trading ships, and knew how to work the guns, that they carried for defence against the piracy still infesting their coasts. All these separate materials were brought into the possibility of combination by the Philikè Hetairia ;* a secret society of considerable value, in whose bosom lay the seeds of the revolution, waiting the day when they should burst from the surface. This combination grew out of or replaced a literary institution called the Philomuse Society, which, like the agricultural gatherings at a more recent period in Italy, appears to have cloaked its aims under a title calculated to avert suspicion. The Hetairia had a decided relation to Russian influence, as well as to Greek independence, but to influence of a popular kind, such as we have witnessed in very energetic operation during the present year. All the European Governments were alike hostile at the time. Still in the case of Russia there was this difference, that the Hellenes might not irrationally regard her as the natural enemy of their enemy. The ramifications of this society were wide, and its uses, at least its preliminary uses, would seem to have been considerable.† It was not, however, by the advised counsel of the conspirators that the time of the outbreak was finally determined; but by the war between Sultan Mahmoud and his formidable vassal, Ali Pacha of Joannina in Albania, which appeared to offer an opportunity for action too tempting to be slighted. It was in the year 1821, and in the region of the Principalities, that the movement began; but it was essentially Greek,‡ and could only live and thrive on its own soil. In Southern Greece it commenced, with fatal energy, in a widespread massacre of the dispersed Mussulman population. It rose to nobler efforts, and to great exploits; but I am not required to attempt, for the present purpose, the details of military history. It offers in detail a chequered picture of patriotism and corruption, desperate valour and weak irresolution, honour and treachery, resistance to the Turk and feud one with another. Its records are stained with many acts of cruelty. And yet who can doubt that it was upon the whole a noble stroke, struck for freedom and for justice, by a people who, feeble in numbers and resources, were casting off the vile slough of servitude, who derived their strength from right, and whose worst acts were really in the main due to the masters, who had saddled them not only with a cruel, but with a most demoralizing, yoke ?§ Among the propositions, which seem to be applicable to the facts collectively, are these: first, that it lay beyond the power of Turkey to put down the rebellion, without the aid of Ibrahim's ability and of Gordon, i. 42; Finlay, i. 120. Finlay and Gordon seem to differ much in their estimates of the efficiency of the Hetairia. Finlay, i. 169. § See, on this subject, a noble passage from Lord Russell's Memoirs of the Affairs of Europe, which is cited by the Bulgarian Deputies at p. 25 of their recent pamphlet. the Egyptian forces: secondly, that gratitude for what Greece had once been and done produced much foreign aid, especially in the noble forms of individual devotion, as from Byron, Church, Gordon, Hastings, and others: thirdly, that the efforts made would have been ineffectual to achieve a complete deliverance, without foreign assistance of another sort. Every traveller in Greece and its islands will speedily learn that upon the list of virtues obliterated from, or rather impaired in, the general Hellenic mind, the sense of gratitude is not included. Nowhere is it more lively. One of the most brilliant names of our political history is also one of the names dearest to the heart of Greece. It is the name of George Canning. Let us now see by what wise and bold action that place in the fond and tenacious memory of a country and a race was obtained. The war of the Revolution reached at first very widely over the range of territories inhabited by the Hellenic race, from Macedonia to Crete; but after a time came to be contracted, as far as land operations were concerned, within limits narrower than those of the historical Greek Peninsula. The moderate capacity and indifferent morality, but too observable among the Greek leaders, convinced the acute and penetrating mind of Lord Byron that the difficulties of the enterprise were vast. In August, 1824, before Ibrahim with his Egyptian forces had taken part in the quarrel, the Greek Government entreated England to take up the cause of independence, and frustrate the schemes of Russia.