GEORGE FINLAY'S

HISTORY OF GREECE

HISTORY OF THE GREEK REVOLUTION.

PART II

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE GREEK KINGDOM

BY

 GEORGE FINLAY

 

BOOK FIFTH.

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE GREEK KINGDOM.

CHAPTER I. Foreign Intervention.—Battle of Navarin.

CHAPTER II. Presidency of Count Capodistrias.—January 1828 to October 1831.

CHAPTER III. Anarchy.—9th October 1831 to 1st February 1833.

CHAPTER IV. Bavarian Despotism and Constitutional Revolution.—February 1833 to September 1843.

CHAPTER V. [supplementary] Constitutional Monarchy.—1844-1862.

CHAPTER VI. [supplementary.] Change of Dynasty.—Establishment of new Constitution; 1862

 

 

BOOK FIFTH.

FOUNDATION OF THE GREEK KINGDOM.

 

CHAPTER I.

Foreign Intervention.—Battle of Navarin,

Conduct of Russia.—Conduct of Great Britain.—Congress of Verona.—Russian memoir on the pacification of Greece in 1823.—Effect of this memoir.— Turkey complains of the conduct of the British government.—Greece places herself under the protection of England.—Protocol of the 4th April, 1S26, for the pacification of Greece.—Destruction of the Janissaries.—Treaty of the 6th July, 1S27, for the pacification of Greece.—State of Greece in 1827.— Victory of Hastings at Salona.—Battle of Navarin.—Greek slaves carried off to Alexandria.—Greek troops cross into Acarnania.—Hastings takes Vasiladi. —Death of Hastings.—Russia declares war with Turkey.—French troops compel Ibrahim to evacuate the Morea.

When the Greeks commenced the Revolution, they were firmly persuaded that Russia would immediately assist them. Many acts of the Emperor Alexander I. authorized this opinion, which was shared by numbers of well-educated men / in Western Europe. But whatever might have been the wish of the emperor personally, policy prevailed over feeling. The sovereigns of Europe feared a general rising of nations. Monarchs were alarmed by a panic fear of popular move­ments, and the judgment of statesmen was disturbed by the conviction that cabinets and nations were pursuing adverse objects. There was a strong desire among a part of the Russian population to take up arms against the sultan in order to protect the Greeks, because they belonged to the VOL. VII.      B

same Oriental Church. But the conservative policy of the emperor, the selfishness of his ministers, and the power of his police, prevented any active display of rhilhellenism in Russia.

Time rolled on. Year after year the Greeks talked with laudable perseverance of the great aid which Russia was soon to send them. Philhellencs from other nations arrived and fought by their side; large pecuniary contributions were made to their cause by Catholics and Protestants, but their co-religionaries of orthodox Russia failed them in the hour of trial. [The cabinet of St. Petersburg coolly surveyed the struggle, weighed the effect of exhaustion on the powers of both the combatants, and watched for a favourable occasion to extend the influence of Russia towards the south, and add new provinces to the empire. \

The conduct of Great Britain was very different. The British cabinet -was more surprised by the Greek Revolution, and viewed the outbreak with more aversion, than any other i Christian government. The events in Vallachia, and the assertions of the Hetairists in the Morea, made the rising appear to be the result of Russian intrigue. The immediate suppression of the revolt seemed therefore to be the only way of preventing Greece from falling under the protection of the Emperor Alexander, and of hindering Russia from j acquiring naval stations in the Mediterranean. The British $ government consequently opposed the Revolution ; but it had not, like that of Russia, the power to coerce the sympa­thies of Britons. British Philhellenes were among the first to _: join the cause, and in merit they were second to none. The i names of Gordon, Hastings, and Byron will be honoured in ' Greece as long as disinterested service is rewarded by national gratitude.

The habits of the English, long accustomed to think and act for themselves in public affairs, enabled public opinion to judge the conduct of the Greeks without prejudice, and to separate the crimes which stained the outbreak from the cause which consecratcd the struggle.

ft

It is neccssary, however, to look beyond the East in order to form a correct judgment of the policy of the cabinets of Europe with regard to the Greek Revolution. The equili­brium of the European powers was threatened with disturbance

CONGRESS OF VERONA.        3

A.D, 1827.]

by a war of opinion. Two camps were gradually forming in hostile array, under the banners of despotism and liberty. The Greek question was brought prominently forward by the continental press, because it afforded the means of indulging in political discussion without allusion to domestic admini­stration, and of proclaiming that principles of political justice were applicable to Greeks and Turks which they dared not affirm to be applicable to subjects and rulers in Christian nations.

The affairs of Greece were brought under discussion at the Congress of Verona in 1822. A declaration of the Russian emperor, and the protocols of the conferences, proclaimed that the subject interested all Europe ; but the view which the Congress took of the war showed more kingcraft than statesmanship. It was identified too closely with the demo­cratic revolutions of Naples, Piedmont, and Spain. Yet so great was the fear of any extension of Russian influence in the East, that even the members of the Holy Alliance preferred the success of the sultan to the interference of the czar

In the mean time, Russia persuaded France to undertake the task of suppressing constitutional liberty in Spain, as a step to a general concession of the right of one nation to interfere in the internal affairs of another when it suspects danger from political opinions.

The march of the French armies beyond the Pyrenees placed the cabinets of France and England in direct opposi­tion. England replied to the destruction of constitutional liberty in Spain by acknowledging the right of the revolted Spanish colonies in America to establish independent states. George Canning delighted the liberals and alarmed the despots on the continent by boasting in parliament that he had called a new political world into existence to redress the balance of the old. The phrase, though somewhat inflated, has truth as well as buoyancy enough to float down the stream of time. At the same time the British government adopted the energetic step of repealing the prohibition to export arms and ammunition, in order to afford the Spanish patriots the

¹ [A detailed account of the negotiations of the various European states 111 the course of the Greek Revolution will be found in Mendelssohn Bartholdy s Geschichte Griechenlands, vol. i. pp. 287 foil., and 3^1 foil. Ed.]

B 2

4     FOREIGN INTERVENTION.

[Bk. V. Ch. I.

means of obtaining supplies and of resisting the French invasion \

While the English cabinet was thus incurring the danger of war in the West, it exerted itself to prevent hostilities in the > East. The ambassadors of England and Austria induced the sultan to take some measures to conciliate Russia in 1823. A note of the reis-effendi was addressed to the Russian govern­ment, announcing the speedy evacuation of the trans-Danubian Principalities, and a desire to renew direct diplomatic rela­tions between the sultan and the czar. After much tergiver­sation in the usual style of Othoman diplomacy, the Porte opened the navigation of the Bosphorus to the Russian flag, and the Emperor Alexander sent a consul-general to Constantinople ².

From this time Russia began to take a more active part than she had hitherto taken in the negotiations relating to Greece. The activity of the Philhellenic committees alarmed the Holy Alliance. The success of the French in Spain encouraged the despotic party throughout Europe. Russia, availing herself adroitly of these feelings, seized the opportu­nity of resuming her relations with Turkey, and of laying before the European cabinets a memoir on the pacification of Greece.

The principal object of this document was the dismember­ment of Greece, in order to prevent the Greek Revolution from founding an independent state. The statesmen of Russia, having watched dispassionately the progress of public opinion in the West, had arrived at the conclusion that if monarchs delayed much longer assuming the initiative in the establishment of peace between the Greeks and Turks, Christian nations might take the matter into their own hands. Russia naturally wished to preserve her position as protector of the Greeks, and to retain the honour of being the first

¹      By an order in council, 26th February, 1823. The exportation of arms and munitions of war to Spain was prohibited in consequence of the war with the revolted colonies in South America, in virtue of arrangements arising out of the treaty with Spain, sth July, 1S14. and the foreign enlistment act of 1819 (59 George III._c.69). It became necessary, when hostilities broke out between France and Spain in 1823. either to extend the prohibition to France or allow exportation to Spain. Mr. Canning chose the latter, and said in the House of Commons, ‘by this measure Ilis Majesty’s government afforded a guarantee of their bona fide neutrality.’ Hansard’s Debates, New Series, viii. p. 1050.

_ ² The notes relating to these negotiations are printed in Archives Diplomatiques, vi. 31, and Lesur, Annuaire Historiyue, 1S23.

RUSSIAN MEMOIR OF 1823. 5

A,D. 1827.]

Christian government that covered her co-religionaries with her orthodox aegis.

The Russian plan of pacification was calculated to win the assent of the Holy Alliance, by suppressing everything in Greece that appeared to have a revolutionary tendency. It proposed to retain the Greeks in such a degree of subjection to Turkey that they would always stand in need of Russian protection. It contemplated annihilating their political im­portance as a nation, by dividing their country into three separate governments. By creating powerful classes in each of these governments with adverse interests, it hoped to render any future national union impossible ; and by allowing the sultan to keep Othoman garrisons in the Greek fortresses, the hostile feelings of the Greeks would be kept in a state of irritation, and they would continue to be subservient to Russia in all her ambitious schemes in the Turkish empire. The three governments into which Russia proposed to divide Greece, were to be ruled by native hospodars, and administered by native officials chosen by the sultan. The islands of the Aegean Sea were to be separated from the rest of their countrymen, and placed under the direct protection of the Porte, with such a guarantee for their local good government as could be obtained by the extension of a municipal system similar to that which had existed at Chios, at Hydra, or at Psara¹.

As a lure to gain the assent of the members of the Holy Alliance to these arrangements, Russia urged the necessity of preventing Greece from becoming a nest of democrats and revolutionists, by paralyzing the political energy of the nation, which could easily be effected by gratifying the selfish ambi­tion of the leading Greeks. Personal interest would extinguish national patriotism in Greece, as it had done at the Phanar, and in Vallachia and Moldavia².

¹      An extract from this memoir was published in 1824, and this extract is trans­lated by Tricoupi (iii. 385); but a complete copy was printed in the Courrier de Smyrne, 1828, Nos. 37 and 38. The hospodarats were—1. Thessaly, with Eastern Greece; 2. Epirus and Western Greece ; 3. The Morea with Crete. The islands which were to ejnoy municipal governments are not enumerated.

²      The expressions deserve to be quoted:—‘Paralyser l’influence des revolution- naires dans toute la Grece; ’ and ‘ que la creation de trois principautes Grecques, en diminuant l’etendue et les forces respectives de chacune de ces provinces, offre une nouvelle garantie a la Porte: qu’elle offre enfin un puissant appat aux principales families de la Grece; et qu’elle pourra servir a les detacher des interets de l’insurrec- tion.’

6     FOREIGN INTERVENTION.

[Bk. V. Ch. L

When the contents of this memoir became known, they caused great dissatisfaction both in Greece and Turkey.

The sultan was indignant that a foreign sovereign should interfere to regulate the internal government of his empire, j and propose the dismemberment of his dominions as a j subject of discussion for other powers. He naturally asked in what manner the Emperor Alexander would treat the j interference of any Catholic sovereign in favour of Polish independence, or of the sultan himself in favour of Tartar Mohammedanism.

The Greeks were astonished to find the Emperor Alexander, whom they had always believed to be a firm friend, coolly aiming a mortal blow at their national independence. Their own confused notions of politics and religion had led them to infer that the orthodoxy of the czar was a sure guarantee for his support in all measures tending to throw off the Othoman yoke both in their civil and ecclesiastical go­vernment. They were appalled at the Machiavellism of a cabinet that sought to ruin their cause under the pretext of assisting it*.

Great Britain was now the only European power that openly supported the cause of liberty, and her counsels bore a character of vigour that commanded the admiration of her enemies. To the British government the Greeks turned for support when they saw that Russia had abandoned their cause. In a communication addressed to the British Foreign Secretary, dated the 24th August 1824, they protested against the arrangements proposed in the memoir, and adjured Eng­land to defend the independence of Greece and frustrate the schemes of Russia. This letter did not reach George Canning, who was then at the Foreign Office, until the 4th November’ and he replied on the 1st of December. By the mere fact of replying to a communication of the Greek government, he recognized the right of the Greeks to secure their independ­ence, and form a new Christian state.

Mr. Canning’s answer contained a distinct and candid statement of the views of the British cabinet. Mediation

The unpopularity of Russia was greatly increased by the expulsion of many Greek families from the dominions of the Emperor Alexander at this time. Some of these families were conveyed to Greece at a considerable expense by the Phil­hellenic committees of Switzerland. Gordon, ii. 83.

VIEWS OF THE BRITISH CABINET.        J

A.D. I827.]

appeared for the moment impossible, for the sultan insisted on the unconditional submission of the Greeks, and the Greeks demanded the immediate recognition of their political independence. Nevertheless, the English minister declared that, if at a future period Greece should demand the mediation of Great Britain, and the sultan should accept that mediation, the British government would willingly co-operate with the other powers of Europe to facilitate a treaty of peace, and guarantee its duration. In the mean time Great Britain engaged to observe the strictest neutrality, adding, however, that as the king of England was united in alliance with Turkey by ancient treaties, which the sultan had not violated, it could not be expected that the British government should involve itself in a war in which Great Britain had no concern ¹.

The moderate tone of this state-paper directed public opinion to the question of establishing peace between the Greeks and the sultan. It also convinced most thinking men that the object of Russian policy was to increase the sultan’s difficulties, not to establish tranquillity in Turkey. The British Parliament, in particular, began to feel that the English ambassador at Constantinople must cease to support many of the demands of Russia. The memoir of 1823, therefore, though able and well devised as a document addressed to cabinets and diplomatists, became a false step by being subjected to the ordeal of public opinion. The morality of nations was already better than that of emperors and kings. For a time all went on smoothly, and meetings of the ambassadors of the great powers were held at St. Petersburg in the month of June 1824, to concert measures for the pacification of the East.

Early in the year 1824, the influence of England at Con­stantinople diminished greatly, in consequence of the public manifestations of Philhellenism. The sultan heard with surprise that the Lord Mayor of London had subscribed a large sum to support the cause of the Greeks ; that Lord Byron, an English peer, and Colonel the Honourable Leicester

¹      For the letter of the Greek government, and Canning’s answer, see Lesur, ■Ann. Hist. 1824, p. 627. Tricoupi gives Canning’s letter a wrong date (iii. 390).

H    FOREIGN INTERVENTION.

[Dk. V. Ch. I.

Stanhope (Earl of Harrington), an officer in the king’s service, had openly joined the Greeks ; that the British authorities in the Ionian Islands granted refuge to the rebellious armatoli; and that English bankers supplied the insurgents with money. The sultan attributed these acts to the hostile disposition of i the government. Neither Sultan Mahmud nor his divan could be persuaded that in a free country public opinion had a power to control the action of the executive administration in enforcing the law. The sultan could not be expected to appreciate what continental despots refuse to understand —that Englishmen legally enjoy and habitually exercise a right of political action for which they are responsible to ' society and not to government. In the year 1823, the sym- ! pathies of Englishmen, with all those engaged in defending the inalienable rights of citizens, were so strong, that the British government feared to act in strict accordance with I the recognized law of nations. The people considered that the duties of humanity were more binding than national treaties. But as the ambassador at Constantinople could not urge popular feelings as an excuse for violating national engagements, the sultan had the best of the argument when he formally complained to the cabinets of Europe of the conduct of England to Turkey.

On the 9th April 1824, a strong remonstrance was pre­sented to Lord Strangford, the English ambassador at | Constantinople. The reis-effendi remarked, ‘that it was j absurd to suppose that any government, whatever might be its form of administration, did not possess the power of preventing its subjects from carrying on war at their own good pleasure, and of punishing them for violating existing treaties between their own country and foreign governments.⁵ And the Othoman minister argued that, if such were the case, the peace of Europe, which the English government protested its anxiety to maintain, would be left dependent on the caprice of private individuals, for one state might say to another, ‘ I am your sincere and loyal friend, but I beg you to rest satisfied with this assurance, and not to feel dissatisfied if some of my subjects sally out and cut the throats of yours/ This candid and just remonstrance concluded by demanding categorically that British subjects should be prohibited from

ENGLISH PROTECTION.         9

A.D. 1827.]

carrying arms against Turkey, and prevented from supplying the Greeks with arms, money, and ammunition¹.

The British government was not insensible to the truth contained in this document. Colonel Stanhope was ordered home, and the Lord High Commissioner in the Ionian Islands issued a proclamation prohibiting the deposit of arms, military stores, and money, destined for the prosecution of the war in Greece, in any part of the Ionian territory.

While diplomacy advanced with cautious steps towards foreign intervention, the events of the war moved rapidly in the same direction. The disastrous defeats of the Greek armies by the Egyptian regulars paralyzed the government, and overwhelmed the nation with despair². The navies of France and Austria assumed a hostile attitude. The Emperor Alexander treated the independence of Greece as a mere political chimaera, the delusion of some idle brain³. On the other hand, the recognition of all blockades established by the naval forces of Greece, the Philhellenic sentiments of Hamilton, the British commodore in the Levant, and the fame of George Canning’s policy, all combined to make the Greeks fix their hopes of safety on England. A decree of the legislative body, passed at a secret sitting on the 1st August 1825, declared that the Greek nation placed the sacred deposit of its liberty, independence, and political existence under the absolute protection of Great Britain; and an act was publicly signed by a large majority of the clergy, deputies, primates, and naval and military chiefs of the Greek nation, placing Greece under the protection of the British government⁴. The British cabinet was empowered by these documents to treat concerning the pacification of Greece with a degree of authority which it had not previously possessed ; and George Canning now proposed the establish­ment of a Greek state, as the surest means of pacifying the

¹      This curious document is printed in Lesur, Ann. Hist. 1826, p. 649.

²      Tricoupi, iii. 262.

⁸ 'O ’Aki£avbpos X‘-l^JLalP^al' airfK&Kei rfjv arf^aprrjcrtav ttjs 'EAAaSos. Tricoupi, iii. 270.

⁴ Compare Gordon, who gives a translation of the decree (ii. 2S3). Tricoupi mentions previous endeavours to obtain the crown of Greece for a French prince (iii. 261, 272, 397). But a more complete account of the intrigues and negotia­tions that were carried on in Greece will be found in the work of Speliades, ’Arro/jivrjiJiovfvnaTa, vol. ii. p. 375.

IO   FOREIGN INTERVENTION.

[Bk. V. Ch. I.

East. lie, like many other friends of Greece, believed that liberty would engender the love of justice, that the Greeks would become the allies of England from national sympathies, as well as from interest, and that, under a free and enlightened administration, the Greeks would enable political liberty and Christian civilization to find a home among the population of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. Russia would lose the power of making religious fanaticism an engine for producing anarchy in Turkey as a step to conquest, and perhaps the Greeks would emulate the career of English colonies, and, by rapid advances in population and industry, repeople and regenerate the desolate regions of European Turkey. Reason­able as these hopes were in the year 1825, the Greeks have allowed thirty-five years to elapse without doing much to fulfil them.

Death arrested the vacillating career of Alexander I. in November 1825. For a moment Russia was threatened with internal revolution, but Nicholas was soon firmly seated on the throne by his energetic conduct. His stern and arrogant disposition soon displayed itself in his foreign policy; but his personal presumption and despotic pretensions encountered the petulant boldness and liberal opinions of George Canning, and an estrangement ensued between the Russian and British cabinets, greater than would have resulted solely from the divergency of their national interests \

Mr. Stratford Canning (Lord Stratford de Redclifife), one of England’s ablest diplomatists, arrived at Constantinople, as ambassador to the Porte, early in 1826, with the delicate mission of inducing the sultan to put an end to the war in Greece, and of preventing war from breaking out between Russia and Turkey. On his way to the Dardanelles he conferred with Mavrocordatos concerning the basis of an effectual mediation between the belligerents². The result of this interview was that the National Assembly of Epidaurus passed a decree, dated 24th April 1826, authorizing the British ambassador at Constantinople to treat concerning peace, on the basis of independent self-government for Greece,

¹      An instance of the haughty tone assumed by the Emperor Nicholas towards the British government, will be found in a despatch from Nesselrode to Lieven, dated 9th January, 1S27, printed in the Portfolio, iv. 267.

²      The meeting took place at Hydra, 9th January, 1826.

PROTOCOL OF ^TH APRIL 1826.   II

A.D. 1S27.]

with a recognition of the sultan’s suzerainty, and the payment of a fixed tribute ^x.     ...

The pacification of Greece was now the leading objectⁱ of British policy in the Levant. The Emperor Nicholas rejected all mediation in his differences with Turkey, but the British cabinet was still anxious to secure unity of action between England and Russia on the Greek question. The Duke of Wellington was sent to St. Petersburg for this purpose, and on the 4th April 1826 a protocol was signed, stating the terms agreed on by the two powers as a basis for the pacification of Greece. This protocol acknowledged the right of the Greeks to obtain from the Porte a solemn recognition of their independent political existence, so far as to secure them a guarantee for liberty of conscience, freedom of commerce, and the exclusive regulation of their internal government. This was a considerable step towards the establishment of national independence on a solid foundation ².

Unfortunately, the relations of the British government with the members of the Holy Alliance, and the continental princes under their influence, were far from amicable during ^ the year 1826. No progress could therefore be made in a I negotiation in which the Porte could only be induced to i make concessions by fear of a coalition of the Christian ’ powers, and their determination to act with unity and vigour.

The royalists in Spain, under the protection of the French , army of occupation, began to aid the despotic party in , Portugal. The princess-regent at Lisbon, alarmed at the . prospect of a civil war, claimed the assistance which England ! was bound to give to Portugal by ancient treaties. The > occupation of Spain by foreign troops threatened Portugal ! with war; foreign assistance could alone prevent hostilities.

'• A French army had destroyed liberty in Spain ; an English , army could alone preserve it in Portugal. Canning did not I hesitate, and in December 1826 he announced in Parliament [ that six thousand British troops were ordered to Lisbon.

¹ All Europe was taken by surprise. The Emperor Nicholas, who had placed himself at the head of the despotic party

¹      The decree and instructions to the committee of the Assembly are given by Mamouka, iv. 94; the letter to Canning, iv. 132.

²      Parliamentary Papers; and Portfolio, iv. 546.

12   FOREIGN INTERVENTION.

[Bk. V. Ch. I.

on the continent was extremely irritated at this bold step in favour of constitutional liberty. A coolness ensued between the English and Russian cabinets, and the negotiations for the pacification of Greece were allowed to lag. On the other hand, the attitude assumed by the czar towards Turkey had previously become so menacing, that Sultan Mahmud yielded the points he had hitherto contested, and concluded the convention of Akermann on the 7th October 1826 \

Hut Sultan Mahmud had not trifled away his time during the year 1826. In the month of May he promulgated an ordinance reforming the corps of janissaries. His reforms were so indispensable for the establishment of order, that the great body of the Mohammedans supported them. But in the capital several powerful classes were interested in the continuance of the existing abuses. The janissaries took up arms to defend their privileges, which could only be main­tained by dethroning the sultan. A furious contest ensued on the 14th June, but it was quickly terminated. Sultan Mahmud had foreseen the insurrection, and was prepared to suppress it. The sacred banner of Mohammed was unfurled, the grand mufti excommunicated the janissaries as traitors to their sovereign and their religion, and an overwhelming force was collected to crush .them. Their barracks were stormed, the whole quarter they inhabited was laid in ashes, their corps dissolved, and the very name of janissary abolished. On the 13th of September 1826, tranquillity being completely restored at Constantinople, the sandjak-sherif was furled and replaced in its usual sanctuary.

The convention of Akermann re-established Russian in­fluence at the Porte. On the 5th of February 1827, Great Britain and Russia made formal offers of their mediation in the affairs of Greece, and proposed a suspension of hostili­ties. After many tedious conferences, the reis-effendi, in order to terminate the discussion, delivered to the repre­sentatives of the European powers at Constantinople a statement of the reasons which induced the sultan to reject the interference of foreign states in a question which related to the internal government of his empire².

¹      Lesur, Ann. Hist. 1826, p. 100.

²      This document, dated nth and 10th Tune, 1827, is given in Lesur, Ann. Hist. 1S27, p.

STATE OF GREECE IN 1827.   13

A.D. 1827.]

France was at this time engaged in a dispute with the dey of Algiers, which led to the conquest of that dependency of the sultan’s empire. She now joined Great Britain and ^: Russia in common measures for the pacification of Greece, and a treaty between the three powers was signed at London on the 6th July 1827.

This treaty proposed to enforce an armistice between the Greeks and Turks by an armed intervention, and contemplated securing to the Greeks a virtual independence under the suzerainty of the sultan \ An armistice was notified to both 1: the belligerents. The Greeks accepted it as a boon which p they had solicited ; but the sultan rejected all intervention,

, and referred the Allies to the note of the reis-effendi already ' mentioned.

After the disastrous battle of Phalerum, it required no f armistice to prevent the Greeks from prosecuting hostilities } by land. Their army was broken up, and no military oper- j ations were attempted during the summer of 1827. Sir , Richard Church moved about at the head of fewer troops than some chieftains, and many captains paid not the slightest ] attention to his orders. Fabvier shut himself up in Methana, t sulky and discontented. The greater part of the Greek chiefs,

¹ imitating the example of Kolokotrones, occupied themselves I in collecting the public revenues in order to pay the personal | followers they collected under their standard. The efforts of f the different leaders to extend their territory and profits i caused frequent civil broils, and the whole military strength of the nation was, by this system of brigandage and anarchy,

I      diverted from opposing the Turks. While Greece was sup- | porting about twenty thousand troops, she could not move ; two thousand to oppose either the Egyptians or the Turks in the field. The best soldiers were dispersed over the country i collecting the means of subsistence, and the frontiers and the ! fortresses were alike neglected. Famine was beginning to ■ be felt, and the soldiery, accustomed to waste, acted towards ; the peasantry in the most inhuman manner. The beasts ! of burden were carried off, and the labouring oxen devoured f before the eyes of starving families². Some districts of the

'For the treaty, see Parliamentary Papers.         _

⁴      Admiral de Rigny tells us that the peasants were ‘ chasses, depouilles, pilles

14   FOREIGN INTERVENTION.

[Bk.V Ch. I.

Peloponnesus had submitted to Ibrahim Pasha during the winter of 1826, and one of the chiefs in the vicinity of Patras, named Dcmctrios Nenekos, now served actively against his countrymen \

The exploits of the Greek seamen were not more patriotic ! than those of the Greek soldiers. Only a few, following the example of Miaoulis and Kanaris, remained indefatigable in i serving their country ; but the best ships and the best sailors of the naval islands were more frequently employed scouring the sea as pirates than cruising with the national fleet Lord Cochrane kept the sea with a small force. On the 16th of June he made an ineffectual attempt to destroy - the Egyptian fleet at Alexandria. On the 1st of August, f the high-admiral in the Hellas, and Captain Thomas in the brig Soter, took a fine corvette and a large Tunisian schooner after a short engagement, and brought their prizes in safety to Poros, though pursued by the whole Egyptian fleet. On the 18th of September Lord Cochrane anchored off Mesolonghi with a fleet of twenty-three sail; but after some feeble and unsuccessful attempts to take Vasiladi, he sailed away, leaving Hastings to enter the Gulf of Corinth with a small squadron.

On the 29th of September Hastings stood into the Bay of Salona to attack a Turkish squadron anchored at the Scala, under the protection of two batteries and a body of troops. The Greek force consisted of the steam-corvette Kartcria, the brig Soter, under the gallant Captain Thomas, j and two gunboats, mounting each a long 32-pounder. The Turkish force consisted of an Algerine schooner, mounting twenty long brass guns, six brigs and schooners, and two transports. The Turks were so confident of victory that they prepared to capture the whole Greek force, and did not fire until the Karteria came to an anchor, fearing lest the attack might be abandoned if they opened their de­structive fire too soon. Hastings anchored about five hundred

alternativement par les Turcs et par les palikares;’ and he mentions ‘ ces lies de l’Arcliipel, oil, dans chacune, une band de pirates de terre et de mer font la loi.’ Parliamentary Papers, B, Protocols at Constaniinople, p. 37.

¹      Compare Tricoupi, iv. 1S2.

²                                         F or the extent to which piracy was carried on, see Gordon, ii. 475 ; and Tricoupi confesses (iv. 248) that it was /.wvaSiKuv teal aiayiarov <paivo^.ivov iv rrj iaropia 7ojv kOvwv.    '

I

HAS TINGS' VICTORY AT SALON A.        15

A.D. 1827.]

yards from the enemy’s vessels. While the Karteria was bringing her broadside to bear, the batteries on shore and the vessels at anchor saluted her with a heavy cannonade. When the Soter and the gunboats came up, they were com­pelled to anchor about three hundred yards further out than the Karteria. Hastings commenced the action on the part of the Greeks by firing his guns loaded with round-shot, in slow succession, in order to make sure of the range. He then fired hot shells from his long guns, and carcass-shells from his carronades. The effect was terrific¹. One of the shells penetrated to the magazine of the Turkish commodore, who blew up. A carcass-shell exploded in the bows of the brig anchored astern the commodore, and she settled down forward. The next broadside lodged a shell in the Algerine, which exploded between her decks, and she was immediately abandoned by her crew. Another schooner burst out in flames at the same time, and a hot shell lodging in the stern of the brig which had sunk forward, she also was soon on fire. Thus, before the guns of the batteries on shore could inflict any serious loss on the Karteria, she had destroyed the four largest ships of the enemy. Captain Thomas and the gunboats soon silenced the batteries, and took possession of the Algerine schooner, which, however, the Greeks were unable to carry off, as she was discovered to be aground, and her deck was within the range of the Albanian riflemen on shore. Hastings steamed up, and endeavoured to tow her out to sea, but his hawsers snapped. The crews of the Soter and the gunboats succeeded by great exertion, and with some loss, in carrying off her brass guns, and in setting her and the remaining brig 011 fire. The other vessels, being aground close to the rocks which concealed the Albanian riflemen, could not be boarded, but they were destroyed with shells².

This victory at Salona afforded fresh proof of the value of steam and large guns in naval warfare. The terrific effect

¹                         Hot shells were used, though liable to greater deviation than shot, because it was feared that solid 68-lb. shot might pass through both sides of the enemy’s ships.       _

'^l [Mr. David Urquhart, the well-known author of The Spirit of the East, took part in this engagement, and has given an account of it, and of the circumstances preceding it, in that work (vol. i. pp. 22-31), in his own peculiarly brilliant style of narrative. Ed.]

16   FOREIGN INTERVENTION

[Bk. V. Ch. I.

of hot projectiles, and the ease with which they were managed, astonished both friends and foes.

Ibrahim Pasha was at Navarin when he heard of the destruction of the squadron at Salona. He considered it a violation of the armistice proposed by the Allies and accepted by the Greeks, and he resolved to take instant vengeance 011 Hastings and Thomas, whose small force he hoped to annihilate with superior numbers.

Mohammed Ali was not less averse to an armistice than the sultan, but Ibrahim could not refuse, when the Allied admirals appeared in the Levant, to consent to an armistice at sea. Hastings’ victory at Salona now, in his opinion, absolved him from his engagement, for it could not be supposed that the Allies would allow one party to carry on hostilities and hinder the other. Ibrahim therefore sent a squadron from Navarin with orders to enter the Gulf of Corinth and attack Hastings, who had fortified him­self in the little port of Strava, near Perakhova. Sir Edward Codrington, the English admiral, compelled this squadron to return, and accused Ibrahim of violating the armistice. Candour, however, forbids us to overlook the fact that Ibrahim gave his consent to a suspension of hostilities by sea under the persuasion that the Greeks would not be allowed to carry on hostile operations any more than the Turks.

The measures adopted by the Allies to establish an armistice were, during the whole period of their negotiations, remarkable for incongruity. The Greeks accepted the armistice, and were allowed to carry on hostilities both by sea and land. The Turks refused, and were prevented from prosecuting the war by sea. Ibrahim avenged himself by burning down the olive-groves and destroying the fig-trees in Messenia. The Allied admirals kept his fleet closely block­aded in Navarin, where it had been joined by the capitan- pasha with the Othoman fleet. Winter was approaching, and the Allies might be blown off the coast, which would afford the Turkish naval forces in Navarin an opportunity of slipping out and inflicting on Hydra the fate which had overwhelmed Galaxidhi, Kasos, and Psara. To prevent so great a calamity, the Allied admirals resolved to bring their fleets to anchor in the great bay of Navarin, alongside the

BATTLE OF NAVARIN.   17

A.D. 1827.]

Egyptian and Othoman fleets. This resolution rendered a collision inevitable.

The bay of Navarin is about three miles long and two broad. It is protected from the west by the rocky island of Sphakteria, but is open to the south-west by an entrance three-quarters of a mile broad. The northern end of Sphak­teria is separated from the cape of the mainland, crowned with the ruins of Pylos, by a channel only navigable for boats^l. A small island called Chelonaki is situated near the middle of the port, about a mile from the shore.

The Turkish fleets were anchored in a line of battle forming two-thirds of a circle, facing the entrance of the port, and with the extremities resting on and protected by the fortress of Navarin and the batteries on Sphakteria. The ships were stationed three deep, so as to command every interval in the first line by the guns of the ships in the second and third lines. The first consisted of twenty-two heavy ships, with three fire-ships at each extremity. The second of twenty-six ships, including the smaller frigates and the corvettes. The third consisted of a few corvettes, and of the brigs and schooners which were ordered to assist any of the larger ships that might require aid. The whole force ranged in line of battle to receive the Allies amounted to eighty-two sail, and in this number there were three line-of-battle ships and five double-banked frigates ².

The Allied force consisted of twenty-seven sail, and of

¹      Old Navarin, built on the ruins of Pylos, and called Avarinos, is said to have been built by the Avars when they ruled the Sclavonians, who colonized the Morea in the seventh century. For the ancient and modern topography of this district, see Leake’s Travels in the Morea, Arnold’s Thucydides (vol. ii. p. 444), and the arlicle Pylos, in Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. [The name Navarino is not derived from the Avars, as has commonly been supposed, but from the Navarrese. See Hopf’s Griechische Geschichte, in Brockhaus’ Griech- enland, vol. vi. p. 212. Ed.]

²      The Othoman and Egyptian fleets united comprised—

3     line-of-batlle ships.

5     double-banked frigates.

22 frigates.

33 corvettes.

13 brigs and schooners.

6     fire-ships.

82 sail, mounting about 2000 guns.

A Tunisian squadron of three frigates and a brig anchored behind Chelonaki, but neither it nor the armed transports in the upper part of the bay took any share in the battle.

VOL. VII,

C

1 8  FOREIGN INTERVENTION.

[Bk.V. Ch. I.

these ten were linc-of-battle sliips and one a double-banked frigate \

About half-past one o’clock, on the afternoon of the 20th October 1827, Sir Edward Codrington entered the harbour of Navarin, leading the van of the Allies in his flag-ship the Asia. A favourable breeze wafted the Allied ships slowly forward ; while twenty thousand Turkish troops, encamped without the fortress of Navarin, were ranged on the slopes overlooking the port, like spectators in a theatre. The Turkish admirals, seeing the Allies advancing in hostile array, made their preparations for the battle, which they knew was inevitable. Their great superiority in number gave them a degree of confidence in victory, which the relative force of the two fleets, in the character of the ships, did not entirely warrant. The greatest disadvantage of the Allies was that they were compelled to enter the port in succession, exposed to a cross-fire of the Turkish ships and the batteries of Sphakteria and Navarin. Fortunately for them, the guns on shore did not open their fire until the English and French admirals had taken up their positions. The imperfect artillery of the Turkish fleet, and the superiority of the Allies in the number of line-of-battle ships, as well as in discipline and science, were the grounds which were supposed to authorize the bold enterprise of the admirals. But there can be no doubt that a well-directed fire from the Turkish

1 The Allied fleet was thus composed—
English 1 )ivision,	11 sail
Line-of-battle.		Frigates.
Asia . .	■ §4	Glasgow .
Genoa .	• 74	Cambrian .
Albion .	• 74	Dartmouth .
		Talbot .
French Division,	7 sail .
Scipion .	■ 74	Sirene .
Breslau .	• 74	Annide .
Trident .	. 74 1
Russian Division,	S sail .
Azof . .	• 74	Constantine
Hanhoute .	■ 74	Provonay .
Ezekiel .	• 74	Elene .
Alexander Nev:	,ky 74	Castor .

4S

44

3?.

3-

Sloops of war.

5°	Rose . .	18
48	Brisk . .	10
44	Philomel .	10
28	Mosquito . Stag (tender to	10
	Asia) . .	6
	Alcyone . .	iS
44	Daphne . .	iS

Guns.

456

362

452

Total £nins

BATTLE OF NAVARIN.   19

A.D. 1827.]

{guns on shore might have destroyed the English and French ;flag-ships before the great body of the Allied fleet arrived to their assistance.

The first shot was fired by the Turks. The Allied admirals would willingly have delayed the commencement of the engagement until all their ships had entered the port, and ranged themselves in line of battle. But the breeze died away after a part of their squadrons anchored, and it was more than an hour before the first ship of the Russian division could reach its station. The battle was remarkable for nothing but hard fighting, which allowed a display of good discipline, but not of naval science. The fire of the Allies was steady and well directed ; that of the Othomans and Egyptians irregular and ill directed, but kept up with great perseverance. The most difficult operation of the day was taking possession of and turning aside the Turkish fire-ships stationed at the extremities of the line. When the English and French admirals anchored, these fire-ships were to windward, and a favourable opportunity was offered for using them with effect. The attempt was made to bear down on the flag-ships of the Allies, but it was frustrated by the skill and courage of Sir Thomas Fellowes of the Dartmouth, and of the officers and men of the brigs which were ordered on this duty. This battle, therefore, confirms the experience of the Othoman and Egyptian fleets in 1824, that fire-ships constructed on the Greek model require favourable circum­stances and great skill on the part of their crews, as well as some mismanagement or ignorance on the part of those assailed, to render them very efficient engines in naval warfare.

For about two hours the capitan-bey and the Egyptian admiral, Moharrem Bey, sustained the fire of the Asia and Sirene, but they then cut their cables and drifted to leeward. The victory was soon after secured by the Russian division under Count Heyden engaging the capitan-pasha, Tahir, whose squadron formed the starboard division of the Turkish line. The fire of the Allies now became greatly superior to that of their enemies, and the Turks abandoned several of their ships, and set them on fire. As evening approached, the scene of destruction extended over the whole port.

The Allies took every precaution to insure the safety of

C 2

20   FOREIGN INTERVENTION.

[Bk.V. Ch. I.

their ships during the night, which they were compelled to pass in the port amidst burning vessels drifting about in every direction. Every now and then fresh ships burst out into a mass of flames, and cast a lurid light over the water. The crews who had been fighting all day to destroy the ships of their enemies were compelled to labour all night to save their own.

Of the eighty-two sail of Turkish ships anchored in line of battle at noon, on the 20th of October 1827, only twenty-nine remained afloat at daylight on the following morning¹.

The loss of the Allies amounted to 172 killed, and 470 wounded. Several ships suffered so severely in their hulls and rigging as to be unfit to keep the sea. The greatest loss was sustained on board the flag-ships of the three admirals.

The English and Russian line-of-battle ships sailed to Malta to refit. The French returned to Toulon. Only the smaller vessels remained in the Levant to watch the pro­ceedings of Ibrahim, whose courage was not depressed by his defeat².

Ibrahim resolved not to abandon his position in the Morea. I11 order to relieve his force of the wounded, the super­numerary sailors, and the invalided soldiers, as well as to remove the Turkish families and Greek slaves who encumbered the fortresses, he embarked all these classes in the ships which escaped destruction. A fleet of fifty-two sail was prepared for sea, of which twenty-four were men-of-war present at the battle of Navarin. This fleet quitted Greece on the 22nd December, and arrived safely at Alexandria, where it also landed two thousand Greek slaves captured in the Morea.

Sir Edward Codrington was severely blamed for allowing this deportation of Christians, as he had been warned that

¹      An Austrian officer, who visited Navarin shortly after the battle, reported the vessels then afloat to be—two line-of-battle ships, one double-banked frigate, five frigates, nine corvettes, and twelve brigs.

²      The best accounts of the battle of Navarin are the official reports of the three admirals, published in the London Gazette, Le Moniteur, and the Gazette of St. Petersburg. They may be compared with one another, and with a complete account of the battle, published at Naples, with a good plan—Memoria intorno alia Battaglia di Navarino, Napoli. 1S33. There is an account of what was seen by an officer on board the Talbot, in the United Service Journal, 1829, pt. i. 117. There is a plan of the port of Navarin, by Sir Thomas Fellowes. A manuscript plan of the battle, prepared by an English officer, was frequently copied in the Levant: it agrees very nearly with that published at Naples.

SIR E. CODRINGTON CENSURED. 21

A.D. 1827.]

Ibrahim contemplated the gradual removal of the whole Greek population from the Peloponnesus, and its colonization by Mussulman Albanians and Arabs. This was indeed the only way in which the Egyptian pasha could complete and maintain his conquest. Sir Edward Codrington, considering that it was his duty to accelerate the evacuation of the Morea, did not think that his instructions warranted his assuming the responsibility of searching Turkish men-of-war as they were returning home. This, indeed, could not be done without a declaration of war; and even after the battle of Navarin, England did not declare war with the sultan, nor the sultan with England. The truth seems to be, that the naval force of the admiral was inadequate both to blockade the Egyptians and to protect British ships from the Greek pirates, who now attacked every merchantman that passed to the eastward of Cape Matapan. But it was the general opinion that Sir Edward Codrington fell into a very usual error of commanders-in-chief in the Mediterranean at that time, and both remained too much at Malta himself, and kept too many of his ships there. His judgment appears to have been misled by the severe censure cast on his con­duct at Navarin, in the king’s speech at the opening of parliament, in which his victory was termed ‘ an untoward event V

The destruction of the Othoman fleet made no change in the determination of Sultan Mahmud. The ambassadors at Constantinople again offered their mediation in vain, and, after reiterated conferences, they quitted the Turkish capital in December 1827.

The Greeks were allowed by the Allies to make every effort in their power to regain possession of the territory conquered by Reshid since the year 1825. But anarchy had reached such a pitch that the Greek government was powerless, and no army could be assembled. Sir Richard Church resolved, however, to establish himself at some

¹ Sir Edward Codrington was recalled for misapprehending his instructions, and for not disposing of his force so as to watch the movements of the Egyptian ships in Greece from the 21st November, 1827, to 26th February, 1828. See the Earl of Aberdeen’s Letter, May, 1828, with P.S., 4th June, in Parliamentary Papers, and Documents relating to the Recall of Sir Edward Codrington in June, 1828, printed for private distribution, p. 21. See also the Instructions addressed to the admirals, annexed to the protocol of 15th October, 1827, particularly the separate Instruc­tions relative to the Egyptian forces, in the Parliamentary Papers.

2 2  FOREIGN INTERVENTION.

[Bk. V. Ch. I.

harbour on the coast of Acarnania with the small body of men he could assemble, trusting to his being joined by the armatoli in continental Greece, whom the hostile demonstra­tions of the Allied powers might induce to throw off the Turkish yoke. At Church’s invitation, Hastings sailed out of the Gulf of Corinth in the daytime, exposing the Karteria to the fire of the castles commanding the straits of Lepanto, that he might transport the Greek troops to Acarnania. When he reached Cape Papas, after having exposed his ship to great danger in order to be in time at the rendezvous, he was obliged to wait ten days before the generalissimo made his appearance¹. Church’s movements had been re­tarded by the news that Achmet Pasha was on his march from Navarin to Patras with a reinforcement of two thousand men. The army of the generalissimo did not exceed fourteen hundred men, and it reached the coast in a state of destitution. The embarkation of this phantom of a military force was effected under the immediate superintendence of the officers of the Karteria, without any assistance from those of the army. The Greek troops were landed at Dragomestre, where they remained inactive, drawing their supplies from abroad.

Shortly after, another body of Greek troops crossed the Gulf of Corinth, and occupied the site of a Hellenic fortress on the mainland opposite the island of Trisognia, but remained as inactive as the division at Dragomestre. The peasantry showed themselves in general to be hostile to the Greek soldiery, and kept the Turks well informed concerning every movement of the land and naval forces of Greece.

Hastings had no sooner transported the troops to Drago­mestre than he resolved to attack the fort of Vasiladi, hoping that its conquest would enable the Greek army to besiege Mesolonghi. Ever since Lord Cochrane’s failure in September, he had sought in his mind the best means of gaining posses­sion of this key of the lagoons of Mesolonghi. Vasiladi is not more than one hundred yards in circumference, and its

¹ Hastings lost two men killed and two wounded in passing the castles, but he succeeded in sinking an Austrian brig laden with flour, which had just broken the blockade, and was already under the guns of the batteries at Palras. Hastings passed the castles on the iSth of November, and Church arrived at Cape I’apas on the 2Sth.

HASTINGS TAKES VASILADL          23

A.D. I827.]

works rose only six feet above the water. The Karteria could not approach nearer than a mile and a quarter. Two attempts to throw shells into the place on different days failed, but on the 29th December 1827, the day being perfectly calm, the firing was renewed. The long guns of the Karteria threw shells at an elevation of 23⁰, and the third gun, pointed by Hastings himself, pitched its shell into the Turkish powder-magazine¹. The explosion rendered the place untenable, and the boats of the Karteria arrived before the Turks could offer any resistance. The bodies of twelve men were found in the fort, and thirty-nine were taken prisoners.

These prisoners were taken on board the Karteria, but Hastings, who had been feeding his crew at his own expense for some time, resolved to put them on shore as soon as possible. He therefore informed the commandant of Vasiladi that a monoxylon (canoe of the lagoon) would convey him to Mesolonghi, to enable him to make arrangements for sending off flat-bottomed boats to land the prisoners without loss of time. The Mussulman, remembering the manner in which both Turks and Greeks had generally disposed of their captives, considered this to be a sentence to an honourable death. He supposed that he was to be taken to the nearest shore where he could receive burial after being shot, and he thanked Hastings like a brave man, saying that he was ready to meet death in any way his victor might order. The conversation passed through an interpreter, and Hastings being the last man on the quarter-deck to perceive that it was supposed to be his intention to murder his prisoner, the scene began at last to assume a comic aspect. The Turk was conducted to the gangway, where, seeing only a monoxylon, with one of his own men to receive him, he became conscious of his misunderstanding. He then turned back to Hastings, and uttered a few expressions of gratitude in the most dignified and graceful manner. The rest of the prisoners were landed on the following morning, and an interchange of presents took place, the Turk sending some fresh provisions on board the Karteria, and Hastings sending back some coffee and sugar.

¹      Memoir on the Jise of Shells, Hot Shot, and Carcass-Shells, from Ship Artillery, by Frank Abney Hastings, published by Ridgway in 1828, p. 18.

24   FOREIGN INTERVENTION.

[Bk. V. Ch. I.

Shortly after the battle of Navarin, Fabvier undertook an expedition to Chios, which ended in total failure¹. The Greeks also made an effort to renew the war in Crete, but without success ².

After the arrival of Capodistrias in Greece, an attempt was made to revive the spirit of the irregular troops, but even the camp of Sir Richard Church continued to be a scene of disorganization. The chieftains were everywhere intent on drawing as many rations as possible, and several of them made illicit gains by selling the supplies, which were furnished to Greece by Philhellenic societies, to men in the Turkish service. Sir Richard Church, having imprudently given passports to boats engaged in carrying on this trade in provisions with the districts in the vicinity of Patras, occupied by the troops of Ibrahim, became involved in an acrimonious correspondence with Captain Hastings, who, as the naval commander on the station, considered the proceeding a gross violation of the rules of service, as well as of a naval blockade³. It induced Hastings to get himself removed from the station, in order to make room for somebody who could agree better with the generalissimo. But in the month of May, Capodistrias induced him to accept the command of a small squadron in Western Greece, and he immediately resumed his former activity. His career was soon cut short. On the 25th of May 1828 he was mortally wounded in an attack on Anatolikon, and expired on board the Karteria. No man ever served a foreign cause more disinterestedly⁴.

¹      Fabvier left Methana in October, 1827, and raised the siege of Chios in March, 1828. Gordon, ii. 450-473.

²      The termination of the insurrection in Crete, and the gallant death of Hadji Mikhali on the 28th May, 1828, are well recounted by Gordon, ii. 499.

³      See Appendix IV.

⁴      The difficulties under which Hastings laboured during his career in Greece, belong rather to his biography than to Greek history; but a few words may be extracted from his correspondence to show how great they were. On the 7th January, 1828, he wrote, ‘I am full of misery. I have not a dollar. I owe my people three months’ pay, and five dollars a-head gratuity for the taking of Vasiladi. I have no provisions, and I have lost an anchor and chain.’ On the 16th he wrote again: ‘It has become an established maxim to leave this vessel without supplies. Dr. Goss (agent of the Swiss committees) has just been at Zante, and has left three hundred dollars for the gunboat Helvetia, now serving under my orders, but not one farthing, no provisions, and not even a single word for me. Five months ago I was eight thousand dollars in advance for the pay of my crew, and since that time I have only received a thousand dollars from the naval chest of Lord Cochrane, and six hundred dollars from the military chest of Sir Richard Church, and this last sum is not even sufficient to pay the expenses incurred by the detention of our prizes to serve as transpoits for his army.’ See

RUSSIA DECLARES WAR.       25

A.D. 1828.]

