Chapter IV: Part II (4)

“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 royal _sbirri_. 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 the _public interest_ that 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 comity_ and _the obligations of treaties_ now 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 observe _that 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—

“Back to the struggle; baffled in the strife,
War! war! was still their cry—war, even to the knife!”

Messolonghi attests its truth.

The friends of Greece,—and she has still some sincere friends, in spite of all her faults—may look forward to her communal system and local attachments as a basis on which political order and national prosperity can be firmly established. But unless the restless activity of the people be usefully occupied in the management of their local affairs, they will employ it, as at present, injuriously, in profiting by the corruption of the central government. The want of a proper sphere of energy for a large class of the population is evidently preparing Greece for a series of revolutions. A representative government and a free press, linked to a centralised administration, without the control of a municipal organisation, tends naturally to revolution. To remove a parish grievance, it becomes necessary to overthrow a minister; and a very little experience in such countries reveals the secret, that it is easier to make a revolution than obtain a reform.

Such was the state of Greece when the French and English troops landed at the Piræus in the month of June, to prevent King Otho from throwing the country into a state of complete anarchy by his insane policy of assisting Russia. The Greeks, who had invaded Turkey, were already defeated, strong garrisons were already placed in all the Turkish fortresses on the Greek frontier, and a fleet of Turkish steamers commanded the Archipelago. The war had degenerated into a series of forays by land and piratical expeditions by sea, in which the Greeks carried off the cattle, and plundered the warehouses and barns of the subjects of the Porte. On the other hand, the Othoman government, unable to guard against these attacks, threatened to invade Greece, and occupy the richest islands of the Archipelago as a material guarantee for indemnity. The interference of the Allies was quite as necessary to defend the Greek people as the Turkish provinces. A change was of course immediately effected in the government. M. Alexander Mavrocordatos, then Greek minister at Paris, was appointed Prime Minister. The name of Mavrocordatos is well known to all who are acquainted with the history of the Greek revolution. His merits and defects are correctly stated in General Gordon’s excellent work. General Kalergy, another distinguished name in Greek history, was intrusted with the war department. M. George Psyllas, who for the last ten years has stood forward as the only consistent supporter of liberal measures and communal interests in the Senate, was named Minister of Religion and Public Instruction. He is an Athenian, and represented Athens at the first National Assembly, held at the commencement of the revolution, when the constitution of Epidaurus was framed. These three men are undoubtedly the best men in Greece for the offices committed to them. But their colleagues are not so well selected. Kanaris is Minister of the Marine—no braver nor more patriotic man breathes, but he is no better suited to be a minister than an archbishop. The other ministers are positively very ill chosen. M. Anastasios Londos, whose tergiversation and folly caused the quarrel with Great Britain in 1850, and the blockade of the Piræus, is Minister of Justice. He is as deficient in knowledge of law and judicial administration, as he has shown himself ignorant of the principles of political honesty, and destitute of sound judgment. The other individuals may be left nameless.

The only question of interest in Great Britain is, whether these ministers can do anything to improve the condition of the people, to establish a greater degree of security for life and property than now prevails, open new fields for commercial and agricultural industry, and make Greece an improving and prosperous country; for these changes alone can guarantee the tranquillity of the East.

The first step to be taken must be, to abolish the existing manner of collecting the tenth of the gross produce of the land, as a land-tax. There is no other means of getting quit of the numerous fiscal regulations which deprive the agricultural classes of the power of disposing of their labour in the way most conducive to their profit. The next thing is, to restore life and energy to the municipal system, and extend the independent sphere of action of the municipal authorities. The present Minister of the Interior is perhaps as well fitted to do this as he is to swallow a camel. The Greeks generally have shown that they are deficient in the temper and capacity requisite to conduct a central government. They still want the experience necessary to give ordinary men a sense of the value of political honesty, and there is no possibility of their gaining it in any school but that of their own municipal practice. If they are incurably addicted to peculation, they had better commit their acts of dishonesty at home, where the exact amount of their frauds can easily be ascertained, and is sure to be made public. Palikarism must be utterly rooted out. General Kalergy has promptly commenced the work which no man is so well able to complete. The army and navy must be reformed. A corps of pioneers must be formed to build bridges; steam-packets, and galleys with oars, must facilitate communications.

Now, is Alexander Mavrocordatos the man to do these things? We cannot say. He has always shown himself too much the slave of bureaucratic prejudices for us to feel any very firm confidence in his political views. Nevertheless, at this moment, he is the only Greek who possesses the political honesty and diplomatic experience necessary for preserving friendly relations with the allies of Turkey, and at the same time saving the national independence of his country: he has, therefore, our best wishes for his success.

The time is one of great difficulty. A mighty revolution has commenced in the East, which the Greek race has neither the energy nor the power to direct. If well and wisely governed, it may profit by the course of events; but if its national vanity force it into collision with any of the great actors in the scene, it may be brushed rudely aside, and sink back into the insignificant position it has held ever since the Franks conquered Constantinople and founded principalities in Greece in 1204. Hellenism and orthodoxy must yield to philanthropy and Christian civilisation. To us the future is dark; but of one thing we are assured, that the occupation of Greece by the allied troops was absolutely necessary to enable any ministry to commence the task of improvement in the kingdom of Greece.

STUDENT LIFE IN SCOTLAND.