic strain, like true descendants of the contemporaries of Juvenal and Lucian, they have allowed the most profitable part of their own coasting trade to pass into the hands of the Austrian Lloyd Steam Company.
A tendency to social and political disintegration is quite as much a characteristic of the population of liberated Greece as it was of ancient Hellas. National differences, municipal distinctions, local interests, class prejudices, and individual pretensions, divide the people.
The first great social division is one of race. Only about three-quarters of the population of the Greek kingdom consists of Greeks—the other quarter is composed of Albanians. These races rarely intermarry, and few Greeks ever learn the Albanian language; yet the Albanian race is rapidly acquiring political importance in the present condition of the Othoman Empire. It enjoys two immense advantages over the Greek race. Its geographical location concentrates the population, and offers a strong barrier against any foreign conquerors; while its military habits enables it to raise far larger and more efficient armies. It is also physically as much superior to the Greek as it is intellectually inferior. The bravest men and the most beautiful women in the Greek kingdom are of the purest Albanian blood, unadulterated with any admixture with the Hellenic race. Marko Botzaris, Miaoulis, and Konduriottis were Albanians. If the Albanians should, like their fellow-citizens the Greeks, become more eager to identify their existence with an ideal past than with a promising future, there is no reason for their being behind-hand in boasting. As descendants of the Macedonians, they may proudly vaunt that they have repeatedly conquered the Hellenes; and, as a section of the great Thracian people, they trace their origin to a mightier source than the Greeks. Consequently, if race is to become a determining cause in the formation of independent States, or even national representations, within the limits of the Othoman Empire, the warlike Albanians, in their inexpugnable mountains, are likely to assume a more important position than the commercial Greeks, dispersed in exposed seaports and defenceless islands. The application of ethnology to politics, which the Greeks have strongly-advocated, is extremely likely to operate forcibly in preventing any considerable extension of their kingdom. A Greek empire would be an impossibility if a natural ethnological development were adopted as a basis for partitioning Turkey in Europe. The Vallachians, Sclavonians, and Albanians are as able and willing to arrest the progress of the Greeks to-day, as the Thracians, Macedonians, and Epirots were in ancient times.
The next strongly-marked line of separation in the population of the Greek kingdom is that between the agricultural population and the inhabitants of the towns, whether the citizens live by orchard and garden culture, or by trade and foreign commerce. About three-quarters of the inhabitants of Greece live by agriculture; yet agricultural industry remains in the rudest state. The Bavarian Regency, the Greek King, and the representative Chambers, have hitherto done nothing to improve the condition of the agricultural class, nor to increase the produce of the country. The land which maintained one family four hundred years ago, will only maintain one family at the present day; the district which supported a thousand families under the Turks, can do no more under King Otho. The absurd fiscal arrangements concerning the collection of the land-tax in kind, prevent the peasantry from planting trees; so that in the richest plains devoted to the cultivation of cereals, the agricultural class is in the most miserable condition—as in the fertile districts of Thebes and Messenia. There is also no inducement to extend cultivation, as no roads exist; and a mule would, in a large part of Greece, eat its load of barley before it reached the nearest market. The agricultural class in Greece is poor, barbarous, and industrious; the population of the towns, on the other hand, is in easy circumstances, advanced in civilisation, and extremely idle. In no other country are coffee-houses so numerous or so well filled. The great number of persons living on places and pensions conferred by the central government, or receiving pay from the municipalities with no duty to perform, fills the streets of every town in Greece with an amount of idle individuals which travellers view with wonder.
The third prominent feature in the social condition of the Greek population is the existence of a military caste called Palikars. These palikars are nothing more than the armed followers of certain military chiefs who have secured to themselves an acknowledged position and regular pay in the Greek kingdom. The palikars wear the Albanian dress, and pretend to be professional soldiers, though neither they nor their leaders know anything of military tactics or discipline. A small number only are composed of the survivors of the irregular troops of the revolutionary war. The greater part consists of idle young men who are incapable of learning a trade, and disinclined to submit to discipline. The utter uselessness of the palikars in military operations was displayed in the ease with which they were defeated and dispersed by Fuad Effendi. These armed bands, however, though they are useless against an enemy, are extremely dangerous to the native peasantry. They march about the Greek kingdom from one end to the other, living at free quarters on the villagers, and consuming annually as large a portion of the produce of the soil as is paid to the central government in the shape of land-tax. In some disturbances which took place in the island of Eubœa they were said to have consumed, in forced contributions from the agricultural population, nearly one-third of the whole annual produce of the island.