† Mr. Canning received this letter on November 4th, and answered it on the 1st of December. In his reply he only promised that Great Britain would mediate, on the request of Greece, with the assent of the Sultan, a friendly sovereign who had given to this country no cause of complaint. The chief importance of this answer lay, first, in the fact that it included the recognition of a government authorized to act for the Greeks, and thus of their latent right to form themselves into a state: secondly, that it indicated a step on which, when taken by them, he would be prepared to found further proceedings. He had indeed already, in 1823, by a recognition of the Turkish blockade of the Greek ports, given to the insurgents the character of belligerents.§ But it seems plain on grounds of common sense, although in 1861 the question came to be clouded by prepossessions, that a measure of this nature is properly determined by considerations of fact, rather than of principle. In August, 1825, the military pressure, through the invasion of * Gordon, ii. 171. Finlay's Greek Revolution, ii. 166; Gordon, ii. 283. Tricoupi, Hellenikè Epanastasis, vol. iii. p. 193. § La Russie et la Turquie, par Dmitri de Boukharow. Amsterdam. the Peloponnesos by the Egyptian force, had become severe and an act, as formal and authoritative as the condition of a State still in embryo would permit, then declared that the Greek nation places the sacred deposit of its liberty, independence, and political existence, under the absolute protection of Great Britain." Mr. Canning at once perceived the full significance of the step; and entered upon perhaps the boldest and wisest policy which has been exhibited by a British Minister during the present century. It did not consist in empty but offensive vaunts of the national resources, or loud proclamations of devotion to British interests, of which Britons, like other nations in their own cases respectively, have little need to be reminded. Neither did it rest on those guilty appeals to national fears and animosities, which it is too much to expect that the body of a people can withstand when they come to them with the sanction of authority. On the contrary, its leading characteristic was a generous confidence in the good sense, and love of liberty, which belonged to his countrymen, and a brave and almost chivalrous belief that they would go right if their leaders did not lead them wrong. Before Mr. Canning took office in 1822, the British Government viewed the Greek rebellion with an evil eye, from jealousy of Russia. According to Finlay, its aversion was greater than that of "any other Christian Government." Its nearest representative, Sir Thomas Maitland, well known in the Ionian Islands as King Tom, after breaking faith with the people there by the establishment of a government virtually absolute in his own hands, endeavoured (but in vain) to detect by the low use of espionage the plans, yet in embryo, of the Revolution. Nor had any individual more temptation to indulge feelings of hostility to the despotic governments of Europe, than a Minister, who was more hateful in their eyes than any Secretary of State who before or since has held the seals of the Foreign Office. But he saw that the true method of preventing the growth of an exorbitant influence, of disarming Russian intrigue, and shutting out the power of mischief, was for England to assume boldly her own appropriate office as the champion of freedom, and thus to present her figure in the eyes of those who were struggling to attain the precious boon. Invested with a sole authority by the address of the Greeks, and thereupon at once tendering, through Mr. Stratford Canning, his distinguished cousin, the mediation of England to the Porte, he at the same time sought to associate with himself as partner in his office that Power, who, as he well knew, had it in her hands either to * Greek Revolution, ii. 161; Gordon, i. 315. Also compare Tricoupi, Hellenikè Epanastasis, i. 339, seqq.; ii. 219; iii. 267. On the change in the English policy, and its effect, see Tricoupi, iii. 191-194. The majority of Mr. Canning's Cabinet did not sympathize with him: but he had the advantage of a thoroughly loyal chief in Lord Liverpool. make or mar his work.* The circumstances were in some respects propitious. Alexander, who had been perplexed with perpetual balancing between his Orthodox sympathies and his despotic covenants or leanings, died before the close of 1825: and Nicholas, his successor, expended the firstfruits of his young imperial energies in repelling the mediation of England as to his own quarrel with the Porte, but also in accepting, with all the energy of his nature, that partnership in the patronage of the struggling Greeks, which was tendered to him by the Duke of Wellington on the part of the British Government.