Before delivering up the command of the Mediterranean fleet to his successor, Sir Pulteney Malcolm, Sir Edward Codrington concluded a convention with Mohammed Ali for the evacuation of the Morea by Ibrahim Pasha ¹. Before that convention was executed, the alliance of the three powers was threatened with dissolution. England and France wished to preserve the sultan’s throne, as well as to establish the independence of Greece. Russia was even more eager to destroy the Othoman empire than to save Greece. Nicholas proposed to employ coercive measures by land, as the battle of Navarin had produced no effect. He wished to occupy Moldavia and Vallachia, and to invade Bulgaria, while the English and French fleets forced the Dardanelles. England and France rejected this proposal on the ground that it was more likely to involve Europe in a general war than to establish peace in the Levant. Russia then took advantage of some arbitrary conduct on the part of the sultan’s govern­ment relative to the Black Sea trade, and of some violent expressions in an imperial proclamation of the Porte, to declare war with Turkey on the 26th April 1828 ².

The alliance would have been dissolved had the Emperor Nicholas not retracted so much of his separate action as to consent to lay aside his character of a belligerent in the Mediterranean, and engage to act in that sea only as a member of the alliance, and within the limits traced by the treaty of the 6th July 1827.

The death of George Canning deprived British counsels of all their energy, and the measures adopted to coerce the sultan were timid, desultory, and dilatory³. A bold and prompt declaration of the concessions which the Allies were

‘ Biographical Sketch of Frank Abney Hastings ’ in Blackwood’s Magazine, October, 1845. Both Gordon and Tricoupi have done justice to the memory of Hastings, who was as distinguished for sincerity and truth in private life, as for ability and daring in war.

¹      Parliamentary Papers, C, Convention of Alexandria, 6th August, l S28.

²      The Hatti-sherif, dated 20th December, 1827, announcing sentiments of bitter animosity against Russia, is given in the Parliamentary Papers, annex D, No. 2, to the protocol of the 12th March, 1828.

³      In the protocol of the 15th June, 1828, Lord Aberdeen, with the diplomatic inaptitude which characterizes the proceedings of Great Britain at this period, allowed the clauses to be inverted, and by this inversion the claim of Russia to an exceptional position with regard to Turkey was in some measure ratified. England, as protector of a Greek population in the Ionian Islands, ought to have insisted on equal rights. Russia was not driven from the claim she set up to an exceptional position until Sevastopol fell.

26   FOREIGN INTERVENTION.

[Bk. V. Ch. I.

determined to exact in favour of the Greeks, would have been the most effectual mediation. When Russia declared war with Turkey, England ought instantly to have recognized the independence of Greece, and proceeded to carry the treaty of the 6th July into execution by force. As France would in all probability have acted in the same manner, the consent of the sultan would have been gained, and a check might have been placed on the ambition of Russia by occupying the Black Sea with an English and French fleet.

The weakness of the British cabinet allowed Russia to assume a decided political superiority in the East. On the Danube, where discipline gave her armies an immense ad­vantage, and in the Black Sea, where the battle of Navarin had left the sultan without a fleet, she acted as a belligerent. But in the Mediterranean, where she was weak, and where she could only carry on hostilities at an enormous expense, she was allowed to conceal her weakness and economize her treasure by acting as a mediator.

With all the diplomatic successes of the Russian cabinet, the war of 1828-29 reflected little honour on the armies of the Emperor Nicholas. Though Turkey was suffering from a long series of rebellions and revolutions, which had in turn desolated almost every province of the Othoman empire; though the sultan had destroyed the janissaries, and had not yet formed a regular army ; though his fleet had been anni­hilated at Navarin, and his finances ruined by the blockade of the Dardanelles, still under all these disadvantages Sultan Mahmud displayed an unexpected fertility of resources, and the Mussulmans in European Turkey something of their ancient energy. The desperate resistance the Russians met with at Silistria and Varna covered the Turks with glory. Two campaigns were necessary to enable the Russian armies to advance to Adrianople ; and they reached that city so weak in number that they did not venture to push on to Constantinople and dictate peace to Sultan Mahmud before the walls of his capital. Nevertheless, the victories of the Russians in Asia, and their complete command of the Black Sea, convinced the sultan that an attack on his capital \vould not be long delayed ; and as Constantinople was inadequately supplied with provisions, and no troops could be assembled to fight a battle for its defence, Sultan Mahmud submitted to

FRENCH TROOPS IN THE MO RE A.      27

A.D. 1828.]

the terms of peace imposed on him. The treaty was signed on the 14th September 1829 ¹.

The army of Ibrahim Pasha suffered great privations during the winter of 1827-28. Though no regular blockade of the ports in his possession was maintained either by the Greeks or the Allies, his army would have starved, or he would have evacuated the Morea, had he not succeeded in obtaining large supplies of provisions from the Ionian Islands, and particu­larly from Zante. About fifty Ionian boats, entirely manned by Greeks, were almost constantly employed for several months in carrying provisions to Ibrahim’s troops in Greece². But even with all the assistance supplied by the Ionians, the price of provisions was high, and the sufferings of the soldiers were great in the fortresses of Navarin, Modon, and Coron. At last these sufferings became intolerable.

In June 1828 about two thousand Albanians in garrison at Coron broke out into open mutiny, and after plundering the place marched out to return home. They concluded a con­vention with the Greek government, and Capodistrias ordered a body of Greek troops to escort them to the Isthmus of Corinth, from whence they marched along the coast of the Morea to the castle of Rhion. On entering that fort they murdered the governor, and after resting a few days crossed the straits, marched hastily through the desolate plains of Aetolia, and reached the frontier of Turkey in safety.

The utter exhaustion of Greece prevented the government of Capodistrias from making any effort to expel the Egyptians from the Peloponnesus. The direct agency of the Allies was required to deliver the country.

The French government undertook to send an army to expel Ibrahim, for the mutual jealousies of England and Russia threatened otherwise to retard the pacification of Greece indefinitely. On the 19th July 1828 a protocol was signed, accepting the offer of France; and on the 30th August an army of fourteen thousand men, under the command of General Maison, landed at Petalidi in the Gulf of Coron. The convention concluded by Codrington at Alexandria had been ineffectual. It required the imposing force of the French

¹      Lesur, Annuciire Historique, 1829.

²      Codrington’s despatch, in Documents relating to the Recall of V. A. Codrington, P- 35-

28

FOREIGN INTERVENTION.

general to compel Ibrahim to sign a new convention for the immediate evacuation of the Morea. This convention was signed on the 7th of September 1828, and the first division of the Egyptian army, consisting of five thousand five hundred men, sailed from Navarin on the 16th. Ibrahim Pasha fol­lowed with the remainder on the 5th October; but he refused to deliver up the fortresses to the French, alleging that he had found them occupied by Turkish garrisons on his arrival in Greece, and that it was his duty to leave them in the hands of the sultan’s officers.

After Ibrahim’s departure, the Turks refused to surrender the fortresses, and General Maison indulged their pride by allowing them to close the gates. The French troops then planted their ladders, scaled the walls, and opened the gates without any opposition. In this way Navarin, Modon, and Coron fell into the hands of the French. But the castle of Rhion offered some resistance, and it was found necessary to lay siege to it in regular form. On the 30th October the French batteries opened their fire, and the garrison surrendered at discretion.

France thus gained the honour of delivering Greece from the last of her conquerors, and she increased the debt of gratitude by the admirable conduct of the French soldiers. The fortresses surrendered by the Turks were in a ruinous condition, and the streets were encumbered with filth accumu­lated during seven years. All within the walls was a mass of putridity. Malignant fevers and plague were endemic, and had every year carried off numbers of the garrisons. The French troops transformed themselves into an army of pioneers; and these pestilential mediaeval castles were converted into habitable towns. The principal buildings were repaired, the fortifications improved, the ditches of Modon w^ere purified, the citadel of Patras reconstructed, and a road for wheeled carriages formed from Modon to Navarin. The activity of the French troops exhibited how an army raised by conscription ought to be employed in time of peace, in order to prevent the labour of the men from being lost to their country. But like most lessons that inculcated order and system, the lesson was not studied by the rulers of Greece.

CHAPTER II.

Presidency of Count Capodistrias, January 1828 to October 1831.

Character of Count John Capodistrias.—First administrative measures as presi­dent.— His opinions and policy.—Organization of the army. — Fabvier’s resignation.—Operations in Eastern and Western Greece.—Termination of hostilities.—Civil administration.—Viaro Capodistrias.—Financial admini­stration.—Judicial administration.—Public instruction.—National Assembly of Argos.—Protocols of the three protecting powers.—Prince Leopold of Saxe- Coburg sovereign of Greece.— His resignation.— Capodistrias becomes a tyrant.—Hostility to the liberty of the press.—Tyranny of Capodistrias.— Affair of Poros.—Destruction of the Greek fleet.—Sack of Poros.—Family of Mavromichales.—Assassination of Capodistrias.

The struggle for independence unfolded some virtues in the breasts of the Greeks which they were not previously supposed to possess. But a few years of a liberty that was mingled with lawlessness could not be expected to efface the effects of old habits and a vicious nurture. National energies were awakened, but no national responsibility was felt by individuals, so that the vices of modern Greek society were in each class stronger than the popular virtues which liberty was endeavouring to nourish. The mass of the people had behaved well; but the conduct of political and military leaders, of primates and statesmen, had been selfish and incapable. This was deliberately proclaimed by the National Assembly of Troezene in 1827, when public opinion rejected all the actors in the Revolution as unworthy of the nation's confidence, and elected Count Capodistrias president of Greece on the 14th April 1827 for a period of seven years¹.

¹ Mamouka, vii. 132, and ix. 97. The decree is sometimes dated 3rd (15th) April, which was Easter Sunday. It was adopted on Saturday, but signed by many members on Sunday.

qo   PRESIDENCY OF CAPODISTRIAS.

‘                              [Bk.V.Ch.Il. ;

The decree wliich conferred the presidency on Capodistrias declared that he was elected because he possessed a degree of political experience which the Othoman domination had pre­vented any native Greek from acquiring. Much was therefore | expected at his hands. It is the duty of the historian not j only to record his acts, but to explain why his performances i fell short of the expectations of the nation.        I i

Capodistrias was fifty-one years of age when he arrived in | i Greece. He was born at Corfu. His ancestors had received J ; a title of nobility from the Venetian republic, but the family |j i was not wealthy, and the young count, like many Corfiot j| , nobles, was sent to Italy to study medicine, in order to gain . his livelihood^l. In 1803 he commenced his political career, i being appointed secretary to the newly created republic of ! the Ionian Islands; in 1807, when Napoleon I. annexed the : Ionian Islands to the French empire, he transferred his ser­vices to Russia, where accident gained him the favour of the Emperor Alexander I.; and in 1815 he was employed in the negotiations relating to the treaty of Paris. At that time he exerted himself, and was allowed to employ all the influence of the Russian cabinet, to re-establish the Ionian republic ; but Great Britain insisted on retaining possession of these islands, and of holding complete command over their govern­ment, as a check on Russian intrigues among the orthodox population of the Othoman empire. Capodistrias was conse­quently obliged to rest satisfied with the concession that the Ionian Islands were to be formed into a separate, but not an independent, state under the British crown, instead of being, like Malta, declared a dependency of the British empire. Capodistrias hoped that even this might be rendered sub­servient to his ambitious schemes. He affected great contempt for English dulness, and he hoped that English dullards might be inveigled into favouring his views in the East. He never forgave English ministers for foiling his diplomatic projects, and the rancorous malevolence of his nature led him into several grave political errors. He hated England like an Ionian, but he indulged and exhibited his hatred in a way that was very unlike a statesman.

The patriotism of Capodistrias was identified with orthodoxy

¹ Koleltes, Glarakes, Zographos, Rhodios, and many other Greeks who acted a prominent part during the Revolution, were doctors.

CHARACTER OF CAP0D1STRIAS.   31

A.D. I828.]

and nationality, not with civil liberty and political indepen­dence. To the social progress of the bulk of the population in Western Europe during his own lifetime he paid little attention, and this neglect prevented his observing the influ­ence which public opinion already exercised on the general conduct of most cabinets. He overrated the influence of orthodoxy in the Othoman empire, and the power of Russia ⁿ in the international system of Europe. All this was quite i natural, for his experience of mankind had been acquired

I      either in the confined and corrupt society of Corfu, or in the

II    artificial atmosphere of Russian diplomacy.

i| Yet with all his defects and prejudices, Capodistrias was I immeasurably superior to every Greek whom the Revolution •f I had hitherto raised to power. He had many virtues and 8 great abilities. His conduct was firm and disinterested ; his I manners simple and dignified. His personal feelings were j warm, and, as a consequence of this virtue, they were some­times so strong as to warp his judgment. He wanted the equanimity and impartiality of mind and the elevation of soul necessary to make a great man.

The father of Capodistrias was a bigoted aristocrat, and his own youthful education was partly Venetian and partly Greek. His instruction was not accurate, nor was his reading extensive, so that, through the cosmopolite intellectual cultivation of his later years, his provincial ideas often peeped out. He generally used the French language in writing as well as speaking. He was indeed unable to write Greek, though he spoke it fluently. Italian was of course his mother tongue. For a statesman he was far too loquacious¹. He allowed

I everybody who approached him to perceive that on many great political questions of importance in Greece, his opinions were vague and unsettled. At times he spoke as a warm 1 panegyrist of Russian absolutism, and at times as an j enthusiastic admirer of American democracy.

! Before accepting the presidency, Capodistrias visited Russia,

¹ and obtained the approbation of the Emperor Nicholas. He arrived in Greece in the month of January 1828, and found

¹ General Pellion says, ‘Tous ceux qui ont connu particuliercment Capodistrias ■ savent que, parlant avec une etonnante facilile et parlant beaucoup, il se laissait parfois aller a des indiscretions fort extraordinaires.’ La Grece et les Capodistrias

i pendant V Occupation Fran raise de 1828 d 1834. Tricoupi, who was the president’s secretary, says, ’EA.nA.et aWa Sev ’eypatpev ‘EWrjuitTTi (W. 247).

02   PRESIDENCY OF CAPODISTRIAS.

'                               [Bk.V. Ch.II.

the country in a state of anarchy. The government had been compelled to wander from one place to another, and had rendered itself contemptible wherever it appeared. In Novem­ber 1826 it fled from Nauplia, and soon after established itself at Aegina. In 1827 it removed to Poros. In consequence of a decree of the National Assembly of Troezene, it returned to Nauplia, but its presence caused a civil war, and it went back to Aegina.

^The first measures of Capodistrias were prompt and judi­cious. He could not put an immediate stop to some of the grossest abuses in the army, navy, and financial administra­tion, without assuming dictatorial power. The necessity of this dictatorship was admitted ; and the manner by which he sought its ratification from the existing government and the representative body, was generally approved. To give his administrative changes a national sanction without creating any check on his own power, he established a council of state, called Panhellenion, consisting of twenty-seven members, divided into three sections, for the consideration of admini­strative, financial, and judicial business. Decrees of the president were to be promulgated on reports of the whole Panhellenion, or of the section to which the business of the decree related. Capodistrias announced that he would con­voke a national assembly in the month of April, and the warmest partizans of representative institutions allowed that the state of the country rendered an earlier convocation impracticable¹.

But after making these concessions to public opinion, Capodistrias began to display his aversion to any systematic restraint on his arbitrary powers. He violated the provisions of the constitution of Troezene without necessity, and by his proceedings soon taught the liberal party to regard him as the representative of force and not of law. Yet a clear per­ception of his position and his interest would have shown him that his power could have no firm foundation unless it was based on the supremacy of right.

The opinions and the policy of Capodistrias during his presidency are revealed by Count Bulgari, another Greek, who was Russian minister in Greece, and who w^ras understood

¹      Proclamation, dated 20th January, 18’S. Feyi/ct) ’Efijpepis, 25th January, 1828.

OPINIONS OF THE PRESIDENT.    33

A.D. 1828.]

to echo the president’s sentiments, even if he did not, as was generally reported, write under his dictation. In a memoir on the state of Greece in 1828, the views of Capodistrias are thus stated: ‘ It would be a strange delusion to believe seriously in the possibility of organizing any government whatever in Greece upon purely constitutional principles, which require a general tendency of the people to political forms, as well as elements of civilization which exist only in a few individuals. The president of Greece thought that it was the duty of the three powers to destroy the Greek Revo­lution by establishing a monarchical government, in order to put an end to the scandalous and sanguinary scenes which made humanity shudder¹.’ These sentiments were repeated by the president both to foreigners and Greeks, and showed on many occasions his want of sympathy with the cause of national independence, as well as his aversion to political liberty. His language constantly insinuated, though he perhaps never directly asserted, that he was the only fit sovereign for Greece. He harped incessantly on the theme, that all the men previously engaged in public business were demoralized either by the Turkish yoke, or by revolutionary anarchy; and he asserted that no permanent improvement could take place in the condition of the Greeks until the living generation had passed away. He called the primates, Christian Turks ; the military chiefs, robbers ; the men of letters, fools; and the Phanariots, children of Satan ; and he habitually concluded such diatribes by adding, that the good of the suffering people required that he should be allowed to govern with absolute power. And perhaps nothing better could have happened to Greece, had it been possible for him to forget that he was a Corfiot, and that he had two or three stupid brothers at Corfu ².

/The presidency of Capodistrias lasted more than three years and a half. It was not, therefore, want of time which prevented his laying the foundations of an administrative system and a judicial organization. The Greeks possessed local institutions of great administrative value ; but instead of making use of these institutions, he wasted much time in striving to undermine them. He argued that no political

¹      Parliamentary Papers—Protocol of 22nd March, 1829, enclosure in annex C.

²      Compare Tricoupi, iv. 285.

VOL. VII.         D

u     PRESIDENCY OF CAPODISTRIAS.

[Bk. V. Ch. II.

good could rest on a democratic foundation. To the reign of law he had a passionate antipathy. He sometimes spoke of the law as a kind of personal enemy to his dictatorship.

He insisted that, to govern Grcece well, his power must be

exercised without limit or restraint, and that the law which                                          i

subjected his arbitrary authority to systematic rules was in                                          i

some degree a mere constitutional delusion. He forgot that ; he required the assistance of the law to prevent his own

creatures from robbing him of the power he had assumed,                                  j |

Unfortunately for Greece, Capodistrias was a diplomatist and                       i|

not a statesman. His plans of government were vaguely                                     J j

sketched in provisional laws. He never framed a precise code-                              ;

of administrative procedure, and, as a natural consequence                              j

of the provisional nature of his government, his ordinances                                 t

were nullified by the agents charged to carry them into                                                     j

execution. While he ridiculed the liberal theories of the                                               j

constitutions of Epidaurus and Troezene, he did not perceive | that his own acts were those of an administrative sciolist.

The president’s attention was early directed to the anarchy                                      a

that prevailed in the military forces of Greece. The extor-                                         tl

tions of the soldiery were ruining all those districts into which                               j o

the Egyptians had not penetrated. The agricultural popula-                                       I

tion was in danger of extermination. The armed men who                                             a

extorted pay and provisions from the country were now the                                      |

followers of military chiefs, not the soldiers of the Greek                                          J

government. In order to form an army, it was necessary to                              a

break the connection between the soldiers and their leaders,                                       |

and to form corps in which both the inferior and superior                                    ! t

officers should depend directly on the president for their                                          j i

authority, and in which the soldiers should look to him for their                            ^! (

pay, subsistence, reward, and punishment. Of military affairs                                         a

Capodistrias was utterly ignorant, and, as usual, he allowed                                      a

his suspicious nature to neutralize the effect of his sagacity,                                     tl

From excessive jealousy of his personal authority he refused                                       )

to employ experienced soldiers in organizing his army, and he                                        g

made a vain attempt to direct the enterprise himself.                                                     1

Demetrius Hypsilantes had proved his inability for or­ganizing an army, and Sir Richard Church had never been t able to introduce any discipline in his camps. Capodistrias t appointed the first to command an army destined to reconquer ; Eastern Greece, and left the second at the head of the

ORGANIZATION OF THE ARMY.    35

A.D. 1828.]

disorganized bands in Western Greece. Fabvier, who had proved himself a good disciplinarian, and had formed regular ‘P battalions under circumstances of great difficulty, was neg- k lected and driven from Greece. Capodistrias had the weakness or the misfortune to name always the wrong man for every '^ll important place. His enemies accused him of fearing the ^la! right man in any office.

The consequence of the unmilitary president attempting ^:(1 to regulate the details of military organization, was that ^ the Greek army remained without either order or discipline. A few reforms were introduced, tending to enable the president to know how many men Greece had in the field, and to diminish the frauds committed in the distribution of rations; and this introduction of a regular system of mustering, ito paying, and provisioning the troops by the central government lif deserves praise, though it was a very small step towards the ive formation of a Greek army.

The circumstances in which the Greek soldiery were placed hy at this epoch of the Revolution afforded great facilities for )r- the introduction of military discipline, and for the formation .eh of an efficient national army of veteran troops. The soldiers la- had eaten up the substance of the agricultural population, ho and were themselves in danger of starvation. Capodistrias, tie holding in his hands the absolute disposal of all the supplies ek from abroad on which the troops were dependent for pay to and rations, could command their obedience to any terms rs, he might impose. The most powerful chieftains only main- ior tained a few followers by seizing the public revenues. They eir were hated by the people for their extortions, envied by eii the mass of the soldiery for the benefits they conferred on irs a few, and in open hostility with the public interests. The ed arrival of Capodistrias annihilated their usurped power, and ty. the chieftains who kept possession of the fortresses of Corinth, ;ed Nauplia, and Monemvasia, in defiance of the preceding he government, were compelled to surrender those places into his hands.

or-ij A camp was formed at Troezcne, to which all the troops en| of continental Greece in the Morea were summoned, in order ias') that they might receive their new organization. The president _]er| appeared and promulgated his scheme for the formation of a lie¹ national army. About eight thousand men, consisting in

q6   presidency of capodistrias.

°                               [Bk. V. Ch. II.

great part of the armatoli who had remained faithful to the                                          j _t

Greek cause, were divided into eight regiments or chiliarchies.                             |j₀

The chiliarchs or colonels, and the other officers of these                                          , „

regiments, were named by the president. Paymasters were                                           jij

also appointed, and a regular commissariat formed, so that                                              jj

an end was put to the previous system of trading in rations.                                       ₍|

The facility with which every reform was adopted by the • _a| soldiers, and their alacrity in preferring the position of

government troops to that of personal followers of individual                                 , [

chieftains, proved that the president might easily have effected                                   1;^

much more than he attempted.        j! j

The new regiments were inspected by the president at                                                •}'(;

Troczene in February 1828. The men had the aspect of                                                  | j_c

veteran soldiers ; still the review presented a very unmilitary                                 j _c

spectacle. The chiliarchies were only distinguished by being                                         jj _s

separate groups of companies. The different companies were                      j ₃,

ranged in various forms and figures, according to the fancies i' ₀₁ of their captains—some were spun out in single files, some

were drawn up four deep, some seemed to form circles, and                                (j

some attempted to form squares. At last the whole army                                            f₍

was ranged in lines, straggling in disorder, and undulating                                  _t(

in unmeaning restlessness. The review, if such a spectacle                                      „

can be called by a military term, was a parade for the pur-                                            j „

pose of enabling the inexperienced eye of the president to                              | ,

count the companies and examine the men of whom they                                            f _p

were composed.               | ,

At a later period Capodistrias attempted to carry his                                                    • _f

organization a step farther. In the autumn of 1829, after                                           J _l

the termination of the war against the Turks in continental                                ' .

Greece, he again mustered the chiliarchies at Salamis. His                                              [ ₍

military counsellor was Colonel Gerard, a French officer, : ₍ whom he had appointed inspector of the Greek army. The troops present did not exceed five thousand men, who were divided into twenty battalions, and each battalion was composed of four companies. The commanders of the new battalions were called taxiarchs, and the chiliarchs were ranked as generals. Paymasters were appointed to each battalion, and commanders were deprived of all control over the military chests. Had Capodistrias, when he introduced this new organization, settled the supernumerary officers who were willing to become agriculturists on national lands, he

ORGANIZATION OF THE ARMY.    37

A.D. 1828.]

might have broken up the system of farming the revenues of the country to military men, which the chieftains had introduced, and saved Greece from the calamity of nourishing in her breast a second generation of these vipers.

Demetrius Hypsilantes was appointed to command the chiliarchies formed at Troezene, and he established a camp at Megara. But though he was at the head of eight thousand armatoli, and the Turks had not four thousand men in Eastern Greece, he remained for seven months in utter idleness. No attempt was made to drill the men, to instruct the companies in the manoeuvres of light infantry, nor to teach the chiliarchies the tactics of an army. Capodistrias justly reproached Hypsilantes with his inactivity and in­capacity; but he forgot that it was his own duty to frame systematic regulations for the discipline of the whole Greek army, and to transmit both to Hypsilantes and Church precise orders to carry these regulations into effect.

Amidst the military reforms of Capodistrias he neglected the regular troops. Yet he was well aware that this body formed the only corps on which the government could always rely. Indeed this fact contains the true explanation of his neglect. The regular corps was a body that from its per­manent nature would identify itself with the executive government of Greece. The semi-organized battalions of regulars were held in direct dependence on the personal will and favour of Count Capodistrias. The president wished everything in Greece to be provisional until he should be appointed president for life, or sovereign of the country. But that he might have it in his power to strengthen the regular corps when he required its services, he revived the law of conscription passed by the Greek government in 1825. The pay of Fabvier’s corps had fallen ten months into arrear after the unfortunate expedition to Chios. Instead of paying these arrears and retaining Fabvier’s veterans under arms, he allowed them to disband themselves. These men were attached to Fabvier, and Capodistrias was jealous of Fabvier’s influence. But as it was necessary to gain credit in Western Europe for a wish to form a regular army, the president pretended that it was impossible to obtain men without the conscription, and he commenced enforcing the law in some of the islands of the Archipelago. In this case his conduct

PRESIDENCY OF CAPODISTRIAS.

‘                               [Bk.V. Chll.

was marked by excessive duplicity, for he knew well that

it would have been more economical to retain the veterans

of the regular corps by paying the ten months’ arrears which

were due to them, than to enrol new recruits ; and he was not

insensible to the folly of withdrawing active labourers from

the cultivation of the soil in the only part of Greece where

agriculture was pursued in security and with profit. As soon

as Fabvier perceived that the military plans of the president

were subordinated to personal schemes of ambition, he resigned

his command, as has been already mentioned, and quitted

Greece in May 1.828 \

Hypsilantes, as has been said, passed the summer of 1828 at Megara. The Russian war compelled Reshid Pasha to leave continental Greece and Epirus almost destitute of troops, and he was threatened with an insurrection of the Albanian chieftains in his own pashalik of Joannina. In autumn the Greeks advanced to Lombotina, famous for its apples, and drove the Turks into Lepanto. Hypsilantes about the same time occupied Boeotia and Phocis, and on the 29th of November the Turks in Salona capitulated, and the capitulation was faithfully observed by the Greeks, On the 5th of December Karpcnisi was evacuated. A few insignificant skirmishes took place during the winter. The Turks were too weak to attempt anything, and the anarchy that still prevailed among the Greek chiefs prevented the numerical superiority of the Greek forces from being available ².

The army of Western Greece was not more active than

¹      The law of conscription was put in operation by a circular addressed to the municipalities; Tm/cij ’E^/xfpi's, 25th April, 1828; yet in March, 1830, the number of Capodistrias’ regulars only amounted to two thousand two hundred and fifty.

²      Two examples of lhe condition of the Greek army may be cited:—‘ Dr. Howe gave 12,000 lb. of beans to the Megarians to sow their fields. To-day a deputa­tion informed him that the troops who had returned to Megara were cutting down all the young plants for salad, and the officers were feeding their horses on them. They solicited llowe to use his influence with the president to prevent the entire destruction of their crop.’ MS. Journal, 20th February, 1829. Captain Hane reports that a regular trade in provisions was carried on by some men with the Turks, and the supplies were drawn from Sir Richard Church’s camp. Fabricius, who commanded the Helvetia, slopped a vessel laden with provisions attempting to reach 1’revesa, and as she had a passport signed by the generalissimo, he sent her to Dragomestre, where Sir Richard Church released her without waiting for a decision of lhe Admiralty Court. Hastings, on returning from Western Greece in 1S2S, complained of similar conduct. He wrote: ‘To conciliate the unprin­cipled chieftains, Church ruins the army.’

OPERATIONS IN WESTERN GREECE.   39

A.D. 1829.]

that of Eastern during the summer of 1828. Capodistrias visited the camp of Sir Richard Church near Mytika, and he declared that, on inspecting the troops in Acarnania, he found less order than in those he had reviewed at Troezene. This visit gave the president a very unfavourable opinion of the generalissimo’s talents for organization. In September the Greeks advanced to the Gulf of Arta, and occupied Loutraki, where they gained possession of a few boats. Capodistrias named Pasano, a Corsican adventurer, to succeed Hastings as commander of the naval forces in Western Greece. Pasano made an unsuccessful attempt to force the passage into the Gulf of Arta, but some of the Greek officers under his command, considering that he had shown both cowardice and incapacity in the affair, renewed the enterprise without his order, and passed gallantly under the batteries of Prevesa^l. This exploit secured to the Greeks the command of the Gulf of Arta. Pasano was recalled, and Admiral Kriezes, a Hydriot officer of ability and courage, succeeded him. The town of Vonitza, a ruinous spot, was occupied by the Greek troops on the 27th December 1828 ; but the almost defenceless Venetian castle did not capitulate until the 17th March 1829. The passes of Makronoros were occupied in April.

Capodistrias, who had blamed both Hypsilantes and Church for incapacity, now astonished the world by making his brother Agostino a general ².

Count Agostino Capodistrias, besides not being a military man, was really little better than a fool; yet the president, blinded by fraternal affection, named this miserable creature his plenipotentiary in Western Greece, and empowered him to direct all military and civil business. The plenipotentiary arrived in the Hellas. On the 30th April 1829, the garrison of Naupaktos (Lepanto) capitulated, and was transported to Prevesa. On the 14th May, Mesolonghi and Anatolikon were evacuated by the Turks.

Reshid Pasha escaped the mortification of witnessing the loss of all his conquests in Greece. His prudence and valour were rewarded with the rank of grand-vizier, and he

¹      The Greeks lost one killed and three wounded.

²      Tricoupi says, 'O Kv/3epvr]Tj]s e/xeixcpeTO tuv apxiGrpa.Tri’yov teal rbv aTparapxr)v ws ava£iovs t77s vif/rjArjs Oeoews tow, iv. 342.

40   PRESIDENCY OF CAPODISTRIAS.

[Bk. V. Ch. II.

quitted Joannina to assume the command of the Othoman arm)’’ at Shumla before the Turks evacuated continental Greecc.

The war terminated in 1829. The Allied powers fixed the frontier of Greece by a protocol in the month of March. Yet the Turks would not yield possession of the places they still held in Eastern Greece, and some skirmishes ensued, in which a great deal of powder was wasted, and very little blood was shed ¹. A body of Albanians, under Aslan Bey, marched from Zeituni by Thermopylae, Livadea, and Thebes, and reached Athens without encountering opposition. After leaving a small and select garrison in the Acropolis, Aslan Bey collected all the Turks in Attica and Boeotia, and commenced his retreat. But on arriving at the pass of Petra, between Thebes and Livadea, he found a body of Greek troops strongly posted to dispute the passage. The Turks, unable to advance, concluded a capitulation on the 25th of September 1829, by which they engaged to evacuate all Eastern Greece, except the Acropolis of Athens and the fort of Karababa on the Euripus. Thus Prince Demetrius Hypsilantes had the honour of terminating the war which his brother had commenced on the banks of the Pruth ; and this action cherished in his mind the delusion that, as the representative of his brother Alexander, he was the right sovereign for Greece. As a military man, he was deficient in tactical knowledge and strategic capacity; as a statesman, he was utterly destitute of judgment ; but his personal courage and private virtues command respect.

Capodistrias did not seek to establish his civil administra­tion on an)^r organized system. He found the Greeks enjoying a greater degree of individual liberty, and exercising in their municipalities more independent political action than he had supposed existed on the continent of Europe ; for his opinions concerning the internal administration of Switzerland, though he had resided there for some time, and laboured as a Russian diplomatist to secure its existence as an inde­pendent state, were very crude. In Greece he mistook the liberty he found existing for the cause of the anarchy that desolated the country, and this anarchy he considered to be a

¹ rl'icoiipi, iv. 365 : IloWfj vvpufcovis (Ka-q. a\\’ o\iyov atfia kx'^ri.

CIVIL ADMINISTRATION.      41

A/D. 1829.]

necessary consequence of a municipal system, which in his opinion, established the sovereignty of the people. He determined to eradicate every germ of a power which appeared to him to have transfused the elements of revolu­tionary action into the frame of society ; and he began to weaken the municipalities by converting the demogeronts into agents of the executive authority. To eradicate revolu­tionary principles, he created a governmental police, and rendered its members responsible to him alone for the exercise of their powers. His plan of government was very simple, but really impracticable. He retained in his own hands the absolute direction of every branch of the public administration, declaring that nothing could be permanently settled concerning the internal organization of the country until the three powers had decided its external position as an independent state. The real object was to render his ser­vices indispensable either as prime minister, hospodar, prince, 01/king.

/ Capodistrias divided the Morea into seven provinces, and tW' islands into six. These provinces were governed pro­visionally by thirteen extraordinary commissioners, to whom he entrusted great and ill-defined authority¹. Immemorial usages, and old as well as new political institutions, were suspended, and the despotism of these Greek pashas was restrained by no published instructions, no fixed forms of proceeding, and no judicial authority, j

The evil effects of arbitrary power 3vere soon visible. Ibra­him’s conquests, the financial corruption of lvonduriottes’ government, and the military anarchy that succeeded, had paralyzed the action of the municipalities. Instead of re­moving abuses and restoring their vigour, they were robbed of all independent action, even in the direction of their local affairs. The commissioners of Capodistrias presided at the election of new demogeronts ; and these newly-elected muni­cipal magistrates were converted into subordinate agents of the president’s Minister of the Interior. By this change in

I the local institutions of Greece, the way was prepared for their complete nullification by the Bavarians.

| The operation of Capodistrias’ government may be ex-

¹ Tfvncfj ’Eiprj/xepis, 18th and 21st April, 1828.

I

\

4Z                                         PRESIDENCY OF CAPODISTRIAS.                       j

[Bk.V.Ch. II. j.

emplificd by citing the proceedings of Viaro Capodistrias, ;, who was considered the most cncrgctic of the extraordinary | ■ commissioners, and who governed the Western Sporades, which ! was the most important province in the islands. Viaro was j the president's elder brother : he was a Corfiot lawyer, and in j him the confined experience gained in a corrupt semi-Venetian ! society was not counteracted by good sense and a benevolent ! heart: he was sulky, obstinate, and insolent. Capodistrias | cannot have been entirely blind to his brother’s defects, for j he drove him away from Russia, though he invited him to j Greece.                                      j

While Capodistrias was a favourite minister of the Emperor j Alexander, Viaro visited Russia, where he met with a very kind reception. For a moment the Corfiot lawyer indulged in visions of wealth and splendour, which were very soon dispelled by his diplomatic brother. One evening, after Capodistrias had waited on some members of the imperial family, he came back to Viaro, and addressed him to the following purport : ‘ I have seen the emperor to-day, and

I                                             have just quitted several members of the imperial family. The emperor is ready to appoint you to an honourable place in his service ; but I must tell you beforehand, that if you accept the offer, I sliall immediately resign my place and return to Corfu. We are foreigners, and we could not both long retain office here. It is for you to decide which of us ought to remain V Viaro believed that he was capable of ruling an empire, but he felt that he could not instantly move with an unembarrassed step among the statesmen and princes of Russia if deprived of his brother’s countenance, j. He therefore returned to Corfu.    I

A more confined sphere of action was opened to him in 1828, but he was entrusted with absolute power over the islands of Hydra, Spetzas, Poros, and Aegina. The elevation was sufficient to turn his head. He arrogated to himself both legislative and judicial, as well as merely administrative, authority, within the bounds of his province, and he exercised the sovereign power he assumed in a very capricious manner.

In virtue of his legislative power he fixed the rate of interest, and in virtue of his judicial he inflicted the penalty of

¹      This well-known anecdote will be found in Metnoires Biographiques Historiques sur le Comte Jean Capodistrias, by A. Papadopoulos Vretos, vol. i. p. 37.

VIARO CAPODISTRIAS. 43

A.D. 1S29.]

confiscation for the violation of this provincial law. He arrested Greek citizens, and retained them in prison, without accusing them of any offence except dissatisfaction with his conduct. He appointed demogeronts without even going through the formality of a popular election ; he superseded those elected by the people whenever they opposed his measures, and replaced them by his own nominees. He named judges without any warrant from the president ; and when a primate of Livadea refused to obey a decision of these judges, he sent the primate to prison. He imposed taxes when he was in want of money, without any vote of the municipalities, or any authority from the central government. He ordered private letters to be stopped and opened ; and he carried his imprudence and folly so far as to break open and read despatches addressed to the En­glish naval officer on the station, though he was assured by Mr. Gropius, the Austrian consul, that these despatches were official orders passing from one ship on the station to another, and which ought not to be passed through the health-office.

The friends of Capodistrias declared that many of the arbitrary acts of Viaro’s administration proceeded from the misconduct of his subordinates. The inhabitants of Aegina, believing this, appealed to the sense of justice of their extraordinary commissioner. They transmitted to him a petition complaining of the oppressive and corrupt conduct of the health-officer he had appointed. Viaro received the document at Poros, and immediately ordered his secretary, who remained at Aegina, to call a meeting of the inhabitants to receive his answer. When the Aeginetans were assembled, the secretary produced the petition, and asked them if that w^ras the paper they had signed and transmitted to Viaro. They replied that it was. The secretary then announced to them that they were convoked to see their petition burned by order of Count Viaro Capodistrias, extraordinary commis­sioner of the president of Greece in the Western Sporades ; and when the document was consumed, they were told that they had received a milder reply than they merited.

The acts of Viaro rendered him unpopular ; his proclama­tions rendered him ridiculous. The Hydriots resisted some of his quarantine regulations, and when the quarantine to

44   PRESIDENCY OE CAPODISTRIAS.

[Bk. V. Ch. II.

which lie had subjected them expired, lie addressed them thus—* Place your confidence in the providence of God and the forethought of your government; but beware of examining the acts or criticising the conduct of your rulers, for you may be led into error, and error may bring down calamity on your heads.’

The folly of Agostino, and the tyranny of Viaro, would have ruined the president without the assistance of any other Corfiots, but he brought over Mustoxidi, a literary man of some merit, and Gennatas, a lawyer in good practice, to aid in exciting the jealousy of the Greeks, who had borne an activc part in the Revolution, and considered themselves entitled to all the spoils of official employment.

Public opinion generally verifies the value of modern governments by the touchstone of finance. The presidency of Capodistrias was not remarkable either for the ability or the honesty of its financial administration. He found the collection and expenditure of the public revenues a mass of fraud and peculation. His overweening self-sufficiency prompted him to assume the whole task of cleansing the Augean stable, and he retained the supreme direction of the finance department in his own hands. His hostility to all constitutional forms prevented him from making use of publicity as a means of controlling subordinate and distant officials, over whose proceedings he could exercise no direct inspection. His admiration of the autocratic system of administration blinded him to the impossibility of applying it without a well-organized body of officials. His want of practical acquaintance with the details of financial business rendered all his schemes for reforming abuses unavailing ; and, as in every other department, his extreme jealousy pre­vented him from employing men who possessed the practical knowledge in which he was deficient. The general conduct of the finance department was entrusted to a board composed of three members. But they were men who possessed little knowledge beyond that of experienced accountants. No payments were made for the service of any ministerial de­partment without an order under the president’s sign- manual. He reserved to himself the task of framing a new financial system for Greece. The consequence of this determination to do everything was, that he neither effected

FINANCIAL ADMINISTRATION.    45

A.D. 1829.]

any improvement, nor allowed others to propose any extensive reform.

The principal branch of the Greek revenues was the tenth of the annual produce of all cultivated land, and an additional rent of fifteen per cent, on all Turkish property which had been declared national \ The Othoman system of farming the taxes was adhered to, and the revolutionary practice of letting large districts to primates and military chiefs, instead of committing the collection to the municipal authorities.

Capodistrias did not restrain the abuses of the farmers of the tenths². He even employed the farming system as a means of strengthening his power. He favoured the chieftains whom he considered to be his personal partizans, and increased their influence by allowing them to farm large districts. By this means they maintained large bodies of military followers as tax-collectors, and the president considered these men as more completely under his personal influence than the soldiers of the government. This policy often led him to sacrifice national advantages to tortuous schemes of personal ambition.

The receipts of the year 1829 exceeded 4,000,000 drachms, and the expense of three thousand regular troops amounted to only about 1,000,000. The sum of 3,000,000 would have been amply sufficient to maintain an army of five thousand regulars, with a due proportion of cavalry and artillery. Now, as the expenditure of the civil government was only estimated at 300,000 drachms, it is evident that an able and honest administration might have laid the foundations of order in the army, and secured an impartial administration of justice by appointing well-paid judges. A man less occupied with diplomatic intrigues, Holy-Alliance policy, and foreign pro­tocols, than Capodistrias, even though of far inferior ability, might, by giving his principal attention to the improvement

¹      The Greek revenues at this time were derived from the following sources:—

i°. The tenth of cultivated land, and 25 per cent, on national property.

2°. The custom duties.

3°. The farming of salt-works and fisheries.

4°. Cattle-tax.

5°. Duties on houses, shops, and mills, on passports, and from quarantines.

²      The island of Aegina enjoyed more direct protection from Capodistrias than any part of Greece, yet the proprietors were often forced to leave ripe figs and grapes ungathered until they bribed the farmer of the taxes for permission to gather them. Cases often occurred in which a part of the crop was lost, because the tax-gatherer delayed visiting any garden of which the proprietor refused to pay the composition which was demanded.

46   rRESIDENCY OF CAPODISTRIAS.

[Bk.V. Ch. II.

of the condition of the agricultural population, have soon raised Greece to a flourishing position, and secured to himself a great historic name.

The administration of the customs was greatly improved. Under the inspection of Colonel Heideck, those of the Gulf of Argolis were raised from 20,000 to 336,000 drachms annually, without any additional duties being imposed, and the revenue derived from the port of Syra was also greatly increased.

A new monetary system was introduced, but it was unfor­tunately based on an erroneous theory, and carried into execution with a defective assay. The monetary relations of Greece indicated that the currency either of France or Austria ought to have been adopted as the standard of the Greek coinage, and there were strong theoretic and practical reasons for preferring the franc as the unit. Capodistrias, influenced by old commercial associations of Levant merchants, struck a new coin called a phoenix (which was afterwards termed a drachma by the Bavarian regency), as the unit of the Greek monetary system ; but in place of making it equal in value to a franc, he made it one-sixth of the metallic value of a Spanish pillar dollar. Now, as the Spanish pillar dollar was a coin circulating in the Levant for commercial purposes at an agio, it was clearly an error to base the monetary system on such a standard. A defective assay also caused an error in the metallic value of the coinage issued by Capodistrias, and the phoenix was issued in small quantity.        .

A national bank was also established in name, but the title was intended to deceive Western Europe, not to facilitate banking operations in Greece. The so-called national bank was nothing more than a loan, opened at first by voluntary subscription. The misapplication of the name caused distrust in a mercantile society like that of Greece ; and the president, finding his persuasion insufficient to induce many wealthy Greeks to deposit money in the national bank, used his political power to compel them to advance money to it. Government took possession of all the sums received ; and before two months elapsed, Capodistrias himself candidly admitted to Captain Hastings that for the time the national bank was only a forced loan.

At a later period the president proposed an excellent finan­cial measure to the national assembly of Argos, but, like too

JUDICIAL ADMINISTRATION.       47

A.D. 1829.]

many of his good intentions, it was never carried into execu­tion. All public accounts were ordered to be submitted to the supervision of a court of control at the end of every quarter.

The absence of any systematic administration of justice was the cause of great national demoralization during the course of the Greek Revolution. Honest men ruined them­selves by fulfilling their obligations ; dishonest men repudiated even those pecuniary debts which they could have paid without inconvenience. To the people it appeared that honesty was not the best policy in pecuniary affairs, and the general ten­dency to financial dishonesty is, as the preceding pages have shown, deeply marked on the history of the Greeks. When Capodistrias arrived, the insecurity of life and property among the agricultural classes threatened the dissolution of society, and the Greeks seemed in danger of becoming a nation of traders in towns and cities like the Jews. The desire to see the supremacy of justice firmly established was one cause of the election of Capodistrias to the presidency, and of the fervour with which he was welcomed on his arrival. He was selected by the almost unanimous voice of his countrymen as the only Greek capable of putting an end to the reign of injustice. Nothing in his political career exhibits his defi­ciencies as a statesman so strikingly as his failure to appreciate the value of a firm and impartial administration of justice. The career of a legislator lay before him. Had he seized the sword of justice and walked boldly forward, he w^rould have soon marched at the head of the Greek nation ; and courts, cabinets, and protocols would have found some difficulty in contesting his right to be the ruler of Greece. But he loved power more than justice ; and yet by not loving justice he lost his hold on power.

The indifference of Capodistrias to the establishment of legal tribunals can only be explained by his love of absolute power. Soon after his arrival, he created a few justices and some minor courts to decide trifling questions. But no legal tribunals were established, and his extraordinary commissioners were allowed to exercise an exceptional and extensive legal jurisdiction, of which his brother Viaro took every possible advantage, and used it with unrestricted licence. A decree organizing civil and criminal tribunals, and establishing a

4<S PRESIDENCY OF CAPODISTRIAS.

[Bk. V. Ch. II.

court of review, at last appeared on the 27th August 1830¹. Capodistrias attempted to excuse his delay by declaring that he had avoided doing anything to circumscribe the authority of the future sovereign of Greece—a futile assertion ; for he well knew that by prolonging anarchy he increased the difficulties in the way of establishing order. As long as Capodistrias had any prospect of retaining the government of Greece in his own hands, he wished to retain all judiciary authority in direct subordination to the executive, as in Russia ; and he was adverse to the promulgation of fixed rules of procedure, and to the constitution of independent courts of law. The Corfiot lawyer, Gennatas, whom he ap­pointed minister of justice, and to whom he entrusted the task of preparing the judicial organization, was the instrument of his views rather from defective judgment than from malevolent intentions. The assembly of Argos declared that the pre­sident ought to render the judges irremovable, but neither Capodistrias nor Gennatas were of this opinion ². This good advice was rejected by Capodistrias, as it has been for more than a quarter of a century by King Otho. But Capodistrias, in the true spirit of despotism, conferred arbitrary powers on the police authorities, and created exceptional tribunals to judge political offences³.

f Capodistrias made a great show of promoting education, /but he did very little for facilitating public instruction, and nothing for improving the intellectual condition of the Greek clergy. Yet he affected to be a friend to knowledge, and he was sincerely devout. Political intrigue'seems to have occu­pied all his thoughts, absorbed his time, and inspired all his actions during his presidency.

He built an immense orphan asylum at Aegina, which was filled with children delivered from slavery and brought back from Egypt. It was from no fault of Capodistrias, perhaps, but the internal management of this establishment was ill- regulated, and it did not prosper. The president ordered many schoolhouses to be built in different parts of Greece, but he had shown so little forethought in the business, that many

Supplement to ISo. 73 of the Vevi/cT) ’E<pr]fj.epts, 10th September, 1S30.

^ Decrees of the Assembly of Argos. No. lij art. 7, 22nd June, 1829. and 110 ⁿ°^/'^{,£riOT? Kai E}7^7f''‘7/^xaT£/(^ AtaSueaoia, published at Aegina in 1830, pp. 11

IH¹

NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF ARGOS.         49

V.D. 1829.]

iVere soon converted into barracks for soldiers. In the towns, government did very little to promote public education, and the governors named by the president more than once pre- /ented teachers from opening private schools. The education Df the clergy was utterly neglected, and a race of priests remained, whose ignorance was a disgrace to the Orthodox Church, and who increased the national corruption. Capo- lytldistrias succeeded in deceiving the Liberals in France, Germany, and Switzerland, into a belief that he was labouring sincerely to improve public instruction, but his personal views are exemplified by two acts. He ordered the professor of Greek literature at Aegina not to read the Gorgias of Plato With his pupils, and he made war on the press at Nauplia¹.

