"The motives of the Emperor are now known, from the best of all sources, his own words, in confidential conversation

with Mons. de Chateaubriand. The time is past,' said he, 'when there can be a French, Russian, Prussian, or Austrian policy. One only policy for the safety of all can be admitted in common by all people and all kings. It devolves on me to show myself the first to be convinced of the principles on which the Holy Alliance is founded. An opportunity presented itself on occasion of the insurrection of the Greeks. Nothing certainly could have been more for my interests, those of my people, and the opinion of my country, than a religious war against the Turks; but I discerned in the troubles of the Peloponnesus the revolutionary mark, From that moment I kept aloof from them. Nothing has been spared to turn me aside from the Alliance; but in vain. My selflove has been assailed, my prejudices appealed to; but in vain. What need have I for an extension of my empire? Providence has not put under my orders 800,000 soldiers to satisfy my ambition, but to protect religion, morality, and justice, and to establish the principles of order on which human society reposes.' In pursuance of these principles, Count Nesselrode declared officially that his Imperial Majesty could not regard the enterprise of Ypsilanti as anything but the effect of the exaltation which characterises the present epoch, as well as of the inexperience and levity of that young man, whose name is ordered to be erased from the Russian service.' Orders were at the same time sent to the imperial forces on the Pruth and in the Black Sea to observe the strictest neutrality."

The publication of this resolution on the part of the Imperial government effectually quashed the movement in the Principalities; and poor Ypsilanti, after a few awkward and ill-managed plunges, was obliged to back out of his position, and, leaving "Olympian George," and other sturdy Greek mountaineers, in the lurch, seek for refuge, and find a prison in Austria. In this whole affair, however, though the Greeks had shown themselves

very vain and foolish, no man can deny that the Czar behaved with great moderation- like a gentleman, in fact, and a Christian, as he was-and moreover, we must add, like a wise politician. For we can scarcely agree with some strong indications of feeling, both in Tricoupi and in Sir Archibald Alison,* that any Christian power would have been justified in supporting a revolt of Christian subjects against their lawful sovereign, being an Infidel, till these Christians had first shown, by their own exertions, that they were worthy of the intervention which afterwards took place Lord Aberdeen, in some late remarks in their favour. We see, also, that in the House of Lords, was quite correct historically when he called attention to the comparative "moderation" of Russian counsels in some of her dealings with Turkey. Russia, in fact, never has displayed any very flagrant rapacity in her dealings with Turkey, for the best of all possible reasons, because, having as much of the fox as of the bear in her nature, she does not wish to alarm the

European powers on a point where she knows they are peculiarly sensitive. Her policy has been to poison the sick old man, not to kill him; and in this very moderation, as all the world now knows, lies the peculiar danger of her encroachments. Like a deep swirling river, she rolls beneath the fat mud-banks of your political STATUS QUO, and you suspect no harm, and can walk on the green bank with delectation; but when the flood comes, there will be a shaking and a precipitation; and then God help the sleepers!

So much for Russia. Our next question relates to the Turks. How did they behave at the outbreak of the insurrection? The answer is given in two words-like butchers, and like blunderers. Like butchers in the first place. Their way of crushing an insurrection was truly a brutal one ToλITIKŃ Onpions, as Mr Tricoupi says; or shall we not rather say devilish. Certainly Sylla, in his most