We do not intend to deny the services which the palikars rendered during the war against the Turks. In a defensive warfare against an undisciplined enemy like the Turks of 1821, or an ill-organised force like the Bavarians of 1833, they were very efficient. But against the French at Argos they were utterly useless, even though they had intrenched themselves in a manner which they fancied would give them a decided advantage over regular troops. The French carried all their positions with the bayonet, and the palikars soon fled in dismay. The revival of the system of palikarism is one of the many evils which Lord Palmerston’s knavish protégé, Count Armansperg, bequeathed to Greece. M. Maurer had broken up the hordes of these children of anarchy in a very effectual manner, though perhaps with unnecessary violence and severity.
The object of Count Armansperg in restoring palikarism was to form for himself a military party. By the formation of troops enrolled under chiefs attached to his own person, he expected to be able to keep down public opinion in the provinces; while, by a lavish distribution of money and places, he knew he could silence it at Athens. The favoured captains were allowed to collect bands of armed followers, almost without any control on the part of the minister-of-war, and without the men or the officers being subjected to any discipline. In the provinces, these captains were intrusted with extraordinary powers, which they used for party purposes; and the palikars became an organ of the government for intimidating its opponents. The consequences of Count Armansperg’s conduct were most injurious. Those captains who were unable to gain his good-will collected bands of armed men, or joined the brigands, and endeavoured to increase the number of their followers by levying black-mail on the peaceful agriculturists, in the hope that the government would eventually be compelled to purchase their services. Their calculation proved correct; and Count Armansperg ended by taking into his pay the very men against whom he had employed his generals.
King Otho adopted with delight the corrupt system of his regent, and even extended its application. He filled his palace with palikars, and neglected the regular troops. Men ignorant of all military service were intrusted with military command in the provinces, where their services were chiefly required to intimidate opposition, and secure the election of court candidates as deputies and mayors. Koletti, the favourite leader of the palikar class, became King Otho’s favourite minister; and the influence of that worthless Vallachian Aspropotamite enabled the count to nullify the constitution of 1844. By the influence of the palikars, assisted, it is true, by his own anti-constitutional love of administrative despotism, Mavrocordatos was driven from the ministry, and King Otho re-established in absolute power, by the assistance of palikarism and municipal corruption.
The late invasion of Turkey could hardly have taken place, if it had not been in King Otho’s power to launch these irregular bands against his neighbour’s frontier; for, with all his folly and imprudence, he would not have ventured to march regular troops openly against the Sultan without a declaration of war. On the other hand, it was fortunate for Europe that the utter worthlessness of these undisciplined bands for all military operations, except the defence of mountain passes, prevented their capturing the frontier fortresses of Epirus and Thessaly, and enabled Fuad Effendi to defeat their army with so much ease at Peta. Never, certainly, did any troops make a more despicable military display than the palikars of Greece in their late attack on Turkey. While these invaders made their patriotism a pretext for plundering their unfortunate countrymen who were subjects of the Othoman Empire, and devoted their chief attention to carrying off cattle and sheep belonging to Greeks and Christians, instead of attempting to storm the ill-fortified holds of the Turks, the Othoman troops displayed one of the highest characteristics in which the Greek race has always been deficient—a sense of duty. They bravely defended the posts committed to their care, and success crowned their good conduct.