The arbitrary conduct of the president created a constitu­tional opposition to his administration, and he found himself obliged to convoke a national assembly, in order to give a sanction to his dictatorial power. His popularity with the d¹ people in the Morea was very great, for his government had ^delivered them from the Egyptians, and established some sjbetter guarantees for the protection of life and property than had previously existed. In a freely elected chamber of deputies he would have’been sure of a large majority, but he wished to silence all opposition, and he adopted many violent and illegal measures to exclude every man whom he deemed a Liberal. In a number of districts where the character of his opponents seemed likely to insure their election, he pro­posed himself as a candidate ; and after securing his own election, it was generally not difficult to obtain the nomination of one of his own partizans in his place. /'

The national assembly of Argos was opened by Capodis­trias in a Russian uniform on the 23rd July 1829. The assembly ratified everything the president had done, and entrusted him with all the additional power he desired. Only the laws which he approved and recommended were passed. He did not venture to obtain his nomination to the presidency for life, for it would have been imprudent to take so important a step in the settlement of the government of Greece without the previous consent of the three Allied powers. But he ob­tained an act of the assembly, declaring that the decisions of

¹       Thiersch, Be l’£tat actuel de la Grice, i. 22 and 54; Tricoupi, iv. 291. VOL. VII.     E

50   PRESIDENCY OF CAT0DISTR1AS.

"                              [Bk.V.Ch. II.

the conferences of London should not be held to be binding

on Greece until they were ratified by the Greek legislature¹.

He trusted to his own diplomatic skill for rendering this

law subservient to his schemes concerning the sovereignty

of Greece.

The Panhellenion was replaced by a senate, but the organi-| zation of this senate was left by the assembly entirely in the f hands of the president. It was a consultative and not a legislative council, and its consent was not indispensable to any laws exccpt those relating to the permanent disposition of the national lands.

Capodistrias was also empowered to name a regency in case of his death, which was to conduct the government until the meeting of a national assembly.

The proceedings of the national assembly of Argos were opposed to the free spirit of the national assemblies of the earlier period of the Greek Revolution. The principle of government nomination too often replaced the old usage of popular election, and tortuous ways were adopted instead of direct courses. Thus, in appointing the senate, sixty-eight names were submitted by the assembly to the president, who selected twenty-one of these candidates to be senators. The. senate was then completed by the addition of six members named by the president.

The establishment of two chambers to share the legislative j pow^rer was contemplated by the assembly, but the president I was entrusted with the arrangements necessary for calling the legislature into existence².

The excessive confidence of the deputies misled Capo­distrias into the conviction that his power was irresistible, and from this time his conduct became more arbitrary, and his personal partizans more insolent.

The proceedings of the three protecting powers gave him great anxiety. He detested England, mistrusted France, and doubted the sentiments of the Russian cabinet, for he felt j that he was not admitted to its secrets. The nomination of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg (Leopold, king of the Belgians) to be sovereign of Greece, disappointed his hopes I and irritated his feelings. He had laboured to convince

¹      Ta ucf) ’E(pTjfifpis, No. 53, 30th July, 1S29.

²      Ibid. No. 53. The decree is dated 22nd July (3rd August), 1829.

PROTOCOLS. 51

A.D. 1829.]

Europe that he was the only man capable of organizing Greece. His ambition was legitimate. But his own double­dealing had prevented even Russia from assuming the respon­sibility of advocating his cause. Had his conduct not been marked by duplicity, and had he sought to attain his object by honest and legal measures, it is probable that he would have succeeded. Diplomacy is not in the habit of working miracles or producing patriots, and neither an Epaminondas nor a Washington was likely to arise among the semi- Venetian aristocracy of Corfu.

The three powers conducted their conferences at London in a slow and vacillating manner, and their protocols, fixing the frontier of the Greek state, were remarkable for ignorance of geography and infirmity of purpose. The principles which ought to have regulated their proceedings were lucidly announced in a report drawn up by their representatives at Poros, on the 12th December 1828 ^x. The measures then recommended were embodied in a protocol signed at London on the 22nd March 1829, and were not very dissimilar from those which were ultimately adopted when Greece was declared a kingdom in 1832 ². The frontier of the Greek state was drawn from the Gulf of Volo to the Gulf of Arta. The annual tribute to the sultan was fixed at about ^30,000. The Turks who had possessed land in Greece were allowed to sell their property. An hereditary sovereign was to be chosen by the three protecting powers, who, though he acknowledged the suzerainty of the Porte, was to enjoy complete independence in legislation, and in all business relating to political government and internal administration. This plan, warmly supported by Sir Stratford Canning (Lord Stratford de Redcliffe), might have been carried into execution without delay, had the Earl of Aberdeen, who was then Foreign Secretary, been as well acquainted with the state of Turkey and Greece as Sir Stratford. Unfortunately the Earl of Aberdeen treated the question with diplomatic pedantry. While Capodistrias was intriguing, while Sultan Mahmud was fuming with rage, and while the population of

¹      Parliamentary Papers—Protocol of a conference of the representatives of Great Britain, France, and Russia, held at Poros 12th December, 1828.

²      Compare the protocol of the 22nd March, 1829, with Annex A to the protocol of the 26th April, 1832.

E 2

fj2   PRESIDENCY OF CAPODISTRIAS.

'                               [Bk. V. Ch. II. I

Grecce was perishing from want, the English Foreign Secre- i tary insisted on reserving to each of the Allied courts the i right of weighing separately the objections which the indignant I sultan might make to the proposed arrangements; and I England and France sent ambassadors to Constantinople to open negotiations with the Othoman government.

While the British government was undecided as to the manner in which it would be most prudent to carry the protocol of the 22nd March into execution, the French gov­ernment offered to complete the pacification of Greece by taking possession of all that part of northern Greece assigned to the new state with the troops in the Morca. The Turks '[ who occupied the country were so few and so ill-provided ; with military, that it was not in their power to offer any m serious resistance. But the English ministers were so averse !⁽ to any further acts of hostility against Turkey, that they i opposed this arrangement, and France yielded to Lord Aberdeen’s objections.   ,

Russia soon took advantage of the scruples and half ! measures of the British cabinet. As soon as the Russian ! army had crossed the Balkan, and Constantinople lay open ₍ to attack, the sultan felt that England and France could alone arrest the progress of his enemy and save his capital. To conciliate their good-will he yielded every point r^! in dispute concerning Greece. On the 9th of September 1829 the reis-effendi notified to the English and French ambassadors that the Porte acceded to the treaty of the 6th of July 1827, and that the Othoman government pledged itself to accept all the arrangements which the Allies might ;J consider it necessary to adopt for carrying it into execution \ | The Greek question might now be considered as termi- ■ nated. But Russia was unwilling to see any cause of dispute 1 with Turkey ended, and she was extremely jealous of the influence which the Western powers were acquiring in the liast. She therefore suddenly gave a new turn to the I negotiations by attempting to appropriate the merit of the final settlement to the emperor’s government. The treaty of Adrianople, which terminated the Russian war, was signed on the 14th September, and the Russian plenipotentiaries, taking

¹      Parliamentary Papers—Annex B to protocol of 3rd February, 1830.

RIVALRY OF THE ALLIED POWERS.      53

A.D. 1829.]

advantage of the vague manner in which the reis-effendi had notified the sultan’s adhesion to the measures for carrying the treaty of the 6th of July 1827 into execution, exacted from the Porte a precise recognition of the protocol of the 22nd March 1829, and, to prevent the Othoman government from making use of its habits of delay, the Porte was expressly bound to name a plenipotentiary for the purpose of carrying the arrangements into effect conjointly with commissioners appointed by the Allied powers^l.

This display of Russian zeal for the freedom of Greece was a severe rebuke to the irresolute policy of the British cabinet, and both France and England felt humiliated by the sub­ordinate position in which Russia had placed them with reference to the final settlement of the Greek question. The emperor Nicholas, with his usual arrogance, assumed that Greece owed her recognition solely to the victories of his armies, and the recent policy of the British government gave a sanction to this pretension. The sultan immediately became ostentatiously obsequious to Russia, and Greece extremely grateful. Capodistrias, observing the apparent increase of Russian influence, had some reason to expect that he might eventually succeed in being selected as the sovereign prince of Greece, if Greece could be retained in a state of vassalage, and not rendered too extensive.

But England and France were not so easily foiled by Moscovite diplomacy as the czar expected, and they took effectual measures to prevent Russia from enjoying a long triumph in the success of her separate action. By conferring new favours on the Greeks they diluted the gratitude due to the Emperor Nicholas. A protocol signed on the 3rd of Febru­ary 1830 abolished the suzerainty of the sultan and declared Greece an independent state. Unfortunately, little gratitude was earned from the Greeks, for the boon of independence was conferred imperfectly and ungraciously. The statesmen who framed this unlucky protocol showed too plainly that their attention was fixed on the secondary object of relieving England and France from the reproach of having been overreached by Russia, and not on the primary object of the alliance, the pacification of Greece on a permanent and

¹      The treaty of Adrianople, art. 10. Lesur, Annuaire Hiztorique, 1829.

.-₄                                         rRESIDENCY OF CAPODISTRIAS.                       j

¹                               [Bk.V. Ch. II. j,

equitable basis. Nominal independence was conceded, but | it was to be purchased by the loss of a considerable territory | inhabited by a warlike population whose constancy and ' courage had contributed much to deliver Greece from the ; Turkish yoke. A considerable number of the troops who \ had been constantly in arms against the sultan was subjected j to his government, and a frontier which offered no security either to Turkey or Greece was traced.                                         I

This new frontier was drawn from the mouth of the J Achelous to the mouth of the Spercheus. Diplomatic igno- J ranee could hardly have traced a more unsuitable line of I demarcation. All Acarnania and a considerable part of ]J Aetolia were surrendered to the sultan. That part of the j continent in which Greek is the language of the people was jj annexed to Turkey, and that part in which the agricultural population speaks the Albanian language was attached to , Greece¹. With such a frontier it was certain that peace could only be established by force ; yet the protocol de­clared that no power should send troops to Greece without the unanimous consent of the Allies. This injudicious proto­col concluded with a foolish paragraph, congratulating the Allied courts on having reached the close of a long and difficult negotiation.

The sovereignty of the diminished state was offered to and accepted by Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg². The s Porte immediately accepted these arrangements. It was not I blind to the advantage of retaining possession of Acarnania j and great part of Aetolia. On the other hand, Capodistrias ; availed himself of the unsuitable frontier to thwart Prince Leopold’s election. He was so sure of the nation’s support that he did not give himself any trouble to conceal his I duplicity. He declared that the decree of the national assembly of Argos deprived him of the power of giving a legal sanction to the provisions of the protocol signed by the Allied powers. He pretended that he was placed in a

¹      \ et Colonel Leake, who had acted as diplomatic agent at Joannina during the government of Ali Pasha, and who was known to be better acquainted with the proposed frontier than any man in Europe, was then residing in London. He was the person from whom accurate and official information could have been obtained, but he was not consulted.

²      Parliamentary Papers. Prince Leopold accepted the sovereignty on the nth February, 1S30.

LEOPOLD SOVEREIGN OF GREECE.     55

A.D. 1830.]

position of great difficulty; that he feared to convoke a national assembly, as the deputies would either protest against the proceedings of the Allies, or violate their duty to their country and their instructions from their electors ; but that he would accept the protocol on his own responsi­bility¹. The ministers of Great Britain, France, and Russia knew that he had drawn up the instructions of the electors to the deputies with his own hand, and they could not overlook the fact, that while he manifested extreme tenderness for the consciences of the deputies, he showed no hesitation in violating his own duty as president of Greece by setting aside a national decree, and accepting the protocol in an illegal manner. His object was clearly to prepare for its repudiation, if it suited his convenience, at a later period.

Greece was so tortured by her provisional condition that the nomination of Prince Leopold was accepted by the people as a boon. Addresses of congratulation were spontaneously prepared. There was an outbreak of national enthusiasm ; and many officials, believing that Capodistrias was sincere in the declaration which he made in public, that he was anxious to give the new sovereign a cordial reception, signed these addresses. At first the president did not venture to oppose the general feeling, but he announced that the previous approval of the government was necessary in order to give the addresses a legitimate character. Shortly after, he ventured to proclaim that every address which had not been submitted to the revision of the agents of his government previous to signature, emanated from obscure emissaries of the opposition. He was seriously alarmed at the eagerness which was exhi­bited to welcome the new sovereign, and put an end to his own provisional administration. His devoted partizans alone knew his private wishes, and they endeavoured to prevent the spontaneous addresses from being signed, and delayed as much as lay in their power their transmission to the prince². After the resignation of Prince Leopold, Capodistrias treated the signature of the spontaneous addresses as an act of hostility to his government, and dismissed many officials

¹      Parliamentary Papers, Annex F, protocol, 14th May, 1830; Lesur. Ann. Hist. 1829, Documents, p. iij.

²      Parliamentary Papers, Annex C, protocol, 26th July, 1830; Circular to Civil Governors of Greece, dated 2nd June, 1830.

r(y  PRESIDENCY OF CAPODISTRIAS.

[Bk. V. Ch. II.

who were innocent of any wish to join the opposition, but who had been misled by his own assurance into a belief that he wished the prince to receive a hearty welcome. In order to neutralize the effect of the popular demonstrations in the prince's favour, the civil governors in the provinces were ordered to prepare other addresses. Many of these were not circulated for signature until the resignation of Prince Leopold was known to Capodistrias, and several of them were antedated^x.

From this period, the secret police, which had been gradually formed under the direction of Viaro and Gennatas, acquired additional power. It became, as in many countries on the continent of Europe, a terrible social scourge². The preference which the great body of the people had shown for a foreign sovereign filled the heart of Capodistrias with rage. He could not repress his feelings, and even to strangers he often inveighed bitterly against the ingratitude of his countrymen.

Yet he endeavoured to persuade the world that the Greeks viewed the nomination of Prince Leopold with dissatisfaction, if not with absolute aversion, and he succeeded so far as to create an impression that the Greeks were at least divided in opinion. He alarmed Prince Leopold with the fear of meeting an unfavourable reception. He attempted to disgust him by suggesting the necessity of his changing his religion, though it was well known that the Greek clergy were then as eager to welcome a Protestant sovereign as the laity.

The condition of Greece at the time of Prince Leopold’s nomination explains the proceedings of Capodistrias. Most of the ablest and most influential men had been driven from the public service, and excluded from the assembly of Argos. The senate was composed of the president’s creatures. The government had not received a permanent organization. No administration of justice gave a sure guarantee for life and property to private individuals. The people suspected that the country was retained in this provisional state to further the president’s schemes of personal ambition. The nomi­

¹      The address of the Psarians was signed at Aegina on the 20th July, but it was dated 7th June. Capodistrias did not inform the prince that the addresses were ready to be transmitted to England until the 26th of July. He was then aware that the prince had resigned on the 21st of May.

²      Thiersch, i. 27; Pellion, 177.

LEOPOLD SOVEREIGN OF GREECE.     57

A.D. 1830.]

nation of Prince Leopold took Capodistrias by surprise, while he was preparing to convince Europe that the Greeks would not accept a foreign sovereign, and to persuade Liberals that the constitutional governments of England and France ought to admit the principle of popular election. He knew how to manage that universal suffrage should elect him sovereign of Greece. When he found his hopes baffled, and saw himself without any national support, he acted like a diplomatist, and not like a statesman. Instead of convoking a national assembly and adopting a national policy, he played a game of personal intrigue. He accepted the protocol to thwart its execution. He violated the law of Greece to keep the conduct of the negotiations in his own hands, and he deceived the prince with false representations.

Prince Leopold, on the other hand, acted imprudently in accepting the sovereignty of Greece before he had made up his mind to assume the immediate direction of the government. And his resignation, after having accepted the sovereignty, deserves severe reprobation. Princes can only be punished for trifling with the fortunes of nations by the judgment of history. The British government also acted most injudi­ciously, both in pressing him to accept, and in permitting him to double about after accepting. The objections he made to the arrangements of the protocol ought to have warned Lord Aberdeen that he was not the man suitable for the contingency. Indeed, it seems strange that the un­friendly correspondence which preceded Prince Leopold’s nomination did not awaken a deeper sense of the responsibility due to the suffering inhabitants of Greece in the breasts both of the prince and of the British ministers.

If Prince Leopold really believed, as he wrote to Lord Aberdeen on the 3rd February 1830, ‘that he could imagine no effectual mode of pacifying Greece without including Candia in the new state,⁵ it was his duty to refuse the government of Greece until Candia formed part of his sove­reignty. Yet he was content to give up Candia and accept the sovereignty on the nth of the month. The Allies were fairly warned not to permit ulterior negotiations on questions concerning which they were determined to make no conces­sions, but they neglected the warning. In the correspond­ence between the British government and Prince Leopold,

58   PRESIDENCY OF CAPODISTRIAS.

[Bk. V. Ch. II.

which was laid before parliament, the prince appears as a rhetorician and not a statesman, and as a diplomatist and not an administrator¹.

Even the dark picture Capodistrias drew of the state of Greece, and the difficulties likely to await the prince on his arrival, did not warrant Prince Leopold’s retiring from his engagement. But Prince Leopold all along trifled with the awful responsibility he had assumed. It was his duty, the moment he accepted the sovereignty of Greece, to invite some Greek who had acquired practical experience in public business during the Revolution, to attend his person and act as secretary of state. He ought immediately to have sum­moned a council of state, of which he might have invited Capodistrias to name a few members. With constitutional advisers, Prince Leopold would have found all his difficulties vanish. The bad faith of Capodistrias in his dealings with the prince is proved by the simple fact that he did not immediately send to London such men as Glarakes, Rizos, Psyllasj and Tricoupi, for he had employed them all in high office, and knew that, whatever might be their deficiencies, they were men of education and personal integrity. The president may be excused for not trusting party leaders like Mavrocordatos, Metaxas, or Kolettes ; but when the prince asked for a confidential adviser, it was insulting Greece to send Prince Wrede, a young Bavarian, who had arrived in the country after the termination of the war, and who knew very little more of the social and political condition of Greece than the Greeks knew of his existence. Indeed, Capodistrias himself knew only that the man he sent was called Prince Wrede, and had been recommended to General Heideck. It would have been almost impossible, among the foreigners then in Greece, to have selected a person so utterly incom­petent to furnish Prince Leopold either with information or counsel. Jealousy and duplicity, as usual, were too strong in the breast of Capodistrias to admit of his concealing them.

Prince Leopold, after wearying the Allies and tormenting the English ministers with his negotiations, resigned the

¹      Parliamentary Papers. Communications with Prince Leopold relating to the sovereignty of Greece particularly letters of Lord Aberdeen to Prince Leopold, 3ist January, 1830, and Prince Leopold to Lord Aberdeen, 3rd February, 1S30.

PRINCE LEOPOLD'S RESIGNATION.      59

A.D. 1830.]

sovereignty of Greece on the 17th May 1830. Whether he would have gained in Greece the honour he has won as a wise ruler on the throne of Belgium, cannot be known ; but when we reflect how many years of anarchy he would have saved the Greeks, it must be owned that he would have served humanity well by estimating more accurately than he did estimate it the responsibilities he incurred when he accepted the sovereignty of Greece.

The position of Capodistrias was changed, and his power was shaken, by the nomination of Prince Leopold, nor did he recover either his influence or his equanimity on the prince’s resignation. As often happens to successful intriguers, he found himself embarrassed by his false pretences and pro­visional measures. He had told the Greeks that it was necessary to put an end to the Revolution. They re-echoed his own phrases, and clamoured for the establishment of permanent institutions, and, above all, for legal tribunals. Capodistrias was puzzled to find that the people to whom he looked for support, were thwarting his measures when they believed they were assisting him to gain popularity. The president’s firmness was further shaken by the French Revo­lution of July 1830, which placed Louis Philippe on the throne of France. This event encouraged the members of the constitutional opposition in Greece to commence an open and systematic hostility to his arbitrary measures. Shortly after this, he was still further alarmed by the insurrection in Poland, which he feared would prevent Russia from sup­porting the principles of the Holy Alliance against England and France. He was now compelled to hear his conduct arraigned. He was reproached with perpetuating anarchy in Greece, and with calumniating the Greeks by representing them as enemies of order. His administrative capacity was called in question, and his misgovernment was pointed out. But the mass of the nation wished reform, not change of government; and even his illegal proceedings were submitted to with patience. Viaro, it is true, became every day more hateful on account of his insolence ; Agostino every day more ridiculous on account of his vanity.

Henceforward the government of the president became rapidly more tyrannical. Arrests were made without legal warrants. Spies were generally employed by men in office.

Go  PRESIDENCY OF CAPODISTRIAS.

[Bk. V. Ch. II.

Yiaro, Mustoxidi, and Gennatas, collectcd round them a herd of Ionian satellites, who made a parade of the influence they exerted in the public administration. The partizans of Capo­distrias began to believe that he would succeed in obtaining the presidency for life. Agostino, his younger brother, pre­tended to be his political heir. He acted the generalissimo, and formed a body-guard of personal dependants, who were better clothed and paid than the rest of the army. This conduct excited indignation among the veteran armatoli, who conceived a deep-rooted resentment against the whole Capodistrian family.

The Revolution established the liberty of the press, of which the Greeks had made a moderate and intelligent use. As early as 1824, political newspapers of different parties were published simultaneously at Mesolonghi, Athens, and Hydra. In 1825 the government found it necessary to establish an official gazette (Tewk?) ’Ecpyjixepi'i) at Nauplia. Capodistrias silenced the press, and the Greeks, unable to discuss their grievances, resorted to force as the only means of removing them.

Polyzoides, a man of moderate opinions, a lawyer, and a Liberal, deemed the time favourable for the establishment of a political and literary newspaper of a higher character than any which had survived the hostility of the president’s government. There is no doubt that he contemplated strengthening the Liberal party, and gaining proselytes to the constitution. His conduct was strictly legal. By the law of Greece the press was free; but to comply with the police exigencies of a suspicious government, copies of the prospectus of the new paper, which was called the Apollo, were sent to the minister of public instruction, and to the president. Viaro, who acted as minister of justice, sent to inform the editor, that as no law existed regulating the publication of newspapers, the power of licensing their publication belonged to the government. The pretension was very Venetian, and in direct opposition to the law declaring the press to be free. Polyzoides resolved to obey the law; Viaro was determined to enforce his authority.

Early on the morning fixed for the publication of the Apollo, the chief of the police of Nauplia, followed by a strong guard, entered the printing-office and seized the press,

TYRANNY OF CAPODISTRIAS.        6l

A.D. 1831.]

then at work, without presenting any warrant. The editor sought redress from Viaro, and presented a petition to the senate, but his demands were neglected. It was evident that the will of Count Capodistrias was more powerful than the law of Greece. The president had himself inaugurated a new period of revolution. Men’s minds were excited, and the Liberal party was irritated. The state of public affairs, both in Greece and on the continent of Europe, caused information to be eagerly sought after from other sources than the government papers, and the Greeks waited anxiously for the result of the contest between Capodistrias and the Apollo. A law circumscribing the liberty of the press was passed hurriedly through the senate. But while Viaro was pluming himself on his victory, the Apollo made its appear­ance at Hydra on the 31st March 1831, and its publication was continued under the protection of the Albanian munici­pality of that island until the assassination of Capodistrias¹.

Maina had already resisted the president’s authority. Hydra now called the legality of his proceedings in question. The president attempted to apologize for his arbitrary acts, by pleading the provisional nature of his government. His greatest fear was publicity. He felt that his motives would not bear investigation better than his deeds. He had suc­ceeded in silencing the press abroad, and it now braved him at home. The Courricr of Smyrna had criticised his measures with freedom, and published his edicts with severe comments. By the intervention of the Russian minister at Constanti­nople, he obtained from the Othoman government an order to the editor to abstain from criticising the conduct of the president of Greece².

Capodistrias advanced in the path of tyranny; the Greeks prepared for open insurrection. Many persons were arrested on suspicion, and remained in prison without being accused of any offence or brought to trial ³. Some just and more unjust accusations were made against men who disapproved

¹      The Apollo was published twice a-week. While revising these pages, I have turned over the numbers of this paper, and 1 am surprised to find so much modera­tion and good sense in political articles written amidst the storm of party passions that then prevailed.

²      Courrier de Smyrne, 28th November, 1830.

³      Compare the picture of Greece drawn by Sir Stratford Canning in a Memoran­dum dated 28th December, 1831, Annex A to protocol of 7th March, 1S32.

62   PRESIDENCY OF CAPODISTRIAS.

[Bk. V. Ch. II.

of the president's conduct. Actions before provisional courts of judicature were commenced for official acts performed during the Revolution ; yet no private individual was allowed to seek redress in the same courts for recent acts committed in violation of the president’s own laws by the president’s officials. Lazaros Konduriottes of Hydra, one of the most patriotic men in Greece, and one of the few whose public and private character was alike irreproachable, was accused of complicity with pirates. Several eminent men were exiled, and others only escaped the vexations of the police by seeking a voluntary banishment¹. Judges were dismissed from office because they refused to transcribe and pronounce illegal sentences at the suggestion of Viaro. Klonares, a man of some legal knowledge, and of an independent character, was dismissed for signing one of the addresses to Prince Leopold which had not been submitted to the president’s revision. Another judge publicly declared that he was driven from the bench because he refused to give an unjust decision in conformity with the desire of the Corfiot minister of justice. Sessines of Gastuni, the president of the senate, who had been raised to his high office on account of his servility, at last hesitated to support the tyranny of the president, and was instantly dismissed.

Extraordinary tribunals, which acted without fixed rules of procedure, whose members were destitute of legal knowledge, and removable at pleasure, and from whose judgments there was no appeal, were multiplied.

Insurrections followed. The president was particularly irritated by prolonged disturbances on the part of the students of Aegina, because these disorders drew attention to his vicious system of public education, and demonstrated the falsehood of the reports he had caused to be circulated in Western Europe.

His difficulties were increased by the disorder in his finan­cial administration. Many of his partizans in the Morea w^rere alienated by his allowing Kolokotrones to enrol an armed band of personal followers, as in the worst times of the Revolution, and collect the cattle-tax. Kolokotrones,

¹ Men of different parties and discordant opinions were united in opposition to Capodistrias at this time: Hypsilantes, Mavrocordatos, Miaoulis, Konduriottes, Tombazes, Tricoupi, Klonares, Zographos, Pharmakides, Church, and Gordon.

AFFAIR OF POROS.         63

A.D.1831.]

as might have been foreseen, acted the part of a military tyrant. He not only persecuted his own personal enemies, but allowed a similar licence to the brigands who followed his banner. Greece was relapsing into a state of anarchy, and several provinces were at last in open revolt.

Maina paid no taxes, and the Mainates were only prevented from plundering Messenia by the presence of the French troops. Hydra constituted itself an independent state, governed by its municipal magistrates. It collected the national revenues in several islands of the Archipelago, and maintained a part of the Greek fleet which espoused its cause. Syra, the centre of Greek commerce, made common cause with Hydra. Capodistrias had driven its merchants into open opposition, by attempting to fetter their trade with the restrictions of the Russian commercial system. A general cry was raised for the convocation of a national assembly, and the president perceived that he must either make concessions to regain his popularity, lay down his authority, or employ force to keep possession of his power. He chose the last alternative, and instead of assembling the deputies of the nation, he commenced a civil war, trusting to the assistance of Russia for the means of crushing Hydra.

Some management was necessary to prevent the diplomatic agents of England and France in Greece from protesting against any employment of force. The greater part of the Greek fleet lay disarmed in the port of Poros ; but a few ships whose captains remained faithful to Capodistrias were still in commission ; and these, when assisted by a force which the Russian admiral promised to supply, would easily re-establish the president’s authority in Syra. The loss of Syra would undermine the power of Hydra ; for its revenues were the principal resource for the payment of the insurgent fleet. The plan of attacking Syra, apparently with Greek ships, but in reality with Russian forces, was well devised, but it was betrayed to the Hydriots by one of the pre­sident’s confidants. The Hydriots determined to anticipate the attack.

Kanares, who was a devoted partizan of the president, commanded the corvette Spetzas, which was fully manned, and lay at anchor in the port of Poros. The municipal

6a   PRESIDENCY OF CAPODISTRIAS.

[Bk.V.Ch.TT.

government of Hydra ordered Miaoulis with two hundred sailors to hasten to Poros, and take possession of the ships and arsenal. The brave old admiral departed immediately with only about fifty men, accompanied by Antonios Kriezes as his flag-captain, and by Mavroeordatos as his political counsellor. On the night of the 27th July 1831 he seized the arsenal and the disarmed ships, and, hoisting his flag in the Hellas, summoned Kanares on board. That officer, refusing to surrender the corvette to an order of the munici­pality of Hydra, was put under arrest, and a party of Hydriots took possession of his ship.

The character of Capodistrias seemed to undergo a revolu­tion when he heard that he had lost his fleet and arsenal. He no longer talked of the blessings of peace, of his own philanthropic feelings, and of the duties of humanity. He declared that he would wash out the stain of rebellion in the blood of his enemies. He called the Hydriots a band of barbarians and pirates, who assailed his authority because it had arrested them in a career of crime and pillage. He now spoke of law, to implore its vengeance, and of justice, to assert that the leaders of the opposition ought all to die the death of traitors. His expressions and his manner breathed a fierce desire to gratify his personal revenge.

The news of Miaoulis’ success reached Nauplia Avhile the ministers of France and England, and the commanders of their naval forces, were absent. The Russian admiral, Ricord, who was at anchor in the port, was induced by Capodistrias to sail immediately to Poros with the ships under his com­mand. At the same time, the president sent a battalion of infantry, two hundred regular cavalry, and a strong body of irregulars, by land, to assist in regaining possession of the town.

Admiral Ricord arrived and summoned Miaoulis to sur­render the arsenal and the ships in the port to the Greek government; but Miaoulis replied that the municipality of Hydra was the only legally constituted authority to which he owed obedience until the meeting of the national assembly. He therefore referred the Russian admiral to the authorities at Hydra, adding that he was resolved to retain possession of the fleet and arsenal as long as the municipality of Hydra left him in command. Ricord threatened to use force ;

AFFAIR OF POROS.         65

A.D. 1831.]

Miaoulis retorted that he knew his duty as well as the Russian admiral.

Affairs remained in this position for several days, when the commanders of the French and English naval forces entered the port accidentally before returning to Nauplia¹. They were consequently ignorant of the resolutions which might have been adopted by the residents of the Allied powers at Nauplia, and to prevent bloodshed they arranged with Ricord and Miaoulis that matters should remain in their actual con­dition until they should visit Nauplia and return with the decision of the Allies. It seemed at the time a strange pro­ceeding, that both commanders should go to search for this decision, when the presence of one at least was required at Poros to watch the Russian admiral, who was guarding both the entrances into the port with a superior force, and could close them at any moment.

In the mean time, the residents of England and France, having returned to Nauplia, gave the president written assur­ances of the desire of their courts to maintain tranquillity in Greece under the existing government. But they excited the president’s distrust by speaking of conciliation, by recom­mending the convocation of a national assembly, and by refusing to order their naval forces to co-operate with Admiral Ricord in attacking the Hydriots.

The Russian admiral did not wait the return of the French and English commanders to commence hostilities. On the 6th of August a boat of the Russian brig Telemachus, which was guarding the smaller entrance, prevented a vessel bring­ing provisions from Hydra from entering the port. An en­gagement took place, in which both parties lost a few men, but the Russians succeeded in compelling the vessel to return to Hydra.

As soon as Capodistrias found that the English and French residents declined countenancing his schemes of vengeance, he sent off pressing solicitations to the Russian admiral to lose no time in recovering possession of the Greek fleet; and to the officers of the troops on shore to occupy Poros at every risk. He then pretended to listen to the counsels of the resi­dents, and promised to convoke a national assembly. Some

¹      The French officer was Captain, afterwards Admiral, Lalande; the English, Captain, afterwards Admiral, Lord Lyons.

VOL. VII.         F

66   PRESIDENCY OF CAPODISTRIAS.

[Bk.V.Ch. II.

days later a proclamation was issued, dated ist(i3th) August, I convoking the assembly on the 8th (20th) September¹.

The message of Capodistrias was received by Admiral j Ricord as an order to attack Miaoulis, and his operations, in a military point of view, were extremely judicious. He formed j a battery to command the town and the smaller entrance ; and having by this cut off the communications of Miaoulis | ] with a part of the Greek fleet, he ordered the Russians to take I \ possession of the corvette Spetzas and a brig, which were I anchored in Monastery Bay. At the same time the Greek L - troops attacked Fort Heideck, which was occupied by I Hydriots. The Russians and the president’s troops were I completely victorious. The corvette Spetzas was blown up, the brig was taken, and Fort Heideck was deserted by j its garrison.   I

Miaoulis had now only thirty men on board the Hellas, and I the other vessels under his orders were as ill manned.

On the day after the victory of the Russians, the inhabit­ants of Poros offered to capitulate, and it was arranged with Admiral Ricord that a hundred and fifty Greek regular I troops should occupy the town, in order to save it from being plundered by the irregulars. During the night several vessels filled with the families of those who feared the vengeance of I

II

Capodistrias were allowed to pass the Russian squadron un­molested. On the 13th of August a hundred and fifty Greek regulars entered the town of Poros.

Admiral Ricord had promised to wait the return of Cap­tains Lalande and Lyons. The Allied powers were bound by protocol to take every step relating to the pacification of Greece in concert. Miaoulis reposed perfect confidence in this arrangement until he was awakened from his security by the operations in Monastery Bay. And on the morning of the 13th August he observed that the Russian ships removed to stations which placed his ships under their guns. He sent an officer on board the Russian flag-ship to request Admiral Ricord to retain his previous position until the return of the French and English naval commanders, according to his

¹ The existence of this proclamation, however, was not known even at Nauplia until after the events of Poros. A translation will be found in Lettres et Docu­ments Officiels ri-latifs an Denriers Evenenients de la Grece, I 23. This work was distributed in Paris by order of Mr. Eynard of Geneva.

SACK OF POROS.    67

A.D. 1S3I.]

promise ; and he instructed the officer, in case the Russian admiral persisted in taking up a hostile position, to add that Miaoulis, though his crews were insufficient for defence, would destroy his ships rather than surrender them. Captain Pha- langas was ordered to make a similar communication to Captain Levaillant of a French brig-of-war which had just entered the port. Levaillant urged the Russian admiral to wait the return of Lalande and Lyons, but without succcss. Miaoulis inferred that something extraordinary, and not favourable to the views of Capodistrias, must have occurred to induce Ricord to violate his promise. He knew that the president’s object in getting possession of the Greek fleet was to enable the Russians to re-establish his power at Syra and Hydra under cover of the Greek flag. To save his country, he resolved to destroy the ships which might serve as cover for attacking it. At half-past ten, just as the Russian admiral had taken up his new position, a terrific explosion was heard, which was almost instantaneously followed by a second. Thick columns of smoke covered the Greek ships, and when they cleared away, the magnificent frigate Hellas, and her prize, the corvette Hydra, were seen floating as wrecks on the water¹. Miaoulis and their crews escaped in their boats to Hydra.

The troops of Capodistrias rushed into the town of Poros in defiance of the capitulation, and immediately took posses­sion of the arsenal. They then commenced plundering the houses, as if the place had been a hostile city taken by assault after the most obstinate resistance. The inhabitants most hostile to the government of the president having carried off their movables to Hydra, only the innocent who trusted to Admiral Ricord’s assurance of protection remained. They were pillaged of all they possessed, and treated with inhuman cruelty. On this occasion, both officers and men behaved in the most disgraceful manner ; and the sack of Poros is an indelible stain on the conduct of the Greek army, on the character of Capodistrias, and on the honour of Admiral Ricord. The Russian admiral might easily have put a stop

¹ The letter of Capodistrias, printed in Mr. Eynard’s Lettres et Documents (p. 125) gives a correct account of the events at Poros, until he cuts short the narrative, on arriving al the catastrophe, by inseiting a letter of Kanares. This is one of the president’s usual artiticcs of composition. He thus communicates the catastrophe without the necessity of alluding to the cause of the conduct of Miaoulis.

F 2

68   PRESIDENCY OF CAPODISTRIAS.

[Bk. V. Ch. II.

to the cruelties which were perpetrated under his eyes, yet for twenty-four hours he permitted every crime to be committed with impunity. Justice was pow^rerless, unless when some ( Poriot slew a soldier to defend the honour of his family. The ( j historian is not required to sully his pages with a record of the j > deeds of lust and rapine which were committed by the Greek j troops, but his verdict must be pronounced, as a warning to evil-doers. There is no scene more disgraceful to the Greek character in the history of the Revolution ; and horrible tales of pillage, rape, and murder, then perpetrated, long circulated | among the people. Anecdotes of cruel extortion and base avidity were told of several officers. When all was over, the troops returned to Nauplia and Argos with horses stolen from the peasants of Damala, which were heavily laden with the ! plunder of Poros.

The sack of Poros sowed the seeds of disorder in the Greek regular corps, and ruined the reputation of Capodistrias. General Gerard endeavoured in vain to bring back the army to a sense of duty, by blaming the conduct of the troops at Poros with great severity. Rhodios, the minister of war, who was a creature of Capodistrias, protected the worst ; criminals, and deprived the reproaches of the French general | of their influence. This conduct increased the insubordination I which the licence at Poros had created \               l

Capodistrias was soon alarmed to find that even his own partizans spoke with indignation of the conduct of the Russian admiral and of the Greek troops. His enemies pro­claimed that, in his eagerness to revenge himself on Miaoulis, he had given up the innocent inhabitants of a Greek town to pillage and slaughter. To withdraw public attention from the sack of Poros, he was now anxious to talk of a national assembly. The meeting of that assembly was inevitable, but the elections were not likely to be effected without some fierce contests. The president openly acted as the unscrupulous chief of an unprincipled party ; but an avenging fate was at hand. He had indulged his appetite for a bloody vengeance ; he was now sacrificed as a victim to private revenge.

The distinguished part which several members of the

¹ Pellion, 214.

FAMILY OF MA VROMICHALES.   69

a.d. 1831.]

family of Mavromichales acted at the commencement of the Revolution, has been recorded in the earlier pages of this work. The best men of the house fell in battle. Kyriakules and Elias are names which Greece will always honour. Petro- bey, the chief of the family, though a man of no political capacity, was viewed by Capodistrias with ignoble jealousy. He enjoyed considerable influence in Maina, and Maina pos­sessed a considerable degree of political independence. Capodi­strias believed that centralization was the direct path to order, and it was certainly the quickest way of increasing his per­sonal authority. The influence of the family of Mavromichales appeared to be the principal obstacle to the success of his plans in Maina, and he removed its members from every official position which they occupied at his arrival in Greece. His persecutions constituted them the natural champions of the provincial franchises and fiscal immunities of the Mainates.

The lawless liberty that reigned in Maina was extremely offensive to the despotic principles of Capodistrias. He found both bad habits and criminal practices more powerful than either the local or the national government. Murder was legalized by written contracts. Bonds signed by living individuals were shown to the president, in which the penalty, in case of non-fulfilment, was a clause authorizing the holder to murder the obligant, or two of his nearest relations. Capodistrias considered it to be his duty to put an end to a state of society so disgraceful to orthodox Christians in the nineteenth century. He imagined that the people of Maina would aid him in his honourable enterprise, not reflecting that the deeds of vengeance which excited his indignation were considered by the native population as a necessary restraint on a ferocious and faithless race, in a region and among a class where the law was powerless. Murder in Maina answered the same purpose as duelling in other countries where the state of society was less barbarous, and assassination was a privilege of Mainate gentility.

Personal jealousy made Capodistrias select the family of Petrobey as the scapegoats for the sins of Maina. The acts of rapine on shore and of piracy at sea which other Mainates committed were overlooked, and all the strength of the Greek government was employed to crush the detested house of Mavromichales.

70   PRESIDENCY OF CAPODISTRIAS.

[Bk.V Ch. II.

During the celebration of Easter 1830, Janni, the brother of Petrobey, commonly termed the King of Maina, in com­pany with one of the bey's sons, excited the people of Tzimova to revolt against the president’s government. Many complaints had been laid before the Greek government against the acts of violence and extortion committed by this king of misrule, which he found it no easy matter to explain.

1 le therefore declared himself the champion of the privileges of Maina, in order to evade answering for his own misdeeds. The people were in this way induced to make his cause their own. Janni Mavromichales seized the custom-house, and collected the public revenues in order to pay the men who took up arms. But this revolt was soon suppressed by the president, who persuaded George Mavromichales, the second son of Petrobey, to hasten from Argos to Maina, with the assurance that all the disputes between the Greek government and the family of Mavromichales should be promptly and satisfactorily arranged if Janni would come in person to Nauplia. George believed Capodistrias ; Janni believed George, and accompanied his nephew to the seat of government. The president soon violated his word. He put Janni under arrest, and ordered prosecutions to be com­menced against both him and his son Katzakos, who had attempted to assassinate his own cousin Pierakos.

In the month of January 1831, Katzakos escaped from Argos, and about the same time Petrobey left Nauplia to return to Maina in General Gordon’s yacht, which happened to sail for Zante. An insurrection had already broken out under the leading of Constantine, one of the bey’s brothers. The yacht, not being able to touch at Maina, landed the bey at Katakolo, where he was immediately arrested, and sent back to Nauplia as a state prisoner. He was now detained on a charge of treason, and a committee of the senate, with Viaro for chairman, prosecuted the action against him. He was accused of inciting a rebellion in Maina, and of deserting his duty as a senator¹. An extraordinary tribunal, with his prosecutor Viaro as president, was created to try him, and he was imprisoned as a criminal in Itch-kale. About the same time Constantine Mavromichales was decoyed

¹ The report of the committee is given in Eynard’s Lettres et Documents, 127. It forms a general act of impeachment against the whole family.

ASS AS SIN A TION OF CAPOD IS TRIAS.        71

A.D. 183I.]

on board ship by Kanares and carried to Nauplia, where he and George were placed under arrest.      '

Public sympathy was now strongly awakened in favour of the Mavromichales family. It was thought that Petrobey was severely treated, Constantine unfairly entrapped, and George unjustly detained. Constantine and George were allowed to walk about freely within the fortress of Nauplia, attended by two guards during the day. They were loud in their complaints. The mother of Petrobey, an old lady approaching her ninetieth year, petitioned the president to release the bey, who remained in prison untried. No proof could be found of his complicity in his brother’s insurrection, and it was not a crime for a senator to quit Nauplia without a passport. It was reported that both the Russian minister Baron Ruckmann and Admiral Ricord advised the president to release Petrobey. It is certain that Capodistrias consented to allow the prisoner to dine on board the Russian flag-ship at Admiral Ricord’s invitation. It was generally supposed that this permission implied a pardon for past offences ; and when Petrobey, on quitting Admiral Ricord’s table, was con­ducted back to prison, even the partizans of the president were astonished at his conduct. It seems that Admiral Ricord had assured several persons that he would persuade the president to release the bey, and that his interference irritated Capodistrias, who became frequently peevish and changeable after the affair of Poros. Constantine and George were exasperated and alarmed by what they supposed to be a sudden and unfavourable change in the president’s views.

On the 9th of October at early dawn, three days after Petrobey’s visit to Admiral Ricord, Capodistrias walked as usual to hear mass in the church of St. Spiridion. As he approached the low door of the small church, he saw Constan­tine Mavromichales standing on one side and George on the other. He hesitated for a moment, as if he suspected that they wished to address him, and would willingly have avoided the meeting. But after a momentary pause, he moved on to enter the church. Before he reached the door he fell on the pavement mortally w'ounded by a pistol-ball in the back of the head. In the act of falling he received the stab of a yataghan through the lungs, and he expired without uttering a word.

72

PRESIDENCY OF CAPODISTRIAS.

Two guards were in attendance on the Mavromichales, and two orderlies accompanied the president. The assassins attempted to save themselves by flight. The pistol of one of the orderlies wounded Constantine, who was overtaken and slain. His body was carried to the square, where it remained exposed naked to the insults of the populace for several hours. It was then dragged through the streets and thrown into the sea.

The whole town was alarmed by the report of the pistols ; the news of the president’s assassination spread instantane­ously, and the whole population poured into the streets. Yet George Mavromichales succeeded in escaping into the house of the French resident, though at a considerable distance from the scene of the murder. A furious mob followed close at his heels, and demanded that he should be delivered up. His pursuers proclaimed themselves the avengers of blood, and threatened to force open the doors of the French residency and tear the assassin to pieces. Baron Rouen informed them that France must protect the refugee until a formal demand was made for his surrender to justice by the lawful authorities. In a few hours the demand was made ; but to save the criminal from the ven­geance of the people, it was found necessary to convey him to the insular fort of Burdje. His guilt w’as unquestionable, the proof was incontestable. He was condemned by a council of war, and executed on the 22nd of October.

Greece had been depraved by the tyranny of Capodistrias ; she was utterly demoralized by his assassination. She ex­changed the sufferings of illegality for the tortures of anarchy.

The name of Capodistrias remained for some time a party spell, but time has proved the avenger of truth. His talents, his eloquent state papers, and his private virtues, receive their merited praise ; but with all his sophistry, his cunning insi­nuations, and false pretences, they proved insufficient to conceal the wrongs which his vicious system of administration inflicted on Greece.

CHAPTER III.

Anarchy—9TH October 1831 to ist February 1833.

Governing commission refuses to grant a general amnesty.—Second national assembly at Argos.—Romeliot military opposition.—Agoslino president of Greece.—Romeliots expelled frum Argos.—Sir Stratford Canning’s memo­randum.—Romeliots invade the Morea.—Conduct of the residents.—Agostino ejected from the presidency.—Governing commission.—State of Greece.— Anarchy.—French troops garrison Nauplia.—Djavellas occupies Fatras.— Kolokotrones rallies the Capodistrians.—National assembly at Pronia.—Con­stitutional liberty in abeyance.—Intrigues of the senate.—Municipal institu­tions arrest the progress of anarchy in the Morea.—Condition of Messenia.— Position of Kolokotrones and Kolettes.—True nature of the municipal institu­tions in Greece not generally understood.—Attack on the French troops at Argos.—Establishment of the Bavarian dynasty.

(JTIIE assassination of Capodistrias destroyed the whole edifice of his government, which for some time had derived an appearance of stability from nothing but his talents and personal influence. The persons whom he had selected to act as his ministers and official instruments employed his name as their aegis, and rallied round his brother Agostino, who had been treated as the president’s heir, from motives of flattery, at a time when no one contemplated the possibility of his ever succeeding to power.

The senate w^Tas filled with the most daring and unprin­cipled partizans of the Capodistrian policy. A few hours after the president’s murder it appointed a governing com­mission to exercise the executive power until the meeting of the national assembly. This commission consisted of three members—Count Agostino Capodistrias, Kolokotrones, and Kolettes. Agostino was named president. His incapa­city, joined to the irreconcileable hostility between the other two members, induced the senate to believe that it could

74   ANARCHY.

[Bk.V. Ch. III.

retain the powers of government in its own hands. The people judged more correctly, and prognosticated an ap­proaching civil war. A general amnesty for political offences was instinctively felt to be the only means of preserving any degree of order. A few political leaders and military chief­tains, who desired to fish in troubled waters, determined to frustrate all attempts at pacification. A large body of well- paid Moreot troops looked to Kolokotrones as their leader ; a still larger number of the veteran soldiers of continental Greece, whose pay was in arrear, considered Kolettes as their political advocate.

The municipality of Syra made a vain endeavour to consign past contentions to oblivion by acknowledging the authority of the governing commission. The constitutionalists at Hydra made conciliatory proposals to the new executive. They asked for a general amnesty for all political offences except the assassination of the president, and they required that the governing commission should be increased to five members by the aggregation of two persons chosen from among the constitutionalists. These proposals were rejected with dis­dain. Count Agostino pretended that a national assembly could alone grant a general amnesty, and the members of the commission, in order to avoid receiving two colleagues, declared that they had 110 power to enlarge the executive body. The reply was evasive, and felt to be insulting. The exiles only wished a guarantee against governmental prosecutions until the meeting of the national assembly, and they knew that the senate had the power to add to the body it had created.

The contest for absolute power by the Capodistrians, and for life and property as well as liberty by the constitutionalists, was now resumed with embittered animosity. Both parties saw that their safety could only be secured by the command of a devoted majority in the national assembly, and both prepared to secure success in the coming elections by force of arms. Hydra was kept closely blockaded by the Russian fleet.