sanguinary humours, never enacted anything more inhuman and more diabolical than the wholesale massacre of the prosperous Greeks in Scios, April 1822, which, next to certain scenes when the Furies were let loose in France, forms the most bloody page of modern history.* When a Turk suspects a Greek of treason, he makes short work of it: no forms of law, no investigation, no trial, no proof; but right on with the instinct of a tiger, in the very simple and effective old Oriental style,-"Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head." So an old Jew once said to King David; but Sultan Mahmoud did not require that a word of cursing should have been spoken. Sufficient that the individual marked for butchery stood in a prominent situation, and was of the same brotherhood as those who had spoken or acted treason: if he was not guilty in his own person, he was bound to be cognisant of the guilt of others; and for not revealing this guilt he must die. Such is the simple theory on which proceeded the wholesale murders which took place at Constantinople so soon as word was brought of the insurrectionary movement in the Principalities. As a specimen of these infamous proceedings, we shall select from Mr Tricoupi's book the account of the death of the Patriarch Gregory, a murder committed with the most flagrant disregard of all the forms of justice (if there be such forms in Turkey), and under circumstances calculated to rouse to the utmost pitch the spirit of the people whom it was intended to crush; a murder, therefore, not merely cruel and barbarous, but stupid and impolitic. The account given by our author of this most characteristic event is somewhat circumstantial, as might be expected from the piety of a true Greek writing on such a subject. We curtail it, however, as little as possible,-especially as the closing scene, in which Russia appears a chief actor, affords

a vivid glimpse of the very natural manner in which, unassisted by any evil arts of diplomacy, that power can continually earn for itself golden opinions among the Christian nations of the south.

"On the evening of Easter Saturday, or great Saturday-ro péya σábCarov, as the Greeks call it being the 9th of March, there were seen dispersed in the neighbourhood of the Patriarch's palace, within and without the Fanar, about five thousand armed Janizaries, without any person knowing why. The Janizaries perambulated the streets of the Fanar the whole night, but did no harm to any

one.

At midnight, as is the use in our Church, the church-crier made proclamation, and the Christian people, though under great apprehensions, immediately obeyed the sacred summons, and assembled without hinderance or disturbance in the church of the Patriarchate. The Patriarch himself officiated as usual, with twelve other priests; and after the service was finished, the people were dismissed, and retired quietly to their own homes. The Patriarch went to his palace, when the first streaks of day were beginning to appear; but scarcely had he entered, when word was brought that Staurakis Aristarches, the great Interpreter, wished to speak with him. The Patriarch proposed to go with him to his private room, but the Interpreter replied that he preferred being taken immediately to the great Hall of the Synod. There he came with one of the Secretaries of State, and forthwith produced a firman, which he declared he had orders to read aloud without a moment's delay in the presence of the Patriarch, the chief priests, the heads of the Greek people, and the deacons of corporations. These parties were sent for, and the firman instantly read as follows: Forasmuch as the Patriarch Gregory has shown himself unworthy of the patriarchal throne, ungrateful to the Porte, and a deviser of plots,-for these reasons he is de

posed from his office.' The Patriarch, accompanied by his faithful archdeacon, was immediately led off to prison; and as soon as he had left the hall, a second firman was read out in the following terms: Forasmuch as the Sublime Porte does not desire to deprive his faithful subjects of their spiritual superintendence, he hereby commands them to elect a patriarch according to their ancient custom.' A consultation immediately took place among the clergy; and they agreed that they should call to the patriarchal throne Cyril, who had been formerly patriarch, and was now in Adrianople; but the secretary replied that this could not be allowed, as the proposed patriarch was absent, and under present circumstances the Porte could not allow the throne to be vacant for a single hour; wherefore he commanded them instantly to make election of a new patriarch from the number of the clergy then present. Another consultation immediately took place; and after considerable difficulty the vote fell upon Peisidias Eugenios, who, according to usage, was immediately sent to the Porte, the rest remaining till he should return. After three hours he appeared, environed with a pomp and circumstance more magnificent than usual.

"This ceremony of electing the new pontiff was still going on, when Gregory was led out of prison, where he had been preparing himself by constant prayer for the death which he had too good reason for supposing was prepared for him. After taking him from the prison, they put him into a boat, and disembarked him on the strand of the Fanar. There the venerable old man, looking up steadfastly to heaven, made the sign of the cross, and knelt down, and inclined his hoary head to the executioner's axe; but the headsman ordered him to rise, saying that here was not the place where he was to be executed. They