We have now given an impartial account of the faults of King Otho, and of the political vices of the Greek nation; we will proceed to enumerate the virtues of the people with equal impartiality. The greatest enemies of the Greeks cannot deny that they possess a high degree of patriotism. Whatever its origin may be, and however much it may be disfigured by vanity, it is a great virtue, and produces abundant good fruit. The sums of money which have been employed by private individuals in the construction of churches and school-houses over all Greece, the liberal donations they annually remit to Athens for advancing the cause of education, the munificent presents of books, medals, and philosophical instruments to the University and to the Observatory, and the immense contributions collected to aid the late impolitic attack on Turkey, all prove that, under a better government, and with good guidance, the patriotism of the Greeks might be rendered of great use in advancing the moral improvement and material prosperity of their country. But their patriotic feelings must be directed to the improvement of morality and religion before much good can be effected. The importance of private virtue is not sufficiently appreciated by the Greeks as a guarantee for political honesty. Individual character has more influence as an element of national strength and greatness, than the statesmen at Athens are inclined to believe. Without citing historical examples, we may remind them that a dispersed nation, mingled as the Greeks are with foreign races, is much more amenable to the public opinion of other nations, than a race pressed together in close geographical contiguity, and with which foreigners rarely communicate.
The industry of the Greeks is attested by their commercial activity, and by their laborious agricultural operations. The mass of the population, it is true, derives so little benefit from their toils, that we might pardon them if they were much idler than they are. Those who are most successful in commerce are compelled to expatriate themselves, which is always a great hardship to a Greek. Those who labour at the fields and dig the vineyards are unable to live in tolerable ease; for the want of roads prevents their finding a sale for their produce, and deprives them of the power of purchasing the luxuries they most eagerly desire.
Another honourable feature in Greek society is the good feeling displayed by the classes which live beyond the sphere of court and political influence. If a Greek is neither a courtier, a government official, nor a palikar, he is generally a tolerably honest man, and by no means a bad fellow, unless he be an Ionian or a Phanariot. We may mention an anecdote, which proves strongly the existence of virtue in the great mass of the labouring classes, even on that most delicate of all subjects, honesty in paying taxes. When the Bavarians arrived in Greece, they had not time to take any strong measures for enforcing a very strict collection of the national revenues. The probable amount was estimated at four millions, but the revenues of the preceding year had not reached that sum. As it was necessary to leave much to the conscience of the people, Mr Gladstone might have been satisfied with three millions and a half, with a few five-pound notes falling in from time to time from the remorse of defaulters. But the Greeks paid down seven millions within the year; and the experience of subsequent revenue returns proves that they must have paid the full amount to which government had any claim.
The state of the legal profession at Athens impresses strangers with a favourable opinion of the educated classes, when uncorrupted by the service of a corrupted central administration. The advocates form a body of well-educated men, whose professional gains render them independent of court influence, and whose talents and character give them great power over public opinion on judicial matters. Hence they exercise a salutary control over the minister of justice and the judges. This is doubly necessary, from the circumstance that the judges hold their offices only during the pleasure of King Otho, who has frequently removed those who have displeased him from office, or sent them into a dreary exile in some distant province in an inferior charge. The power of public opinion, as exercised by the bar, is consequently of great importance to insure some degree of equity in the courts, and control the general administration of justice in civil affairs; and it has been used in a manner highly honourable both to the Greek bar and to the national character.
There is another quality which the Greeks possess in a high degree, and which, if properly directed by a good government, would aid greatly in raising them from their present state of political degradation. This is their aptitude for public discussion. Concentrated as at present on state affairs, concerning which they are naturally quite ignorant, it becomes a mere waste of words. But if employed on their local and municipal affairs, concerning every detail of which they are fully informed, it would soon become the means of checking the corruptions of the court and of the central administration. This aptitude for public business enabled them to retain a large share in the local administration of their provinces under the Turks, and to organise the communal system to which we are inclined to attribute their success in the revolutionary war. The various central governments which followed one another in succession during the war with Turkey, never displayed much talent, nor enjoyed much influence over the people. The naval force, though admirably conducted by Miaoulis, was, in spite of the gallant deeds of Kanaris, inadequate to secure a decisive victory. The military force was without organisation, powerless for attack, and extremely ill-directed. No general in Greece, native or foreigner, displayed any great military talent. In the navy, on the contrary, the name of Hastings, who first employed hot shot and shells from ship artillery, ranks justly with the glorious names of Miaoulis and Kanaris. The war on land was entirely supported by the indomitable perseverance of the people. Their political and military leaders weakened their powers of resistance by their intrigues, avarice, and incapacity, but the energy of the people never failed. Glorious examples are innumerable, though Mr Tricoupi, the Greek historian of the war, has not the judgment to select them. Lord Byron describes their behaviour, in speaking of the Spaniards—