The influence of the Capodistrians in the Morea gave them a considerable majority in the second national assembly at Argos ; but they derived much of their authority as a party from the open support of the Russian admiral, Ricord. In some places, the Capodistrians, though they formed a mino-

SECOND ASSEMBL V OF ARGOS.  75

ia..d. 1S3X.]

rity, obtained the assistance of a military force, and held a meeting-, in which they electcd a deputy, in violation of every legal and constitutional form. Yet these deputies were received into the assembly, and their elections were declared valid. Both parties circulated atrocious calumnies against their opponents. The Capodistrians accused the French and English of being privy to the assassination of the president. Agostino boasted of his hatred to the French. He dismissed General Gerard from his command in the Greek army, and he intimated to General Guehcneuc, who commanded the French army of occupation in the Morca, that the financial condition of the country imposed on the Greek government the obliga­tion of observing the strictest economy in paying foreigners. On receiving this intimation the French general immediately recalled all the French officers in the Greek service, in order to prevent their being dismissed in the same manner as General Gerard. The constitutionalists at Hydra spread a report that the murdered president had bribed six Hydriot traitors to assassinate the leaders of the opposition ; and it was generally believed that Agostino and Admiral Ricord had sworn to send Miaoulis, and all the sailors who had taken part in the affair of Poros, to Siberia.

The proximity of Argos to the garrison of Nauplia and to the Russian fleet gave the Capodistrians the command of the town. The deputies of Hydra were not even allowed to land at Lerna, for it was considered to be the safest way to exclude opposition. Those of Maina were stopped at Astros. To prevent even a murmur of dissatisfaction with the actual government from being heard in the assembly, the senate named a commission, which was ordered to verify the election of each deputy before he was allowed to take his seat in the assembly. This unconstitutional proceeding was sup­posed to have been counselled by Russia, and awakened very general dissatisfaction even in the Capodistrian party.

(The military chiefs of continental Greece came to the assembly as deputies from the districts in which they pos­sessed local influence, or to which the majority of their followers belonged. They cared little for constitutional liberty, but they were now ready to join any opposition, unless they were allowed to receive the high pay and ample rations which were enjoyed by the followers of Kolokotrones

7 6  ANARCHY.

[Bk.V. Ch. III.

and the other Capodistrian chiefs. Ivolettes was in a position to assist them in their object, and they had not forgotten the liberality with which he had poured the proceeds of the English loans into their hands. Kolettes was not a babbler, like most Greek statesmen. The astute Vallachian could assume an oracular look and remain silent when he wished to conceal his thoughts. In the present case, his prudence led Agostino and his counsellors to suppose that he was intent on retaining his place in the executive body. But it was evident that a number of the continental chiefs would openly oppose the election of Agostino to the presidency of Greece, even though Kolettes might remain neutral. It was resolved to crush this opposition before it could make common cause with the constitutionalists. Several Romeliot captains belonged to the Capodistrian party; of these the most influ­ential were the Suliot chief Kitzos Djavellas, and Rhangos, a captain of armatoli, who on one occasion, as has been already mentioned, joined the Turks.

The Romeliot chiefs came to Argos attended by bands of followers, who. according to the established usage of Greece, were supplied with rations by the government. In this way the partizans of Kolettes assembled about five hundred good soldiers at Argos. All these men had claims for arrears of pay, and most of them had individual grievances, which Capodistrias had neglected to redress. Kolettes warmly supported their claims, and assured them that he would do everything in his power to obtain justice. He was aware that he must unite his cause with theirs, for without their support his political influence would be annihilated. He was distrusted by Agostino, disliked by Admiral Ricord, and hated by Kolokotrones.

For some days before the opening of the assembly, the different factions employed their time in arranging their plans. Some individuals doubtless acted from patriotic motives, but the conduct of the majority of the Romeliots, as well as of the Capodistrians, was guided by self-interest and personal ambition.

The Romeliot chiefs, finding themselves in a minority, demanded that the constitutional deputies who had met at Hydra should be allowed to take their seats in the assembly. Ihis demand was rejected, on the ground that new deputies

ROM ELIOT OPPOSITION.     77

a.d. 1831.]

had been elected, and that these new elections had received the sanction of the commission named by the senate. The Romeliots then drew up a protest containing a declaration of their principles¹. They characterized the nomination of the governing commission by the senate as an illegal act ; they objected to the appointment of the commission to verify the elections of deputies by the senate as an unconstitutional infringement of the right of the national assembly ; and they proclaimed their adhesion to the following principles and resolutions : That national union ought to precede the meet­ing of a national assembly ; that the national assembly ought to verify the elections of its members, and appoint its own guard, as on former occasions. The order in which the con­stitutional rights of the nation were to be discussed was also fixed, and resolutions were proposed, relative to the choice of a sovereign and to the nature of the provisional government which was to act until his arrival. The attempt to interfere with the proceedings of the Allied cabinets displeased their diplomatic agents at Nauplia, and inclined them to favour Agostino and the Capodistrians.

The rival parties trusted more to force than to right. Each assumed that it was the national party, and two hostile as­semblies were opened on the same day.

The deputies of the Capodistrian party, to the number of a hundred and fifty, met on the 17th of December 1831 in the church of the Panaghia, and, after taking the prescribed oath, walked in procession to the schoolhouse, which had been fitted up as the place of meeting for the national assembly. A strong guard, under the command of Kitzos Djavellas, and an escort of cavalry, under Ivalergi, insured a public triumph to the Capodistrians. They met in security, elected their president, issued a proclamation, and proceeded to business.

The Romeliots were not strong enough to make any public display; but they also held their meeting, elected their pre­sident, and issued their proclamation. They called upon the residents of the Allied powers, as protectors of Greece, to enforce a general amnesty, and they invited the French troops in the Morea to occupy Argos in order to preserve order. The residents, knowing that neither party was disposed to

¹ Dated iSth (30th) November, 1831.

78   ANARCHY.

[Bk. V. Ch. III.

obey the law or listen to the dictates of justice, allowed things to take their course.

On the aoth December, Agostino Capodistrias was elected president of Greece, and invested with all the authority which j had been conferred on his murdered brother. He and Kolo- kotrones had already resigned their power as members of the governing commission named by the senate, into the hands of I the national assembly. Ivolettes, not recognising the Capo- distrian assembly, and not having resigned his power, pre- ] tended to be the only man now entitled to conduct the executive government.                                                    j

The Capodistrians feared that, if the Romeliots were allowed | time to summon the deputies from Hydra and Maina to their I aid, they might be strong enough to overthrow the govern­ment. To prevent this, it was resolved to expel the Romeliot chiefs from Argos before additional troops could arrive to I reinforce Kolettes’ partizans. Agostino Capodistrias, Admiral Ricord, Kolokotrones, Metaxas, and Djavellas all agreed that an immediate attack was necessary to insure victory. Once driven beyond the Isthmus of Corinth, the Romeliots might be treated as lawless bands of brigands intent on plunder.

A Russian lieutenant named Raikoff, who had been pro­moted by Capodistrias to the rank of colonel, was summoned from Nauplia, with four guns and a company of artillerymen, to assist the government troops already in Argos. Raikoff was a warm partizan, and pretended to be a confidential agent of Russian policy. Strengthened by this reinforcement, the troops of Agostino attacked the Romeliots. A fierce civil war was carried on in the streets of Argos for two days, before I the Romeliots, though inferior in number and ill supplied with | ammunition and provisions, were expelled from the town and j compelled to retreat to Corinth.

Sir Stratford Canning arrived at Nauplia to be a witness to these proceedings. The three powers had at last come to an agreement on Greek affairs, and selected a Bavarian prince to be king. Sir Stratford was on his way to Constantinople as English ambassador to obtain the sultan’s recognition of the Greek kingdom, and he visited Nauplia to announce to the Greeks the arrangements which had been adopted by the Allies, and to prepare them to receive their king with order and unanimity. Sir Stratford found that Agostino was a fool

SIR STRATFORD CAXXIXG.   79

4.D. lSjI.]

utterly incapable of appreciating either his own position or that of Greece, and he counselled conciliatory measures, and urged the necessity of moderation, in vain. The empty head of the Corfiot was inflated with presumption. Before quitting Greece, Sir Stratford communicated to Agostino a memor­andum on the state of the country, urging him in strong terms to terminate the civil war he had commenced ^l. Though the observations in this document produced no effect on the Greek government, and very little on the ulterior conduct of Mr. Dawkins, Baron Rouen, and Baron de Ruckmann, the residents of the three Allied powers at Nauplia, yet they were so judicious that they made a deep impression on the min­isters in conference at London. The anarchy in Greece threatened to render Sir Stratford’s mission to the sultan use­less ; and he warned Agostino that, by destroying the houses of the peaceful inhabitants of Argos, and plundering their shops, as a prelude to a bloody intestine war, Greece pro­claimed herself in the face of Europe to be unworthy of the independent position as a nation to which the Allied powers were endeavouring to elevate her. This memorandum was supported by formal notes of the residents, recommending Agostino to publish a general amnesty and convoke a free national assembly. But shortly after the departure of Sir Stratford from Greece, the residents ceased to insist on the measures they had advised ; and Admiral Ricord, who had never moderated the violence of his language, continued to encourage the Capcdistrians to push their attacks on the con­stitutionalists with vigour. He gave them hopes of being able to expel the French army of occupation from the Morea, and he pointed out to them the necessity of perpetuating their authority by forcing themselves on the new sovereign as ministers and senators. The position of the French troops who were protecting Messenia from being plundered by the Mainates was rendered so confined, that they were obliged to drive the Capodistrian troops out of the town of Nisi, in order to keep open their communications with their head­quarters at Modon, and secure a safe passage to the peasantry who brought provisions to their camp.

The political atmosphere of Europe was too troubled during

¹ Parliamentary Papers, Annex A to the Protocol of 7th March, 1832. The memorandum is dated 28th December, 1831.

80   ANARCHY.

[Bk. V. Ch. III.

the year 1831 to enable the Allies to bestow more than a > casual glance at the affairs of Greece, whose unsettled con- ( dition was gradually destroying the importance of the country in the solution of what statesmen called the Eastern question. The attention of Great Britain and France was absorbed by the creation of the kingdom of Belgium ; Russia was occupied [I¹ with the insurrection of Poland. But during the winter the condition of Europe became more tranquil, and the fate of Greece was again taken into consideration. On the 7th January 1832 a protocol was signed, authorizing the residents at Nauplia to recognise the provisional government named by the national assembly, which, it w^ras supposed, was a free meeting. On receiving this protocol, the residents, who knew that Sir Stratford Canning’s memorandum was on its way to London, thought fit to recognise Agostino Capodistrias as president of Greece. On the 13th of February another protocol was signed, offering the throne of Greece to Prince Otho, a boy seventeen years old, the second son of the King of Bavaria¹.

In the mean time the Romeliots were preparing to avenge their defeat at Argos. Their preparations went on slowly, until they heard that the Allies had chosen a king for Greece. They saw immediately that it was necessary to overthrow the government of Agostino, in order to have a share in welcoming the new monarch, and a claim to participate in the distribution of wealth and honours which would take place on the king’s arrival.

After their retreat from Argos, the Romeliots formed a camp at Megara. The meeting, which arrogated to itself the title of a national assembly, met at Perachora, where it was strengthened by the arrival of the deputies from Hydra and Maina. Kolettes was supported by most of the eminent men in Greece. Ivonduriottes, Miaoulis, Mavromichales, and Mavrocordatos, and a respectable body of constitutional deputies, sanctioned his proceedings. But the Romeliots looked to arms and not to justice for victory. Constitu­tional liberty was a good war-cry, but military force could

¹ Everything that can be urged in favour of this unfortunate choice will be found in Thiersch, De I'Etnt actvel de la Grice, i. 308-314. Before the cleclion, Thiersch, who was one of the prince’s teachers, considered that it would be abso­lutely necessary for King Otho to join the Greek Church, i. 313.

CONDUCT OF THE RESIDENTS.    81

A.D. 1832.]

alone open the road to power. The numbers of armed men icollected at Megara at last rendered an advance on Nauplia necessary to procure subsistence. Every effort that revenge, party zeal, and sincere patriotism could suggest, was employed to urge on the soldiers. Commissions were distributed with a lavish hand among the bravest veterans. Civilians were suddenly made captains. Kolettes and the military chieftains cared nothing for moral and political responsibility; their sole object was to conquer power, and about the means they were quite indifferent. Mavrocordatos and the constitution­alists felt that the recognition of Agostino’s government by the residents cut off all hope of a general amnesty, a free national assembly, or a legal administration, without a decided victory of the Romeliots. It was thought that the residents would not venture to employ the forces of the Allies to support a government which had rejected their own advice as well as the warnings of Sir Stratford Canning. The Greek leaders knew that none of the residents possessed the firm character, any more than the enlightened views, of Sir Stratford, and it was inferred with diplomatic sagacity that the instructions received with the protocols of the 13th and 14th February 1832 w'ould place the residents in a false position with their cabinets’. Their recognition of a govern­ment illegally constituted had rendered the pacification of Greece impossible without further violence. Agostino, less sagacious than the constitutionalists, believed that his recog­nition by the residents was equivalent to a guarantee on the part of the Allied powers; and he expected to see the troops of France support him at the Isthmus of Corinth as decidedly as the fleet of Russia had supported his brother at Poros.

At this late hour the residents made a feeble attempt to avert a civil war. They invited the general commanding the French army of occupation to occupy the Isthmus of Corinth, and authorized Professor Thiersch, who had visited Greece as an unrecognized agent of the Bavarian court, to negotiate w^rith the deputies and military chiefs at Perachora and Megara. Thiersch favoured the constitutional party. He

¹ Thiersch has published a letter in which Mavrocordatos examines the state of public affairs in Greece at this time with ability and moderation ; vol. i. p 327.

VOL. VII.         G

82   ANARCHY.

[Bk.V. Ch. III.

had been long in communication with the Philhellenic com­mittees on the continent. In the year 1829 he had advocated the election of Prince Otho to the sovereignty of Greece, and he had communicated with the Bavarian court on the subject. The object of his present tour was understood to be, to prepare the minds of the Greeks for the choice of a Bavarian prince ; and now, when Otho was elected king, he stepped forward as a diplomatic agent of Bavaria, and was treated as such both by the residents and by the leaders of all parties among the Greeks.

The prudence of the constitutionalists, and the passions- of the military chiefs, rejected every arrangement based on the continuance of the presidency of Agostino and the rati­fication of the acts of the assembly by which he had been elected. The mission of Thiersch failed, and its failure ren­dered the position of Agostino untenable. Those who had hitherto supported him perceived that they had ruined their cause by placing too much power in his hands, and by attempting to prolong his authority beyond the legal majority of the king chosen by the protecting powers¹. Agostino determined to cling to power, but the rapid advance of the Romeliots soon dispelled his hopes of Russian support and his visions of future greatness.

a On the 6th of April the government troops stationed at the Isthmus of Corinth fled before the constitutionalists without offering any resistance. The heroes of the sack of Poros, the cavalry of Ivalergi, and the generalship of Kolo- kotrones, the veteran commander-in-chief of the Peloponnesian army, were unable to retard the advance of the invaders, who marched straight to Argos. The residents were now in an awkward and not very honourable position. By an extra­ordinary piece of good luck they were relieved from the foolish part they were acting. On the very day the Romeliot troops entered Argos, the protocol of the 7th March 1832 arrived at Nauplia, and they were instructed to carry out the principles of Sir Stratford Canning’s memorandum. It was easy for them to treat their recognition of Agostino’s presidency as a temporary expedient, adopted to avoid a

¹      Thiersch lecords the arguments used by the Capodistrian party for investing Agostino with the regency and deferring the majority of King Otho to the age of 2$ ; Di f Eta! actvel de la Grice, i. S₄.

▼

AGOSTINO EJECTED.    83

A.D. 1832.]                        ‘

civil war, until they received the definitive instructions now placed in their hands. The memorandum declared ‘that the interests of the Greeks, and the honour of the Allies, required a system of provisional government calculated to preserve the country from anarchy.’ This could, in the present crisis of affairs, only be attained by ejecting Agostino from the f presidency.

f On the 8th of April they addressed a vague diplomatic ‘ note to the president they had recognized, inviting him to | contribute to the execution of the protocol of the 7th of I March. Agostino, trusting to the secret aid of Admiral Ricord, replied with a request for a copy of the document | to which they alluded, and which had not yet been officially communicated to the Greek government. The residents were alarmed at his endeavour to gain time, and, their own interests being at stake, they proceeded with great promptitude to eject him from office. His incapacity secured them an easy victory in a personal interview. Without wasting their time in composing diplomatic notes, they walked to the govern­ment-house, while Agostino was still chuckling at his supposed victory over the diplomatists, entered his presence, and informed him without ceremony that he must immediately send his resignation to the senate. So far their conduct was extremely judicious, but they had not the clear heads which enable men to stop short in action at the precise limit of justice and prudence. In the spirit of diplomatic meddling, which involves nations in as much embarrassment as military am­bition, they made the ejected president add a recommendation to the senate to appoint a commission of five persons to govern Greece until the king’s arrival. Agostino was rendered amenable to their orders by a hint that any delay would produce a decree of the senate deposing him from the presi­dency. Convinced that his cause was hopeless, he wrote his resignation in the manner they desired, and quitted Greece, with the body of his murdered brother, in a Russian ship.

The expedient of establishing peace by a diplomatic com­promise, after allowing every passion which civil war excites to rage for three months, was a violation of common sense that could not prove successful. The same diplomatists had refused to prevent a civil war by enforcing a compromise

G 2

84   ANARCHY.

[Bk. V. Ch. III.

before the opening of the assembly at Argos; yet they now imagined that their interference would avert anarchy. As

o

a little foresight might have predicted, the Romeliot troops paid very little attention to these manoeuvres. They were resolved to reap the fruits of their victory, and it was not by naming a commission in which a hostile senate would be able to secure a majority that this end could be attained. Foreign interference rarely saves a nation from the direct consequences of its own vices, and anarchy was the natural result of the repeated illegalities which every party in Greece had committed.

The conduct of the residents deserves reprehension. They evidently thought more of concealing their own incapacity and inconsistency than of serving the cause of the Greeks, in the measures they adopted for carrying the protocol of the 7th of March into execution. They established a phantom of government, which they knew would be unable to pacify the country, because it appeared to them to offer the political combination least at variance with their own proceedings. Had they endeavoured to act in accordance with the laws and institutions of Greece, it is possible that they might have failed in preventing the Greeks from falling into a state of anarchy, but they would have saved themselves from all reproach. When the senate first assumed illegal powers, it was the duty of the residents to refuse to recognize its illegal acts. In the present crisis, had they paid any attention to the constitution of Greece, even as established by Capo­distrias, they would have recommended the representation of both parties in the senate, and avoided the incongruity of composing an executive government of two hostile factions. The Russian resident wished the senate to remain unaltered, as it consisted entirely of Russian partizans, and was com­pletely under the guidance of Admiral Ricord. But the English and French residents knew that its composition rendered the pacification of Greece impossible. The English resident, however, moved partly by jealousy of French in­fluence, and partly by distrust of Ivolettes’ character, adopted the Russian policy concerning the immutability of the senate, and consented to transfer the contest of the hostile parties from the legislative assembly, where it might elicit argument, to the executive power, where it could only produce anarchy.

J

STATE OF GREECE.        8^

a.d. 1832.]

In conformity with the suggestion conveyed in the resig­nation of the presidency by Agostino, the senate named five persons whom the residents indicated as a governing com­mission. When the Romeliots heard the names that were pleasing to the diplomatists, they treated the election with contempt, and marched forward to attack Nauplia. The fortress was impregnable, but they had many staunch partizans J within its walls, and expected to enter without much difficulty, j The senate was terrified ; the residents had again thrust themselves into a false position. It was necessary to effect a new diplomatic compromise, and for this purpose Kolettes was invited to confer with the diplomatists at the house of the French resident.

On the ioth of April Kolettes rode into Nauplia in triumph. He had now the nation, the army, the senate, and j the three protecting powers at his feet. Unfortunately for ¹ the Greeks, with all his talents as an intriguer, he had neither I the views of a statesman nor the principles of a patriot. He had climbed to the elevation of a Cromwell or a Washington, and he stood in his high position utterly incompetent to act with decision, and prevented by his own absolute incapacity from serving either the constitutional cause or the interests of the Romeliot troops who had raised him to power.

Fourteen days were consumed in diplomatic shuffling and personal intrigues before the names of a new governing com­mission were finally settled. It was then composed of seven members, and not of five, as recommended by the residents. The constitution of Greece was grossly violated by this election ; for the senate, at the instigation of the diplomatists, invested this governing commission with the executive power until the king’s arrival, though both by law and invariable practice it was only entitled to confer that power until the meeting of a national assembly, when it required to be ratified or reconstituted by a decree of the representatives of the nation. The object of the Capodistrians was to prevent the national assembly electing a president of the constitutional party. They even succeeded in paralyzing the action of the constitutionalists in the governing commission, by enacting that the presence of five members was necessary to give validity to its decisions. Now, as there were two staunch Capodistrians in the commission, and one constitutional

86   ANARCHY.

[Bk.V. Ch. III.

member, who was too ill to attend, it was evident that the two Capodistrians could arrest the action of the executive authority at any crisis by preventing- a decision. Three members of the commission, Kolettes, Konduriottes, and Zaimes, were supposed to represent the constitutional oppo­sition to the Capodistrian system; but the residents and the leading Capodistrians were aware that Zaimes was already a renegade. Two members were recognized to be the representatives of the Romeliot troops—Prince Demetrius Hypsilantes and Kosta Botzaris¹. Two members, as has been said, were staunch Capodistrians—Metaxas and Koliopulos or Plapoutas. This executive commission had a cabinet com­posed of seven ministers, who were all constitutionalists; but with the exception of Mavrocordatos, they were men without administrative knowledge, mere rhetoricians, who could clothe commonplace thoughts in official Greek. Even Mavrocordatos was misplaced as minister of finance. These ministers were severely blamed for accepting office without fixing a day for the meeting of the national assembly, and without insisting that the power of the governing commission should terminate when the assembly met. Their friends excused their neglect of constitutional principles by pleading the power of the residents; but those who scanned their political lives with attention, observed that they frequently contrived to advance their own interests by sacrificing the cause they adopted ².

Public opinion demanded the immediate convocation of a national assembly. To save the country from anarchy it was necessary to reconstitute the senate, according to the principles of conciliation laid down in Sir Stratford Canning’s memorandum, and it might have been found necessary to throw the responsibility of maintaining order on Kolettes by creating him dictator. But the residents, the Russian admiral,

¹      Hypsilantes expressed his repugnance to become a member of this commission in strong terms, and his observations exhibit good sense and patriotism, but he was peisuadul by his friends to withdraw his objections. He was already suffering from I he disease which soon after terminated his life. His letter is given by Thiersch (i. 369). In mentioning ihe nomii ation of Kosta Botzaris, Thiersch observes (i. 381) that the Romeliot Greeks still regarded the Albanian tribe of Suliots with jealousy.

²      Chiistioes was Minister of the Interior, and General Secretary of State; Mavrocordatos. of Finance; Tricoupi, of Foreign Affairs; Zographos, of War; lJulgares, of the Marine; Klonares, of Justice; and Rizos Neroulos, of Eccle­siastical Aftairs and Public Instruction.

STATE OF GREECE.        87

A.D. I S3 2.]

the senate, and the ministers in office, were all opposed to the meeting of a national assembly.

The Capodistrian party soon recovered from its defeat. It succeeded in retaining possession of a considerable portion of the revenues of the Morea, and received active support from Admiral Ricord. The Romeliots, after overthrowing Agostino's government, daily lost ground. The commission of seven was either unable or unwilling to reward their services, and the soldiers soon determined to reward them­selves. They treated the election of the commission as a temporary compromise, not as a definitive treaty of peace, and they marched into different districts in the Morea, to take possession of the national revenues as a security for their pay and rations. Wherever they established themselves, they lived at free quarters in the houses of the inhabitants.

The financial administration of Mavrocordatos was not calculated to moderate the rapacity of the troops. The governing commission raised money by private bargains for the sale of the tenths, and the proceeds of these anticipated and frequently illegal sales were employed to reward personal partizans, and not to discharge the just debts due to the soldiers for arrears of pay. A small sum judiciously expended would have sent many of the Romeliot troops to their native mountains, where, as peace was now restored, they would have willingly returned, had they been able to procure the means of cultivating their property. The troops were neg­lected, while favoured chieftains were allowed to become farmers of taxes, or were authorized to collect arrears due by preceding farmers. These proceedings gave rise to in­tolerable exactions. The chieftains often defrauded their followers of their pay, but they retained partizans by allowing the soldiers to extort money and double rations from the peasantry. Some drew pay and rations for a hundred men without having twenty under arms. Numbers of soldiers were disbanded, and roved backwards and forwards, plunder­ing the villages, and devouring the sheep and oxen of the peasants. Professor Thiersch informs us that the bands of Theodore Grivas on the side of the constitutionalists, and of Thanasopulos on the side of the Capodistrians, spread terror wherever they appeared by their exactions and cruelty¹.

¹ Grivas had taken into his pay a body of Mussulman Albanians. Compare

88   ANARCHY.

[Bk. V. Ch. III.

Eight thousand Romeliots were at this time living at free quarters in the Morea, and it was said that they levied daily from the population upwards of twenty thousand rations. The governing commission solicited pecuniary advances from the three protecting powers, pretending that they would employ them for alleviating the misery of the people ; but the Allies wisely refused to advance money, which they saw, by the misconduct of the government, would have been wasted in maintaining lawless bands of personal followers in utter idleness.

The position of the two hostile parties soon became clearly defined. The greater part of the Morea adhered to the Capodistrian party, as the surest means of obtaining defence against the exactions of the Romeliot soldiery. Several Moreot primates and deputies, who had hitherto acted with the constitutionalists, now abandoned the cause of the govern­ing commission. Even in Romelia the Capodistrians possessed a rallying-point at Salona, where Mamoures maintained him­self with a strong garrison. In the Archipelago, Tinos con­tinued faithful to the Capodistrians, and served as a refuge for the officials of the party who were expelled from the other islands. Spetzas and Aegina were also prevented from acknowledging the authority of the governing commission by ships of war commanded by Andrutzos and Ivanares.

All liberated Greece was now desolated by anarchy. Long periods of mal-administration on the part of the government, and a cynical contempt for justice and good faith on the part of the civil and military leaders, had paralyzed the nation. The Revolution, to all appearance, had been crowned with success. The Turks were expelled from the country, and Greece formed an independent state. Yet Greece was cer­tainly not free, for the people were groaning under the most cruel oppression. The whole substance of the land was devoured by hosts of soldiers, sailors, captains, generals, policemen, government officials, tax-gatherers, secretaries, and

Thiersch i. 71, 121, 123, 182. ‘ Les eapitaines presquc sans exception gardaient 1’argent pour eux, et les troupes resterent dans l’aneien etat d’exinanition ’ (p 123). ‘Les plus grands desordres apparurent a la vente des dimes, ou il y eut un commeiage de eapitaines, de primats, de hauls employes, et pour ainsi dire des eom- pagnies organisees qui penetrerent meme dans quelques minisleres et jusqu’au milieu du gouvernement ’ (p. 182). It must be remembered that Professor

1 hiersch is the panegyrist of Kolettes and a parlizan of the Romeliots.

FRENCH GARRISON NAUPLIA.      89

A.D. 1832.]

political adventurers, all living idly at the public expense, j while the agricultural population was perishing from starvation.

Evil habits, and the difficulty of procuring the means of subsistence, may form some excuse for the rapine of the 'soldiery, but no apology can be offered for the conduct of I the members of the governing commission and of the ! ministry, who increased the miseries of the people by their malversations, or countenanced the dishonesty of their col- I leagues by retaining office. Honour as well as patriotism j commanded every man who had a sense of duty, either to put a stop to the devastation of the country or resign his place as a ruler or a minister. The tenacity with which those who called themselves constitutionalists clung to office has fixed an indelible stain on their political character, and destroyed the confidence of the Greek people in the honesty of public men. When Mavrocordatos, Tricoupi, Klonarcs, and Zographos, abandoned the cause of civil liberty, they destroyed all trust in the good faith of the statesmen of the Greek Revolution. The immediate effect of their misconduct was to constitute Theodore Kolokotrones, the veteran klepht, the champion of the people’s rights¹.

Before the constitutional ministers had been a month in office, their weakness had increased the insubordination of the military classes, and their misconduct had alienated their own partizans to such a degree, that they found it necessary to invite the French troops to occupy Nauplia and Patras, as the only means- of securing their personal safety and the prolongation of their power.

On the 19th of May 1832 General Corbet entered Nauplia; but at Patras the governing commission was not so fortunate

¹ Alexander Soutzos echoes the popular feeling in a poem writ'en in August, 1S3²:—      , , ,    « ,

Bapoiis els rtjv St)(6votav ’ora ira.0T] twv v^ujvovv kcu tovs Seairuras tojv p' altxxpas pccplas Sutaiujvovv. aTT}v Serial/ ttjs tptpovoa to ovvTaypa teal vopovs T) ’Avapx'ia pe Kpavyas ntpmaTti gtovs Spupovs,

TloXtTiKol, Tlo\epiKol p avaifiaai/ pfyo\rjv waav 01 \vfcot x^a,P^{0VTaL ets T}W o.vijxo^a\rjv, apira^ow ras irpoauSovs pas, yv/M'ajvow tov \aov pas,

Kat aveiOes Kai draKTOv to OTpaTiuTiKov jxas

aav dcppta/xevo aXoyov 7tov 13aaTay/xov hlv ex^tl< X-^T ^-

He also satirizes the high officials for their desertion of the cause of consti­tutional liberty. One of them speaks thus:—

To avvTaypa pas tcvptt ;—to avvraypa as x°P⁽vt}. prjircvs to vavtyivQ-qKapt; th tl pas xp^r]^fflf*⁽v^ei!

no   AXARCHY.

[Bk. V. Ch. III.

as to obtain French assistance, and that place fell into the hands of the Capodistrians.

The loss of Patras was caused by gross negligence on the part of Zographos, the minister of war. Ignorant of official business, and absorbed in personal intrigues, he left the Greek troops without instructions concerning their future conduct. The regular troops in garrison at Patras had sup­ported the Capodistrians while in power, but they were disposed to obey the government, and not to follow the personal fortunes of any president. The hostility of Kolettes to the regular corps was notorious, and, through the neglect . of Zographos, both the officers and men at Patras were easily persuaded by the partizans of Russian influence that it was the intention of the governing commission to disband the regular troops. While brooding over this report, which threatened them with the loss of a large amount of arrears of pay, they heard that French troops were invited to garrison Patras. They concluded that they were cheated by the minister of war, and betrayed by the governing commission. As long as they remained in garrison at Patras they were sure of being regularly supplied with rations and clothing, and of obtaining from time to time advances of pay; but once expelled from the town, they believed that they would be allowed to starve. The Capodistrians formed a strong party in the town, and they availed themselves of the excited feel­ings of the soldiers to declare, that regular troops who delivered a fortress like Patras to foreigners would render themselves guilty of treason. The constitutionalists had accused Capodistrias of selling Greece to the Russians; the Capodistrians now accused the constitutionalists of selling Nauplia and Patras to the French. The regular troops mutinied, deposed their commanding officer, who refused to sign a manifesto justifying their revolt, and invited Kitzos Djavellas, who was then at Vostitza, to assume the chief command at Patras.

Djavellas, who had retreated from the Romeliots, was at the head of about five hundred irregulars, and he was looking out for a position in which he could maintain his followers, and defend himself against the attacks of the Kolettists. He hastened to Patras, and entered it before the arrival of the French. When they made their appearance, Djavellas

1                                       DJAVELLAS OCCUPIES PATRAS.                                91

...D.1832.]

transmitted to their commanding officer a formal protest against the authority of the governing commission, and refused to admit the French troops into the fortress. The French commander, considering that it was the object of the Allies to maintain order and not to enforce the authority of any party, immediately retired, and the residents, who wished to avoid bloodshed, left Djavellas in peaceable pos­session of Patras*. Thus, by the incapacity of Zographos and the decision of Djavellas, the Capodistrians remained in possession of the commercial town of Patras, and of the fortresses of Rhion and Antirrhion, with the command of the entrance into the Gulf of Corinth, until the arrival of King Otho.

This success emboldened the enemies of Kolettcs. A great part of the Morea, and several districts of continental Greece, refused to admit the officials named by the governing commission. The demogeronts, wherever they were sup­ported by the people, assumed the management of public as well as local business. They had been appointed by Capodistrias. They feared anarchy more than despotism, and they naturally sought protection from the military leaders of the Capodistrian party. The greater part of Arcadia and Achaia resisted the authority of the governing commission, while Argolis, Corinthia, and Laconia, generally acknowledged its power. Mcssenia and Elis were the scenes of frequent civil broils. In Phocis the Capodistrians maintained their ascendancy.

Kolokotrones, who held the rank of commander-in-chief of the Peloponnesian militia, stepped forward as the defender of the local authorities against the central government. His personal interest, his party-connections, and his hatred of Kolettes, determined his conduct. Had he acted from patriotic motives he would have caught inspiration from the high national position into which accident now thrust him. The agricultural population was alarmed, and the astute old klepht seized the favourable moment for uniting his cause with the cause of the people, but his confined views and innate

¹ Thiersch has printed the correspondence of Djavellas. It must not be sup­posed that the letters were really written by the Suliot chief, who could hardly write a common note. Like most of the military documents of the Revolution, they were composed by a secretary. Nothing has falsified the history of the Greek Revolution more than the ambitious eloquence of pedantic secretaries.

KD

1-

92   ANARCHY.

[Bk.V. Ch. Ill

selfishness prevented his employing the power thus placed at his disposal for the general good.

Kolokotrones called the Peloponnesians to arms, and pro­nounced the proceedings of the governing commission to be illegal, in a proclamation dated the 22nd of June 1832¹. Metaxas and Plapoutas had informed him that they had secured the co-operation of Zaimes in paralyzing the action of the executive government. The Russian admiral prompted him to proclaim that the senate was the only legitimate authority in existence. The residents remained silent. Griva, the most lawless of the Romeliot chiefs, advanced without orders from the governing commission, and occupied Tri- politza at the head of a thousand men. The Capodistrians were already prepared to encounter the invaders of the Morea, and Gennaios Kolokotrones, who had more military courage, though less political sagacity than his father, had already formed a camp at Valtetzi.

The tide of success now flowed in favour of the Capodis­trians. The advance of Griva was stopped. Elias Mavro- michales was repulsed in his attempts to gain a footing in the rich plain of Messenia. The Capodistrians under Kalergi made a bold attempt to seize the mills at Lerna, but the attempt was defeated, though it was openly favoured by the Russian admiral. Civil war recommenced in many districts, and bands of troops, who recognized no government, plundered wherever they could penetrate.

The prudence of Kolokotrones, whom age had rendered more of a politician than a warrior, might have led him to avoid engaging in open hostilities against a government j l acknowledged by the protecting powers, on the eve of the ca­king s arrival, had he been allowed to remain in undisturbed! ^ possession of the profits which he drew from his office as commander-in-chief in the Peloponnesus. But the members of the governing commission forced him into resisting their ' fti authority by appointing Theodore Griva to the chief command j ^ in the districts of Leondari and Phanari. The occupation of these places by the Kolettists would have rendered Kolokotrones little better than a prisoner in Karitena.

¹ The original proclamation is printed by Gennaios Kolokotrones in a work entitled Ata<popa kyyp'jfa Knl imaroKcu atpopwura ras kcltA tu 18:52 avjx^aaas kclt& rfjv EWaSa di a/xaKias teal dvap_Xtas, p. 214. Thiersch gives a translation, i. 395.

T

ASSEM13L Y OF PROXIA.        93

V.D. 1832.]

Amidst these scenes of anarchy a national assembly met at Pronia. The members of the governing commission, the

•      ministers in office, the senators, the residents of the Allied powers, and the Russian admiral, were all hostile to the meeting. But a general amnesty before the king’s arrival was necessary for pacifying the country, and a general amnesty Icould not be proclaimed without the sanction of a national {assembly. It was also indispensable to obtain the assent of Ithe nation to the election of the king chosen by the Allies. A national assembly could not therefore be entirely dispensed

1 with, though it was feared that a national assembly would , abolish the senate and choose a new executive government.

| Had a national assembly met immediately after the nomina­tion of the governing commission, a civil war might have

*      been avoided by the election of a senate, in which both the ^ constitutionalists and Capodistrians, the Romeliots and the ⁵ Moreots, the Hydriots, the Spetziots, and the Psarians, might

have been duly represented, and in which local interests might ' have moderated factious passions. But the intrigues of Greek politicians and foreign diplomatists delayed the meeting for three months, and when it took place, old passions had been rekindled with fiercer animosity by fresh injuries. The violence of faction now exposed the corruption of political ' society in Greece, without a veil, to the examination of strangers. All ties were torn asunder in the struggle to gratify individual selfishness. The Suliots, Djavellas and Botzaris, fought on different sides. Hydriot primates were found who deserted the cause of Hydra. The only great political body into which patriotism was likely to find an entrance, was the national assembly, and even there its voice was in great danger of being overpowered by party zeal. | The illegal position and arrogant assumptions of the senate ’ caused much animosity, and the residents of the three powers were distrusted, because they appeared in league to support the illegal powers of the senate.

As soon as the assembly of Pronia met, a majority deter­mined to abolish the senate, in spite of the open support given to it by the residents. Many members believed that, as the residents had tamely submitted to the armed opposition of Djavellas at Patras, and had regarded with indifference the renewal of the civil war by Griva, Kolokotrones, and Kalergi,

94   ANARCHY.

[Bk. V. Ch. III.

they would offer no opposition to the abolition of the senate. The diplomatists, however, regarded the senate with peculiar favour. They had made use of it to eject Agostino from the presidency, and to create a new government. Its very | illegality made it a useful instrument, should it be necessary j to employ force to establish King Otho’s authority, for its ( abolition would always be a popular measure, and might serve j : as a pretext for the assumption of absolute power. On the other hand, the national assembly w^ras considered to be doubly dangerous, because it was legally invested with great power, and not likely to be guided by the suggestions of foreign - . diplomatists in making use of that power.

Such was the state of Greece and the condition of parties when the national assembly of Pronia commenced its sittings. < Nothing presaged that it would be able to establish order in J the country¹.

The assembly commenced its sittings on the 26th of July 1832. On the 1st of August it passed a decree proclaiming a general amnesty, and 011 the 8th it ratified the election of 1 King Otho ; but on the same day it abolished the senate, j Of the legality of this measure there was no doubt, and had it occurred immediately after the expulsion of Agostino, it might have tranquillized Greece. Prudence now suggested that its abolition had become impolitic, since the residents j had become its advocates ; and the majority of the assembly | would have acted judiciously, had it merely proposed to ] remodel the existing senate on the principle of Sir Stratford _fi Canning’s memorandum. But the constitutionalists formed a [ large majority in the assembly, and they were irritated by y the conduct of the Greek ministers who had deserted the | constitutional cause. The senate was composed of Capodis- | trians, and it was adopting active measures to increase the ' violence of the civil war which was desolating the country. The governing commission and the Greek ministers took part with the senate against the representatives of the nation ;

¹ Professor Thiersch asserts that he could have restored order had he been furnished with 100,000 dollars. The asserlion only proves that he knew very little of arithmetic. It would not have sufficed to obtain the evacuation of the Morea by one-half of the Romeliot irregulars who were plundering the peasantry.

He says, ‘II y avait bien un moyen de soitir encore d’embarras. Je devais me mettre a la tele des affaires, et commencer le gouvernement du roi,’ vol. i. p. 167.

Ilad the worthy professor done so, in all probability he would have prevented King Otho from coming to Greece.

ASSEMBLY OF PRONIA. qK

a.d. 1832.]

and the residents, taking advantage of this conduct on the part of the executive, protested against the decree of the national assembly, asserting that it was a violation of the principles of the pacification they pretended to have established.

Large bodies of Romeliot troops were quartered in the village of Aria, at a short distance beyond Pronia. The soldiers beset the gates of Nauplia and the doors of the assembly every morning clamouring for pay. The governing commission promised to pay their arrears ; but it failed to keep its promise. The ministers were accused of deliberately violating the promise of the government, in order to produce the catastrophe which ensued, and their friends and the senators were reported to have treacherously incited the soldiers to demand payment from the national assembly. On the 26th August the soldiers of Grigiottes burst into the hall of the assembly, dragged the president from his seat, insulted and ill-treated many deputies, and carried off the president and several deputies, as hostages for the payment of their arrears, to their quarters at Aria. This disgraceful riot put an end to the last national assembly in revolutionary Greece¹.

This scene of military violence forms an important event in the history of Greece. It prolonged the revolutionary state of the country for eleven years, by placing constitutional liberty in abeyance. It threw the people into an unquiet

¹ Fapadopulos Vretos, an Ionian, was then Baron de Riickmann’s doctor. He tells us that he dined with the Russian resident the clay after the dissolution of the assembly. After dinner, the English resident, Mr. Dawkins, called and narra­ted the following occurrence, which-makes the Ionian infer that the British cabinet destroyed the liberty of Greece. He makes the English resident say, ‘ As I was riding out yesterday with Griffith’ (his secretary, who spoke Greek well), ‘we were surrounded by a crowd of filthy palikaria, shouting and gesticulating like demons. All spoke at the same time, and all appeared to be delivering set speeches, so that the road was an oratorical pandemonium. When I could find an opportunity to make myself heard, I asked Griffith what was the play they were acting for our private edification. After many vain efforts he obtained a partial heaiing. The soldiers declared they had no bread, no clothes, and no money. It would have been superfluous for them to have told any one vi ho looked at them that they were without credit. I saw that instantly. They wished my Excellency to take their case into consideration and provide for their wants. I stated to them that my functions did not allow me to become their commissary ; but, pointing with my whip to the hall of the national assembly, I said, that I believed there were many persons in that building who possessed great experience as com­missaries and paymasters. They seized my hint with wonderful alacrity, and set off running and whooping like wild Indians. Griffith and I took a long ride, and when we returned in the evening we heard of the great event of the day.’ Melanges Politiques, p. 23.

q6   ANARCHY.

^y                              [Bk. V. Ch. III.

and dangerous temper, by sweeping away those free insti­tutions which had infused energy into the nation during its struggle for independence. The executive power was made the prize of a successful faction. The central government was not established on a legal basis, and the military chiefs ceased to acknowledge its control. Eleven years of Bavarian domination was the expiation of the violence committed at Pronia.

Prince Demetrius Hypsilantes died in the month of August. About the same time, a deputation, consisting of three mem­bers, two of whom were members of the governing commission, was sent to Munich with addresses of congratulation to the kings of Greece and Bavaria ^x. The commission was thus left incomplete, for the presence of five members was required to give validity to its acts. Yet on this occasion the residents did not protest against the virtual dissolution of the executive government of Greece. Greece surely stood in greater want of a legal executive than of an illegal senate ; but the diplo­matists looked on with indifference, while the governing commission committed suicide.

Greece was now without any legal central authority. The executive body was incompetent to act. The senate had been abolished by the national assembly, and the national assembly had been dissolved by the soldiery. The senate made the protest of the foreign diplomatists a ground for prolonging its existence. Three places in the governing commission were vacant; two had been occupied by constitutionalists, one by a Capodistrian. The senate attempted to violate the terms of the pacification sanctioned by the residents, and named three Capodistrians. George Konduriottes, the pre­sident, resisted this pretension, but, possessing neither the talents nor the energy necessary for carrying on a contest with the senate, he withdrew to Hydra. Only three mem­bers of the government now remained at Nauplia—Kolettes, Zaimes, and Metaxas—and they claimed the whole executive power. It was generally felt that chance had made as good a selection as it was possible to make under the circum­stances. The senate yielded at last to public opinion, and passed a decree investing these three men with the whole executive pow^rer.

¹ Kosta Botzaris, Plapoutas, and Admiral Miaoulis.

INTRIGUES OF THE SENATE.         07

I A.D. 1832.]

' But the intrigues of Admiral Ricord soon determined la majority of the senators to repudiate this decree, and all ; Greece was astonished by the strange intelligence that seven [senators had secretly quitted Nauplia. On the 21st Novem­ber these seceders were joined at Astros by the president, Tsamados, and two additional members, and met by Koloko- trones with a body of Moreot troops. Ten of the thirteen senators who had signed the address to the King of Bavaria were now present. They had carried with them the govern- ¹ ment printing-press, and they issued proclamations annulling

•      the decree which had invested Kolettes, Zaimes, and Metaxas I with the executive power until the king’s arrival. Trusting to I the military force of the Capodistrian party under Koloko- trones, and to the support of the Russian admiral, the seceders assumed the executive authority.

On this occasion, Kolettes, Zaimes, and Metaxas acted with sense and courage. They took prompt measures to secure order and maintain their authority within the walls of Nauplia. Beyond the fortress they were powerless. The residents recognized them as the legal government, and the French garrison placed their persons in security.

The senate, having failed to produce a revolution, sought revenge by increasing the existing anarchy. It appointed a military commission to govern Greece, consisting of several powerful chiefs. Kolokotrones, Grigiottes, Djavellas, and Hadgi Christos, Moreots and Romeliots, Albanians and Bul­garians, formed an alliance, and leagued together. Anarchy reached such a pitch, that the minister of war, Zographos,

¹ informed the minister of finance, Mavrocordatos, that it was impossible to obtain an exact account of the numbers of the soldiers who were drawing pay and rations. Of the number of men actually under arms he had no idea¹.

At first sight the conduct of the seceding senators looks like the proceedings of maniacs ; but the Capodistrians had never abandoned the scheme of Agostino, and they still hoped, by seizing the forcible direction of the administration in the greater part of the Morea, to compel the regency which would govern Greece during the king’s minority, to purchase their support by appointing them senators for life. The

¹ Rapport des Ministres, 2St.l1 November, 1S32 ; Thiersch, i, 448. VOL. VII.      H

q8   anarchy.

⁷                              [Bk. V. Ch. III.

Russian admiral supported them in their desperate schemes, while the Russian resident, remaining passive, was at liberty to disavow their proceedings in case of failure. It is needless to follow these abortive intrigues further. The senators, finding that they had no chance of obtaining effectual support from the Greeks, adopted the extraordinary expedient of endeavouring to procure assistance from Russia, by naming Admiral Ricord president of Greece. This act of treason and folly proves the justice with which Capodistrias had been rcproached for selecting his senators from the most ignorant and unprincipled political adventurers. Some persons have supposed that there was malice as well as folly in the conduct of the senators ; and that, though they were eager to proclaim that they preferred Russian protection to Greek independence, they also intended to hint to Admiral Ricord that it was his interest and the interest of other Russian agents to purchase their silence in order to throw a veil over many intrigues.

Amidst the general anarchy, the commission of seven generals was unable to place any restraint on the soldiery. The men under arms no longer obeyed their officers, but formed bands like wolves, hunting for their prey under the boldest plunderer. A veil may be dropped on their pro­ceedings. But it is of some importance to explain in what manner a part of the Morea escaped their ravages.

The revival of the municipal institutions of the Morea at this period has been already mentioned. The weakness of the government relieved the local authorities from the incubus of a tyrannical central administration, which had been imposed on them by Capodistrias. The exigencies of the time forced them to act without waiting for the initiative of ministers and the orders of prefects. The condition of the country and the agitation of the people again made the municipal authorities feel that they were responsible to their fellow- citizens, by whom they were supposed to be elected. They were often called upon to make arrangements for quartering and feeding troops, who came to defend or plunder the country, as circumstances might determine. They were com­pelled to collect the public revenues to meet these demands ; to arm strong bodies of peasantry, and to form alliances with neighbouring municipalities, in order to check the rapacity of the soldiery. Their difficulties induced them to look to

MESSENIA.     99

a.d. 1832.]

Kolokotrones for assistance, whose military force was so far inferior to that of the Romeliots as to render it imperative on him to form an alliance with the people. His office as commander-in-chief in the Morea, and his personal relations with most of the local magistrates chosen during the adminis­tration of Capodistrias, pointed him out as the natural defender of the agricultural population. The difficulty was to make the old klepht feel that it was his interest to protect and not to plunder ; that his robberies must be confined to the central administration ; and that he must aid and not command the local authorities. The end was partially attained, and in many districts the demogeronts acquired sufficient power to protect their municipalities against the military chiefs of the Capodistrian faction, and to repulse the attacks of the Romeliot troops.

The governing commission and the constitutional ministers forfeited their claim to the allegiance of the Greeks, by their neglect to restrain the exactions of the Romeliots, who had raised them to power. Strangers had a better opportunity of observing the evil effects of their misconduct in Messenia than in other parts of the country, as the presence of the French army of occupation enforced neutrality within certain limits, and yet left free action to the rival factions in its immediate vicinity

Great part of the rich plain which extends from Taygetus to Ithome was national property. Statesmen and chieftains, Romeliots and Moreots, were eager to become the farmers of the public revenues. The bey of Maina and the whole of his ambitious and needy family aspired to quarter them­selves, with all their Mainate adherents, in this rich province. The native peasantry and the opponents of the Mavromichales were alike hostile to the pretensions of the Mainates. Party intrigues were carried on in every village, and no province was more tormented by the incessant strife which makes the municipal administration of the Greeks a field for the exhi­bition of strange paroxysms of selfishness. Some of the demogeronts allied themselves with Kolokotrones; some discontented citizens formed connections with the family of Mavromichales.