accordingly led him into his own palace, and there the executioner hung him as he was praying on the threshold of the principal entrance at the hour of noon on Easter Sunday-so that at the very moment when the wretched Christians above were singing the hymn of welcome to their new Patriarch, with the accustomed words as oλλâ en déonоra, his predecessor was hung on the ground-floor like a thief and a malefactor; the very holy person who only a few hours before had offered the bloodless sacrifice for the sins of the people, and had blessed his faithful flock, who, with devoutness and contrition of heart, had kissed the hand that had been hallowed by the handling of the holiest elements. The last moments of Gregory were moments of pure faith and resignation, springing from an unspotted conscience, a heart the fountain of good deeds, a calm contempt of this ephemeral life, and a bright expectation of futurity. The writing of condemnation, by virtue of which he died, called, in Turkish, Yiaftás, was fixed upon the dead body, and set forth the causes of his death as follows."

Here Mr Tricoupi gives the Turkish act of condemnation at full length; but the substance of it is contained in two points: first, "that the Patriarch did not use his spiritual weapons of excommunication, &c., against the revolters; and, second, that he was personally privy to the conspiracy." To which two charges the historian answers shortly that the first is directly contrary to the fact (for the revolters were excommunicated by the Greek hierarchy in the capital); and with regard to the second, he avers, that though it was quite impossible for the head of the Greek Church to be ignorant of the existence of a conspiracy of which thousands of the most notable Greeks in Europe were members, yet he was never a member of the secret socie

ties, and had, on the contrary, like many other influential persons of his nation, considered the movement premature, and warned his countrymen against it as likely to lead to the most pernicious consequences. But it is vain, as we already remarked, to look for reasons that would satisfy any European ideas of justice in proceedings between Turks in authority and rebellious Giaours. The calm and solemn gentleman, enveloped in smoke and coffee fumes, whose bland dignity we so much admired in time of peace, becomes suddenly seized with a preternatural fury when the scent of Greek blood is in the gale. It is a primary law of his religion, inherited from the oldest Oriental theocracies, that no infidel is entitled to live; and if the head seems more serviceable for the nonce than the capitation-tax, which is its substitute, the law of the Prophet is satisfied, and no man has a right to complain. Mr Tricoupi now proceeds with his narrative.

"The execution being over, the great interpreter, the secretary, and their attendants, left the palace of the Patriarch. In the evening of the same day, Beterli Ali Pasha, who had recently been appointed Grand Vizier, went through the Fanar with only one attendant, and, asking for a chair, sat down for five or six minutes on the street opposite the suspended body of the Patriarch, looking at him, and speaking to his attendant.

After an

hour the Sultan himself passed the same way, and cast his eye on the Patriarch. The body remained suspended three days; but on the fourth the hangman took it down to throw it into the sea, it being contrary to law in Turkey that persons hung or beheaded should receive burial. Then there came to the hangman certain Jews, and having received his permission (some say that they bribed

him), bound together the feet of the corpse, and dragged it away to the extreme end of the quay of the Fanar, with mockery and blasphemous words. Then they threw it into the sea, and gave the end of the rope with which they had bound the feet to the hangman, who, having gone before, was waiting them in a little boat. He immediately, seizing the rope and dragging the body after him, came to the middle of the bay,+ and there attached to the body a stone which he had brought with him in order to sink it: but it proved not weighty enough for this purpose; so he left the corpse floating on the water, and, making for the strand, came back with two other stones, which he attached to the body; and then, giving it two or three stabs with his knife, to let out the water, he immediately sunk it. After some days, however, it came to the surface at Galata between two ships lying at the point where a great many boats are always stationed, for passing over to the city. One of these ships was a Slavonian, and the other a Greek, Slavonian saw the body first, and threw from Cephalonia. The captain of the

some straw matting over it, with the view of concealing it till the night, when he meant to bury it, like a good Christian. But when the evening came, the Cephalonian captain anticipated him, and perceiving from the unshaven chin that it was the body of a priest, brought into his ship secretly some Christians, who assured him that it was the body of the Patriarch. The pious Cephaliote immediately swathed the body in a windingsheet, and, transporting it to Odessa, deposited it in the Lazaretto there. There the body was examined by the order of the governor, and was recognised by certain signs as that of the Patriarch.