† In Greece itself, the effect is described by Tricoupi in few words: ἤγγλιζεν ὅλη : all Greece became English.t Had Mr. Canning been a man of infirm purpose, or of narrow and peddling mind, he might readily have found excuses for disclaiming special concern in the quarrel between the Sultan and his subjects. The party by which Lord Liverpool's Government was supported did not sympathize with that or with any revolt. The Philhellenes of England were but a sect, limited in numbers and in influence. But, above all, there had been then no ground to fear lest Russia, by an affected or real protection, should shut out this country from her proper office. Russia had surrendered herself, in the main, to the debasing influence of Metternich. § She had in 1823, in the character of an advocate for the Greek cause, produced a plan for dividing the country into three hospodariates, to be governed by native rulers, with the fortresses in the hands of Ottoman garrisons; and had even alleged, as a ground for its adoption, that it highly favoured the principal families, and would detach them from the interests of the insurrection. Its single merit was, that it covered the entire range of the Hellenic lands; but it seemed to give ground for the accusation of Finlay, that its aim was to keep Greek feeling in a state of chronic irritation, and thus to perpetuate the need of Russian intervention. At the outset of the war, the attitude of this great State had been one of undisguised hostility. It not only dismissed Hypsilantes, who commanded in the Principalities, from the Russian army, and gave the necessary consent for the entry of Turkish troops into those provinces to put down the insurrection, but it ejected from Russian territory, under circumstances of great severity, a hundred and fifty Greeks, who were refused admission into Austria, and into the Sardinia of that day, and who only by means of private alms were enabled to return to their country.* ** But Russia had also controversies of its own with the Porte, arising out of the articles of the Treaty of Bukharest (1812), and indirectly those controversies + Ibid. iv. 2, 3. § La Russie et la Turquie, p. 82. Ibid. i. 155 seqq. * Compare Tricoupi, Hellenikè Epanastasis, iii. 278. Ibid. iii. 267. Greek Revolution, ii. 165. ** Ibid. ii. p. 166; Gordon, ii. p. 82. favoured the cause of the insurrection, by requiring Turkish troops to be moved upon the northern frontier of the empire. It was under these circumstances that Mr. Canning made his far-sighted appeal to the Czar. And it was by the concurrence of the two countries that the work received an impetus such as to secure success. In the month of April, 1826, an important protocol was signed at St. Petersburgh, of which the leading terms are as follows. Greece shall be a tributary State, governed by authorities of its own choice, but with a certain influence reserved to the Porte in their appointment. The Greek people shall have the exclusive direction of their foreign relations. The lands of Turkish proprietors shall be purchased by the State. The Second article provides for an offer of mediation with the Porte; and the Third for the prosecution of the plan already declared, should the Porte refuse the offer. The delimitation of territory is reserved. The two Governments renounce, by a happy covenant, imitated in 1840, and again at the outbreak of the Crimean War, all exclusive advantages, and all territorial aggrandisement. Lastly, the concurrence of the other three Great Powers is to be invited.* This protocol was followed, through the aid of British and French influence, by the Treaty of Akerman, which settled the outstanding differences between Russia and the Porte, made further provision respecting the Principalities, and re-established in principle the autonomy of Servia.† The offer of mediation agreed on in the protocol was refused by the Porte, which now relied on its military successes, and which had not to deal with an united Europe; though the France of the Bourbons, much to its honour, had associated itself with the Courts of England and of Russia. The refusal brought about the signature, in July, 1827, of the Treaty of London. This treaty was the great ornament of the too short-lived administration of Mr. Canning, as the policy, which it brought to decisive effect, was the crown of all his diplomacy. It provided for a renewed offer of good offices to the Porte, and for compulsory measures to give practical effect, in case of a renewed refusal, to the protocol of 1826. But, after not many days, Mr. Canning was no more. Then followed in rapid succession the declaration of a compulsory armistice, the consequent destruction of the Turkish fleet by the battle of Navarino in November, the dismissal of the Ambassadors from Constantinople, the war declared in April, 1828, on Russian grounds, by the Czar, and the advance of his conquering armies to the conquest of Adrianople in August, 1829. At that point the Emperor Nicholas perceived from many signs, and doubtless among them from the attitude of England, the prudence La Russie et la Turquie, pp. 92-94. + Ibid. p. 95-101. |