The presence of a French garrison at Kalamata com­plicated the politics of the municipal authorities in Messenia.

H 2

IOO         ANARCHY.

[Bk. V. Ch. III.

Their local interests and personal feelings favoured the French, who had protected them from being plundered by the Mai- nates, and who afforded them a profitable market for their produce. But the Capodistrian faction, excited by Koloko­trones and Admiral Ricord, were indefatigable in calumniating and intriguing against the French. The officers commanding at Kalamata sought to tranquillize the people by inviting the peasantry to pursue their labours, and by assuring the demogeronts of their readiness to assist in maintaining order in the neighbourhood of their encampment. But the partizans of Kolokotrones pointed to the neutrality proclaimed by the residents at Nauplia, and to the retreat of the French troops from Patras, as proofs that the French could not interfere in the internal administration of Messenia. The French were accused of being constitutionalists like the Mainates, and the agricultural population feared the lawless conduct of the adherents of the family of Mavromichales. Kolokotrones had already convinced many that he was acting sincerely as the protector of the people. To him, therefore, the demogeronts of most of the villages in Messenia turned for support.

Niketas came with a small body of chosen troops to protect the agricultural population from invasion. The Mavromi­chales were not deterred by these preparations for defence. They had claims on the governing commission for their long opposition to Capodistrias, which they did not think were entirely cancelled by the assassination of the president. They pretended that they were entitled to be the tax-gatherers of Messenia, and their followers were eager to exchange the black bread of lupin meal which formed their hard fare in Kakovouli, for wheaten cakes and roast lambs¹.

Elias Mavromichales, called Katzakos, invaded the district between the lower ridges of Taygetus and the Pamisus more than once at the head of three or four hundred men. But his progress was always arrested by Niketas, who was a better soldier, and who, in addition to his superior skill in partizan warfare, was supported by the whole population in the plain capable of bearing arms. The approach of the

¹ Kakovouli, or the land of evil counsel. The lupins are ground after the pulse has been long steeped in water to extract some injurious matter. The bread is black, hard, and bitter.

¹                                        KOLOKOTRONES AND NOISETTES.                          101

| A.D. 1832.]

Mainates caused excessive terror, and the alarm was justified ⁽by their conduct. The French troops at Kalamata saw more than one Greek village suddenly attacked and plundered by jthe modern Spartans, as the Mainates termed themselves. I The armed men descended from their mountains attended by numbers of women, whose duty it was to carry off the booty. These women were seen by the French returning, carrying on their backs bundles of linen, bedding, and house­, hold utensils, and driving before them asses laden with doors, windows, and small rafters¹. Niketas, however, invariably succeeded in driving Elias and his Spartans back into the mountains.

Arrangements were ultimately adopted which put an end to these devastating forays. Niketas placed himself at the head of a band of veterans, and moved about from village to village watching the slopes of Taygetus, and taking care that the armed peasantry should always be informed where they were to join him in case of any attack. The demoge- ronts were in this way enabled to provide the supplies of money and provisions necessary for the defence of the district, and the agricultural population was not prevented from cultivating the land.

Kolokotrones and Kolettes were the two great party leaders at this time, but neither possessed the talents necessary to frame, nor the character necessary to pursue, a fixed line of policy. Accident alone determined their political position, and made the first, though a partizan of despotic power, the defender of liberal institutions, and the second, though calling himself a constitutionalist, a tyrant, and the enemy of a national assembly. Like their partizans, they had no honest convictions, and they drifted up and down with the current of faction without an effort to steer their course according to the interest of Greece. Kolettes came into the Morea to establish constitutional liberty. His followers plundered the country, and dispersed the national assembly. Kolokotrones was the instrument of the Capodistrians and the Russians to perpetuate despotic power. His position compelled him to become the champion of order and liberty.

There is no doubt that though many arbitrary and unjust

¹      Pellion, 316.

103 ANARCHY.

[Bk. V. Ch. III.

acts could be cited against Kolokotrones and Djavellas, yet greater security for life and property existed in the provinces over which their authority extended, than in the provinces which submitted to the governing commission. But it is certain that this result was obtained by the accidental revival of national institutions, and not by the patriotism or the wisdom of the leaders of the Capodistrians. The military chiefs on both sides were equally rapacious; the political leaders equally ignorant, selfish, and corrupt. Honest men of both parties kept aloof from the public administration.

Both Greeks and foreigners have praised the municipal organization of Greece which existed under the Turkish domination ; and it undoubtedly tended to check in some degree the evils which resulted from the excessive fiscal rapacity of the Othoman government. Yet it could do but little to protect the people from injustice; for the municipal magistrates were responsible to their Othoman rulers, not to those who elected them, or to the law of the land, for the exercise of their authority. It made Greeks the instru­ments of Othoman oppression, and in this w^ray it introduced a degree of demoralization into the local administrations, which the Revolution failed to eradicate. It may be truly said that this vaunted institution protected the liberties of the people by accident. The law had no power to restrain the selfishness of the local magistrates. The primates and the captains had appropriated to themselves much of the authority which ought to have been vested in the demo- geronts chosen by the people. The primates, like the Turks before the Revolution, employed the municipalities as fiscal engines for their own convenience. The military chiefs were the enemies of every species of order and organization. The torpid ministers, the literary enthusiasts, and the intriguing politicians, who acted an important part during the Revo­lution, allowed the local institutions to be destroyed, while they had not the capacity necessary for organizing an efficient central administration.

At the end of the year 1832 Greece was in a state of almost universal anarchy. The government acknowledged by the three powers exercised little authority beyond the walls of Nauplia. The senate was in open rebellion. The Capodistrians under Kolokotrones and Djavellas had never

ATTACK ON THE FRENCH.    102

a.d. 1833.]

recognized the governing commission. A confederation of military chiefs attempted to rule the country, and blockaded the existing government.

The commission of three members, which exercised the executive power, alarmed at the prospect of being excluded from power before the king’s arrival, implored the residents to invite the French troops to garrison Argos. Four com­panies of infantry and a detachment of artillery were sent from Messenia by General Gueheneuc to effect this object. In the mean time, General Corbet, who commanded at Nauplia, detached two companies and two mountain guns to take possession of the cavalry barracks at Argos, in order to secure quarters for the troops from Messenia. The town was filled with irregular Greek soldiery, under the nominal command of Grigiottes and Tzokres. These men boasted that they would drive the French back to Nauplia, and that Kolokotrones would exterminate those who were advancing from Messenia. The prudent precautions of the French officers prevented the troops being attacked on their march, and the whole force united at Argos on the 15th of January

^l833-

On the following day the French were suddenly attacked. The Greeks commenced their hostilities so unexpectedly, that the colonel of the troops, who had arrived on the pre­ceding evening, was on his way to Nauplia to make his report to General Corbet when the attack commenced. The French soldiers who went to market unarmed were driven back into the barracks, and a few were killed and wounded. But the hostile conduct of the Greek soldiery had prepared the French for any sudden outbreak, and a few minutes sufficed to put their whole force under arms in the square before their quarters. The Greek troops, trusting to their numbers, attempted to occupy the houses which commanded this square. They were promptly driven back, and the streets were cleared by grape-shot from the French guns. The Greeks then intrenched themselves in several houses, and fired from the windows of the upper storeys on the French who advanced to dislodge them. This species of warfare could not long arrest the progress of regular troops. The French succeeded in approaching every house in suc­cession with little loss. They then burst open the doors

10 a         ANARCHY.

[Bk. V. Ch. III.

and windows of the lower storey, and, rushing up-stairs, forced the arinatoli and klephts to jump out of the windows, or finished their career with the bayonet. In less than three hours every house was taken, and the fugitives who had sought a refuge in the ruined citadel of Larissa, were pursued and driven even from that stronghold.

Never was victory more complete. The French lost only forty killed and wounded, while the Greeks, who fought chiefly under cover, had a hundred and sixty killed, and in all j probability a much greater number wounded. Grigiottes was j taken prisoner, but was soon released. A Greek officer and a | soldier accused of an attempt at assassination, were tried, condemned, and shot¹.   j

While the Greek troops were plundering their countrymen and murdering their allies, the three protecting powers were labouring to secure to Greece every advantage of political j independence and external peace.

A treaty was signed at Constantinople on the 21st July 1832, by which the sultan recognized the kingdom of Greece, and ceded to it the districts within its limits still occupied by his troops, on receiving an indemnity of forty millions of piastres, a sum then equal to ,£462,480². The Allied powers also furnished the king's government with ample funds, by guaranteeing a loan of sixty millions of francs. The indemnity to Turkey was paid out of this loan ³.                                                      |

The Allied powers also sccured for the Greek monarchy an official admission among the sovereigns of Europe, by inviting the Germanic Confederation to recognize Prince Otho of Bavaria king of Greece, a recognition which took place on the 4th October 1832 ⁴. The protectors of Greece have often been reproached for the slowness of their proceed­ings in establishing the independence of Greece ; yet when we reflect on the anarchy that prevailed among the Greeks, the difficulties thrown in their way by Capodistrias, the desertion

¹      Compare Pellion, 363 ; Lacour, Excursions en Grcce, 260. Both had access to official accounts, and yet they differ in their statements of the French loss.

²      Parliamentary Papers, Annex A to Protocol of 30th August, 1833.

³      Each of the three powers guaranteed a separate seiies of bonds for twenty millions of francs, or £781,273 6s. 8d. sterling. The contract between the Greek government and the house of Rothschild was signed 12th January, 1S33. The loan was effected at 94, interest at 5 per cent.

⁴      Kluber’s Quellensammlung zu dem ojfentlichen Recht des Teutschen Bundes; Fortsetzung, 1832, p. 75.

THE BAVARIAN DYNASTY.     105

A.D. 1833.]

of Prince Leopold, and the small assistance they received from Bavaria, we ought rather to feel surprise that they succeeded at last in establishing the Greek kingdom.

The King of Bavaria concluded a treaty of alliance between Bavaria and Greece on the 1st November 1832. He engaged to send 3500 Bavarian troops to support his son’s throne, and relieve the French army of occupation. This subsidiary force was paid from the proceeds of the Allied loan ; for Bavaria had neither the resources, nor, to speak the truth, the gene­rosity of France¹. A convention was signed at the same time, authorizing Greece to recruit volunteers in Bavaria, in order that the subsidiary force might be replaced by German mercenaries in King Otho’s service².

On the 16th January 1833, the veterans of the Greek Revolution fled before a few companies of French troops ; on the ist of February King Otho arrived in Nauplia, accom­panied by a small army of Bavarians, composed of a due proportion of infantry, cavalry, artillery, and engineers³. As experience had proved that there were no statesmen in Greece capable of governing the country, it was absolutely necessary to send a regency composed of foreigners to administer the government during King Otho’s minority. The persons chosen were Count Armansperg, M. de Maurer, and General Heideck.

The Bavarian troops landed before the king. Their tall persons, bright uniforms, and fine music, contrasted greatly to their advantage with the small figures and well-worn clothing of the French. The numerous mounted officers, the splendid plumes, the prancing horses, and the numerous decorations, crosses, and ornaments of the new-comers, pro­duced a powerful effect on the minds of the Greeks, taught by

¹                        The French government was desirous of obtaining the joint guarantee of King Louis of Bavaria to the loan, in order to facilitate the progress of the measure through the French Chambers. But King Louis refused, alleging that neither the state of his finances nor the interests of Bavaria allowed him to aid his son in raising money for Greece. Yet he took care that his son should expend large snms of Greek money in Bavaria without any advantage to Greece. Kliiber’s Pragmatische Geschichte der nationalen und politischen Wiedergeburts Griechenlands, p. 509.   _       ^ ^

²      The treaty is printed in the Greek Government Gazette, ’E(prjpiepis tt}s Kv0ep- v-qaeocs, No. 18; the convention in No. 20, 1S33.

³      King Otho embarked at Brindisi on board the English frigate Madagascar, commanded by Captain (Lord) Lyons, on the 15th January, 1833, and was joined at Corfu by a fleet of transports bringing the Bavarian troops from Trieste.

ANARCHY.

the castigation they had received at Argos to appreciate the value of military discipline.

The people welcomed the king as their saviour from anarchy. Even the members of the government, the military chiefs, and the high officials, who had been devouring the resources of the country, hailed the king’s arrival with pleasure; for they felt that they could no longer extort any profit from the starving population. The title, however, which the Bavarian prince assumed—Otho, by the grace of God, King of Greece— excited a few sneers even among those who were not re­publicans ; for it seemed a claim to divine right in the throne on the part of the house of Wittelspach. But every objection passed unheeded ; and it may be safely asserted that few kings have mounted their thrones amidst more general satisfaction than King Otho.

CHAPTER IV.

Bavarian Despotism and Constitutional Revolu­tion—February 1833 to September 1843.

Landing of King Otho.—The regency, its members and duties.—Royal proclama­tion.—Administrative measures.—Military organization.—Civil administra­tion.—Municipal institutions.—Financial administration.—Monetary system.— Judicial organization.—The Greek Church, reforms introduced by the regency. —Synodal Tomos.—Monasteries.—Public instruction.—Restrictions on the press.—Roads.—Order of the Redeemer.—Quarrels in the regency.—Koloko- trones’ plot.—Armansperg intrigue.—Armansperg’s administration.—Bavarian influence.—Disputes with England.—Alarming increase of brigandage.—In­surrections in Maina and Messenia.—Brigandage in 1835.—General Gordon’s expedition.—Insurrection in Acarnania.—Opinions of Lord Lyons and General Gordon on the state of Greece.—Brigandage continues.—King Otho’s personal government.—Attacks on King Otho in the English newspapers.—Causes of the Revolution of 1S43.—Revolution.—Observations on the constitution,—■ General remarks.

King Otho quitted the English frigate which conveyed him to Greece on the 6th February 1833. Hts entry into Nauplia was a spectacle well calculated to inspire the Greeks with enthusiasm.

The three most powerful governments in Europe combined to establish him on his throne. He arrived escorted by a numerous fleet, and he landed surrounded by a powerful army¹. King Otho was then seventeen years old². Though not handsome, he was well grown, and of an engaging appear­ance. His countrymen spoke favourably of his disposition. His youthful grace, as he rode towards his residence in the midst of a brilliant retinue, called forth the blessings of a delighted population, and many sincere prayers were uttered

¹ Twenty-five ships of war and forty-eight transports were anchored in the bay

of Nauplia, and three thousand Bavarian troops had already landed.

³      King Otho was born on the ist of June, 1815.

108 BAVARIAN DESPOTISM.

[Bk. V. Ch. IV.

for his long and happy reign. The day formed an era in the history of Greece, nor is it without some importance in the records of European civilization. A new Christian kingdom was incorporated in the international system of the West, at a critical period for the maintenance of the balance of power in the East.

The scene itself formed a splendid picture. Anarchy and order shook hands. Greeks and Albanians, mountaineers and islanders, soldiers, sailors, and peasants, in their varied and picturesque dresses, hailed the young monarch as their deliverer from a state of society as intolerable as Turkish tyranny. Families in bright attire glided in boats over the calm sea amidst the gaily decorated frigates of the Allied squadrons. The music of many bands in the ships and on shore enlivened the scene, and the roar of artillery in every direction gave an imposing pomp to the ceremony. The uniforms of many armies and navies, and the sounds of many languages, testified that most civilized nations had sent deputies to inaugurate the festival of the regeneration of Greece.

Nature was in perfect harmony. The sun was warm, and the air balmy with the breath of spring, while a light breeze wafted freshness from the sea. The landscape was beautiful, and it recalled memories of a glorious past. The white build­ings of the Turkish town of Nauplia clustered at the foot of the Venetian fortifications and cyclopean foundations that crown its rocky promontory. The mountain citadel of Pala- medes frowned over both, and the island fort of Burdje, memorable in the history of the Revolution, stood like a sentinel in the harbour. The king landed and mounted his horse under the cyclopean walls of Tiryns, which were covered with spectators. The modern town of Argos looked smiling even in ruin, with the Pelasgic foundations and mediaeval battlements of the Larissa above. The Mycenae of Homer was seen on one side, while on the other the blue tints and snowy tops of the Arcadian and Laconian mountains mingled in the distance with the bluer waters of the Aegean.

Enthusiasts, who thought of the poetic glories of Homer’s Greece, and the historic greatness of the Greece of Thucy­dides, might be pardoned if they then indulged a hope that a third Greece was emerging into life, which would again

LANDING OF KING OTHO.    109

a.d. 1833.]

occupy a brilliant position in the world’s annals. Political independence was secured: peace was guaranteed : domestic faction would be allayed by the equity of impartial foreigners, and all ranks would be taught, by the presence of a settled government, to efface the ravages of war, and cultivate the virtues which the nation had lost under Othoman domination. The task did not appear to be very difficult. The greater part of Greece was uninhabited. The progress of many British colonies, and of the United States of America, testify that land capable of cultivation forms the surest foundation for national prosperity. To insure a rapid increase of popula­tion where there is an abundant supply of waste land, nothing is required but domestic virtue and public order. And in a free country, the rapid increase of a population enjoying the privilege of self-government in local affairs, and of stern justice in the central administration, is the surest means of extending a nation’s power. The dreamer, therefore, who allowed visions of the increase of the Greek race, and of its peaceful conquests over uncultivated lands far beyond the limits of the new kingdom, to pass through his mind as King Otho rode forward to mount his throne, might have seen what was soon to happen, had the members of the regency possessed a little common-sense. The rapid growth of popu­lation in the Greek kingdom would have solved the Eastern question. The example of a well-governed Christian popu­lation, the aspect of its moral improvement, material prosperity, and constant overflow into European Turkey, would have relieved European cabinets from many political embarrass­ments, by producing the euthanasia of the Othoman empire.

Prince Otho of Bavaria had been proposed as a candidate for the sovereignty of Greece before the election of Prince Leopold. It was then urged that, being young, he would become completely identified with his subjects in language and religion¹. But the Allies rejected him, thinking that a man of experience was more likely to govern Greece well, than an inexperienced boy of the purest accent and the most unequivocal orthodoxy. Eloquent and orthodox Greeks had not distinguished themselves as statesmen; and though they might be excellent teachers of their language and ecclesiastical

¹ Thiersch, i. 308-313. See above, p. 80, note.

no                                         BAVARIAN DESPOTISM. I

[Bk. V. Ch. IV. [

doctrines, they had given no proof of their being able to ' educate a good sovereign.

The resignation of Prince Leopold, and the refusal of other \ princes, at last opened the way for King Otho’s election, and j, he became King of Greece under extremely favourable cir- ^: cumstances. King Louis of Bavaria was authorized to appoint [ a regency to govern the kingdom until his son’s majority, j which was fixed to be on the ist June 1835, at the completion j of his twentieth year¹. The liberality of the three protecting | powers supplied the Bavarians with an overflowing treasury. |j

The regency was invested with unlimited powder, partly -J through the misconduct of the Greeks, and partly in conse- ^! quence of the despotic views of King Louis. It has been already stated that the regency was composed of three mem- _; bers, Count Armansperg, M. de Maurer, and General Heideck. j Count Armansperg was named president. Mr. Abel, the j secretary, was invested with a consultative voice, and ap­pointed supplemental member, to fill any vacancy that might occur. Mr. Greiner was joined to the regency as treasurer, and director of the finance department. Not one of these men, with the exception of General Heideck, had the slightest knowledge of the condition of Greece.

Count Armansperg enjoyed the reputation of being a very liberal man for a Bavarian nobleman at that time. He had been minister of finance, and he filled the office of minister j of foreign affairs when the first attempt was made to obtain \ the sovereignty of Greece for King Otho. His ministerial j experience and his rank rendered him well suited for the \ presidency of the regency, which gave him the direction of the foreign relations of the kingdom, and, what both he and ; the countess particularly enjoyed, the duty of holding public j receptions and giving private entertainments. The count’s 1 own tact, aided by the presence of the countess and three j accomplished daughters, rendered his house the centre of j polished society and of political intrigue at Nauplia. It was ; the only place where the young king could see something of 1 the world, and meet his subjects and strangers without feeling J the restraint of royalty, for M. de Maurer lived like a niggard, j and General Heideck like a recluse.

¹ Treaty of 7th May, 1832, Art. ix. x.

THE REGENCY.      in

a.d. 1833.]

M. de Maurer and Mr. Abel were selected for their offices on account of their sharing the political opinions of Count Armansperg¹. Maurer was an able jurist, but he was desti­tute both of the talents and the temper required to form a statesman. He knew well how to frame laws, but he knew not how to apply the principles of legislation to social exigencies which he met with for the first time. On the whole, he was a more useful and an honester man than Count Armansperg, but he was not so well suited by the flexibility of his character to move among Greeks and diplomatists, or to steer a prudent course in a high political sphere.

Both Armansperg and Maurer took especial care of their own personal interests before they gave their services to Greece. They bargained with King Louis for large pensions on quitting the regency, and they secured to themselves ample salaries during their stay in Greece. Count Armansperg ex­pended his salary like a gentleman, but the sordid household of M. de Maurer amused even the Greeks.

General Heideck was the member of the regency first selected. He had resided in the country, and had been long treated as a personal friend by the King of Bavaria. King Louis was well aware that, though Heideck was inferior to his colleagues in political knowledge, he was more sincerely attached to the Bavarian dynasty, and his majesty always entertained some misgivings concerning the personal prudence or the political integrity of the other members. Heideck, during his first visit to Greece, had acquired the reputation of an able and disinterested administrator. As a member of the regency, he paid little attention to anything but the organization of the army ; and he rendered himself unpopular by the partiality he showed to the Bavarians, on whom he lavished rapid promotion and high pay, while he left the veterans of the Revolution without reward and without em­ployment. He was accused of purchasing popularity at Munich by wasteful expenditure in Greece, and of doing very little to organize a native army when he had ample

¹ Mr. Abel, after his return to Bavaria, became a violent partizan of the ultra­montane party, fought a duel with Prince Oettingen-Wallerstein, and succeeded his adversary as Minister of the Interior. He held that office from 1S3S to 1847, when Lola Montes caused the ultramontane party to be ejected from power.

112  BA VARIAN DESPO TISM.

[Bk. V. Ch. IV. h

means at his disposal, though the moment was extremely favourable, for the success of the French at Argos had ren- j, dered the Greeks sensible of the value of discipline.                                   [

The members of the regency were men of experience and j strangers. It was natural to count on their cordial co-operation j during their short period of power. Yet the two leading , members, though they had been previously supposed to be political friends, were hardly installed in office before they began to dispute about personal trifles. Mean jealousy on one side, and inflated presumption on the other, sowed the | seeds of dissension. Count Armansperg, as a noble, looked I down on Maurer as a pedant and a lavv-professor. Maurer | sneered at the count as an idler, fit only to be a diplomatist or L a master of ceremonies. Both soon engaged in intrigues to j eject their colleagues. Maurer expected that, by securing f a majority of votes, he should be able to induce the King j of Bavaria to support his authority. Armansperg, with more | experience of courts, endeavoured to make sure of the support of the three protecting powers, whose influence, he knew, | would easily mould the unsteady mind of King Louis to their wish. The cause of Greece and the opinions of the Greeks were of no account to either of the intriguers, for Greek interests could not decide the question at issue. It would probably have been the wisest course at the beginning to have sent a single regent to Greece, and to have given him a council, the members of which might have been charged with the civil, military, financial, and judicial organization of the kingdom ; though it must be confessed that no wisdom could have foreseen that two Bavarian statesmen would surpass the Greeks in ‘envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness.’

Count Armansperg galled the pride of Maurer by an air of superiority, which the jurist had not the tact to rebuke with polite contempt. Maurer was impatient to proclaim publicly that the title of president only conferred on the count the first place in processions and the upper seat at board meetings, and he could not conceal that these things were the objects of his jealousy. The count understood society better than his rival. When strangers, misled by the fine figure and expres- t sive countenance of Maurer, addressed him as the chief of the regency, the lawyer had not the tact to transfer the

THE REGENCY.

^IT3

,D- IS33-]

:ompliments to their true destination, and win the flatterers >y his manner in doing so, but he left time for the president

o     thrust forward his common-looking physiognomy with >olished ease, vindicate his own rights, and extract from the .bashed strangers some additional outpouring of adulation, rhe Countess of Armansperg increased the discord of the egents by her extreme haughtiness, which was seldom re­trained by good sense, and sometimes not even by good nanners. She was so imprudent as to offend Heideck and Vbel as much as she irritated Maurer. It is necessary to lotice this conduct of the lady, for she was her husband’s vil genius in Grcece. Her influence increased the animosity f the Bavarians, and prolonged the misfortunes of the Greeks.

The position of the regency was delicate, but not difficult

0     men of talent and resolution. A moderate share of agacity sufficed to guide their conduct. Anarchy had pre­pared an open field of action. It was necessary to create n army, a navy, a civil and judicial administration, and to weep away the rude fiscal system of the Turkish land-tax. Ve shall see how the Bavarian regency performed these

first step was to put an end to the provisional system ^edients by which Capodistrias and his successors had •rolonged the state of revolution. It was necessary to make he Greeks feel that the royal authority gave personal security nd protection for property, since their loyalty reposed on

o     national and religious traditions and sympathies. It squired no philosopher in Greece, when King Otho arrived, d proclaim ‘that all the vast apparatus of government has ltimately no other object or purpose but the distribution f justice ; and that kings and parliaments, fleets and armies, fficers of the court and revenue, ambassadors, ministers, and rivy councillors, were all subordinate in their end to this art of the administration V The reign of anarchy coming fter the despotism of Capodistrias, had enabled the people to iel instinctively that good government could only be secured y rendering the laws and institutions of the kingdom more owerful than the will of the king and the action of govern-

¹      Hume’s Essay of the Origin of Government.

VOL. VII.

I

ii₄    BA 1 'ARIAX DESPO TJSM.

[Bk. V. Ch. IV.

mcnt. To consolidate a wise system of local government, and to render the administration of justice pure and inde­pendent, were evidently the first measures to be adopted in order to give the monarchy a national character.

The second step was to prepare the way for national pros­perity, by removing the obstacles which prevented the people! from bettering its condition. There was no difficulty in eftecting this, since uncultivated land was abundant, and the Allied loan supplied the regency with ample funds. The system of exacting a tenth of the agricultural produce of the country kept society beyond the walls of towns in a stationary condition. Its immediate abolition was the most: certain method of eradicating the evils it produced. Relief from the oppression of the tax-collector, even more than from the burden of the tax, would enable the peasantry to cultivate additional land, and to pay wages to agricultural labourers. An immediate influx of labourers would arrive from Turkey, and the increase of the population of Greece would be certain and rapid. One-tenth would every year be added to the national capital. The regency required to do nothing but make roads. The government of the country could have been carried on from the customs, and the rent of national pro­perty. The extraordinary expenses of organizing the kingdom would have been paid for out of the loan. The regency did nothing of the kind ; it retained the Turkish land-tax, neglected to make roads, spent the Allied loan in a manner that both weakened and corrupted the Greek nation, and left the great question of its increase in population and agricultural prosperity unsolved.

The members of the regency complained that the want of labour and capital impeded the success of their plans of; improvement; yet they seemed to have overlooked the fact that if they had abolished the tenths, the people would easily have procured both labour and capital for themselves. Labour was then abundant and cheap in Turkey; capital in the hands of Greeks was abundant in every commercial mart in the Mediterranean. Yet the Bavarians talked of establishing agricultural colonies of Swiss or Germans, and of inviting foreign capitalists to found banks. It may be confidently asserted that the Greek monarchy would have realized the boast of Themistocles, and rapidly expanded from a petty

f

ROYAL PROCLAMATION.       115

aj>. 1833.]

kingdom to a great state, had the regency swept away the (Turkish land-tax. and left the agricultural industry of Greece free to fashion its own career in the East.

On the day of the king’s landing, a royal proclamation was jissued, addressed to the Greek nation ; the ministers in office were confirmed in their places, and the senate was allowed to ¹ expire, without any notice, of the wounds it had inflicted both on^£c\[ and its country.

; KThe royal proclamation was nothing more than a collection |oY empty phrases, and it disappointed public expectation by ,making no allusion to representative institutions nor to the constitution. It revealed clearly that the views of the Bava­rian government were not in accordance with the sentiments of the Greeks. The silence of the regency on the subject of the Greek constitution was regarded as a claim on the part of King Otho to absolute power. The omission was generally blamed; but the acknowledged necessity of in­vesting the regency with unrestricted legislative power, in order to enable it to introduce organic changes in the administration, prevented any public complaint. It caused the Greeks, how­ever. to scrutinize the measures of the Bavarians with severity, and to regard the members of the regency with distrust. The King of Bavaria had solemnly declared to the protecting powers that the individuals selected to govern Greece during his son’s minority ‘ought to hold moderate and constitutional opinions;’ the Greek people had therefore an undoubted right to receive from these foreign statesmen a distinct pledge that they did not intend to establish an arbitrary govern­ment The distrust of the Greeks was increased, because the omission in the royal proclamation was a deliberate violation of a pledge given by the Bavarian Minister of Foreign Affairs, when the object of King Louis was to win over the Greeks to accept his son as their king. The Baron de Gise then declared that it would be one of the first cares of the re^encv to convoke a national assembly to assist in preparing a definitive constitution for the kingdom². The royal word, thus pledged, was guaranteed by a proclamation

¹      Parliamentary Papers, Annex A to Protocol of 26th April. 1S32.

²      The letter of Baron de Gise. dated 31st July. 1S32. is printed in Recueil de> Traites. Actes, et Pieces concernants la Fondation de la Roy cult en Grice et le Trace de

Limites (Xauplie. 1S33), p. 62.

H 6 BAVARIAN DESPOTISM.

[Bk. V. Ch. IV.

of the three protecting powers, published at Nauplia, to announce the election of King Otho. In this document the Greeks were invited to aid their sovereign in giving their country a definitive constitution¹. They answered the appeal J of the Allies on the 15th of September 1843.

The oath of allegiance demanded from the Greeks was simple. They swore fidelity to King Otho, and obedience to the laws of their country.

The first measures of the regency had been prepared at Munich, under the eye of King Louis. In these measures too much deference was paid to the administrative arrangements 1 introduced by Capodistrias, which he himself had always regarded as of a provisional nature; and the modifications' made on the Capodistrian legislation were too exclusively 1 based on German theories, without a practical adaptation to the state of Greece. The King of Bavaria had little knowledge of financial and economical questions, and he had no knowledge of the Social and fiscal wants of the Greek people. He thought of nothing but the means of carrying on the central administration, and in that sphere he en­deavoured honestly to introduce a well-organized and clearly j defined system. The laws and ordinances which the regency brought from Bavaria would have required only a few modi-1 fications to have engrafted them advantageously on the! existing institutions. Their great object was to establish! order and give power to the executive government.

The armed bands of personal followers which had enabled the military chiefs to place themselves above the law, to defy the government, and plunder the people, were disbanded. A national army was created. The scenes of tumultuous violence and gross peculation which General Heideck had witnessed in the Greek armies, had made a deep impression I on his mind. Warned by his experience, the regency arrived! with an army capable of enforcing order; and it fortunately found the Greek irregulars so cowed by the punishment they had received from the French at Argos, that they submitted! to be disbanded without offering any resistance. It must! not, however, be concealed, that the regency abused the power it acquired by its success. Bavarian officers, who

¹ Parliamentary Papers, Annex D to Protocol of 26th April, 1S32.

MILITARY ORGANIZATION.  117

A.D.1833.]

possessed neither experience nor merit, were suddenly pro­moted to high military commands, many of whom made a short stay in Greece, and hardly one of whom bestowed a single thought on the future condition of the country.

The national army soon received a good organization in print¹. In numbers it was unnecessarily strong. Upwards of five thousand Bavarian volunteers were enrolled in the Greek service before the end of the year 1S34, and almost as many Greek troops were kept under arms. This nume­rous force was never brought into a very efficient condition. Faction and jobbing soon vitiated its organization. The regency was ashamed to publish an army-list. Promotion was conferred too lavishly on young Bavarians, while Greeks and Philhellenes of long service were left unemployed. It was a grievous error on the part of General Heideck to omit fixing the rank and verifying the position and service of the Greek officers who had served during the Revolution, by the publication of an official army-list, while the personal identity of the actors in every engagement was well known.

The bold measure of disbanding the irregular army was a blow which required to be struck with promptitude and followed up with vigour in order to insure success. It is idle to accuse the regency of precipitancy and severity, for something like a thunderbolt could alone prevent an organized resistance, and a hurricane was necessary to dissipate oppo­sition. The whole military power created by the revolutionary war, and all the fiscal interests cherished by factious ad­ministrations, were opposed to the formation of a regular army. Chieftains, primates, ministers, and farmers of the taxes were all deprived of their bands of armed retainers before they could combine to thwart the Bavarians as they had leagued to attack the French.

The war had been terminated in the Morea by the arms of the French; in Romelia by the negotiations with the Porte: but the Greek soldiers, instead of resuming the occu­pations of citizens, insisted on being fed and paid by the people. When not engaged in civil war they lived in utter idleness. The whole revenues of Greece were insufficient to maintain these armed bands, and during the anarchy that

¹      ’E(pTjfiepis Tijs KvPepvTjaeais, 1833, Nos. 5, 6, and 7.

J l 8         BA VARTAN DESPOTISM.

[Bk.V. Ch. IV.

preceded the king's arrival they had been rapidly consuming the capital of the agricultural population. In many villages they had devoured the labouring oxen and the seed-eorn. Nevertheless, the wisest reform could not fail to cause great irritation in several powerful bodies of men. Unemployed Capodistrians, discontented constitutionalists, displaced Cor- fiots, and Russian partizans, all raised an angry cry of dissatisfaction. Sir Richard Church committed the political blunder of joining the cause of the anarchists. His past position misled him into the belief that the irregulars were an element of military strength. His own influence over the military depended entirely on personal combinations. His declared opposition to the military reforms of the regency persuaded Count Armansperg that the difficulty of trans­forming the personal followers of chiefs into a national army was much greater than it was in reality. Count Armansperg had approved of disbanding the irregulars, when that measure was decided on at Munich, and he concurred in the necessity of its immediate execution after the regency arrived at Nauplia. Yet, when he listened to the observations of Sir Richard Church, and counted the persons of influence opposed to reform, he became anxious to gain them to be his political partizans. He was sufficiently adroit as a party tactician to perceive that the Greeks were in that social and moral condition which leads men to make persons of more account than principles, and he saw that intriguers of all factions were looking out for a leader. His ambition led him to make his first false step in Greece on this occasion. He listened with affected approval to interested declamations against the military policy which put an end to the reign of anarchy. And, from his imprudent revival of the semi-irregular bands at a subsequent period, it seems probable that in his eager­ness to gain partizans he gave promises at this time which he found himself obliged to fulfil when he was entrusted with the sole direction of the government. The opposition of Sir Richard Church to measures which were necessary in order to put an end to anarchy, and the selfish countenance given to this opposition by Count Armansperg, entailed many years of military disorder on Greece, and were a principal cause of perpetuating the fearful scourge of brigandage, which is its inevitable attendant.

CIVIL ADMINISTRATION.      119

a.d. 1833.]

The sluggishness of the Bavarian troops formed a marked contrast with the activity of the French during their stay in Greece. Though the French soldiers were in a foreign land, with which they had only an accidental and temporary connection, they laboured industriously at many public works for the benefit of the Greeks, without fee or the expectation of reward. At Modon they repaired the fortifications, and built large and commodious barracks. At Navarin they reconstructed great part of the fortifications. They formed a good carriage-road from Modon to Navarin, and they built a bridge over the Pamisos to enable the cultivators of the rich plain of Messenia to bring their produce at every season to the markets of Kalamata, Coron, Modon, and Navarin^x. The Bavarians remained longer in Greece than the French ; they were in the Greek service, and well paid out of the Greek treasury, but they left no similar claims on the gratitude of the nation.

flThe civil organization of the kingdom was based 011 the principle of complete centralization. Without contesting the advantages of this system, it may be remarked that in a country in which roads do not yet exist it is impracticable. The decree establishing the ministry of the interior embraced so wide a field of attributions, some necessary and some useful, others superfluous and others impracticable, that it looks like a summary for an abridgment of the laws and ordinances of the monarchy². A royal ordinance, not unlike a table of contents to a comprehensive treatise on political economy, subsequently annexed a department of public economy to this ministry³. These two decrees, when read with a knowledge of their practical results, form a keen satire on the skill of the Bavarians in the art of government.

The kingdom was divided into ten provinces or nom- archies, whose limits corresponded with ancient or natural

¹      Maurer, Das Griecldsche Volk in offentlicher, kirchlicher itnd privat-rechtlicker Beziehunz, ii. 11. This work, written by the ablest member of the regency, is the best authority for the acts of the Greek government during 1833 ^and 1834- but it is full of personal prejudice and spite.

²      Government Gazette, 1833, No. 14, dated 15th April, 1833.

³      Government Gazette, 1834, No. 18, dated nth May, 1834. Maurer gives us, very unnecessarily, the information that this ordinance was copied from the legisla­tion of other countries. It speaks of introducing a system of canalization in a country where wells are often wanting, and of rendering the rivers, which flow only ‘ by the muses’ skill,’ navigable. Das Griechische Volk, ii. 98.

120 BA VA RIAN DESPOTISM.

[Bk. V. Ch. IV.

geographical boundaries. It is not necessary to notice the details of this division, for, like most arrangements in Greece, . ₍ it underwent several modifications \ Persons capable of per- j forming the part of nomarchs and eparchs had been already trained to the service by Capodistrias, and no difficulty was \ found in introducing the outward appearance of a regular and systematic action of the central government over the whole country². j

With all their bureaucratic experience, the members of the j regency were deficient in the sagacity necessary for carrying \ theory into practice where the social circumstances of the ’ people required new administrative forms. Their invention was so limited that when they were unable to copy the laws of Bavaria or France they adopted the measures of Capo­distrias. In no case were these measures more at variance with the political and social habits of the Greeks than in the ' modifications he made in their municipal system. This system, whatever might have been its imperfections, was a national institution. It had enabled the people to employ their whole strength against the Turks, and it contained within itself the germs of improvement and reform. Its vitality and its close connection with the actions and wants of the people had persuaded Capodistrias that it was a revolutionary institution. He struck a mortal blow at its j existence, by drawing it within the vortex of the central administration.

The regency virtually abolished the old popular municipal i system, and replaced it by a communal organization, which J permitted the people only a small share in naming the lowest officials of government in the provinces. The people were deprived of the power of directly electing their chief magis­trate or demarch. An oligarchical elective college was formed to name three candidates, and the king selected one of these to be demarch. The minister of the interior was invested with the power of suspending the demarchs from office, as an administrative punishment. In this way, the person who appeared to be a popular and municipal officer was in reality

¹      Government Gazette, 1S33, No. 12. A new division was established by Count Armansperg (Government Gazette, 1836, No. 28); and this division was again changed by King Otho (Government Gazette, 1838, No. 24).

²      A nomarch corresponds to a prefect under the French system, and an eparch to a sub-prefect.

MUNICIPAL INSTITUTIONS. 121

A.D.1833.]

transformed into an organ of the central government. De- marchs were henceforth compelled to perform the duties of incompetent and corrupt prefects, and serve as scapegoats for their misdeeds. The system introduced by the regency may have its merits, but it is a misnomer to call it a municipal system ¹.

To render municipal institutions a truly national institution and a part of the active life of the people, it is not only necessary that the local chief magistrate should be directly elected by the men of the municipality; but also that the authority which he receives by this popular election should only be revoked or suspended by the decision of a court of law, and not by the order of a minister or king. To render the people’s defender a dependent on the will of the central administration, is to destroy the essence of municipal insti­tutions. The mayor or demarch must be responsible only to the law ; and the control which the minister of the interior must exercise over his conduct must be confined to accusing him before the legal tribunals when he neglects his duty.

The decrees organizing the ministry of the interior and the department of public economy, proved that the regency was theoretically acquainted with all the objects to which enlight­ened statesmen can be called upon to direct their attention ; but its financial administration displayed great inability to employ this multifarious knowledge to any good practical purpose. The fiscal system of the Turks was allowed to remain the basis of internal taxation in the Greek kingdom. Indeed, as has been already observed, whenever the Bavarians

¹ Government Gazette, 1834, No. 3. Maurer boasts that the object of the muni­cipal law was to constitute the demarchies as moral beings. He ought to have foreseen that it would render the demarchs very immoral subjects (ii. 117). In the Parliamentary Papers relative to Greece in 1836, there is a despatch of Sir Edmund Lyons claiming for Armansperg the authorship of the law, which it described as ‘ founded on very liberal principles, and placing the administration of the affairs of the municipalities entirely in their own hands, and establishing the principle of election on the most liberal and extended scale.’ It is evident that Lyons was grossly deceived, and this despatch is valuable as illustrating the bold­ness and the falsehood of Armansperg’s assertions. Abel was the principal author of the law, and Parish asserts that Armansperg opposed it as too republican. It deprived the people of the right of electing their chief magistrate. It rendered that chief magistrate dependent on the minister of the day, and not responsible for the due execution of his functions to the law alone. Compare Additional Papers relative to the Third Instalment of the Greek Loan, p. 37, and Diplomatic History of the Monarchy of Greece, by H. H. Parish, Esq., late Secretary of Legation to Greece, pp. 314 and 326.

I 2 2         DA VA RIAN DESPO TISM.

[Bk. V. Ch. IV.

entered on a field of administration, in which neither admini­strative manuals nor Capodistrias’ practice served them as guides, they were unable to discover new paths. This administrative inaptitude, more than financial ignorance, must have been the cause of their not replacing the Turkish land- tax by some source of revenue less hostile to national progress. Where a bad financial system exists, reform is difficult, and its results doubtful. Entire abolition is the only way in which all the evils it has engendered in society can be completely eradicated. So many persons derive a profit from old abuses, that no partial reform can prevent bad practices from finding a new' lodgment, and in new positions old evil-doers can generally continue to intimidate or cheat the people. To make sure of success in extensive financial changes, it is necessary to gain the active co-operation of the great body of the people, and this must be purchased by lightening the popular burdens. The greatest difficulty of statesmen is not in preparing good laws, but in creating the machinery neces­sary to carry any financial laws into execution without oppression.

It is always difficult to levy a large amount of direct taxation from the agricultural population without arresting improvement and turning capital away from the cultivation of the land. The decline of the agricultural population in the richest lands of the Othoman empire, and, indeed, in every country between the Adriatic and the Ganges, may be traced to the oppressive manner in which direct taxation is applied to cultivated land. The Roman empire, in spite of its admirable survey, and the constant endeavours of its legislators to protect agriculture, was impoverished and de­populated by the operation of a direct land-tax, and the oppressive fiscal laws it rendered necessary. The regency perhaps did not fully appreciate the evil effects on agriculture of the Turkish system ; it was also too ignorant of the financial resources of Greece to find new taxes ; and it was not dis­posed to purchase the future prosperity of the monarchy by a few years of strict economy ^l.

¹ \\ ithout entering on the question of the comparative advantages of direct and indirect taxation, which often depend more on national circumstances than political science, it must be mentioned that the Greek peasantry and small proprietors were averse to commuting the tenths paid in kind for a fixed annual rate in money. They feared that they would be obliged to borrow money, and thus subject them­

FINANCIAL ADMINISTRATION.    123

a.d. 1833.]                        '

The fiscal measures of the regency which had any pretension to originality were impolitic and unjust. They were adopted at the suggestion of Mavrocordatos, who had the fiscal pre­judices and the arbitrary principles of his Phanariot education as a Turkish official.

Salt was declared a government monopoly; and in order to make this monopoly more profitable, several salt-works which had previously been farmed were now closed. This measure produced great inconvenience in a country where the difficulties of transport presented an insuperable barrier to the formation of a sufficient number of depots in the moun­tains. The evils of the monopoly soon became intolerable,— sheep died of diseases caused by the want of salt, the shep­herds turned brigands, and, at last, even the rapacious Bavarians were convinced that the monopoly required to be modified *.

/The evils resulting from the salt monopoly were far ex­ceeded by an attempt of the regency to seize all the pasture- lands belonging to private individuals as national property. In a ministerial circular, Mavrocordatos ordered the officials of the finance department to take possession of all pasture- lands in the kingdom, declaring ‘ that every spot where wild herbage grows which is suitable for the pasturage of cattle is national property/ and that the Greek government, like the Othoman, maintained the principle ‘that no property in the soil, except the exclusive right of cultivation, could be legally vested in a private individual.’ This attempt to found the Bavarian monarchy in Greece on the legislative theories of Asiatic barbarians, whom the Greeks had expelled from their country, could not succeed. But the property of so many persons was arbitrarily confiscated by this ministerial circular, that measures for resisting it were promptly taken. A wide­spread conspiracy was formed, and several military chiefs were incited to take advantage of the prevalent discontent, and plan a general insurrection. Government was warned of

selves to the evil of debt, and become serfs of the money lenders. The produce was always ready when it could be demanded; the money, they said, would always be demanded by the government officials when it was not ready, and then some ally of the official would appear to lend the sum demanded by the state at an exorbitant interest. Here we see how direct taxation in an agricultural com­munity produces the evil of debts, which forms a political feature in ancient history.

¹      Maurer, Das Griechische Volk, ii. 290.

124 BA VA RIAN DESPO TISM.

[Bk. V. Cb. IV.

the danger, and saw the necessity of cancelling Mavrocor- datos' circular. But many landed proprietors were deprived of the use of their pasture-lands by the farmers of the revenue for more than a year. The cultivation of several large estates was abandoned, and much capital was driven away from Greece \

Though Mavrocordatos made an exhibition of extra­ordinary fiscal zeal at the expense of the people, he is accused by M. de Maurer of dissipating the national property, by granting titles to houses, buildings, shops, mills, and gardens, to his political allies and partizans, after the king’s arrival, without any legal warrant from the regency, and without any purchase-money being paid into the Greek treasury—in short, of continuing the abuses which had disgraced the administration of the constitutionalists, while they were in league with Kolettes and acting under the governing commission ².

It would be a waste of time to enumerate the financial abuses which the regency overlooked or tolerated. They allowed the frauds to commence which have ended in rob­bing the nation of the most valuable portion of the national property, the English bondholders of the lands which were given them in security, and the greater part of those who fought for the independence of their country, of all reward. The regency showed itself as insensible to the value of national honesty as the Greek statesmen of the Revolution, and the progress of the country has been naturally arrested in this age of credit by the dishonesty of its rulers. By the repudiation of her just debts, Greece has been thrown entirely on her internal resources, and, after nearly thirty years of peace, she remains without roads, without manu­factures, and without agricultural improvements.

The monetary system of the Greek kingdom was a con­tinuance of that introduced by Capodistrias, but the phoenix was now called a drachma. The radical defect of this plan

¹      It is remarkable that Maurer, in his work on the administration of the regency, omits all mention of this important measure. The suppres-io veri fixes a large share of its responsibility on him and his colleagues. There is no doubt that it created the aversion which has ever since been shown by wealthy Greeks in England, France, and Germany to making purchases of land in the Greek kingdom. Parish, Diplomatic History, p. 231 ; The Helle?iic Kingdom and the Greek Nation, a pamphlet, 1836, p. 64.

²      Maurer, Das Griechische Volk, ii. 286.

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.

A.D. 183?.]

has been already pointed out, and the value of the Spanish pillar dollar, on which it had been originally based, was daily increasing throughout the Levant. An accurate assay of these dollars at the Bavarian mint had proved that their metallic value exceeded the calculation of Capodistrias, and the drachma was consequently coined of somewhat more value than the phoenix, in order to render it equal to one sixth of the dollar. The metal employed in the Greek coinage was of the same standard of purity as that employed in the French mint. It seems strange that the regency overlooked the innumerable advantages which would have j resulted to Greece from making the coinage of the country correspond exactly with that of France, Sardinia, and Belgium, instead of creating a new monetary system ^x. i^The highest duty the regency was called upon to fulfil was : to introduce an effective administration of justice. M. de Maurer was a learned and laborious lawyer, and he devoted his attention with honourable zeal to framing the laws and organizing the tribunals necessary to secure to all ranks an ' equitable administration of justice. Had he confined himself ¹ to organizing the judicial business, and preparing a code of laws for Greece, he would have gained immortal honour.

The criminal code and the codes of civil and criminal procedure promulgated by the regency are excellent. In . general, the measures adopted for carrying the judicial ' system into immediate execution exhibited a thorough I knowledge of legal administration. By Maurer’s ability and >. energy the law was promptly invested with supreme authority i in a country where arbitrary power had known no law for ages. His merit in this respect ought to cancel many of his political blunders, and obtain for him the gratitude of the Greeks ². It has been the melancholy task of this work to ' record the errors and the crimes of those who governe

¹      i-ii68 drachmas equal a franc, and 2812 drachmas an English sovereign. The drachma is divided into 100 lepta ; and the Greek coins are—two of gold, 40 and 20 drachmas; four of silver, 5, 1, \, and \ drachma; and four of copper,

10,  5, 2, and 1 lepton. For observations on the system of Capodistrias, see above, p. 46.