"Information of this being sent to St Petersburg, orders were given to bury the body with all appropriate honours. The sacred Russian synod came to assist in the funeral ceremony; and on the 17th of June there were assembled in the

1836.

Lazaretto all the local authorities, political and military, the two metropolitan bishops, Cyril of Silistria, and Gregory of Hieropolis; also Demetrius, bishop of Bender and Akerman, all the clergy of the province, a great number of Greek refugees, who had fled from the butchery at Constantinople. Then the church bells were rung, the funeral psalms were sung, a salute of cannons was given, and, with the accompaniment of military music and the prayers of the congregated faithful, the remains of the venerated Patriarch were carried to the metropolitan church of Odessa. Here they remained three days, till the 19th, when the burial-service was again sung, and a

funeral oration was pronounced by Constantine Economos, preacher to the Ecomenic Patriarchate, who happened to be in Odessa; after which the body was removed with great pomp to the church of the Greeks, and deposited in a new sepulchre within the railing of the holy altar, at the north side of the holy table, as being the body of a martyr. And thus to use the very words of the semi-official journal of St Petersburg-by the command of the most pious Autocrat of all the Russians, Alexander I., were rendered due honours of faith and love to Gregory, the holy Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church of the Greeks, who suffered a martyr's death."

Next to the butchery-which, by the way, the Greeks, as opportunity offered, were not ashamed to retaliate -the most noticeable thing in the Turkish conduct of the war was their extraordinary slowness, fickleness, inefficiency, and bungling of every sort. The insurrection, though attempted in Thessaly and Macedonia, did, in fact, never extend with any permanent force beyond the narrow boundaries of the present kingdom of Greece, with the addition of Crete, and one or two of the Egean islands, now in the possession of the Turks; but to suppress this petty revolt of an ill-peopled and divided district, Occupying a small corner of a vast empire, all the strength of Turkey, both Asiatic and European, proved in vain; for it was not till Ibrahim Pasha, in 1825, was sent by his father, Mehemet Ali, with a large Egyptian armament that the Morea was recovered to the Sultan, and the insurrection virtually quashed. Now, when we consider that the Greeks of the Morea were stamped with the ser

vitude of nearly four hundred yearsthat they were, in fact, so awed by the hereditary authority of their haughty masters, that in the beginning of the war, as Gordon expressly testifies, three hundred of them could not be made to stand against thirty Turks; that their only effective leaders were a few brigand chiefs from the wild regions of Acarnania, Etolia, and Epirus; that the land was of such a nature as to be kept in subjection by fortresses, all of which were in the possession of the lords of the soil; that the sea was open to the men of Stamboul as much as to those of

Hydra and to Mehemet Ali's Egyptians, we shall see plainly that nothing but a wonderful combination of slowness, stupidity, and cowardice on the part of the Turks could have allowed the Greek revolt to protract its existence during the space of those first four years, when-not without large aids from English gold-it continued to present a prosperous front to the world. What strikes us most in the account of the war given by Gordon-who will always be a main authority-is the great want of capacity and enterprise in the Turkish commanders both by sea and landthe very same weakness, in fact, which is remarked at the present hour as afflicting the Turkish armies-a want of good officers. There is in Turkey a want of a high-minded, independent, and energetic middle class, without which an army never can be well officered. Only one efficient Turkish captain appeared in the whole course of the Greek war; and he took Missolonghi.

We have been anxious to bring forward this sad account of the conduct of the Turks in the insurrection distinctly, as there is a danger, at the present moment, of the Turkish military virtue being overrated. No man who knew that nation ever doubted that they could defend a fort well in the present war, as they have ever done where they happened to have a good commander, and acted under encouraging circumstances. This is the secret of the recent successful defence of Silistria, for which we feel all respect. With the English and French fleet to guard their flank, and all Europe as spectators of their