²      For the criminal code, see Government Gazette, 1834, No. 3 ; it bears date the 30th December, r8.^3; for the organization of the tribunals and notarial offices, No. 13; for the code of criminal procedure. No. 16; and for the code of civil procedure, No. 22. The German originals of these laws are printed in Maurer’s work, Das Griechische Volk, iii. 304, 849.

126 BAVARIAN DESPOTISM.

[Bk. V. Ch. IV.

Greece much oftener than their merits or their virtues. It is gratifying to find an opportunity of uttering well-merited praise.

Some objections have been taken to the manner in which primary jurisdictions were adapted to the social requirements of a rural population living in a very rude condition, and thinly scattered over mountainous districts ; but the examina­tion of these objections belongs to the province of politics, and not of history.

It is necessary to point out one serious violation of the principles of equity in the judicial organization introduced by the regency. In compliance with the spirit of administrative despotism prevalent in Europe, the sources of justice were vitiated whenever the fiscal interests of the government were concerned, by the creation of exceptional tribunals to decide questions between the state and private individuals; and these tribunals were exempted from the ordinary rules of judicial procedure. Thus the citizens were deprived of the protection of the law precisely in those cases where that protection was most wanted, and the officials of the govern­ment were raised above the law. The proceedings of these exceptional tribunals caused such general dissatisfaction, that they were abolished after the Revolution of 1843, and an article was inserted in the constitution of Greece prohibiting the establishment of such courts in future

The Greek Revolution broke off the relations of the clergy with the patriarch and synod of Constantinople. This was unavoidable, since the patriarch was in some degree a minister of the sultan for the civil as well as the ecclesiastical affairs of the orthodox. It was therefore impossible for a people at war with the sultan to recognize the patriarch’s authority. The clergy in Greece ceased to mention the patriarch’s name in public worship, and adopted the form of prayer for the whole orthodox Church used in those dioceses of the Eastern Church which are not comprised within the limits of the patriarchate of Constantinople.

When Capodistrias assumed the presidency, an attempt was made by the patriarch and synod of Constantinople to bring the clergy in Greece again under their immediate

THE GREEK CHURCH.   127

a.d. 1833.]

jurisdiction. Letters were addressed to the president and to the clergy, and a deputation of prelates was sent to renew the former ties of dependency. But Capodistrias was too sensible of the danger which would result to the civil power from allowing the clergy to become dependent on foreign patronage, to permit any ecclesiastical relations to exist with the patriarch. He replied to the demands of the Church of Constantinople by stating that the murder of the Patriarch Gregorios, joined to other executions of bishops and laymen, having forced the Greeks to throw off the sultan’s government in order to escape extermination, it was impossible for liberated Greece to recognize an ecclesiastical chief subject to the sultan’s power \

Capodistrias found the clergy of Greece in a deplorable condition, and he did very little for their improvement. The lower ranks of the priesthood were extremely ignorant, the higher extremely venal. Money was sought with shameless rapacity ; and Mustoxidi, who enjoyed the president’s con­fidence, and who held an official situation in the department of ecclesiastical affairs and public instruction, asserts that simony was generally practised². The bishops annulled marriages, made and cancelled wills, and gave judicial decisions in most civil causes. They leagued with the primates in opposing the establishment of courts of laws during the Revolution ; for they derived a considerable revenue by trading in judicial business ; while the primates supported this jurisdiction, because the ecclesiastics were generally under their influence. Capodistrias, in spite of this opposition, deprived the bishops of their jurisdiction in civil causes, except in those cases relating to marriage and divorce, where it is conceded to them by the canons of the Greek Church. Against this reform the mitred judges raised indignant complaints, and endeavoured to persuade their flocks that the orthodox clergy was suffering a persecution equal to that inflicted on the chosen people in the old time by Pharaoh.

Capodistrias also endeavoured to obtain from the bishops and

¹      Correspondance du Comte Capodistrias, President de la Grece, publiee par E. A. Betant, l’un de ses Secretaires. Geneve, 1839 : ii. 153.

²      Renseignements stir la Grece el sur I'administration du Comte Capodistrias, par un Grec temoin oculaire desfaits qu’il rapporte, Paris, 1833, p. 30.

128 BA VA RIAN DESPO TISM.

[Bk. V. Ch. IV.

abbots, inventories of the movable and immovable property of the churches and monasteries under their control, but without success. Even his orders, that diocesan and parish registers should be kept of marriages, baptisms, and deaths, were disobeyed, though not openly resisted. Mustoxidi ex­pressly declares that the opposition to these beneficial measures proceeded from the selfishness and corruption of the Greek clergy, who would not resign the means of illicit gain. They knew that if regular registers of marriages, births, and deaths were established, the fabrication of certificates to meet con­tingencies would ccase, and the delivery of such certificates was a very lucrative branch of ecclesiastical profits. Bigamy and the admission of minors into the priesthood would no longer be possible ; and it was said that they were sources of great gain to venal bishops. Capodistrias failed to eradicate these abuses from the Church in Greece; for Mustoxidi declares, that if he had amputated the gangrened members of the priesthood, very little of the clerical body would have remained ^x.

The ecclesiastical reforms of the regency were temperately conducted. An assembly of bishops was convoked at Nauplia to make a report on the ecclesiastical affairs of the kingdom. Its advice was in conformity with the wishes of those in power, rather than with the sentiments of a majority of the bishops ; for political subserviency has been for ages a feature of the Eastern clergy. On the 4th August 1833, a decree proclaimed the National Church of Greece independent of the patriarch and synod of Constantinople, and established an ecclesiastical synod for the kingdom². In doctrine, the Church of liberated Greece remained as closely united to the Church at Constantinople as the patriarchates of Jeru­salem or Alexandria ; but in temporal affairs it was subject to a Catholic king instead of a Mohammedan sultan. King Otho was invested with the power of appointing annually the members of the synod³. This synod was formed on

¹      Renseignements sur la Grice et sur f administration du Comte Capodistrias. 35.

²      Government Gazette, 1833, No. 23. Thirly-four biahops signed the Declaration of Independence.

³      Maurer, with the candour which confers value on his vainglorious volumes, tells us, that King Otho succceded, in ecclesiastical affairs, as in all other authority, to the rights of the sultan. This information explains one of the causes of his arbitrary proceedings, and the oblivion of the Revolution. Das Griechische Volk-,

ii.    160.

REFORMS.      I2Q

J>. 1833.]

he model of that of Russia ; but in accordance with the ree institutions of the Greeks, it received more freedom of Jiction.

^ i When the important consequences which may result from ^ei, J:he independence of a church in Greece filled with a learned jmd enlightened clergy are considered, the success of the '^r^ regency in consummating this great work is really wonderful. The influence of Russia and the prejudices of a large body }f the Greeks were hostile to reform ; but the necessity of 1 great change in order to sweep away the existing eccle­siastical corruption was so strongly felt by the enlightened men in liberated Greece, that they were determined not to cavil at the quarter from which reform came, nor to criticise the details of a measure whose general scope they approved. Those, however, who had thwarted the moderate reforms of 'Capodistrias were not likely to submit in silence to the more extensive reforms of the Bavarians. An opposition was quickly formed. Several bishops were sent from Turkey into Greece as missionaries to support the claims of the patriarch to ecclesiastical supremacy. They were assisted by monks from Mount Athos, who wandered about as n.(^emissaries of superstition and bigotry. Russian diplomacy echoed the outcries of these zealots, and patronized the most intriguing of the discontented priests. Yet the Greek people e 0 remained passive amidst all the endeavours made to incite e it to violence.

In the month of December 1833, the regency published an ordinance, declaring that the number of bishoprics in Greece was to be ultimately reduced to ten, making them correspond in extent with the nomarchies into which the kingdom was divided. This measure was adopted at the recommendation of the synod. In the mean time, forty bishops were named by royal authority to act in the old dioceses, and when these died the sees were to be gradually united, until ten only remained¹. The synod was reproached with subserviency for proposing this law, which was generally disapproved.

A reaction in favour of renewing ecclesiastical relations with Constantinople soon manifested itself. Death diminished

:e

¹ Government Gazette, 1833, No. 3?. VOL. VII. K

iso  BA\^TARIAiV DESPOTISM.

[Bk. V. Ch. IV

the number of the bishops, and the synod named by Kingj Otho had not the power of consecrating an orthodox bishop! so that when the Revolution of 1843 occurred, many sees were vacant. The constitutional system did as little for some years to improve the Church as preceding governments. ButJ the Greek people did not remain indifferent to the revival ofj religious feeling, which manifested itself in every Christianj country about this period. Among the Greeks the ideas ofi. nationality and Oriental orthodoxy are closely entwined. The, revival of religious feeling strengthened the desire for nationalj' union, and a strong wish was felt to put an end to the kind ofi schism which separated the free Greeks from the flock of the patriarch of Constantinople.

Secret negotiations were opened, which, in the year 1850, led to the renewal of amicable relations. The patriarch and synod of Constantinople published a decretal of the Oriental Church, called a Synodal Tomos, which recognized the inde­pendence of the Greek Church, under certain restrictions and obligations, which it imposed on the clergy. Much objection was made to the form of this document, particularly to the assumption that the liberties of the National Church required the confirmation of a body of priests notoriously dependent on the Othoman government, and which might soon be filled with members aliens to the Greek race. Two years were allowed to pass before the Greek government accepted the terms of peace offered by the Church of Constantinople. In 1852 a law was adopted by the Greek Chambers, enacting all the provisions of the Synodal Tomos, without, however, making any mention of that document. By this arrangement the independence of the Church of Greece was established on a national basis, and its orthodoxy fully recognized by the patriarch and synod of Constantinople \

The re-establishment of monastic discipline, and the admi­nistration of the property belonging to ecclesiastical founda­tions, called for legislation. War had destroyed the buildings and dispersed the monks of four hundred monasteries. Many monks had served as soldiers against the infidels; but

¹ A volume hostile to the Synodal Tomos, which contains much sound reasoning, with some unnecessary theological violence, was published by a learned eccle-i- astic, the archimandrite Pharmakides. It is entitled, 'O ZvvodiKos Tu/xos, f) mpl dAijOtias. For the Tomos, see p. 37.

¹                                         MONASTERIES. 131

j. D. 1S33.]                        ‘

much greater number lived on public charity, mixing ¹ nth the world as mere beggars and idlers. The respect for nonachism had declined. It was neither possible nor de- ,irable to rebuild the greater part of the ruined monasteries; ^l»ut it was necessary to compel the monks to retire from j |he world and return to a monastic life. It was also the i 'luty of the government to prevent the large revenues of J ,he ruined monasteries from being misappropriated. The | 'egency suppressed all those monasteries of which there were j jess than six monks, or of which the buildings were com- “'( ^letely destroyed, by a royal ordinance of the 7th October [833¹. The number thus dissolved amounted to four hundred md twelve, and the property which fell into the hands of _| i:he government was very great. One hundred and forty- ^ bight monasteries were re-established, and two thousand ^ monks were recalled to a regular monastic life. The surviving ^llX nuns were collected into four convents. The lands of the ^ii!( ‘suppressed monasteries were farmed like other national ^J, [property, and they were so much worse cultivated by the Mfarmers of the revenue than they had been formerly by the “«monks, that the measure created much dissatisfaction. The ^::1iecclesiastical policy of the regency in this case received the ^Iblame due to its financial administration. As far as regards %the treatment of the monasteries, no conduct of foreigners, ^however prudent, could have escaped censure.

Much has been done in Greece for public instruction since -■the arrival of King Otho. The regency, however, did little ^,flbut copy German institutions, and so many changes have ■■been subsequently made, that the subject does not fall within '’■the limits of this work. The regeneration of Greek society, eflby a wiser system of family education than seems at present y to be practised, will doubtless one day supply the materials

i^{! 1} The ordinance of 1833 was framed on the report of the synod, and a catalogue ¹ of the 412 monasteries suppressed was annexed to the report, which is dated 19th 1. (31st) August, 1833. This document, which would be of great historical and

I topographical interest, has not been printed, and it is said not to exist in the * archives of the ministry of ecclesiastical affairs. A work entitled Ta MovaaT-q- ,1 piana, published in 1859 by Mr. Mamouka, under-secretary of state in the ecclesi- |l astical department, and editor of the Acts of the Greek National Assemblies, contains the measures adopted with regard to the existing monasteries. There is a third f class of monasteries, which possess considerable estates in Greece, concerning t which it is difficult to procure information:—viz., those of Mount Athos, of the Holy Sepulchre, and of Mount Sinai.

K 2

I      3 2    BA J^rA RIAN DESPO TISM.

‘                               [Bk V. Ch. IV.

for an interesting chapter to some future historian of Greek civilization.

The regency did not establish an university, and King Otlio never showed any love for learning. Much dissatis­faction was manifested at the delay; and in the year 1837 the Greeks took the business into their own hands, with a degree of zeal which it would be for their honour to display more frequently in other good causes. A public meeting was! held, and all parties united to raise the funds necessary fori building an university by public subscription. The court I yielded slowly and sullenly to the force of public opinion. The royal assent was extorted rather than given to the measure, but after an interval the king himself became a subscriber, and sycophants called the university by his name.

In a country divided as Greece had long been by fierce party quarrels, it was natural that every measure of the government should meet a body of men ready to oppose it. The liberty of the press could not fail to give a vent to much animosity, and the restoration of legal order by the regency resuscitated the liberty of the press, which Capodistrias had almost strangled. Four newspapers were established at Nauplia, and the measures of the regency were examined with a good deal of freedom. Many of the criticisms of the press might have been useful to the regency from their intelli- . gence and moderation, and from the intimate knowledge they 1 displayed concerning the internal condition of the country. Though the regency paid little attention to these articles, ' it allowed those in which ignorance and violence were exhi­bited to ruffle its equanimity. The liberty of the press was declared by the two liberals, Armansperg and Maurer, to be of little value to the Greeks, unless the press could be prevented from blaming the conduct and criticising the measures of their rulers. Most of the Bavarians were galled by frequent allusions to the magnitude of their pay, and the trifling nature ! of their service. They demanded that the press should be | silenced. The wishes of the members of the regency coincided f with these demands. The spirit of Viaro Capodistrias again I animated the Greek government^x.

¹      The four newspapers published at Nauplia were Athena, Helios, Chronos, and Triptolemos. The Greek pi ess did not then use more violent language concerning any member of lhe regency than Maurer afterwards used against his colleague,

THE PRESS.    130

4.0.1833.]                         -

The regency did not venture to establish a censorship. It was, however, determined to suppress the newspapers most opposed to the government by indirect legislation. In the month of September 1833 several laws were promulgated regulating the press, and police regulations were introduced worthy of the Inquisition in the sixteenth century¹. Printers, lithographers, and booksellers were treated as men suspected of criminal designs against the state, and placed under numerous restrictions. The editors of newspapers and pe­riodicals were compelled to deposit the sum of five thousand drachmas in the public treasury, to serve as a security in case they should be condemned to pay fines or damages in actions of libel. As the interest of money at Nauplia was then one and a half per cent, per month, it was supposed that nobody would be found who would make the deposit. The end of the law was attained, and all the four political newspapers immediately ceased. By this law another liberal ministry in Greece became bankrupt in reputation. The want of public principle and conscientious opinions among Greek statesmen is manifested by the names of the ministers which appear attached to these ordinances against the liberty of the press. They are Mavrocordatos, Kolettes, Tricoupi, Psyllas, and PraTdes.

To counteract the bad impression produced by the restraints put on the liberty of the press, the Greek government pre­tended to be seriously occupied in improving the material condition of the people. Starving the mind and feasting the body is a favourite system with tyrants. The Bavarians, however, only feasted the Greeks with printed paper. A royal proclamation was published announcing that the regency was about to construct a net-work of roads². A plan was adopted by which every part of the kingdom would have found ready access to the Ionian and Aegean seas, and its

Armansperg. But ‘it is one of the conditions of bad governors to give heed to what they hear said of them, and to take ill that which, if it had been said, they had better not have heard,’ as Ferdinand the Catholic told other regents. See Helps, The Spanish Conquest of America, i. 182.

¹      Government Gazette, 1833, No. 29. 1. Concerning printers, lithographers, and booksellers. 2. Concerning the press. 3. Concerning criminal abuses of the press.

²      Government Gazette, 1833. No. 29. More than a quarter of a century has now elapsed, yet the roads from Athens to Chalcis and from Athens to Corinth are unfinished, and many roads are in a worse condition than they were under the Turks.

I u  BA VA RIAN DESPO TISM.

[Bk. V. Ch. IV,

execution was absolutely necessary to improve the country. The whole of the roads proposed might easily have been completed in about ten years, had the Bavarian volunteers and the Greek conscripts worked at road-making with as much industry as the French had done while they remained in Greece. King Louis of Bavaria declared that the Bava­rians would confer benefits on Greece without being a burden j on the country. The greatest benefit they could have con­ferred would have been to construct good roads and stone bridges. They neglected to do this, and, in direct violatioa of their king’s engagement to the protecting powers, they rendered themselves an intolerable burden¹.

Enough has now been said of the legislative and administra­tive measures of the regency.

On the ist of June 1H33 they decorated the monarchy with an order of knighthood, called the Order of the Redeemer, in commemoration of the providential deliverance of Greece-. The order was divided into five classes. F'rom an official list, published a few weeks before the termination of Count Armansperg’s administration as arch-chancellor, it appears that the grand cross had been conferred on forty-nine per­sons, exclusive of kings and members of reigning families.^- Among these there were only three Greeks and one Phil- hellene. The names of Ivenares, Mavrocordatos, Gordon, and Fabvier, are not in the list, which it is impossible to read without a feeling of contempt for those who prepared it. The subsequent destiny of the order has not been more brilliant than its commencement. French ministers have obtained crosses in great numbers for unknown writers, and Bavarian courtiers and German apothecaries have been as lucky as French savants. While it was lavished on foreigners who had rendered Greece no service, it was not bestowed on several Greeks who had distinguished themselves in their country’s service ³.

¹ Parliiime/r'ary Papers, Annex A to Protocol of 26th April, 1S32.

- Government Gazette, 1833, No. 29. The following number contains patterns ior the embroidery of the uniforms of civil officials. Ministers and nomarchs were iorixxl to send to Munich and Paris for their coats, and when they first made their appearance in their new clothes, it was evident that they had sent very bad measures. Most of them looked as if they had starved since their coats were ordered.

■’ The Greek Almanac of 1S37 gives a list of 594 Knights of the Redeemer. Of these 374 are Bavarians and foreigners, 154 Greeks, and 24 Philhellenes. The iest are emperors, kings, princes &c.

QUARRELS IN THE REGENCY.       T35

1.0.1833.]

Before recounting the quarrels of the regency, it is neces­sary to say a few words more concerning the characters of the men who composed it.

Count Armansperg came to Greece with the expectation of being able to act the viceroy. He aspired to hold a position similar to that of Capodistrias, but neither his feeble character nor his moderate abilities enabled him to master the position. He might have given up the idea had he not been pushed forward by the countess, who possessed more ambition and less wisdom than her husband Armansperg selected Maurer and Abel as his colleagues, knowing them to be able and hard-working men, and believing that he should find them grateful and docile. Armansperg never displayed much sagacity in selecting his subordinates, and he soon found to his dismay that Maurer and Abel were men so ambitious that he could neither lead nor drive them. Without losing time he set about undermining their authority.

The merits of Maurer are displayed in his legislative mea­sures ; his defects are exposed in his book on Greece. His natural disposition was sensitive and touchy; his sudden elevation to high rank turned his head. He could never move in his new sphere without a feeling of restraint that often amounted to awkwardness. He wished to save money, and he did so ; but he felt that his penuriousness rendered him ridiculous. His want of knowledge of the world was dis­played by the foolish manner in which he attempted to obtain the recall of Mr. Dawkins, the British resident in Greece, because Mr. Dawkins thought Count Armansperg the better statesman. His ignorance of Greece is certified by his informing the world that it produces dates, sugar, and coffee².

Mr. Abel was an active and able man of business, but of limited bureaucratic views ; rude, bold, and sincere.

The opinions of General Heideek were not considered to be of much value, but his support was important, for it was known that his conduct was regulated by what he conceived to be the wish of the King of Bavaria.

The merits of the different members of the regency may be correctly estimated by the condition in which they placed the

¹ Maurer, ii 56.

² Ibid. ii. 310.

3 o6         BA VA RIAN DESPOTISM.

°                              [Bk. V. Ch. IV.

departments of the state under their especial superintendence. Until the 31st of July 1834, the departments of justice, mili- j tary affairs, and civil administration, were directed by Maurer,! Hcideck, and Abel; and they laid the foundations of an organization which has outlived the Bavarian domination, j and forms a portion of the scaffolding of the constitutional j monarchy of Greece, as established after the Revolution of I 1843. The department of finance was entrusted to Arman- sperg, and he retained his authority for four years, yet he effected no radical improvements. He found and left the- department a source of political and social corruption. It was not until the end of the year 1836, and then only when forced by the protecting powers and the King of Bavaria, that he published any accounts of the revenue and expenditure of his government, and the accounts published were both imperfect and inaccurate^x.

The policy of the regency did little to extinguish party spirit and personal animosity among the Greeks. Indeed, both the members of the regency and the foreign ministers at Nauplia did much to nourish the evil passions excited by the reign of anarchy. Armansperg was a partizan of English influence ; Maurer and Abel, strong partizans of France. Russia, having no avowed partizan among the Bavarians, maintained her influence among the Greeks by countenancing the Capodistrian opposition, protecting the monks and clergy from Turkey, and the adventurers from the Ionian Islands, and flattering the ambition of Kolokotrones. The French minister protected Kolettes and the most rapacious of his friends, because they were supposed to be devoted to the interests of France. England made a pretence of supporting a constitutional party, but her friends were chiefly remarkable for their frequent desertion of the cause of the constitution.

The regency excluded Kolokotrones and the senators, who had attempted to welcome King Otho with a civil war, from all official employment. But the unpopularity of several

¹ Maurer, who. it must he owned, is a prejudiced witness, says, that as long a» Armansperg could make Greiner work at official details, he did nothing but loll on his sofa and read the chapter on the French Revolution in Rotteck’s Universal History, or ride out and then lake his siesta. His colleagues, who could not obtain from him a budget, reproached him at their board meetings with his inactivity. Das Gnechische Volk, ii. 319, 519; Parish, Diplomatic History, 296; Government Gazette, 1836, Nos. 61, 65, 88, 89, 9^, 91, 92.

KOLOKO TRONES' PLOT.       137

A.D. 1833.]                     '

measures enabled these excluded Capodistrians to raise a loud if not a dangerous opposition, and they availed themselves with considerable skill of the liberty of the press, as long as the regency allowed them to enjoy it, for the purpose of engaging the feelings and prejudices of a numerous class, whose attachment to orthodoxy rendered them distrustful of a government that was not orthodox, in direct hostility to the regency. At the same time they formed a secret society called the Phoenix, to imitate the Philike Hetairia, and pretended to be sure of Russian support. Kolokotrones had addressed a letter to Count Nesselrode, the Russian minister of foreign affairs, on the state of Greece, while re­siding on board Admiral Ricord’s flag-ship, just after King Otho's arrival. Count Nesselrode replied to that letter on the nth July 1833, and numerous copies of this reply were now circulated among the discontented ^l. It was appealed to as a proof that the Russian cabinet would support a Capo- distrian insurrection, and cover the insurgents with its powerful protection as heretofore. A petition to the Emperor Nicholas was signed, praying his Imperial Majesty to employ his powerful influence to obtain the immediate recall of the regency, and the declaration of King Otho’s majority. The proposal showed great boldness in a party which, when it elected Agostino president of Greece, had proposed that King Otho should be considered a minor until he completed his twenty-fourth year. A cry was raised in favour of orthodoxy and liberty in many parts of Greece, and brigandage began simultaneously to revive. Measures were concerted for a general outbreak, and the Capodistrians, with Kolokotrones as their leader, expected to play over again the drama which the constitutionalists, with Kolettes at their head, had enacted in 1832. They miscalculated the state of public opinion. They had no longer the municipalities and the people in their favour.

Simultaneously with this conspiracy, a minor plot was going on, called the Armansperg intrigue ; and in the end this little snake swallowed up the great serpent. The conspirators in the minor plot only wished to get quit of Maurer and Hei­deck, and to make Armansperg sole regent. Dr. Franz, an

¹      Count Nesselrode's letter is printed in Parish’s Diplomatic HiJory, p. 274.

T     BA VARI. IX DESPO TISM.

'                              [Bk.V.Ch. IV.

interpreter of the regency, who had allied himself closely with the partizans of Count Armansperg, circulated petitions to the King of Bavaria, praying for the recall of the other members of the regency. The existence of these petitions was revealed to Maurer, Heideck, and Abel, by a Greek named Nikolai'des, and by the Prince Wrede, whom Capodistrias had formerly selected as a fit person to lay the state of Greece before Prince Leopold. Wrede was admitted to the councils of the Capo- distrians. though it is not probable that he was treated with implicit confidence. He appears, however, to have obtained some knowledge of their plans for a general insurrection. Dr. Franz was arrested, but, to prevent the necessity of publishing Count Armansperg’s connection with his intrigues, and re­vealing the dissensions in the regency, he was shipped off to Trieste without trial¹. It was soon ascertained that several persons of the Armansperg faction were connected both with the minor plot and the great conspiracy.

Maurer was easily persuaded that the two were identical. He was so infatuated as to believe that Armansperg was privy to a conspiracy for obtaining his ow^Tn exile. The papers of Franz proved Armansperg’s participation in a shameful in­trigue ; the revelations of spies afforded satisfactory evidence that many of the intriguers were also conspirators. In the mean time a trifling disturbance in Tinos frightened the re­gency into proclaiming martial law².

The general insurrection of the Capodistrians was pre­vented by the arrest of Kolokotrones, Plapoutas, Djavellas, and several other influential men of the party, in different places on the 19th September 1833³. Maurer now displayed the rage of a tyrant: he forgot both law and reason in his eagerness to inflict the severest punishment on Kolokotrones. Those who spoke with him were reminded of the fury of Capodistrias when he heard that Miaoulis had seized the Greek fleet at Poros. The Greeks did not consider an abor­tive conspiracy a very serious offence. Violence had been so often resorted to by all parties, that it was regarded as a natural manner of acquiring and defending power. No poli­tical party had paid much respect either to law or justice, but

¹      'AQ-qva, No. 141, 23rd August, 1833.

²      Government Gazette. IS33. Nos 2S and 31.

³      ’AOrjva, No. 146, 9th September, 1S33.

TRIAL OF KOLOKOTRONES. 139

a.d. 1833.]                         "

very different conduct was expected from M. Maurer. The worst aspect of the conspiracy was the revival of brigandage, which was evidently systematic. But it was not easy to pro­cure evidence of the complicity of the leading conspirators with the crimes of the brigands. Kolokotrones and Plapoutas were tried for treason, and, by a strained application of the law, and an unbecoming interference of the executive power with the course of justice, they were found guilty and con­demned to death. The sentence was commuted to imprison- j ment for life ; but a complete pardon was granted to both criminals on King Otho’s majority¹.

The quarrels in the regcncy now became the leading feature of the Greek question, not only in Greece, but at the courts of Munich, London, Paris, and St. Petersburg². The improve­ment of Greece was utterly forgotten. There can be no doubt that Armansperg's vanity persuaded him that Dr. Franz, in the petitions circulated among the Greeks, had given the King of Bavaria excellent advice. He now saw the advantage which Maurer’s violent persecution of Kolokotrones afforded him, and he profited by it. Maurer was as ambitious as Ar- mansperg, but less prudent. In vain the Greek ministers, who respected his talents, endeavoured to moderate his vehe­mence. Several resigned rather than sanction the trial of Kolokotrones on evidence, which appeared to them insuffi­cient. It may be mentioned, in order to convey some idea of the manner in which public business was carried on at this time, and the contempt with which the Greek ministers allowed themselves to be treated by the Bavarians, that the arrests, which took place on the 19th September 1833, were made by order of the regency, without a cabinet council being held, and without the knowledge of the ministers of the inte­rior and of justice. When Psyllas, the minister of the interior, remonstrated with Maurer on the arbitrary manner in which he was proceeding, Maurer became so indignant that he threatened the minister with a legal prosecution for neglect­ing his duty in not discovering a conspiracy known to so many Greeks. The ministry was modified by the infusion of additional servility. Mavrocordatos was removed to the

¹      The act of accusation against Kolokotrones and Plapoutas is given by Parish,

270. It is more like a party statement than a legal document.

140 BAVARIAN DESPOTISM.

[Bk. V. Ch. IV.

foreign office, and a young Greek recently arrived from Ger­many, Theochares, was appointed minister of finance, in which office lie was a mere cipher. Schinas, an able and intriguing sycophant of the Phanariot race, became Maurer’s minister of ecclesiastical affairs. Kolettes was now all-powerful in the ministry¹.

Maurer, Heideck, Abel, and Gasser, the Bavarian minister at the Greek court, formed an alliance with M. Rouen, the French minister, and prepared for a direct attack on Arman­sperg, in which they felt sure of a signal victory. Armansperg, on the other hand, was vigorously supported by Mr. Dawkins, and still more energetically by Captain (Lord) Lyons, who commanded H.M.S. Madagascar. The count had a not in­considerable party among the Greeks and Bavarians. The Russian minister, Catacazy, and the whole body of the Capo­distrians, assisted his cause by their hostility to Maurer and Kolettes. In general the Greeks watched the proceedings of both parties with anxiety and aversion, fearing a renewal of civil war and anarchy.

Armansperg laid his statement of the nature of the dissen­sions in the regency before the King of Bavaria. Maurer wasted time in attacking Dawkins, who had roused his personal animosity as much by satirical observations as by thwarting the policy of the regency ². Dawkins was accused of representing the proceedings of Maurer and his friends as being too aristocratic, too revolutionary, and too Russian, all in a breath. People said that, though the accusation looked absurd, it might be true enough ; and they expressed a wish to hear how Dawkins applied his epithets to the measures he criticised. An envoy was sent to persuade Lord Palmer­ston to recall Dawkins : a worse pedant, and a man less likely to succeed than Michael Schinas, could not have been selected. He soon found that he had travelled to London on a fool’s errand.

The great attack on Count Armansperg was directed against what Maurer probably supposed was the most vulnerable part of a man’s feelings. No disputes had occurred among the members of the regency while they

¹      Government Gazette, 1S33, No. 34.

²      Maurer supplies ample evidence of his own readiness to listen to spies and talebearers. The phrases, es ging die Rede, es ging die Sage, eines Tages kam, wie ich aus tehr guter Quelle weiss, and such eavesdropping, abound in his work.

ARMANSPERG'S ADMINISTRATION.     141

a.d. 1833.]

were carving their salaries and allowances out of the Greek loan. No one then suggested that both political prudence and common honesty demanded the most rigid economy of money which Greece would be one day called upon to repay. On the 10th October 1832, Armansperg, Maurer, and Heideck, held a meeting at Munich, at which, among other shameful misappropriations of Greek funds, they added nearly ,£4500 to Count Armansperg’s salary, in order to enable him to give dinners and balls to foreigners and Phanariots¹. Nemesis followed close on their crime. The count’s dinners and balls destroyed Maurer’s peace of mind, and to regain it he sought to deprive the count of his table- money. At last, in the month of May 1834, the majority of the regency deprived the president of what was called the representation fund, and reduced his extra pay to a sum which, if it had been originally granted, would have been considered amply sufficient, but now the conduct of the majority was so evidently the result of personal vengeance, that its meanness created a strong feeling in Armansperg’s favour.

Both parties awaited a decision from Munich. The state of Greece was assuming an alarming aspect ; brigandage was reviving in continental Greece on an alarming scale ; and the protecting powers felt the necessity of putting an end to the unseemly squabbling which threatened to produce serious disturbances. The British government advised the King of Bavaria to recall Maurer and Abel. The Russian cabinet gave the same advice. The King of Bavaria adopted their opinion, and resolved to leave Count Armansperg virtually sole regent. His decision arrived in Greece on the 31st July

1834,       and it fell on Maurer and Abel like a thunderbolt. They were ordered to return instantly to Bavaria ; and in case they showed any disposition to delay their departure, authority was given to Count Armansperg to ship them off in the same summary manner in which Dr. Franz had been sent to Trieste. Maurer was replaced by M. Von Kobell, a mere nullity, whose name only requires to be mentioned,

¹      We must not forget that the Bavarians were dividing the spoil of Greece before the loan contract was signed. The signature did not take place until 1st March, 1S33. Maurer's explanation of his conduct is given in his work, ii. 529.

142 BAVARIAN DESPOTISM.

[Bk.V. Ch. IV.

because it appears signed to many ordinances affecting the welfare of the Greeks¹. Heideck was allowed to remain, but he was ordered to sign every document presented to him by the president of the regency. During the remainder of his stay in Greece he occupied himself with nothing but painting. The Greeks saw Maurer and Abel depart with pleasure, for they feared their violence ; but at a later period, when they discovered that Count Armansperg was neither as active an administrator nor as honest a statesman as they had expected, they became sensible of the merits of the men they had lost².

Count Armansperg governed Greece with absolute power from August 1834 to February 1837. He held the title of president of the regency until King Otho’s majority on the 1st June 1835, when it was changed to that of arch-chancellor which he held until his dismissal from office³. His long administration was characterized by a pretence of feverish activity that was to produce a great result at a period always said to be very near, but which never arrived. Like Capodis­trias, he was jealous of men of business, and insisted on retain­ing the direction of departments about which he knew nothing, in his own hands. He wasted his time in manoeuvres to conceal his ignorance, and in talking to foreign ministers con­cerning his financial schemes and his projects of improvement. On looking back at his administration, it presents a succession of temporary expedients carried into execution in a very im­perfect manner. He had no permanent plan and no consistent policy. In one district the Capodistrians were allowed to persecute the constitutionalists, and in another the Kolettists domineered over the Capodistrians. Brigandage increased until it attained the magnitude of civil war, and the whole internal organization of the kingdom, introduced by the early regency, was unsettled.

¹      Government Gazette, 1834, No. 25. Maurer gives the following account of his successor : ‘ Herr von Kobell. nachdem er denn auf einmal wieder Credit gefunden, seine bedeutenden Schulden bezahlt, eine Lotterie-collecte fiir seine beide Tochter

erhalten, einen seiner      Sohne im Cadetlencorps untergebracht hatte, u. s. w.,

eilte nach Griechenland, nicht um dort zu arbeiten und dem Lande nutzlich zu seyn.’ Das Griechische Volk, ii. 535. It may be doubted whether any of the Greek newspapers suppressed by Maurer ever equalled the ribaldry of this passage, deliberately penned and published with malice aforethought.

²      Maurer gives instances of Armansperg’s political dishonesty, ii. 6o, 61.

³      Government Gazette, 1835, J^une> No. I; 1837, No. 4.

ARMANSPERG’S ADMINISTRATION.     143

A.D. 1834.]

The nomarchies and eparchies were called governments and sub-governments (dioikeses) The army was disorganized, and the rights of property were disturbed and violated. Public buildings were constructed on land belonging to private individuals, without the formality of informing the owner that his land was required for the public service. Ground was seized for a royal palace and garden, and some of the proprietors were not offered any indemnification, until the British government exacted payment to a British subject in the year 1850. In order to prevent the members of the Greek cabinet from intriguing against his authority, like Maurer and Abel, the arch-chancellor took care that all the ministers should never be able to speak the same language ; and he deprived the cabinet of all control over the finance department, by keeping the place of minister of finance vacant for a whole year¹. His lavish expenditure at last filled all Greece with complaints, and alarmed the King of Bavaria.

Count Armansperg’s inconsiderate proceedings forced him to solicit from the protecting powers the advance of the third series of the Allied loan. Russia and France demanded some explanation concerning the expenditure of that part of the first and second series which had been paid into the Greek treasury. The accounts presented by Count Arman- sperg were not considered satisfactory. The British govern­ment took a different view of the count’s explanations. Lord Palmerston supported his administration warmly, and applied to Parliament, in 1836, for power to enable the British govern­ment to guarantee its proportion of the third instalment of the loan without the concurrence of the other powers ².

Sir Edmund (Lord) Lyons had succeeded Mr. Dawkins as English minister at the Greek court. He supported Count Armansperg with great zeal and activity. But the Greek government was pursuing a course which every day rendered the count more unpopular.

In the month of May 1836, King Otho left Greece in search of a wife, and during his absence, which lasted until the beginning of the following year, Count Armansperg was

¹      The Hellenic Kingdom and the Greek Nation, a pamphlet (London, 1836), p 76.

²      Parliamentary Papers relating to the third instalment of the Greek loan, 1836; Parish, Diplomatic History, p. 301; Parliamentary Debates; and Annual Register.

144 BAVARIAN DESPOTISM.

[Bk. V. Ch. IV. ' ^

viceroy with absolute power¹. His authority was supported „ by an army of 11,500 men, of whom 4000 were Bavarians, .j, Money had now become more abundant in Greece, and j, several editors of newspapers, having made the necessary 1 deposit in the treasury, resumed the publication of their journals. The opposition of the press again alarmed the Bavarians, and the count resolved to intimidate the editors by government prosecutions. The So ter was selected as the first victim, and very iniquitous preparations were made to insure its condemnation. Two judges were removed from fj 1 the bench, in the tribunal before which the cause was brought,’® immediately before the trial. This tampering with the 3 course of justice created vehement discontent, but it secured the condemnation of the editor. The punishment inflicted on : j the delinquent, however, was not likely to silence the patriotic, I: for it enabled them to gain the honours of martyrdom at a I very cheap rate. The editor was fined two thousand drach­mas. and condemned to a year’s imprisonment. The arch- > chancellor’s triumph was short. An appeal was made to the Areopagus, and the sentence of the criminal court was annulled ². As might have been expected, the attacks of the press became more violent and more personal.

Count Armansperg’s recall was caused by the complete . failure of his financial administration. The King of Bavaria j selected the Chevalier Rudhart to replace him, still believing that the Greeks were not yet competent to manage their own ; affairs. On the 14th of February 1837, King Otho returned | to Greece with Queen Amalia, the beautiful daughter of the Grand Duke Oldenburg³. M. Rudhart accompanied him as prime minister. The views of Rudhart were those of an honest Bavarian. He had studied European politics in the proceedings of the Germanic diet, and he contemplated eman­cipating King Otho from the tutelage of the three protecting I powers by Austrian influence. Had the thing been feasible, he

¹      The ordinance investing Armansperg and his motley cabinet with power is dated =.th May. Government Gazette, 1836. No. 18.

'■* For the sentence condemning the editor, see supplement to the Coi/rrier Grec, 6th September, 1836; and for the decision of the Areopagus, the ’AOijva, 10th October. 1S36.

³      Government Gazette, 1837, No. 4. King Otho was married on the 22nd November, ’.836.

BAVARIAN INFLUENCE.         145

a.d. 1833.]

possessed neither the knowledge nor the talents required for so bold an enterprise. The Greeks and Bavarians were already ranged against one another in hostile parties. Sir Edmund Lyons seized the opportunity of avenging the slight put upon his mission, by keeping him in ignorance of Arman­sperg’s recall. He connected the opposition of the British cabinet to the nomination of Rudhart with the hostility of the Greeks to the Bavarians, and animated them to talk again of constitutional liberty. Rudhart claimed as a right the absolute power which Maurer and Armansperg had silently assumed. In one of his communications to the British minister, he declared that he exercised arbitrary power by the express order of King Otho, and that the King of Greece, in placing the royal authority above the law, exercised a right for which he was responsible to no one¹. This assertion was so directly at variance with the promises of the King of Bavaria, and the assurances which the three protecting powers had given to the Greeks, that Sir Edmund Lyons was furnished with good ground for at­tacking the policy of the Bavarians. He pushed his attacks to the utmost verge of diplomatic license ; and Rudhart, who defended a bad cause without vigour and promptitude, soon found it necessary to resign². He held office for ten months, and was succeeded by Zographos, who was then Greek minister at Constantinople.

From this time the nominal prime minister was always a Greek ; the war department was the only ministry henceforth occupied by a Bavarian; but Bavarian influence continued to direct the whole administration until the revolution in 1843. From 1833 to 1838, during a period of five years, the Greeks had exercised no control over their government, which received its guiding impulse from Munich. Those who ruled Greece were responsible to the King of Bavaria alone for their con­duct in office. It is not surprising, therefore, that Greece was ill-governed ; yet something was done for the good of the country. The early period of the regency was marked by the introduction of a system of administration which put

¹      Parish, Diplomatic History, 402.

²      See a letter of Sir E. Lyons to Chevalier Rudhart; Parish, Diplomatic History, Appendix, 218 ; Lesur, Annuaire Historique, Documents. Rudhart resigned on the 20th December, 1837.

VOL. VII.

L

146                                     BAVARIAN DESPOTISM.   \

[Bk.V. Ch.IV.j

an end, as if by enchantment, to the most frightful anarchy! that ever desolated any Christian country in modern times, j Many wise laws were enacted, and some useful measures were! carried into execution promptly and thoroughly. The errorsj committed were probably fewer, and the good results pro-j¹. duced much greater, than could have been obtained by any cabinet composed solely of Greeks. Deficient as Maurer, l^: Armansperg, and Rudhart might be in the qualities of states­men, as administrators they were far superior to any Greeks who could have been placed in the position they held. It is certain that they erred greatly from ignorance of the institutions of Greece, and it must be acknowledged that they often sacrificed the interests of the Greeks to the interests of the Bavarians in Greece; but Kolokotrones, Mavrocor- datos, Konduriottes, and Kolettes, had all proved themselves more unprincipled, and more incapable of governing the country.

In considering what the Bavarians did, it is well to reflect on what they might have done. The three powers had guaranteed the inviolability of the Greek territory; there was therefore no need of any military force to defend the country against the Turks. Greece only required the troops necessary to repress brigandage and enforce order. The navy of Greece had almost entirely disappeared, and the only maritime force required was a few vessels to prevent piracy. On the other hand, a very great expenditure on roads, ports, packet-boats, and other means of facilitating and cheapening communications, was absolutely necessary to improve the condition of the agricultural population, and give strength to the new kingdom. The population was scanty, and the produce of agricultural labour was small, even when compared with the scanty population. At the same time the demand for agricultural labour was so partial and irregular, that at some short periods of the year it was extremely dear; and though good land was abundant, extensive districts remained uncultivated, because the expense of bringing the produce to market would have consumed all profit. Something would have been done for the improvement of the country by con­structing the roads indicated by the government as necessary, when the regency destroyed the liberty of the press; but instead of carrying this wise plan into execution, the resources

ADMINISTRATIVE NEGLECT.        147

k| ..D. I833.]

^arc-l)f Greece were consumed in equipping a regiment of lancers, ®ei.n military and court pageantry, in building royal yachts "'eriind a monster palace. The consequence of neglecting roads Trormnd packets was that brigandage and piracy revived. The [Allied loan was wasted in unnecessary expenditure. The anjftvvhole surplus labour and revenue of Greece were consumed jfor many years in unproductive employments. A consider­able army was maintained, merely because Greece was called ;e!;|a kingdom; and a navy was formed for no purpose apparently but that the ships might be allowed to rot.

The state of the Levant from 1833 to 1843 was extremely :iat{|favourable to the progress of Greece. The affairs of the Othoman empire were in a very unsettled state, and the Christian population had not yet obtained the direct inter­ference of the Western powers in its favour. Thousands of Greeks were ready to emigrate into the new kingdom, had they seen a hope of being able to employ their labour with profit, and invest their savings with security. The incapacity of the rulers of Greece, and the rude social condition of the agricultural population, which was perpetuated by retaining the Othoman system of taxing land, allowed this favourable opportunity for rapid improvement to escape.

The three protecting powers have been blamed for not appropriating the proceeds of the loan to special objects, and for not enforcing the construction of some works of public utility. But this was perhaps impossible. Neither King Louis of Bavaria nor the Emperor Nicholas would have consented to submit the public expenditure to the control of a representative assembly in Greece ; and neither France nor England could have made special appropriation of funds for the benefit of the country, without requiring the existence of some constitutional control over the Bavarians on the part of the Greek people. It is, however, extremely probable that all parties, taking into consideration the manner in which the previous English loans had been expended, considered the members of the regency more competent and more inclined to check malversation than any Greeks who could have been found. Examples of activity, intelligence, eloquence, courage, and patriotism, were not wanting among the Greeks; but the Revolution produced no individual uniting calm judgment and profound sagacity with unwearied industry

14 8         BA JA RIAN DESrO TISM.

[Bk. V. Ch. IV{

and administrative experience. It did not produce a single man deserving to be called a statesman.

After AI. Rudhart’s resignation, the office of president of the council of ministers was filled by a Greek; but the president was only nominally prime minister, for King Otho really governed by means of a private cabinet. The Greek ministers were controlled by Bavarian secretaries attached to each department with the title of referendaries. Greeks were found servile enough to submit to this control, and to act the part of pageant ministers. The proceedings of the government grew every year more arbitrary. The king was a man of a weak mind, and not of a generous disposition. The flatterers who surrounded him appear to have persuaded him that the Greek kingdom was created for his personal use, and his political vision rarely extended beyond his capital.

In the greater part of the kingdom the creatures of the court ruled despotically. The police kept men in prison without < legal warrants ; and torture was inflicted both on men and i women merely because they were suspected of having fur­nished brigands with food. The press was prosecuted for complaining that Greece was deprived of her constitutional liberties.

The English minister, Sir Edmund Lyons, complained of injuries inflicted on British and Ionian subjects. His recla­mations were left long unanswered, and remained for years unredressed. Attempts were made to obtain his recall; and when they failed, he was personally and publicly insulted at the Greek court in a manner that compelled him to exact ample satisfaction.

During a theatrical representation at the palace, the British minister was left, by an oversight of the master of the cere­monies, without a seat in the court circle, and allowed to stand during the whole performance in a position directly in view of the king and queen, who seemed rather to enjoy the sight as the most amusing scene in the court comedy. Such conduct could not be overlooked. The Minister of Foreign Affairs was compelled to make a very humble apology by express order of the king, and the Bavarian baron who acted as master of the ceremonies was shipped off to Trieste in the same summary manner as Dr. Franz and M. Maurer had been. This severe lesson prevented open acts of insult

DISPUTES WITH ENGLAND. 149

A.D. 1833.]

in future ; but the animosity of the court to the person of Sir Edmund Lyons was shown in minor acts of impertinence. On one occasion his groom was carried off by the gendarmes from his residence, and kept all night in prison on a charge of squirting water on a passer-by. These miserable disputes gradually alienated England and Greece, and victory over the court of Athens in such contests certainly reflected little honour on the diplomacy of Great Britain. A tithe of the energy displayed by Sir Edmund Lyons and Lord Palmerston in humiliating King Otho, and in adjusting questions of etiquette, would have settled every pending demand for justice on the part of British and Ionian subjects. Years of wrangling between the two courts might have been spared¹. Greece would not have been rendered contemptible by her deter­mined denial of justice, and England would not have been rendered ridiculous by employing a powerful fleet to collect a small debt from the Greek nation, when it was only due by the Greek government². France also would not have exhibited her jealousy of England, by advising the Greek government to resist demands which, when her protection was solicited, she compelled Greece to pay as just, and also to record the fact in a solemn convention that she had for years resisted these just demands³.

While the quarrels with the English minister kept the Greek court in a state of irritation, the nation was suffering from brigandage, and secret societies and orthodox plots were again exciting the people to revolt.

The disbanding of the irregular troops, and the refusal of the regency to pay the armed followers of the chieftains who assembled round Nauplia at the king’s arrival for the purpose of intimidating his government, suddenly deprived many soldiers of the means of subsistence. Great disorder naturally ensued. The transition from anarchy to order could not be effected in a day by human strength or human

¹      On the nth May, 1S39, the Greek government delivered to all the foreign missions at Athens, except the British, a lithographed exposition in reply to the reclamations of the British government.

²      The British fleet seized private ships and cargoes at sea without a declaration of war. This may be internationally legal, but is unquestionably unjust.

³      M. Thouvenel counselled resistance in February. Baron Gros, in April, 1850, recommended the Greek government to acknowledge its injustice. Parliamentary Papers respecting the Demands made upon the Greek Government—Farther Corre­spondence, p 346.

I -₀  BA VARIAN DESPO TISM.

[Bk. V. Ch. IV.

wisdom. Bands of irregulars, who had lived for several years at free quarters and in absolute idleness, were neither disposed to submit to any discipline nor to engage in any useful employment. Severe treatment was unavoidable, but prudence was necessary in enforcing measures of severity. \ During the latter years of the Revolution the armed bands had separated their cause from that of the people. They pretended to have rights more extensive than the rest of the nation, and they exercised these rights by plundering their fellow-citizens. During the anarchy that followed the. assassination of Capodistrias, Mussulman Albanians had been introduced into the Peloponnesus as allies of the Romeliot armatoli, and many villages had been sacked by these mercenaries¹.

The early regency carried the disbanding of the irregulars into effect with so much vigour that the whole of these dis­orderly bands were expelled from the Peloponnesus, and during the summer of 1833 the greater part was driven to choose between entering the regular army or crossing the frontier into Turkey.

The state of the Othoman empire was singularly favourable to the project of relieving Greece from her disorderly troops. The sultan’s army had been defeated at Konieh by the Egyptians under Ibrahim Pasha on the 21st of December 1832, and a Russian army arrived at Constantinople soon after to protect Sultan Mahmud’s throne. The Christians in European Turkey expected to witness the immediate dissolu­tion of the Othoman empire. The Mussulman population in Albania, Macedonia, and Bosnia was extremely discontented with the fiscal arrangements and measures of centralization adopted by the sultan, and several districts were in open re­bellion. A large portion of the irregular troops who quitted Greece found employment in consequence of the local dis­turbances in Turkey, and they laid waste a considerable part

¹ Thiersch, i. 71. Almost every traveller who ventured to make even the smallest excursion in Greece during the winter of 1S32-3 was plundered. Pro­fessor Ross was robbed near Marathon, and Mr. Wordsworth fell into the hands of brigands on Mount Parnes, was wounded, and only escaped being detained for ransom in consequence of a severe snow-storm. He says: ‘ For several months the entrance into the Peloponnesus from continental Greece has been rendered impassable for travellers by the violence of the military bandits.’ Athens and Attica, p. 254; compare pp. 22, 49, 227, 242, and 255 (1st edit.)

BRIGANDAGE.        151

A.D.1834.]

of Epirus and Thessaly, as they had previously ravaged a part of the Peloponnesus.

As early as the month of May 1833, a strong body of Greeks, having crossed the frontier, joined a number of unpaid Albanian soldiers in the pashalik of Joannina, and surprised the town of Arta, which had successfully resisted the attacks of the Greeks during the Revolution. For three days these lawless bands remained masters of the town, which they plun­dered without mercy. Neither age, sex, nor religion served to protect the inhabitants. Every act of cruelty and brutality of which man can be the perpetrator or the sufferer was inflicted on persons of both sexes and of every class. Torture, too sickening to describe, was employed to compel women and children to reveal where money and jewels were con­cealed. When gorged with booty, lust, and cruelty, these bandits quitted Arta, gained the mountains, and separated into small bands in order to evade pursuit and obtain the means of subsistence until they could plan some fresh exploit. The fame of the sack of Arta allured the greater part of the disbanded irregulars across the frontier, and relieved the Bavarians from a dangerous struggle.

The state of Albania became still more disturbed towards the end of the year 1834, and many of the Greek armatoli and irregulars formed alliances with the municipalities of Christian districts, which secured to them permanent employ­ment. Had Count Armansperg employed the respite thus obtained with prudence, order might have been firmly estab­lished in Northern Greece ; but his frequent changes of policy and indecisive measures produced a series of political insur­rections, and revived brigandage as an element of society in Greece.

Piracy was suppressed at sea by the assistance of the Allies. In the spring of 1833 upwards of one hundred and fifty pirates were captured and brought to Nauplia for judgment. Many of these were irregular troops, who had seized large boats and commenced the trade of piracy.

In 1834 an insurrection occurred in Maina, which assumed the character of a civil war. It was caused by a rash and foolish measure of the regency. Ages of insecurity had com­pelled the landlords in the greater part of Greece to dwell in towers capable of defence against brigands. These towers

j .-2                                     BAVARIAN DESPOTISM.   \

[Bk.V.Ch.IV. j |d.i

were nothing more than stone houses without windows in the * lower storey, and to which the only access was by a stone stair j detached from the building, and connected, by a movable wooden platform, with the door in the upper storey. In Maina j these towers were numerous. The members of the regency attributed the feuds and bloodshed prevalent in that rude district to the towers, instead of regarding the towers as a necessary consequence of the feuds. They imagined that the destruction of all the towers in Greece would insure the establishment of order in the country. In the plains this was easily effected. Peaceful landlords were compelled to employ workmen to destroy their houses instead of employing work­men to repair them. The consequence was, that fear of the attacks of disbanded soldiers and avowed brigands drove most wealthy landlords into the nearest towns, and many abandoned the agricultural improvements they had com­menced.

In Maina the orders of the regency were openly opposed. Every possessor of a tower, indeed, declared that he had no objections to its destruction, but he invited the government to destroy every tow^rer in Maina at the same time, otherwise no man's life and property would be secure. Some chiefs affected to be very loyal, and very eager for the destruction of towers. Bavarian troops were marched into the country to assist these chiefs in destroying their own and their enemies’ towers. The appearance of the Bavarians induced the majority of the Mainate chiefs to form a league, in order to resist the in­vaders. The people were told that the foreigners came into the mountains to destroy the monasteries, imprison the native monks in distant monasteries, and seize the ecclesiastical re­venues for the king’s government. Several skirmishes took place. A Bavarian officer, who advanced rashly into the defiles with part of a battalion, was surrounded, cut off from water, and compelled to surrender at discretion. The victo­rious Mainates stripped their prisoners of their clothing, and then compelled the Greek government to ransom them at a small sum per man. This defeat dissolved the belief in the invincibility of regular troops, which had been established by the daring conduct of the French at Argos.

The regency could not allow the war to terminate with such a defeat. Fresh troops were poured into Maina, strong

INSURRECTION IN MAINA.   153

A.D. 18.54.]

positions were occupied, the hostile districts were cut off from communications with the sea, and money was employed to gain over a party among the chiefs. A few towers belonging to the chiefs most hostile to the government were destroyed by force, and some were dismantled with the consent of the proprietors, who were previously indemnified. Partly by con­cessions, partly by corruption, and partly by force, tranquillity was restored. But the submission of Maina to the regency was only secured by withdrawing the Bavarian troops, and forming a battalion of Mainates to preserve order in the country. Maurer asserts that the Mainates converted their towers into ordinary dwellings : anybody who visits Maina, even though a quarter of a century has elapsed, will see that his assertion is inaccurate¹.

Other insurrections occurred in various parts of Greece; but those of Messenia and Arcadia in 1834, and of Acarnania in 1836, alone deserve to be mentioned on account of their political importance.

The insurrection in Messenia occurred immediately after the recall of Maurer and Abel, but would have broken out had they remained. Count Armansperg was so helpless as an administrator, in spite of his eagerness to govern Greece, that he was at a loss to know what measures he ought to adopt, and allowed himself to be persuaded by Kolettes to call in the services of bands of irregulars. Large bodies of men, who had just begun to acquire habits of industry, were allured to resume arms, with the hope that Kolettes would again be able to distribute commissions conferring high mili­tary rank, as in the civil wars under Konduriottes and against Agostino. Years of military disorganization, and its conco­mitant — an increase of brigandage — were the immediate results of Count Armansperg⁵ s imprudence.

The leaders of the insurrection in Messenia and Arcadia were friends of Kolokotrones and Plapoutas, men who had been connected with the Russian plot, and who were in some degree encouraged to take up arms by the supposed favour with which Count Armansperg had viewed the intrigues of Dr. Franz. Their project was to extort from the regency the instant release of Kolokotrones and Plapoutas, and to secure

¹ Das Griechische Volk, ii. 509.

I      54     BA J A RIAN DESRO T ISM.

^K                               [Bt.V.Ch.IV.j

for themselves concessions similar to those accorded to the Mainates.

The commencement of the insurrection was in Arcadia.' In the month of August 1834, considerable bodies of men assembled in arms at different places. Kolias Plapoutas, a man without either influence or capacity, presuming on his relationship with the two imprisoned klephtic chiefs, assumed the title of director of the kingdom, and issued a proclama­tion demanding the convocation of a national assembly. Other leaders proclaimed the abolition of the regency and the. majority of King Otho.

Kolias Plapoutas, at the head of four hundred men, at­tempted to arrest the eparch of Arcadia at Andritzena without success. Captain Gritzales, who had collected about three hundred men in the villages round Soulima, was more suc­cessful at the commencement of his operations. He made prisoners both the nomarch of Messenia and the commandant of the gendarmerie in the town of Kyparissia¹. A third body of insurgents, consisting of the mountaineers from the southern slopes of Mount Tetrazi, defeated a small body of regulars, and entered the plain of Stenyclerus as victors.

Kolettes, into whose hands Armansperg, in his panic, had thrust the conduct of government, even though he had been a staunch partizan of Maurer, resolved to use his power in such a way as to have little to fear from the count’s enmity when the insurrection was suppressed. He determined, therefore, to restore some of his old political allies, the chiefs of the irre­gular bands of Northern Greece, again to power. Had he allowed the Bavarian troops and the Greek regulars to sup­press the insurrection, which they could have effected without difficulty, he would have strengthened the arbitrary authority of Armansperg, who he well knew was at heart his implacable enemy. Kolettes was himself under the dominion of many rude prejudices. To his dying day he considered the military system of Ali of Joannina as the best adapted for maintaining order in Greece. On this occasion, therefore, he repeated, as far as lay in his power, the measures by which he had over­powered the Moreot primates and the Moreot klephts under Kolokotrones in 1824. Several Romeliot chiefs of his party

¹ Kyparissia is called by the modern Greeks Arkadia, but the ancient name has been revived in the official nomenclature of the kingdom to avoid confusion.

INSURRECTION IN MESSENIA.     155

A.D.1S34.]

were authorized to enrol bands of veterans, and with these personal followers, who required no preparation and no maga­zines, as they lived everywhere by the plunder which they extorted from the Greek peasantry, Kolettes expected to crush the insurrection before the regular troops could arrive. The irregulars were, however, as usual, too slow in their movements.

General Schmaltz, a gallant Bavarian colonel of cavalry, was appointed commander-in-chief of the royal army. He soon encompassed the insurgents with a force of two thousand regulars and about three thousand irregulars. The rebels, who never succeeded in assembling five hundred men at any one point, fought several well-contested skirmishes, but they were soon dispersed and their leaders taken prisoners¹. Count Armansperg did not treat the rebels with severity. He knew that they were more likely to join his party than the Kolettists by whom they had been defeated. Perhaps he also feared that a close examination of their conduct might throw more light than was desirable on the connection that had grown up between the Capodistrian conspiracy and the Armansperg intrigue. In six weeks tranquillity was completely re-estab­lished. But for many months bands of irregular soldiery continued to live at free quarters in the plain of Messenia. Kolettes felt himself so strongly supported by the Romeliot chiefs, and by French influence, that he conceived great hopes of being named prime minister on King Otho’s majority. These hopes were frustrated by the influence of Great Britain at the court of Bavaria. Armansperg, as has been already mentioned, was named arch-chancellor, and Kolettes was sent to Paris as Greek minister.

The insurrection of 1834 was no sooner suppressed than the Bavarians became alarmed at the power which Kolettes had acquired. The irregular bands which had been recalled into activity were slowly disbanded, and the chiefs saw that fear alone had compelled Count Armansperg to resort to their services. The policy of suddenly recalling men to a life of adventure and pillage, who were just beginning to acquire habits of order, could not fail to produce evil consequences. Hopes of promotion, perfect idleness, and liberal pay, were

¹ The Soter newspaper, during the month of August, 1834, O.S., notices the principal events of this insurrection.

156 r,A VARIAN DESPO TISM.

[Bk. V. Ch. IV.

suddenly offered to them ; and when they fancied that, by a little fighting and a few weeks’ marching, they had attained the object of their desire, they found that they were again to be disbanded and sent back to learn the hard lessons of honest industry. Many of them determined that Greece should soon require their services. It was not possible to produce a popular insurrection at any moment, but there was no difficulty in organizing a widespread system of bri­gandage. A project of the kind was quickly carried into execution.

During the winter of 1834 and the spring of 1835 brigand­age assumed a very alarming aspect. Several Bavarians were waylaid and murdered *. Government money was cap­tured, even when transmitted under strong escorts ; and government magazines, in which the produce of the land-tax was stored, were plundered. In the month of April the intrigues of the military chiefs alarmed the agricultural popu­lation to such a degree that several districts in Western Greece petitioned the prefects to be allowed to enrol national guards, to whom they engaged to guarantee three months’ pay from the municipal funds. By this means they expected to retain the irregulars in their native districts, and to insure their pro­tection in case of attacks by strangers. To this anomalous and temporary expedient Count Armansperg gave his consent.

But as the summer of 1835 advanced, the disorders in con­tinental Greece increased. Numerous bands of brigands, after laying a number of villages under contribution, from the mouth of the Spercheus to the banks of the Achelous, con­centrated upwards of two hundred men in the district of Venetiko, within six miles of Lepanto. A Bavarian officcr of engineers was taken prisoner with the pioneer who accom­panied him, and both were murdered in cold blood. The house of Captain Prapas, an active officer of irregular troops and a chief of the national guards in Artotina, was burned to the ground during his absence, and his flocks were carried off. In the month of May, the house of Captain Makryiannes, near Simou, was destroyed, and seven members of his family, including his wife and two girls, were cruelly murdered. An attack was shortly after made on the house of Captain

¹ r iedler, Rene dnrch alle Theile des Kijnigreiches Griechenland in 1834-1835, vol. i pp. 146, 159.        *■

BRIGANDAGE IN 1835.  157

A.D. 1S35.]

Pharmaki, an officer of irregulars of distinguished ability

i      and courage, who was living within a few hundred yards of the walls of Lepanto. Pharmaki was severely wounded, and one of his servants was killed ; but he beat off the brigands, and prevented them from setting fire to his house. For six weeks every day brought news of some new outrage, but Count Armansperg turned a deaf ear to all complaints. He assured the foreign ministers that the accounts which reached them were greatly exaggerated, and that he had adopted effectual measures for restoring order. In reality, he neglected the commonest precautions, and left entirely to the nomarchs and commanders of troops in the disturbed districts the care of taking such measures as they might think necessary. The count was absorbed with the intrigues which ended in per­suading King Otho, whose majority occurred on the 1st June

1835,       to prolong the absolute power which he had exercised as regent with the title of arch-chancellor.

The first step of the arch-chancellor was to send Kolettes to Paris as Greek minister. While Kolettes remained minister of the interior, it was thought that he encouraged, or at least tolerated, the extension of brigandage, and looked with secret satisfaction at the supineness of the regency. General Lesuire, the Bavarian minister of war, was also accused of regarding the disorders that prevailed with indifference, though from very different motives. Brigandage furnished Kolettes with arguments for reviving the system of chieftains with personal followers, and to Lesuire it supplied arguments against en­trusting the Greeks with arms, and for increasing the number of Bavarian mercenaries in the king’s service. The accounts which the Greek government received of the conduct of the irregulars enrolled by Kolettes’ authority during the insurrec­tion of Messenia, persuaded the minister of war that these troops differed from the brigands only in name. It is certain that he kept both the Greek and German regular battalions in high order; but he neglected the irregular corps in a way that afforded them some excuse for the exactions they committed. A battalion of irregulars, under Gardikiotes Grivas, was left without pay and clothing at a moment when it was disposed to take the field against the brigands, and might have pre­vented their incursion to the walls of Lepanto. The scanty pensions of the Suliots at Mesolonghi were allowed to fall

I r 8         BA I ^rA RIA X DESPQ TISM.

[Bk. V. Ch. IV.

into arrear. A number of veteran armatoli, to whom pen­sions had been assigned on condition of their residing at Lepanto and Yrachori, were completely neglected, and w^rere so discontented with the conduct of the government, that when the house of Pharmaki was attacked, and the firing was heard in the whole town of Lepanto, not one would move from the walls to assist that gallant chief. The landed pro­prietors and the peasantry were almost as much irritated at the neglect shown by the government as the starving y soldiers. Loud complaints were made that the population-II in the provinces was left without defence, while Armansperg was lavishing crosses of the Redeemer on diplomats, and pay and promotion on Bavarians whose service in Greece had been confined to marching from Nauplia to Athens, when the king removed his capital from the first of these cities to the second.

As soon as Armansperg's intrigues were crowned with success, he got rid of Lesuire as well as Kolettes, and General Schmaltz became minister of war. About the same time I\Ir. Dawkins was recalled, and Sir Edmund Lyons was named British minister at King Otho’s court. At the recom­mendation of Sir Edmund, Armansperg named General Gordon to the command of an expedition which was sent to clear Northern Greece of brigands. Gordon, who was the earliest Philhellene, was not attached to any political party: he distrusted Kolettes, and had little confidence in Arman­sperg ; but he knew the country, the people, and the irregular troops, as well as any man in Greece.

On the nth of July he left Athens with his staff; and after visiting Chalcis, in order to make himself fully acquainted with the state of the troops of which he had assumed the command, he formed his plan of operations. His measures were judicious, and they were executed with energy. A body of regular troops was sent forward from Chalcis by Thebes, Livadea, and Salona, to Lidoriki, whither Gordon proceeded, following the shore of the channel of Euboea to the mouth of the Spercheus. He stopped a couple of days at Patradjik (Hypate) to post the troops necessary to guard the passes on the frontier, and then descended by the defiles of Oeta and Korax to Lidoriki, where he was joined by the regulars from Chalcis. By this rapid march he effectually cleared all

GORDONS EXPEDITION.       I «>g

v.d. 1835.]

Eastern Greece of brigands. They all moved westward, for they saw that if any of them remained in Phocis they would have been hunted down without a chance of escape.

At Lidoriki, Gordon divided the force under his orders into three divisions. It was much more difficult to drive the brigands westward from the Aetolian mountains than it had been to clear the more open districts in Eastern Greece. One division of the army kept along the ridge of the mountains which bound the Gulf of Corinth to the north. The centre, with the general, marched into the heart of the country, through districts cut by nature into a labyrinth of deep ravines, and descended to Lepanto from the north-east, after passing by Lombotina and Simou. The right division moved up northward to Artotina, in order, if possible, to cut off the brigands from gaining the Turkish frontier.

The principal body of the brigands, consisting of one hun­dred and thirty, maintained its position in the immediate vicinity of Lepanto for six weeks, and it continued to levy contributions from the country round until the general arrived at Lidoriki. It then broke up into several small bands, and, picking up its outlying associates, gained the Turkish frontier by following secluded sheep-tracks over the Aetolian moun­tains. The national guards, which the communities in the provinces of Apokura and Zygos had taken into their pay, as soon as they were sure of effectual support from the troops under Gordon, commenced dislodging the brigands from their positions between the Phidari (Evenus) and the Achelous.

From Lepanto, Gordon marched to Mesolonghi and Vra- chori. The officers under his orders found no difficulty in clearing the plains of Acarnania, and when this was effected, he followed the rugged valley of Prousos to Karpenisi, where he arrived on the nth of August. The arrangements he

o                           o

had adopted for securing to the Suliots and the veterans at Lepanto and Vrachori the regular payment of their pensions, and the good conduct of the detachments of regulars which he sent to support the local magistrates, insured active co-opera­tion on the part of the native population. The spirit of order, which the neglect of the royal government had almost extinguished, again revived.

In one month after quitting Athens, tranquillity was re­stored in the whole of continental Greece. But as about

\6o BAVARIAN DESPOTISM.

[Bk. V. Ch. IV.

three hundred brigands had assembled within the Turkish territory, and marched along the frontier with military music, it seemed that the difficulty of protecting the country would be greater than that of delivering it. The general’s Oriental studies now proved of as great value to Greece as his military activity and geographical knowledge. He opened a cor­respondence with the pasha at Larissa ; and the circumstance of an Englishman commanding the Greek forces, and of that Englishman not only speaking Turkish fluently, but also writing it like a divan-effendi, contributed more than a sense, of sound policy, to secure the co-operation of the Turkish authorities in dispersing the brigands.

In the month of October Gordon’s mission was terminated, and he was ordered to resume his duties at Argos, as com­mander-in-chief in the Peloponnesus. The brigands in Turkey had dispersed, but it was known that many had retired to Agrapha, where they were protected byTzatzos, the captain of armatoli, and it was supposed that Tzatzos had not taken this step without the connivance of the derven-pasha. Gordon warned the Greek government that brigandage would soon recommence, unless very different measures were adopted from those which Count Armansperg had hitherto pursued, both in his civil and financial administration. And he com­pletely lost the count’s favour by the truths which he told in a memoir he drew up on the means of suppressing brigandage and maintaining tranquillity on the frontier.

The insecurity which prevailed near the Turkish frontier, even though brigandage had for a moment ceased, is strongly illustrated by the closing scene of Gordon’s sojourn in the vicinity. Before quitting Northern Greece he wished to enjoy a day’s shooting. On the 5th October he went with a party of friends to Aghia Marina. The brigands, who lay con­cealed 011 both sides of the frontier, had official friends, and were well informed of all that happened at Lamia. They were soon aware of Gordon’s project. A band lay concealed in the thick brushwood that covered the plain, but did not find an opportunity of attacking him on the road. Soon after sunset the house he occupied was surrounded while the party was at dinner, but the alarm was given in time to allow the sportsmen to throw down their knives and forks, seize their fowling-pieces, and run to the garden wall in front of the

KING OF BAVARIA VISITS ATHENS.      161

1 K.D. 1836.]

building. By this they prevented the brigands from approach­ing near enough to set fire to the house. A skirmish ensued, in which the assailants displayed very little courage. The firing brought a party of royal troops from Stylidha to the general’s assistance, but the obscurity of the night favoured the jescape of the brigands, and on the following morning all traces ,of them had disappeared ¹.

The lavish expenditure of Count Armansperg brought on financial difficulties at the end of 1835, and both Russia and France considered his accounts and his explanations so un­satisfactory. that they refused to entrust him with the expen­diture of the third series of the loan ². The state of Greece was represented in a very different manner by the foreign ministers at the court of Athens. The King of Bavaria, hoping to learn the truth by personal observation, paid his son a visit. He little knew the difficulty which exists in Greece of acquiring accurate information, or of forming correct conclusions, from such partial information as it is in the power of a passing visitor to obtain, even when that visitor is a king. Truth is always rare in the East, and Greece was divided into several hostile factions, who w^rere the irreconcileable enemies of truth. On the 7th of December 1835, the King of Bavaria arrived at Athens, where he was welcomed by the council of state with the assurance that his son’s dominions w^rere in a state of profound tranquillity, and extremely prosperous. His majesty was not long in Greece before he perceived that the councillors of state were not in the habit of speaking the truth.

In the month of January 1836, the brigands, who had remained quiet for a short time, reappeared from their places of concealment, and those who had found an asylum in Turkey began to cross the frontier in small bands. Not a week passed without their plundering some village. Accounts reached Athens of the unheard-of cruelties they were daily commit­ting to extort money, or to avenge the defeats they suffered during the preceding year. Party spirit and official avidity

¹      General Gordon gave the following account of this affair in a private letter:—

‘ Drosos Mansolas (afterwards minister of the interior) showed a degree of courage and coolness very uncommon in a Greek logiotatos. He behaved much better than his gun, which burst at the first discharge.’

²      Compare Parish, Diplomatic History of the Monarchy of Greece, p. 296, and Lesur, Annuaire Historique Universelle pour 1835, p. 4S0.

VOL. VII.         M

162 BA FABIAN DESPO TISM.

[Bk. V. Ch. IV.

had at this time so benumbed public spirit in the capital of Greece, that even the Liberal press paid little attention to the . miseries of the agricultural population. The peasantry were j neglected, for they had no influence in the distribution of j places, honours, or profits. In the month of February, how- j ever, the evil increased so rapidly, and reached such an alarming extent, that it could no longer be overlooked even by Count Armansperg. Six hundred brigands established themselves within the Greek kingdom, ravaging the whole valley of the Spercheus with fire and sword *.

An insurrection broke out at this time in Acarnania, which had its sources in the same political and social evils as bri­gandage. It is peculiarly interesting, however, from affording some insight into the political history of Great Britain as well as Greece. Lord Palmerston persuaded the British govern­ment that it was for the interest of Great Britain to support the administration of Count Armansperg. This could only be done effectually by furnishing him with money; and to induce Parliament to authorize the issue of the third instal­ment of the loan, papers were presented to both Houses, proving that the Greek government was in great need of money. But when the want of money was clearly proved, it was objected that the want complained of was caused by lavish expenditure and gross corruption ; and it was even said that Count Armansperg’s maladministration was plunging Greece back into the state of anarchy from which the early regency had delivered the country. Additional papers were then pre­sented to Parliament by the Foreign Secretary (which had been all along in his hands), to prove that Greece was in a most flourishing condition, and that the prosperity she was enjoying was the direct result of the Count’s administration². The history of the insurrection is the best comment on these adverse statements.

The leaders of the_ insurrection in Acarnania were officers of the irregular troops who had distinguished themselves in the revolutionary war. Demo Tzelios, who commanded one body of insurgents, proclaimed that the people took up arms

¹ ’AO-qva (Greek newspaper'), 4th (16th') February, 1S36.

^ ² Papers relating to the third instalment of the Greek loan, 1836; and Addi­tional Papers relating to the third instalment of the Greek loan, presented to both Houses, August, 1836.

INSURRECTION IN ACARNANIA.  162

a.d. 1836.]

i against Count Armansperg and the Bavarians, not against the king and the government. Nicholas Zervas, another leader, demanded the convocation of a national assembly. A third party displayed the phoenix on its standard, and talked of orthodoxy as being the surest way to collect the Capodistrians and Ionians in arms against the government at Athens. All united in proclaiming the constitution, and demanding the expulsion of the Bavarians. The people took no part in the movement.

Derno Tzelios entered Mytika without opposition, but was defeated at Dragomestre. Mesolonghi had been left almost without a garrison. The folly of the government was so flagrant, in the actual condition of the country, that the proceeding looked like treachery. The insurgents made a bold attempt to gain possession of that important fortress by surprise, but they were bravely repulsed by the few troops who remained in the place, and by the inhabitants, who re­garded the insurgents as mere brigands. The rebels, though repulsed from the walls of Mesolonghi, were nevertheless strong enough to remain encamped before the place, and to ravage the plain for several days *.

These events produced a panic at Athens. Men spoke of the pillage of the Morea in 1824, when Konduriottes was pre­sident, of the sack of Poros by the troops of Capodistrias, and of the anarchy caused by Kolettes and the constitutionalists in 1832. Fortunately for Greece, the presence of the King of Bavaria prevented a renewal of these calamities. His Majesty enabled the Greek government to procure money. Count Armansperg, having rejected the plans proposed by General Gordon for averting a renewal of brigandage, was in this emergency again induced to practise the lessons he had learned from Kolettes in suppressing the insurrection of Messenia. Chieftains were allowed to enrol irregular troops, and reconsti­tute bands of personal followers. Kitzos Djavellas, Theodore Griva, Vassos, Mamoures, and Zongas were empowered to raise two thousand men, and to march against the insurgents. These bands of irregulars were followed by large bodies of regular troops. With these forces the country was cleared of

¹      ’A9rjva, 12th (24th) February, 1S36. See also an account of this attack on Mesolonghi in Dr. Fiedler’s Reise durch alle Theile des Konigreiches Griechenland, i.150.

M 2

164 BA VA RIAN DESPO TISM.

[Bk. V. Ch. IV.;

insurgents and brigands without difficulty. Gordon had pointed out the operations by which Northern Greece can always be swept of enemies by a superior force in about a month. Before the end of May the last remains of the insurrection were trodden out in Acarnania, and all the large bands of brigands were again driven into Turkey. Sir Richard Church then made a tour of military inspection, to establish order, redress grievances, and pacify the people. On the 30th May Sir Edmund Lyons wrote from Athens to Lord Pal­merston : ‘ No inroads have been made on the frontier since the end of April, and tranquillity has prevailed throughout the country. General Church is still in Western Greece, and his reports of the loyal feelings of the inhabitants are extremely satisfactory.⁵

Others, however, took a very different view of the state of the country. The accounts given of the condition of Greece were so discordant, and the reports published in Western Europe were so variously coloured by personal feelings and party spirit, that some notice of this discordance is necessary, in order to show the reader how the streams of politics meander into the river of history.

The late Lord Lyons was a warm supporter of Count Armansperg, and appears to have received all the statements of the count with implicit confidence. On the 24th February 1836, Lyons wrote to Lord Palmerston that ‘the communes in Greece have the entire direction of their own affairs ; the press is unshackled ; the tribunals are completely independent; private property is scrupulously respected ; the personal and religious liberty of the subject is inviolable V Yet not one of these assertions was true. While Sir E. Lyons was writing this despatch, the people of Athens were reading in the Greek newspaper of the morning an account of the attack on Mesolonghi, and an announcement that the insurgents re­mained unmolested in their camps in Western Greece, while on the frontier brigandage was making gigantic pro­gress². In the month of May, General Gordon, who took a view of the state of Greece totally different from that taken by Lord Lyons, resigned his command in the Pelopon­

¹      Parliamentary Papers—Additional Papers, 1836, p. 39.

²      ’AOrjva, 12th (24th) February. 1S36. ‘H \rjarda av£avci jxt yiyavTia.ta 16-/7/xara. I

STATE OF GREECE.        165

A.D, I836.]

nesus, and before returning to England wrote to a friend at Athens : ^£ From what I know of the state of the Pelopon­nesus, and the rapid and alarming increase of organized brigandage, I fear this will be but a melancholy summer. I am assured, and believe, that lately several captive robbers have bought themselves off. Faction is extremely busy, and crime enjoys impunity. Add to this Church and his heroes (hoc est oleum ctdde camiuo), and we have a pretty picture. The bandits are now plundering in Romelia with crowns in their caps¹.’ Many brigands were enrolled in the bands which the irregular chieftains were authorized to form in the spring of 1836 ; and after the dismissal of Count Armansperg, Lord Lyons himself complained that one of these amnestied robbers had been seen at a ball, given by a foreign minister at Athens to the King and Queen of Greece ².

The disturbed state of Greece can be proved by better evidence than that of a British minister at King Otho’s court, 01* of a British officer in his service. It can be proved by facts which no party prejudices can distort. From the year 1833 to the year 1838, military tribunals were constantly sitting to deal out punishment to insurgents or brigands. To strangers who visited Greece, and who examined the events that occurred, instead of trusting to the reports they heard, it seemed that martial law w^Tas the only law by which King Otho was able to dispense even a modicum of justice to a great number of his unfortunate subjects ³.

During the interval between the dismissal of Count Arman­sperg and the final expulsion of the Bavarians in 1843,

¹      This last observation alludes to Count Armansperg having granted an amnesty to several of the chiefs of brigands whom Gordon had driven out of Greece in

1835,       and to one who had taken part in the attack made on the General at Aghia Marina.

²      An example of the different aspect which Greece presented to the British minister, and to an observant British traveller, will be found by comparing the Parliamentary Papers of 1836 with Colonel Mure’s Journal of a Tour in Greece in 1838. Lord Lyons wiites in 1836—‘ I denied that the peasantry were impoverished, or that they wo:e sheep-skins.’ Yet Colonel Mure in 1838, even in the town of Livadea, remarks that the students ‘ reclined, squatted, romped, and reposed upon their shaggy goat-skin cloaks or hairy capotes, which protected them from the storm by day, and formed their mattress and bedding by night.’

³      The following proclamations of martial law will be found in the Government Gazette, 1833, No. 28; 1834, No. 28; 1835, first series, No. 12; second series, No. 3; 1836, No. 6. This last military tribunal was established in February,

1836,       and sat until June, 1837. Various amnesties were granted by Count Armansperg, which furnished a supply of criminals for tribunals of a more regular kind at a later period.

166 BAVARIAN DESPOTISM.

[Bk. V. Ch. IV.

several trifling insurrections broke out in the Peloponnesus ; and continental Greece continued to be tormented by bands of brigands, who committed horrid atrocities. In a single year more than one hundred persons presented themselves to the public prosecutors, who had been tortured or mutilated by brigands and pirates. Men had lost their noses and ears; women and children had been tortured with indescribable cruelty, in order to force them to reveal where their husbands and their fathers were concealed \ No traveller passed through the country without seeing traces of their misdeeds. Colonel Mure found brigandage the subject of conversation at every khan he visited in 1838, and he fell in with victims of the brigands, with gendarmes pursuing brigands, or with brigands themselves, in every part of Greece². Even Attica suffered severely from their ravages ; shepherds were re­peatedly murdered, and the landed proprietors feared to visit their estates.

Several chiefs of robbers maintained themselves in the vicinity of Athens for years, and it was naturally supposed that they had found the means of obtaining powerful political protection³. A singular scene, which occurred when two famous brigands were led out to be executed, confirmed the general belief in some official complicity.

On the 5th of August 1839, Bibisi and Trakadha, who had been tried and condemned to death, were ordered to be executed in the vicinity of Athens. The executioner was assassinated at the Piraeus a few days before, and a new executioner was engaged to decapitate the criminals. An immense crowd was assembled to witness the death of men who were as much admired for their daring as they were feared and hated for their cruelty. The two brigands were surrounded by a strong guard of soldiers. The executioner ascended the scaffold on which the guillotine was placed.

¹      Dr. Fiedler says (ii. 46): ‘Die Landriiuber sind schon keine Menschen mehr, aber die Seerauber sind noch vid teuflischer. Es wiirde zu emporend sein ihre Sdiandthaten zu beschreiben.’

²                                        Mure, Journal of a Tour i/i Greece, vol. i. p. 241 ; vol. ii. pp. 2, 137, 144, 147, 186, 209, 257, 259, 274, 286, and 291. Compare also Fiedler, Reise durch alle Theile des Kiinigreiches Griechenland in den Jahren 1834 bis 1S37, vol. i. 146, 159, 165, 182, 192, 193, 198; ii. 45.                              “

³      The first of these local brigands who gained distinction in Attica was named Burduba. After committing several atrocious murders, he was pardoned and enrolled in the municipal guard, but he was soon slain by the relations of one of his victims.

BRIGANDAGE.        167

a.d. 1839.]

After waiting long for orders, he slowly commenced his work, but after some further delay, he fainted, or pretended to faint, and his powers of action could not be sufficiently restored to enable him to stand. The prefect wished to find another executioner, but the municipal authorities would give him no assistance. The populace began to enjoy the comedy they witnessed, instead of the tragedy they had expected to see. A reprieve was called for, and from the foot of the gallows the prefect was persuaded to despatch a message to King Otho asking for a reprieve, which, under the circum­stances, it was impossible for his majesty to refuse \ Bibisi was condemned to imprisonment for life. As usually happens in Greece, both he and Trakadha were soon allowed to escape. They recommenced their robberies in the neighbour­hood of Athens. At last they ventured to rob within sight of the royal palace. The court and the Greek ministers were roused from their habitual lethargy. A price was put on Bibisi’s head, and he was soon shot by a gendarme, who had himself been a brigand. Trakadha perished even sooner. But brigandage continued to exist in Attica, and to flourish in the greater part of Greece for many years ; and pages might be filled with accounts of robberies, murders, torturing, mutilation, and worse atrocities committed in every part of Greece².     '

The evils of brigandage fell chiefly on the agricultural population, and neither the court, the Bavarians, nor the Greek ministers, appear to have paid any attention to the condition and the sufferings of the agricultural classes. The want of roads confined intercourse and material improvement to the sea-coast and the neighbourhood of commercial towns. The greater part of Greece, cut off from all hope of bettering its circumstances, remained in a barbarous and stationary condition.

King Otho returned to Greece after his marriage with Queen Amalia³ accompanied by M. Rudhart, whom King Louis had selected to act as his son’s political guide and prime minister. Count Armansperg was ordered to return

¹      ’A6-qva, 26th July, 1839.

²      The recent work of Mr. Senior gives some account of the extent to which brigandage continued in 1855.

^s Maria Frederica Amalia, born 21st December, 1818, was the eldest daughter of Augustus, Grand Duke of Oldenburg.

168                                       BAVARIAN DESPOTISM. I

[Bk.V. Cb.IV. \V^]

to Bavaria, the office of arch-chancellor was abolished, and W> Rudhart was appointed minister of the royal household and W¹ of foreign affairs on the 14th February 1837. He was an ®^!l upright and perhaps an able man, but neither his previous !■* experience nor his personal character fitted him for the j® position which he was called upon to occupy in Greece, and IP he displayed such ignorance of the administrative wants of ® the country, that he was compelled to resign before he had v held office for a year. His mismanagement rendered it » impossible for King Otho to entrust the direction of the ft government any longer to foreigners, and on the 20th Decem- W ber 1837 M. Zographos, who was then Greek minister at ■ Constantinople, was recalled to fill the offices which M. ■ Rudhart had resigned.             I

King Otho became his own prime minister after the m resignation of M. Rudhart. His majesty possessed neither I ability, experience, energy, nor generosity ; consequently he ■ was neither respected, obeyed, feared, nor loved ; and the government grew gradually weaker and more disorganized.

Yet he pursued one of the phantoms by which abler despots are often deluded. He strove to concentrate all power in his own hands. It never occurred to him that it was more politic to perform the duty of a king well, than to perform I the business of half-a-dozen government officials with mecha- ( nical exactitude. King Otho observed but a very small k portion of the facts which were placed directly before him ; he was slow at drawing inferences even from the few facts | he observed, and he was utterly incapable of finding the r means of reforming any abuse from his own administrative < knowledge or the resources of his own mind.

The king counted on his sincere desire to be the monarch of a prosperous and powerful nation for supplying him with every qualification necessary for governing the Greeks, and he J expected that his personal popularity and his king-craft j would prevent insurrections and suppress brigandage. Un­fortunately he took no measures to root out the social evils that caused the one, or the political evils that produced the other. The king could form no firm resolutions himself, and he reposed no confidence in his ministers. They were indeed not worthy of much, for both Bavarians and Greeks displayed far more eagerness to obtain ministerial portfolios, than zeal

KING OTHO GOVERNS. 169

A.D. I839.]

in performing the duties of the offices with which they were entrusted. King Otho observed the meanness of their intrigues and the selfishness of their conduct. He distrusted the Bavarians, because he perceived that they looked to Munich for their ultimate reward; and he despised the | Greeks, because they were always ready to abandon the ¹ principles they avowed when he offered them either place or profit. With these feelings he attempted to govern without the advice of his ministers ; and he only assembled cabinet councils in order to obtain the formal ratification of measures already prepared in his own closet. Even his majesty’s commands were often communicated to his ministers by private secretaries. To insure complete subserviency, no minister was allowed to remain very long in office, and men were usually selected without influence or ability, and fre­quently without education^l.

During the personal government of King Otho, a singular event envenomed the disputes which had arisen between Lord Lyons and the Greek court during M. Rudhart’s administration. The affair has always remained enveloped in mystery, but its effects were so important that the fact requires notice, though it eludes explanation. It placed the British minister in direct personal hostility to the sovereign at whose court he was accredited, and it was the principal cause of the bitter animosity that King Otho ever since showed to England.

A Greek newspaper which King Otho was said to read with particular pleasure, thought fit, in an unlucky hour, to insert extracts from an English pamphlet ridiculing the servile condition of a nation that was governed by a young queen. A reply appeared in the Morning Chronicle, observing that it was fortunate for Great Britain that the only reproach which could be made to the sovereign was that she was

¹ Count Armansperg taught King Otho to form cabinets of ministers who could not communicate in a common language. He had often two ministers who could only speak Greek, and one who could speak nothing but German. But King Otho carried many things farther in the wrong direction than his arch-chancellor. The following is the copy of a letter written by a minister of foreign affairs, who held office during delicate negotiations with Lord Palmerston. It may be said to consist of eighteen words, twelve of which are strangely mis-spelt:—

Kvpie, eras eSoirio Kara v\]jl\iv kmrayiv rts. A. M ris BacriAicrts otoi afipiov rptriv eis ras 7! fx. fx. OtXoi ads dex^⁰¹ V A. M 77 /3aot\icra.

I JO         BAVARIAN DESPOTISM.

[Bk. V. Ch. IV.

young. Time would too soon remove the reproach, but the article in the Greek newspaper was in very bad taste in a country where the sovereign was reproached with being in­competent to govern. The Morning Chronicle then asserted that a certificate had been signed by several Bavarians, members of King Otho’s household, declaring that his majesty was incapable of governing his little kingdom. The Bavarian consul at Athens was an Englishman, and he considered it his duty to step forward and contradict the correspondent of the Morning Chronicle. The anonymous writer defended'¹ his veracity, reiterated his assertion, and added that the document was dated in the year 1835, and was signed by Dr. Wibmer, King Otho’s physician, Count Saporta, the marshal of the royal household, Baron Stengel and M. Lehmaier, private secretaries to the king, and members of his private council or camarilla. This rejoinder was widely circulated, and caused a loud outcry at Athens. The Greek newspapers declared that their king had been grossly insulted and calum­niated, either by the English or the Bavarians, or by both. In order to tranquillize the public, and throw the whole odium on the English, Dr. Wibmer, Baron Stengel, and M. Lehmaier published a declaration, asserting that they had never signed any such certificate*. But in the mean time it was reported that an indirect communication had been made to the courts of Greece and Bavaria that, in case of further discussion, the document would be published in the Morning Chronicle. It is certain that a short time after publishing their declaration, Wibmer, Stengel, and Lehmaier suddenly resigned their offices, and returned to Bavaria. The precise nature of the mysterious certificate remained a secret.

But whatever the document might be, since it was signed in 1835, during Count Armansperg’s administration, it was inferred that it could only have become known to foreigners by having been treacherously communicated to the count’s friend, Lord Lyons, and having, through the imprudence of Lord Lyons, fallen into the hands of some person who made use of it to gratify a private spite. The wound given was severe, and the press never allowed it to heal. Even English

;

¹ ’Adrjva, 1839, No. 632. The declaration is dated 23rd July, 1839.

CAUSES OF REVOLUTION OF 1843.       171

a.d. 1843.]

diplomatists and officials were so imprudent as to be con­stantly harping on the question of the mysterious certificate.

As years rolled on, the misgovernment of King Otho became more intolerable. The agricultural population remained in a stationary condition. They were plundered by brigands, pillaged by gendarmes, and robbed by tax-collectors. They had to bear the whole burden of the conscription, and pay heavy municipal taxes ; yet their property was insecure, and no roads were made. The Bavarians reproached Capodistrias with having neglected to improve the Turkish system of levying the land-tax, to construct roads and bridges, and to establish security for persons and property *. The Greeks now reproached the Bavarians with similar neglect. A remedy was required, and the people, having long patiently submitted to the despotic authority of the Bavarians, now began to clamour for a constitutional government. The first step to a free government was the expulsion of the Bavarians, and all parties in Greece agreed to unite their strength for this object. The administrative incapacity of King Otho’s coun­cillors disgusted the three protecting powers as much as their arbitrary conduct irritated the Greeks.

England and Russia supported the parties who demanded constitutional government. Nationality was so interwoven with orthodoxy, and orthodoxy appeared to be so com­pletely under Russian control, that the establishment of a constitutional and national government was supposed by the cabinet of St. Petersburg to be the surest means of rendering Greece subservient to the schemes of the Emperor Nicholas in the East. The Capodistrians carried their designs further than the Russian cabinet, for they proposed dethroning King Otho. For several years great exertions had been made to arouse the orthodox prejudices of the Greeks, and hopes were entertained that a revolution would afford an opportunity of placing the crown of Greece on the head of an orthodox prince. But when the time came, no orthodox prince fitter to govern Greece than King Otho could be found.

The English party acted under the guidance of Lord Lyons, who for several years had been the firm advocate of liberal measures, and a return to a constitutional system.

¹      Thiersch, i. 57,

172 BA VA RIAN DESPO TISM.

[Bk.V. Ch. IV.

France still proposed what Louis Philippe and his minis­ters called a policy of moderation. The French minister in i Greece was instructed to recommend the Greek government J to improve the provincial councils and the municipal adminis- I tration. The evils against which the people complained were defects in the central administration, consequently the advice of France was futile.                                          ,

The destruction of the representative system, the anni­hilation of independent action in the municipal authorities, the low state of political civilization, the still lower state of political morality, and the general lassitude which follows after a great national exertion, would in all probability have enabled King Otho and the Bavarians to rule Greece de­spotically for some years more, had not Great Britain and Russia publicly called upon the king’s government to remedy \ the financial embarrassments in which it was involved. The Russian minister warned King Otho that he must prepare ■ to pay the interest of the Allied loan. The king determined i to augment his revenues in order to meet the demands of the Allies, and in the year 1842 he made some administrative changes which rendered his government more oppressive. A law regulating the custom duties was adopted, which caused so much discontent among the mercantile classes, and so many complaints, that the government was compelled to modify it by a new law before it had been many months in operation

The Russian cabinet expected that King Otho, when threatened with a constitution, would have thrown himself on its support; but finding that its counsels were neglected, the emperor made a peremptory demand for immediate pay­ment of the interest due on the Allied loan². The menacing tone of this demand was interpreted by the orthodox party to authorize the friends of Russia to adopt revolutionary measures. But to insure the approbation of the Emperor Nicholas, the partizans of Russian influence considered it ne­cessary to give the movement as much as possible a religious character, and they made it their object to replace the Catholic

¹      This law is translated in Lesur, Annuaire Historique, 1842. The modification took place in 1843.

²      An extract from the Russian note is given in Lesur, Annuaire Historique, 1S43. It was dated 23rd February (7th March), 1843. See Documents.

CAUSES OF REVOLUTION OF 1843,       173

a.d. 1843.]

Otho by an orthodox prince. As orthodoxy was in no danger, and no orthodox king was forthcoming, the direction of the revolution passed into the hands of the constitutionalists, who demanded a definite political object, the convocation of a national assembly.

The union of the orthodox and constitutional factions was absolutely necessary, in order to give a popular movement any chance of success. This was easily effected, for both desired the immediate expulsion of the Bavarians; the ortho­dox party was not unfavourable to the convocation of a national assembly, and the constitutional party felt no dis­position to defend King Otho, had a better sovereign been proposed as his successor. It may be observed that both parties were destitute of leaders possessing any political talent.

The British government had long advocated liberal in­stitutions, but Lord Palmerston was no longer in office, and some doubt was entertained whether the Tories would not openly oppose a revolutionary movement. The friends of constitutional liberty brought on a discussion in the House of Commons on the 15th August 1843, which proved that all parties in England considered the Greeks entitled to representative institutions. Lord Palmerston said : ‘ I hope that her Majesty’s ministers will urge strongly upon the King of Greece the necessity of his giving a constitution to his people in redemption of the pledge given by the three powers in 1832, and repeated by Baron Gise, his father’s counsellor.’ And Sir Robert Peel, then Prime Minister, after alluding to the financial condition of Greece, continued : ‘ Russia, France, and England have made strong representations likewise on other matters, connected with the necessity of giving satis­faction to the just wishes of the people. I must abstain at present from any more direct allusion on this subject, but I can assure the house that many points alluded to by the noble lord have not been overlooked.’ These were solemn warnings given in the face of all Europe ; but King Otho refused to listen to the voice of nations, and remained loitering with fatuity on the brink of a precipice¹.

¹ That a revolution was considered inevitable both in England and Greece is proved by an article in Blackwood's Magazine for September, 1843, ‘The Bank­ruptcy of Greece; ’ and a letter from Athens, dated 5th September, and published

174 BAVARIAN DESPOTISM.

[Bk. V. Ch. IV.

A revolution being inevitable, all parties agreed that it ought to commence at Athens, and that King Otho should be compelled to dismiss all the Bavarians in the Greek servicc, to acknowledge the constitution, and to convoke a national assembly for its revision. The orthodox party con­sented that these points should be those mooted at the commencement of the revolution, being convinced that the king’s pride would induce him to reject the first. But, at all events, they felt so sure of commanding a majority in a national assembly, that they believed it would be in their power to declare the throne vacant, and to proceed to elect a new king the moment they could find a suitable orthodox candidate.

On the day preceding the revolution, the court obtained authentic information of the conspiracy. Orders were given to arrest General Makryiannes and many of the leaders; but it was already too late. The gendarmes who surrounded Makryiannes’ house did not invest it until after dark, and they did not attempt to make the arrest until midnight, hoping to surprise several leaders at the same time. Their movements had been watched, and a strong body of con­spirators had introduced themselves unobserved into the house. When the gendarmes approached they were warned off, and when they summoned the general to surrender, and attempted to force an entry, they found everything prepared for defence. A few shots were exchanged, and the gen­darmes were repulsed, carrying off one man killed and another wounded.

The garrison of Athens had been drawn up to support the gendarmes. General Vlachopulos, once a staunch adherent of Mavrocordatos, now a devoted courtier, was minister of war. He had been trained by the camarilla to do nothing without orders, and he was not a man to seize the moment for inde­pendent action. He did not put himself at the head of the troops, and thus the only chance of stemming the torrent of the revolution was lost.

As soon as the shots which proclaimed that General

in the Morning Post of the 23rd, announces the approaching revolution in terms which indicate that its information was derived from the Russian party. It says, that ‘ the Greeks have so fully made up their minds to put an end to the Bavarian dynasty as to be resolved not even to accept a constitution at the hands of King Otho.’

REVOLUTION OF 1843.  175

a.d. 1843.]

Makryiannes’ house was attacked were heard, General Kalergi, the inspector of cavalry, rode into the barracks where the troops were drawn up. On his arrival a preconcerted shout was raised, ‘Long live the constitution!⁵—C?/tco to 2vvrayfxa. Kalergi immediately assumed the command, and marched the whole garrison to the royal palace. And at the same time, with the prudence which he constantly displayed in great emergencies, and which contrasted with his extreme imprudence on ordinary occasions, he sent out strong pa­trols to maintain order, and stop the cry of ‘Death to the Bavarians!’ which the friends of orthodoxy and brigandage attempted to raise.

King Otho was waiting in his palace with his usual apathetic patience to receive the news that the numerous arrests ordered by the minister of war had been made. That of Makryiannes was to have served as a signal for the others; and his majesty had hardly received the information that the gendarmes had been defeated, when the garrison of the capital, with Kalergi at its head, appeared under the palace windows. General Hess, who was the Bavarian military counsellor in the camarilla, was by the king’s side. A Bava­rian aide-de-camp was despatched to bring up the artillery and drive the rebellious troops from the square before the palace with grape-shot. The king counted on the devotion of Captain Botzaris, a son of the brave Marko, who had been educated in Bavaria. The guns soon arrived, but they gal­loped to the position assigned them by Kalergi amidst shouts of ‘ Long live the constitution!’ The question now lay be­tween Greek liberty and Bavarian despotism.

The king showed himself at one of the lower windows of the palace. Kalergi informed his majesty that all Greece appealed to him to fulfil the promises given when he was elected King of Greece, that the people should be governed constitutionally. A low conversation ensued, which was in­distinct to those nearest, but the attitude of Kalergi indicated dissent. The king turned to the troops, and exclaimed in a loud voice, ‘ Retire to your quarters.’ Kalergi swamped the royal order by calling ‘Attention!’ and, with a deferential air, veiling a tone of satire, observed to the king, ‘ The troops expect your majesty’s orders through me, and they will wait patiently for your royal decision in their present position.

176 BA VAR/AX DESPOTISM.

[Bk.V. Ch.IV.

It was now announced that deputies from the council of state were appointed to lay the wishes of the nation before his majesty.

The council of state was a crcation of Count Armansperg. It was an imitation of the senate of Capodistrias, and it had no more claim to be regarded as a representation of the Greek people than that body. Many of the members were insignifi­cant and ignorant men, but all were eager to retain the high place into which fortune had intruded them. They met, at the requisition of the conspirators, when Kalergi marched to the palace. The Phanariots and courtiers in the body en­deavoured to gain time, and tried to raise a long discussion. They knew that the constitution would send them back to their former nullity. The murmurs of the constitutionalists assembled outside the place of meeting at last put an end to all discussion, and the council of state pledged itself to sup­port the constitution. Andreas Londos, Rhigas Palamedes, and Andreas Metaxas, were deputed to wait on the king and advise his majesty to dismiss the Bavarians, appoint a new ministry, and convoke a national assembly.

Morning dawned before this deputation reached the palace. King Otho was in no hurry to receive the men who composed it. He still counted on effectual support from the German ministers at his court, and his immediate object was to afford them time to take some step in his favour. The deputation was at last received, but while the king was treating with its members, he was endeavouring to open a communication with his own creatures in the council of state, who, he thought, might now be sufficiently numerous to pass a new resolution in his favour.

His Majesty’s delay was beginning to exhaust the patience of the constitutionalists, and those most hostile to his person began to display their feelings. The greater part of the population of Athens was assembled in the extensive square before the palace. The troops occupied only a small space near the building. Children were playing, boys were shout­ing, and apprentices were exclaiming that the king was acting with Bavarian precipitancy, which had long been a byword with the Greeks for doing nothing. Men were exhibiting signs of dissatisfaction, and talking of the departure of Agos­tino from Nauplia under circumstances not very dissimilar.

REVOLUTION OF 1843.  177

a.d. 1843.]

Suddenly a few carriages arrived in quick succession : they contained the foreign ministers¹. A faint cheer was raised as the Russian and English ministers appeared ; but in general the people displayed alarm, remained silent, or formed small groups of whisperers. At this moment it was fortunate for Greece that Kalergi was at the head of the troops. On that important day he was the only leading man of the movement who was in his right place. He had the good sense to de­clare to the foreign ministers that they could not enter the palace until the deputation of the council of state had ter­minated its interview and received a final answer from his majesty. The representatives of the three Allied powers being made acquainted with the demands of the deputation, acquiesced in this arrangement on receiving from Kalergi the assurance that his majesty’s person should be treated with the greatest respect. The ministers of Russia, England, and France departed, deeming that their presence might tend to prolong the crisis and increase the king’s personal danger. The Austrian and Prussian ministers thought the field was clear for action on their part, and they resolved to act ener­getically. They insisted on seeing the king. They used strong language, and made an attempt to bully Kalergi, who listened with coolness, and then quaintly observed that he believed diplomatic etiquette required them to follow the ex­ample of their doyen, the Russian envoy, and that common sense suggested to him that it would be prudent for them to act like the representatives of the three protecting powers.

When King Otho learned that the German diplomatists had been unable to penetrate into his palace, he saw that it was necessary to abandon absolute power in order to preserve the crown. Without any further observation he signed all the ordinances presented to him ; and on the 15th of September 1843, Greece became a constitutional monarchy. The Bava­rians were dismissed from his service ; a new ministry was appointed, and a national assembly was convoked.

That national assembly met on the 20th of November 1843, and terminated its work on the 30th of March 1844, when

¹ The doyen of the corps diplomatique was M. Catacazi, the Russian envoy; Lord Lyons (then Sir Edmund) was English minister, M. Piscatory was French minister, Baron Prokesch d’Osten was Austrian minister, and Count Brassier de St. Simon was Prussian minister.

VOL. VII.

N

178 BAVARIAN DESPOTISM.

[Bk. V. Ch. IV.

King Otho swore obedience to the constitution which it had' prepared.                      j

It is not the business of the historian of Greece underj foreign domination to judge this constitution. It is onlyj necessary for him to record the fact that it put an end to| the government of alien rulers, under which the Greeks had| lived for two thousand years. Its merits and defects belong! to the history of Greece as a constitutional state ; and perhaps more than one generation must be allowed to elapse before they can be examined with the light of experience. Still, before closing this record of the deeds by which the Greeks established their national independence, it is necessary to notice some shortcomings in this charter of their political liberty.

The constitution of 1844 is a compilation from foreign sources, and not the production of the national mind. Greece had no Lycurgus to make laws for the attainment of theoretic excellence, nor any Solon to devise remedies for existing evils. National wants and national institutions were alike over­looked. The municipal system which Capodistrias had de­faced, and which Maurer had converted into an engine for rivetting the fetters of centralization on the local magistrates, was neither revived as a defence for the people’s rights, nor adapted to aid the progress of Greek society.

The section of the constitution which determines the public rights of the Greek citizen, omits all reference to those rights in his position as an inhabitant of a parish, and as a member of a municipality and provincial district. Indeed, the in­terests of the citizen, in so far as they were directly connected with his locality and his property, were completely neglected, and only his relations with the legislature and the central government were determined.

The spirit of imitation also introduced some contradictions into the constitution of Greece extremely injurious to the cause of liberty. Universal suffrage was adopted for choosing members of the legislature, while the chief magistrates in the municipalities were selected by the king from three candi­dates chosen by an oligarchical elective body. As far as the rights of the citizens in municipalities were concerned, all the evils of the Capodistrian and Bavarian systems were left without reform. The municipalities remained in servile

•Scfi •

■J&-" 'dfil.- -r

*9 •••^:

a * •

I

anij '^l}|^ - 4 ’-w y

VllS

. Ja

■y

jreet ■’u.reti, V evik ■'if'!

•:

, "e to ^;!raiR

=*0

• n_Nto vibei :he in-

centra

:: the

-ing

::tkt

candi-

OBSERVATIONS ON THE CONSTITUTION. 179

.D.1843.]

dependence on the king, the ministers of the day, and the Drefects of the hour. The demarch was not directly elected oy the people, and the minister of the crown exercised a direct control over the budget of the demarchy. Yet the people, though not allowed to elect their own local chief, were nevertheless entrusted with the election of deputies to the lower legislative chamber. And this introduction of universal suffrage in the institutions of Greece was completely excep­tional, for a property qualification was retained for the electors - Mi^jwho appointed provincial councillors. A system tending more ^directly to perpetuate mal-administration in the municipalities, nullity in the provincial councils, and corruption in the cham­ber of deputies, could not have been devised. Individual responsibility was destroyed, the influence of the court was extended, and the power of faction increased.

The constitution of Greece opens the section of the public rights of citizens with an article which figures in most modern constitutions since the French constitution of 1793^ declares that all Greeks are equal in the eye of the law. In many of the constitutions in which a similar article ap­pears, it is a direct falsehood : in the constitution of Greece it is not strictly true. The Greeks who framed the constitu­tion knew that the phrase was introduced in France originally to enable the people to boast of an equality which the French, at least, have never enjoyed. To render all the citizens equal before the law, something more is necessary than to say that they are so. The legislation which would insure equality must render every individual, whatever be his rank or official station, responsible for all his acts to the persons whom those acts affect. The law must be equal for all, and superior to all. Neither a minister of police, a general, nor an admiral, any more than a prefect, must be permitted to plead official duty for any act as an excuse for not answering before the ordinary tribunals of the country. No officer of government must be allowed to escape personal responsibility by the plea of supe­rior orders. The sovereign alone can do no wrong. There can be no true liberty in any country where administrative privileges exempt officials from the direct operation of the law, as it affects every other citizen of the state, and as it

¹ A translation of the Greek constitution is given in Parliamentary Papers, 1S44, * Correspondence relative to recent events in Greece.’

N %

l8o  BAVARIAN DESPOTISM.

[Bk.V.Ch.IV ]

is administered by the ordinary tribunals of the country. The jj Greeks did not lay down this principle in their constitution: ; they preferred the nominal equality of France to the legal » equality of English law.  j

The two most influential leaders in the national assembly were Mavrocordatos and Kolettes. Both endeavoured to pre-j serve every official privilege introduced by Capodistrias andi - the Bavarians, for the purpose of placing the agents of the! ^ government above the law of the land. It was only through^ the support which Lord Lyons gave to a small party of deputies, that Mavrocordatos was induced to insert an article in the constitution expressly forbidding the re-establishment ; of the exceptional tribunals which Capodistrias, the regency, < and King Otho, had used as instruments of fiscal extortiom i and illegal oppression. The abolition of the exceptional ' tribunals then in existence was declared in another article of the constitution¹. The opposition which the leading statesmen of Greece made even to this tame protest against the illegal and unconstitutional proceedings of past govern­ments, presaged that they w^rere not likely to prove either active or intelligent artificers of the institutions still required in order to establish the civil and political liberties of the Greeks on a firm foundation. But the living generation had accomplished a great achievement. The future destinies of the Greek race were now in the hands of the citizens of liberated Greece.

Before finally releasing the reader who has followed the Author through the preceding pages, it may not be altogether unnecessary to look back at the origin of the Greek Revo­lution, and examine how far it has been crowned with success, or in what it has failed to fulfil the expectations of reflecting men. A generation has already passed away; most of the actors in the drama are dead ; the political position of Greece itself has changed ; so that a contemporary may now view the events without passion, and weigh their consequences with impartiality.

The Greek Revolution was not an insurrectional movement, originating solely in Turkish oppression. The first aspirations

¹ Compare Articles 89 and 101.

1                                         GENERAL REMARES.         l8l

| *.».i843.]

f for the delivery of the orthodox church from the sultan’s yoke

I were inspired by Russia ; the projects for national independ­ence by the French Revolution. The Greeks, it is true, were prepared to receive these ideas by a wave in the element of human progress that had previously spread civilization among the inhabitants of the Othoman empire, whether Mussulman or Christian.

The origin of the ideas that produced the Greek Revolution explain why it was pre-eminently the movement of the people; and that its success was owing to their perseverance, is proved by its whole history. To live or die free was the firm resolve of the native peasantry of Greece when they took up arms ; and no sufferings ever shook that resolution. They never had the good fortune to find a leader worthy of their cause. No eminent man stands forward as a type of the nation’s virtues; too many are famous as representatives of the nation’s vices. From this circumstance, the records of the Greek Revolution are destitute of one of history’s most attractive characteristics : it loses the charm of a hero’s biography. But it possesses its own distinction. Never in the records of states did a nation’s success depend more entirely on the conduct of the mass of the population; never was there a more clear manifestation of God’s providence in the progress of human society. No one can regard its success as the result of the military and naval exploits of the insurgents ; and even the Allied powers, in creating a Greek kingdom, only modified the political results of a revolution which had irrevocably separated the present from the past.

Let us now examine how far the Greek Revolution has succeeded. It has established the independence of Greece on a firm basis, and created a free government in regions where civil liberty was unknown for two thousand years. It has secured popular institutions to a considerable portion of the Greek nation, and given to the people the power of infusing national life and national feelings into the admini­stration of King Otho’s kingdom. These may be justly considered by the Greeks as glorious achievements for one generation.

But yet it must be confessed that in many things the Greek Revolution has failed. It has not created a growing popu­lation and an expanding nation. Diplomacy has formed

ftr

■jt; .

bL

j 82 BA VARIAN DESPO TISM.

[Bk. v. ch. 1

a diminutive kingdom, and no Themistocles has known hod to form a great state out of so small a community. Yet the task was not difficult: the lesson was taught in the United!

|

States of America and in the colonial empire of Great Britain|

But in the Greek kingdom, with every element of social and political improvement at hand, the agricultural populationj 1^{:il 1} and the native industry of the country have remained almost stationary. The towns, it is true, are increasing, and merchants are gaining money; but the brave peasantry who formed the nation’s strength grows neither richer nor more numerous'; the produce of their labour is of the rudest kind ; whole-^®¹"'’ districts remain uncultivated ; the wealthy Greeks who pick up money in foreign traffic do not invest the capital they accumulate in the land which they pretend to call their coun­try; and no stream of Greek emigrants flows from the millions' who live enslaved in Turkey, to enjoy liberty by settling in liberated Greece.

There can be no doubt that the inhabitants of Greece may, even in spite of past failures, look with hope to the future. When a few years of liberty have purged society from the traditional corruption of servitude, wise counsels may enable them to resume their progress.

But the friends of Greece, who believed that the Revolution would be immediately followed by the multiplication of the Greek race, and by the transfusion of Christian civilization and political liberty throughout all the regions that surround the Aegean Sea, cannot help regretting that a generation has been allowed to pass away unprofitably. The political posi­tion of the Othoman empire in the international system of Europe is already changed, and the condition of the Christian ji® population in Turkey is even more changed than the position j |^:*' of the empire. The kingdom of Greece has lost the oppor- j[|«;' tunity of alluring emigrants by good government. Feelings of nationality are awakened in other Oriental Christians under Othoman domination. The Greeks can henceforth only repose their hopes of power on an admission of their intellectual and moral superiority. The Albanians are more warlike; the Sclavonians are more laborious ; the Roumans dwell in a more fertile land; and the Turks may become again a powerful nation, by being delivered from the lethargic influence of the Othoman sultans.

I                                   GENERAL REMARKS.      183

ld. 1843.]

The Othoman empire may soon be dismembered, or it may ong drag on a contemptible existence, like the Greek empire Constantinople under the Palaeologues. Its military re­sources, however, render its condition not dissimilar to that of the Roman empire in the time of Gallienus, and there may be a possibility of finding a Diocletian to reorganize the administration, and a Constantine to reform the religion. But should it be dismembered to-morrow, it may be asked, what measures the free Greeks have adopted to govern any portion better than the officers of the sultan ? On the other hand, several powerful states and more populous nations are well prepared to seize the fragments of the disjointed empire. They will easily find legitimate pretexts for their intervention, and they will certainly obtain a tacit recognition of the justice of their proceedings from the public opinion of civilized Europe, if they succeed in saving Turkey from anarchy, and in averting such scenes of slaughter as Greece witnessed during her Revolution, or as have recently occurred in Syria.

It is never too late to commence the task of improvement. The inheritance may not be open for many years, and the heirs may be called to the succession by their merit. What, then, are the merits which give a nation the best claim to greatness ? Personal dignity, domestic virtue, truth in the intercourse of society, and respect for justice, command re­verence and insure authority to individuals. Let the Greeks make them the first objects of all family education, until they become national characteristics, and then liberated Greece will have no reason to envy either the glory of ancient Greece, or the power which was conferred on the ancient Greeks by the conquests of the Macedonians. But I wander too far from my subject; so, instead of moralizing further, I shall conclude with the words of the old English song ¹—

¹ Only the actions of the just Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.’

¹ [At this point the original work ended; but the two following chapters were left in manuscript by the Author at the time of his death, and are intended to form a continuation of the history up to the year 1864, when the constitution of Greece was established on a more definitive basis. Ed.]

CHAPTER V.

[SUPPLEMENTARY.]

Constitutional Monarchy—1844 to 1862.

Alexander Mavrocordatos prime minister.—French policy.—Elections in 1844.— ‘ Misconduct of the Mavrocordatos cabinet.—An anomalous election.—Kolettes prime minister. — Organization of the Church. — Diplomatic disputes. — j Quarrel with Turkey.—Financial administration.—Revolts and brigandage. —Changes of ministry.—Rupture with Great Britain.—Arrangement of the ■ British claims.—Affairs of Montenegro.—Russian demands on Turkey.— State of Greece in 1853 and 1S54—Greeks invade Turkey.—Defeat of the Greeks.—Occupation of the Piraeus by French and English troops.—Demo­ralized condition of Greece.—Violation of the constitution.—Brigandage in 1855 and 1S56.—Financial commission of the protecting powers.—Land- tax.— Communal administration.—The Miaoulis ministry.—Dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies.—Attempt to assassinate Queen Amalia.—Negotia­tions with Admiral Kanares for the formation of a ministry.

When the Author revised the preceding chapters of this work in retirement at Kephisia during the summer of 1860, King Otho seemed to be as securely seated on his throne as any sovereign in Europe. The ungrateful task of recording the misfortunes of Greece is resumed in order to complete a contemporary view of the course of events and of the changes of opinion which caused the King of Greece to be driven from his throne, without an effort being made to support his authority by those whom his favour had raised to wealth and power. A political revolution has now opened to the Greeks new roads to improvement, and placed in their own hands the means of self-government. A constitution better adapted to the social condition of the population, and an augmentation of territory due to the generosity of the British government, have modified the condition of the Greek kingdom, and they render the Revolution which established the new

STATE OF GREECE, 1844.

180

order of things the natural termination of this work. Time may not yet have purified the Author’s mind from the disturbing influences and prejudices of the passing day, but he cannot resist the desire to make his history of the Greek Revolution, though it must be imperfect, as complete as lies in his power; and age will not allow him to delay the work in the hope of being able to survey the events more calmly.

The attempt which the Greeks made in 1844 to lay the foundations of good government on constitutional theories was unsuccessful; it was rendered abortive by the want of national institutions for local administration, or what is now generally called self-government. The people remained powerless to correct local abuses or to execute measures of local improve­ment. The corruption of the central government and the contracted views of King Otho rendered the period from the adoption of the constitution in 1844 to his expulsion from Greece in 1862 a period of comparative stagnation for a people who, like the population of the Greek kingdom, possessed two unfailing elements of prosperity and national increase, when they are wisely employed, freedom of com­merce and a considerable extent of fertile and uncultivated land.

The harmony that prevailed among the party leaders in the National Assembly of 1843 ceased at its dissolution. The old parties under Mavrocordatos, Kolettes, and Metaxas, again recommenced their old intrigues and their former struggles for the power of conferring places and salaries on their partizans. The interference of the protecting powers was openly exercised. For a short time the ministers of Great Britain and France, Sir Edmund Lyons and M. Piscatory, acted in concord, and endeavoured to induce Mavrocordatos and Kolettes to unite in forming a ministry, believing that this coalition afforded the surest means of giving Greece good government. But the ambition of these leaders was irrecon- cileable, and the avidity of their partizans to gain possession of the whole patronage of government soon showed that a coalition of what was called the English and French parties was impossible. The question was, whether a struggle for power was to be carried on in a divided cabinet or in a divided nation.

After a cautious examination of the circumstances in which

I r.'rjj

uirK.I

186 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

[Bk. V. Ch. V.

he was placed, King Otho selected Mavrocordatos to form the first constitutional ministry. The power of consolidating a system of administration founded on free institutions and local j |[s;Jt^c self-government was thus, in the year 1844, placed in the j hands of the man who had taken the most prominent part in framing the first constitution of the Greek state in 1821. Success in the task of securing to Greece administrative order as well as national independence would have conferred on f jrj:¹;- Mavrocordatos the highest glory to which a statesman can J jtri; aspire, while his failure obscured the merits of his previous service. Success evidently depended on the power of rendering [ |0 the law the supreme authority in the government, and on the ministry winning the support of the people by giving practical energy to a municipal system calculated to carry into im- \ji\ mediate execution profitable schemes of local improvement. Mavrocordatos commenced his administration on the 29th of ! |irrr March 1844, and in less than five months he was driven from office by public opinion for having violated the constitution and neglected to perform any of the duties imposed on the t./.' first constitutional cabinet. His leading error arose from the | rr ordinary delusion of weak statesmen in believing that they £ increase their power by concentrating all executive business in their own hands, not knowing that the strength of a govern­ment depends far more on ministers taking care that officials do their duty, than on their interfering with the duties of officials, and thereby assuming a responsibility from which jp- they might remain free. Mavrocordatos persuaded himself jl that it was for the interest of Greece that he should govern absolutely, and this infatuation caused him to pay little attention to the strict letter of the constitution, and even less to the opinions and feelings of the people, whenever they impeded his projects for the centralization of power in his own hands.

Sound policy as well as duty commanded the ministry to reform those administrative abuses of which the people j _h complained with justice, and to establish that degree of publicity which enables public opinion to fix responsibility where blame accrues. But the new ministry left old abuses unreformed, and Mavrocordatos was too much engaged in accumulating authority to think of increasing the means of fixing responsibility. To maintain the ministry in office

GK’

D'

I                                         MAVROCORDATOS PRIME MINISTER.                             187

^ A.D. 1844.]

" it was necessary to secure the election of a majority of their ' partizans to the chamber of deputies, that was about to meet. ^J In the senate a majority was obtained without difficulty, for King Otho adopted all the ministerial nominations.

In the year 1^44 the state of European politics was j particularly favourable to the prolongation of English influence in Greece. The Emperor Nicholas, who disliked Louis Philippe and his government, visited England. For some time previous ^L“i it was known that he desired to prevent a close alliance between the governments of France and England, and to establish a common line of policy for the British and Russian ‘‘ governments in the East. The Emperor Nicholas professed himself ready to adopt the views concerning the integrity of the Othoman empire which guided the policy of Great .Britain, and declared that he sought no object tending to aggrandize Russia at the sultan’s expense. The British ministers listened to these assurances with pleasure, and perhaps they attached more importance to them than they merited ; but they could not forget, even while giving the emperor credit for perfect sincerity, that the Russian empire had a traditional policy which could undergo no permanent change, though it might receive temporary modification from the views of the reigning emperor. The governments of Great Britain and Russia certainly for a short time appeared to agree generally in their views concerning the affairs of Turkey, and this agreement caused both of them to neglect the affairs of Greece. The Emperor Nicholas believed that a constitutional government could not be established in Greece under King Otho, and even if it were established, that it would do no good. The British government took a very different view of the effect likely to be produced by the constitution. They believed that if the Greeks were left to themselves to adapt their political institutions to their own wants, the constitutional form of government would not only be successful, but would also greatly accelerate the progress of the country both politically and in material prosperity. Mavrocordatos was from the causes mentioned left to himself, and received less direct support from British influence than, as head of the 'English party, he expected to receive. It is true that Sir Edmund Lyons accorded him as much support as was consistent with the duty of refraining from express interference

1 SB         CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

[Bk.V. Ch.V.

with the business of government. The principle of non- j interference was the policy which the British government i was desirous of imposing on the protecting powers, as the surest means of enabling the Greeks to profit by the adoption of constitutional government.

M. Piscatory, the French minister at Athens, was a man of sense and judgment, liberal in his views and well acquainted with the men who composed the French party in Greece, whose true moral and political value he estimated fairly enough. During the National Assembly he showed a sincere desire that' England and France should act harmoniously. But when the National Assembly was dissolved, M. Guizot became intent on obtaining a victory over English diplomacy at Athens, as a counter-check to the general agreement of Russia and England in the East. It was deemed a matter of great importance by that pedantic statesman to make French influence manifest to all Europe by establishing Kolettes (whom the French called General Kolettes) as prime minister of Greece in the placc of Mavrocordatos, and Piscatory received imperative orders to make that end the chief object of his diplomacy. It is not too much to assert that Guizot, Piscatory, and Kolettes would have laboured in vain, had Mavrocordatos not offended King Otho by his grasping ambition, and lost the support of the Greek nation by his administrative incapacity and his violations of the constitution.

The chamber of deputies was the court of appeal that possessed the power of deciding on the rival claims to govern the country, and both Mavrocordatos and Kolettes directed their whole energy to secure a majority; the one as much as the other throwing off every restraint imposed by law and equity. The conduct of Mavrocordatos attracted more reprobation than that of his rival, for as prime minister of a constitutional king and leader of the English party, it was considered to be more especially his duty to uphold the cause of constitutional procedure. One of the manoeuvres of Capodistrias during the election of deputies to the National Assembly of Argos, which had caused loud complaints on the part of those who then stood forward as the partizans of constitutional government (and no one was louder in his complaints than Mavrocordatos and some of the men who were now his colleagues in the ministry) was, that Capodistrias had

ELECTIONS.   189

A.D. 1844.]

used his authority as president to exclude several members of the opposition from the Assembly, by offering himself as candidate for the places where they were likely to be elected. Mavrocordatos now adopted this manoeuvre, which he had formerly stigmatized as dishonourable and uncon­stitutional.

The first election that took place was that of the University of Athens. Only the professors had votes ^l. Mavrocordatos presented himself as candidate and was elected. He sup­posed that his success would deceive public opinion in Western Europe, and propagate the belief that his govern­ment was popular. He was disappointed. All who took any interest in Greek politics knew that the professors of the body which was proud to call itself‘the Othonian University’ had been selected for their political docility as much as for their professional distinction. Learning has never been the beaten road to independence of character; and, as a body, the professors in Greece, as elsewhere, have generally inclined to obsequiousness. A question arose concerning the legality of this election, and when Mavrocordatos was driven from power Kolettes found no difficulty in convincing the pro­fessors of its illegality, on the ground that the University could only be represented by a member of the body. The election of Mavrocordatos was declared void, and a new election took place. Whether the election of Mavrocordatos when he was not a member of the University, was legal or illegal, might be doubtful, but in the minds of the great majority of the liberal party which did not blindly follow the opinions of the ministry, there was no doubt about its being a political blunder, and the prime minister was urged in vain by some of his ablest friends to bring forward a professor of high literary and legal knowledge, closely connected with the constitutional party, as the ministerial candidate. Unfor­tunately the results of the early Phanariot education of Mavrocordatos in the Turkish service and the Vallachian administration were never completely eradicated, and he was

¹ The petition of the University to the National Assembly of 1843, asking for the right to elect a representative, is printed in the UpaKTuca, p. 531. The right was conceded in the law for the election of deputies, Art. 30. This privilege was abolished by the National Assembly of 1S62, and professors, being paid func­tionaries, cannot be elected deputies.

l go CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

[Bk.V.Ch.V.

always deficient in the power of appreciating the force and value of constitutional principles in Greece.

The election of the University displeased many liberals, and subsequent elections soon turned the tide of public opinion strongly against Mavrocordatos personally. He was accused in the press and in the coffee-houses of centralizing all power in his own hands, like a Turkish pasha or a Vallachian voivode. His Phanariot birth, Turkish education, and Vallachian experience were referred to as evidences of his despotic principles of government. He was reproached with habitually employing illegal means to obtain power, and invariably misusing power when attained. This expression of popular dissatisfaction ought to have warned the ministry of their danger. That danger was observed by Kolettes and King Otho, but it was either overlooked or despised by Mavrocordatos.

The partizans of Kolettes and Metaxas, and a considerable number of the officials who looked to the king for their reward, now united to oppose the election of the ministerial candidates in many electoral districts. They opened private communications with the court, and King Otho was per­suaded to allow the royal influence to be used in opposition to his constitutional ministers. The influence of the sovereign in a strictly centralized administration must always be very great, particularly in an imperfectly constituted state of society, and it cannot be taken away by any constitution, if the sovereign strive to render it effective. King Otho derived great gratification from employing this influence to control his ministers, and he plunged actively into the intrigues that were carried on to undermine the power of Mavrocordatos. He did not appear to be sensible that there was both im­morality and impolicy in these underhand dealings, nor that the sight of a king engaged in weakening the authority of his government, and of the men whom he allowed to act in his name, must tend to make the royal authority contemptible.

The question by what combination of parties Mavrocor­datos was to be replaced in office, soon occupied the attention of the Greeks to the exclusion of everything relating to good government. It became generally known to the electors during the heat of the election contests that King Otho

ELECTIONS.   191

i.D. 1844.]

" desired to change his ministers, and that unless the majority in favour of Mavrocordatos’ cabinet should be considerable, | the fall of the ministry was certain. The feelings of the ' f^reat body of his subjects were now in sympathy with those ■¹ of King Otho, and his popularity revived as that of Mavro- :ordatos declined. Yet, if Mavrocordatos had shown more

■     deference to constitutional principles in his own conduct, and observed the rules of fair play in his electioneering proceed­ings, it is not impossible that he might have very soon “■ regained his influence. The success of Kolettes might have been reduced to an ordinary party victory, and the partizans of Mavrocordatos would have formed a respectable minority ^:r in the chamber, where, by acting as the advocates of legality, ^ar- and as the defenders of the constitution, they would have soon secured the support of a powerful party among the people. But the grasping and unconstitutional conduct of the ministry so completely alienated the liberals, that Ko­lettes seized the opportunity of annihilating the party of Mavrocordatos by a series of illegal measures, to which no men could have been subjected who had a right to appeal to a sense of justice in a nation.

| The coalition of hostile parties made it evident that, if the ^ elections proceeded freely, the majority of the ministerial " j candidates would be rejected. The alternative presented itself of violating the principles of the constitution or of resigning office after carrying out the elections in the most eel impartial manner. The reputation of Mavrocordatos as a statesman commanded the one, the power which centralized ¹ authority in the hands of ministers offered temptations to try the other. In an evil hour Mavrocordatos forgot that his high position as a party leader had been made for him by his supposed attachment to constitutional government, that his most powerful support was derived from those who wished that Greece should be governed by the law, and that his ! political strength was in a great degree dependent on the \ strength of the constitution. Nobody expected Kolettes to j act on any system but that of governing by force, whether he j was the prime minister of an absolute or a constitutional king. His practical ideas concerning government had been learned at Joannina in the school of Ali Pasha, and his residence as Greek minister at the court of Louis Philippe

102 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

[Bk. V. Ch. V.

had only taught him the language of diplomacy in discussing political questions, not how to conduct a government on constitutional principles, nor even to direct the progress of administrative business.

The arbitrary measures by which the members of Mavro­cordatos’ cabinet attempted to secure their own elections produced several disturbances. An insurrection occurred in Acarnania. In order to conceal the political nature of this movement and make it appear to be connected with the prevalence of brigandage, a general amnesty was proclaimed for the brigands in Northern Greece. Over the whole country

o                           *

the elections were marked by the same deeds of violence and illegality which had disgraced the government of Capodistrias in 1829. Capodistrias, as president of Greece, had procured his own election as representative in the National Assembly of Argos by twenty electoral districts. Mavrocordatos, as prime minister, presented himself as candidate in several places where he desired to cxclude an able opponent¹. But the power of the ministry was paralyzed by persons in official positions, who declared that King Otho would see the defeat of his ministers with pleasure, and would not overlook the services of those who assisted in defeating them. All the warm supporters of the French and Russian parties in the provinces held the same language. Every faction conducted itself with the same lawlessness. Bands of armed men moved about living at free quarters in the villages, and exacting from the peasants promises to vote for the party that employed them. Brigandage was used by influential men as an instrument to intimidate whole districts, and a shameless misappropriation of municipal funds was then authorized and subsequently overlooked.

Londos, the minister of justice, sent a secret order to the gendarmes at Patras to employ every means in their power to obtain a majority of votes in his favour. The order was made public by some of those to whom it was communicated, and the outbreak of general indignation was so violent that Mavrocordatos advised the king to accept the resignation of Londos. Rhodios, the minister of war, sought to gain votes for himself and his colleagues by a lavish distribution of

¹      He was a candidate in seven electoral districts.

MISCONDUCT OF THE CABINET.  193

A.D. 1844.]

decorations and medals for service during the War of In­dependence. Diplomas and certificates of service, entitling the holders to dotations of national land, were sent to the prefects with the space for the name blank, ready to be filled up as a reward for votes¹. In spite of this corruption the government candidates were generally unsuccessful. At Mesolonghi Mavrocordatos failed, though at that place his name had been highly honoured until he sullied it by the illegal proceedings of his cabinet. General Kalergi, who was military commandant of Athens, offered himself as ministerial candidate in violation of the constitution, which declared that no officer could be elected deputy in the province where he held a command until six months after its termination. The cabinet gave its own gloss 011 the constitu­tion. The first elections were said to be exceptional, and it was sufficient that Kalergi resigned his command eight days before the promulgation of the election. The people con­sidered that the express enactments of the constitution were entitled to more respect, and Kalergi was rejected by the electors of Athens².

The election of Athens caused the downfall of Mavro­cordatos. The people made a violent tumult, demanding a change of ministers ; and the cabinet had so often violated the law that the law had lost its power to protect the ministers. An appeal to force, in order to support a career of illegality, offered no chance of success, and in this help­less condition Mavrocordatos carried the resignation of the ministry to the king, who accepted it with pleasure.

The manner in which one of the leading politicians con­ducted himself during the election of 1844 affords a curious illustration of the public morality of the period. Successful fraud in Greece was viewed very much as successful bribery is viewed in England when it secures a seat in parliament. The politician alluded to was a man who had always been ready to join any party, whether English or French, that would give him a place in the cabinet; and it cannot be said

¹      Two of these diplomas were exhibited in the Chamber of Deputies during 1845.

²      The law of election is annexed to the printed copies of the constitution of 1844. See Tit. iv. Art. 28. It was argued that a decree of the National Assembly, viz. No. 13 (17111 = 29th March, 1844), having conferred on General Kalergi the citizenship of all Greece, he was exempt from the provisions of the election law.

VOL. VII.         O

3 94         CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHV.

[Bk.V. Ch.V.

that he was either much better or much worse than the majority of the ministers who held office during King Otho’s reign. In this case he exhibited more dexterity, but not more immorality, than other candidates. Though he pos­sessed considerable local influence, he saw^r that party violence would in all probability prevent his election, unless he joined one of the rival factions. Both were ready to welcome him, but his difficulty lay in ascertaining which of the two was likely to remain for any length of time in power. He there­fore set about devising a plan for securing his election which ever party might prevail. He felt so much confidence in his own political value, that he had no doubt the ultimate victors would be ready to purchase his services, by annulling any election that might take place, and by securing his return. All he had to do was to create a pretext for declaring the election of anybody else void.

When the election took place he presented himself as a candidate, and boasted that he relied solely on his past services to his country, and came before the electors free from all party ties. He spoke of his own independence, and blamed the proceedings of others in galling phrases, well calculated to irritate opponents ; and whether by the violence of those who supported the other candidates, or by the preconcerted behaviour of his friends, a disturbance was created. At the first appearance of disorder, he declared that his patriotic feelings would not allow him to be the cause of a tumult in his native city during the first constitutional election. Abandoning the field to his rivals, he marched off with his supporters to the office of a notary public, who at his demand drew up an act declaring that he had been prevented from going to the vote by intimidation, and that a thousand citizens were present ready to record their votes in'his favour. The business of the notary was to record the statement, not to verify the fact.

In due time the case came before the chamber of deputies. Mavrocordatos had been driven from power, and Kolettes was prime minister. The election of a partizan of Mavro­cordatos was annulled, and the astute politician having joined the adherents of Kolettes was declared duly elected, without the formality of a new election, on the faith of the notarial act, which Kolettes persuaded the chamber to accept as

FALL OF MAVROCORDATOS.         195

A.D. I844.]

evidence of an election that never took place. This anecdote, which was current at the time, and of which the leading facts are true, may not be perfectly correct in all its details, but it is typical of the public men whom Greece was compelled to entrust with the duty of laying the foundations of constitu­tional liberty in 1844. It may be asked, what would have been the fate of Greece had such men been entrusted with irresponsible power as the ministers of an absolute and weak king?

A better feeling prevailed among the people than among the public men, and if Mavrocordatos had fully understood the power of a stainless cause, he would have quitted office rather than commit illegalities to retain office. As an oppo­sition leader he might have constituted himself the champion of constitutional procedure. He deserted the honourable post which he had won by his services during the Revolution, implanted the seeds of corruption in the constitutional system, and prepared his country to submit with apathy to the long administration of Kolettes. A better man and an abler statesman than Mavrocordatos might have impressed a different character on the constitutional history of his country, and saved Greece from the Revolution of 1862 by rendering it unnecessary.

There were other errors in the administration of Mavro­cordatos, which proved that he did not possess the capacity necessary to direct the executive government. A single example may be recorded, because it relates to the subject which forms the darkest stain on society in liberated Greece, and retains the agricultural districts in a state of insecurity which precludes improvement. On the 31st July 1844 Mavro­cordatos granted an amnesty to the brigands in Acarnania for the purpose of gaining his own party ends; but as politi­cal causes were at the root of the prevailing brigandage, this amnesty did less to create security, than the impunity granted to criminals did to perpetuate deeds of violence.

Kolettes became prime minister on the 16th of August 1844 and held that office until his death on the 16th of September 1847. His power was increased by a coalition with the Russian party. But King Otho, who justly sus­pected the phil-orthodox section of that party of a design to dethrone him at the Revolution in 1843, would not consent

O    z

isii — ii. G:/.. a iu;'.. a per;

k w.. SiiK

G..

J96 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

[Bk.V. Ch. V

to the entry of its ablest members into the cabinet, and Kolettes had no alternative left for maintaining himself in office but to secure a majority of his own personal supporters; in the chamber of deputies. This he effected by using! every means at his disposal. He was not troubled wito many scruples, and both bribery and violence were employed! without stint. The constitution and the law of election were! equally disregarded. Months were devoted to the exami­nation of election questions, because by this delay he avoided driving any but the followers of Mavrocordatos into open| opposition. It was not until February 1845 that the chamber!¹ of deputies declared itself legally constituted so as to proceed’ to business, and it then took into consideration the address to the crown. Kolettes had secured a decided majority, and the feeling of the country was strongly in his favour, Backed by this support, he indulged a long cherished and ill-suppressed rancour against what he termed the English party. The cabinet of Mavrocordatos was declared in the address to have exercised illegal intervention in the elections Their friends who retained seats in the chamber demanded¹ that this passage should be omitted, or else that the ex-j ministers should be put on their trial for the alleged criminal!¹! conduct, in order that an opportunity might be afforded toj them of refuting the accusation. But as they would in their'^ti" own defence have adduced proofs that the friends of Kolettes! K had acted with as much illegality, and that many of the! jr.:'. deputies of his party had obtained their seats by acts of fc.. fraud and violence, no notice was taken of this demand,¹ and the passage blaming the conduct of the cabinet of Mavrocordatos was retained. The public indignation against the late ministers was still so strong that Kolettes was excused for every infraction of the constitution which he thought fit to perpetrate in persecuting them.

Kolettes at last brought forward in a long speech the measures which he considered necessary to insure the good government and rapid progress of Greece. This discourse was addressed much more to public opinion in France than to the deputies who listened to it or to the Greek people whom it most nearly concerned¹. It is filled with declamation

¹      This speech was translated into French, and printed in many continental news­papers. See Lesur, Annuaire Historique, 1845, p. 342.

'I-¹'"

jjitn t pis ~ ptt: br

p ' j:; ■ ■

tdf--

r

:avoA

a

in

ectfJ rana* he H

KOLETTES PRIME MINISTER.       107

A.D.1845.]

concerning the glories of the Hellenic race, past and present,

■     >cif 1 |and there was something that bordered 011 the ridiculous jin hearing this Zinzar Vallaehian, who in mind and appear- us/ jance was a type of his own race, appealing to the names ^ \ iof men in whom there was not one drop of Hellenic blood, llike Miaoulis, Botzaris, Tombazes, and Konduriottes, as types of the Greek race. Yet this flattery pleased the national vanity if it did not deceive the ignorance of the people in the Greek kingdom. These men were certainly the most efficient supporters of Greek liberty, but they were 110 more Greeks than Simon de Montfort, to whom English liberty is so deeply indebted, was an Englishman. Kolettes also said much in his usual vague manner, whenever principles and practice were concerned, about moral improvement and material progress. Rewards, wealth, and lands were promised to the veterans of the Revolution, as they had been from the time of Capodistrias, and continue to be in the time of King George; and the chamber of deputies was warned against the danger of faction and discord. Even Kolettes himself was alarmed at the revengeful passions which the virulence of the electioneering contests had awakened in the breasts of a majority of the deputies, and he thought it necessary to warn them publicly that he intended to com­mand them and not receive their orders. Among his many defects Kolettes had one important quality of a statesman ; he could hear the first whispers of public opinion, and he knew how to avail himself of its support as soon as it made its voice heard. It must however be observed that he was so far from being a statesman, that though he remained three years in office, he did nothing of importance to give practical effect to the measures which he announced were necessary for the improvement of Greece.

There was one important measure which Kolettes could neither avoid nor adjourn. The 105th article of the con­stitution of 1844 required that the government should organize the church in accordance with constitutional monarchy. The king, Kolettes, and the constitutional party which had sepa­rated from Mavrocordatos, proposed investing the crown with the power of nominating the President of the Holy Synod, both to prevent the evils which might arise from the influence of the patriarch of Constantinople over a president elected

198 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

[Bk. v. Ch.V.

by ecclesiastics, and to avert the danger of the church placing itself above the law of the country. It was absolutely neces­sary to close the door of advancement in the sultan’s dominions to all ecclesiastics in the church of liberated Greece. The phil-orthodox party, which looked to foreign influence and native bigotry for increasing its ecclesiastical power, advocated the plan of rendering the church of Greece as independent as possible of the civil power, and as closely connected as possible with the church of Constantinople. It wished to declare the President of the Holy Synod the head of the' church, and the church itself independent of the temporal power, investing it by virtue of this independence with the right of electing its own president.

The discussion of this question caused Metaxas to separate from the constitutional party with which he had acted since the Revolution in 1843. Metaxas, being an Ionian, could only retain his political influence by fidelity to the phil- orthodox party, yet, though party interest coincided in this instance with the impulse of his own feelings, his conduct deserves praise, since he sacrificed those personal advantages which most Greek politicians sacrificed their character to gain, He was offered high office, and an ample share of government patronage, to give him the means of forming a body of personal followers in the administration, if he would join the government. Metaxas followed the dictates of his con­science ; the friends of Mavrocordatos, and those who called themselves the English party, were not so honest; they acted in direct opposition to the political principles which they had previously avowed, and endeavoured to thwart measures which they must have supported had they been themselves in office, by forming a coalition with the phil-orthodox party. The first trial of the strength of this coalition was an attempt to exclude M. Balbes, the minister of justice, from the chamber of deputies, under the pretext that he belonged to the clergy. He had received deacon's orders, though early in life he had quitted the study of theology for that of jurisprudence, had been called to the bar, and practised for many years as a lawyer. Public opinion was again offended by the meanness which the fiiends of Mavrocordatos showed on this occasion, for i their peisonal animosity against M. Balbes arose from his having been elected deputy for Mesolonghi in opposition to

INTERNAL ADMINISTRATION.      199

A.D. 1S45.]

Mavrocordatos by a large majority. The unfair attempt to give a retroactive force to the clause of the law which forbade all who entered the church from holding any civil office, revived the popular feeling in favour of Kolettes as the supporter of liberal opinions, and the proposal of the English and phil-orthodox coalition was rejected.

In the senate the party of Mavrocordatos possessed a large majority. Kolettes advised King Otho to create fifteen ' new senators in order to give his cabinet a majority. The » qualifications imposed by the constitution compelled him to 1 select illiterate veterans and servile officials to complete the | number, and the moral influence of the body declined from ; year to year in consequence of the ignorance and avidity of » its members.

I Kolettes was accused, and not without justice, of using •J every kind of corruption in order to retain office. Yet his 4 administration was neither lavish nor unpopular. Indeed fl the expenditure of his government contrasts not unfavourably H with the extravagance and jobbing of later cabinets. The • ordinary governmental expenditure of the year 1845 did

■     not reach 12 millions of drachmas. It was evident that ^ Greece was in a condition to pay the three protecting powers | the annual interest due on the loan of 1832, which they guaranteed to insure the establishment of the Greek mon­archy. But no Greek statesman at the time understood the effect which the fulfilment of its financial engagements would exercise in accelerating the progress of the country by means of foreign credit. Even now, while I write in the year 1866, the Greeks are not yet persuaded of the national value of a good financial character.

The government of Kolettes w^ras not successful in estab­lishing order, nor did it show much respect for law and equity in its dealings. An insurrection took place in Maina headed by a fanatic named Petropoulakes. A Mainate chief named Pierakos was arrested for forming a plot to gain possession of the fortress of Modon. Conspiracies were discovered among the officers and soldiers of the garrison of Nauplia, and among the sailors at Hydra. The object of these plots was neither to overthrow the government of King Otho, nor to bring about a change of ministers, it was either to increase the pay of the soldier, to accelerate the promotion of the officers, or

200 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

[Bk. V. Ch. V.

to force the government to grant the demands of men who set a high value on their services. These evils were chronic in the Greek service, and they have rendered the army and navy not only useless for the defence of the country, but also the greatest impediments to its improvement.

The sultan’s government regarded the administration of Kolettes with distrust. Kolettes had always flattered the national hopes of re-establishing the Byzantine empire. He was therefore suspected, and not without good grounds, of adopting measures calculated to nourish discontent and pro­jects of revolt among the orthodox subjects of the sultan in European Turkey. On the 17th of March 1845 Chekib Effendi, the Othoman minister of foreign affairs, complained to the ambassadors of the three protecting powers that the press in Greece systematically incited the Christian subjects of the sultan to revolt, and declared that the Othoman government considered it necessary to put a stop to the free circulation of Greek newspapers and pamphlets in the empire. He accused the Greek government of exciting revolutionary intrigues in Thessaly and Epirus, and informed the protecting powers that if this conduct was persisted in the sultan’s government would be compelled to use strong measures of repression. These complaints obliged Kolettes to warn his friends in Turkey to behave with more caution ; and Russia made it known to the agents who laboured for ‘ the great idea,’ that they must conduct their propaganda in future with more prudence and secrecy.

In the following year several diplomatic disputes proved that even with all the counsel and assistance which Kolettes received from the French minister at Athens, the business of Greek diplomacy was conducted with very little wisdom. Unfortunately British diplomacy in Greece was then not much behind it in want of judgment. Lord Palmerston was induced by the information transmitted to him by Sir Edmund Lyons concerning the prevalence of brigandage, to address a severe note to the Greek government, charging it with encouraging disorder by granting impunity to bands of brig­ands. Kolettes, with more courage than truth, boldly con­tradicted the assertion that brigandage existed in Greece; he declared that life and property were perfectly secure among the labouring classcs, a fact which he said was

DIPLOMATIC DISPUTES.        201

A.D. 1S47.]

proved by the great progress made both by agriculture and commerce. He availed himself of the occasion also to give Lord Palmerston a lecture on diplomacy, warning the British government in the name of its most serious interests not to be too credulous in listening to inconsiderate allegations¹.

It was only by the direct interference of the three protect­ing powers that Greece was saved in 1847 from having her commerce ruined by a quarrel with the Othoman government, which was brought on by the folly and obstinacy of King Otho, and the ignorance and duplicity of Kolettes.

Tzames Karatassos, the son of an old klephtic chief of Mount Olympus and lieutenant-colonel in the Greek army, joined a band of insurgents and robbers who plundered Thes­saly in 1841. The Turks destroyed this band, and Karatassos escaped over the frontier into Greece. He w^ras placed under arrest by the Greek government, but was allowed to escape to Cerigo. Subsequently, being a partizan of Kolettes, he was reinstated in his military rank and appointed one of King Otho's aides-de-camp. In January 1847, he applied to the Othoman minister at Athens for a visa to his passport in order to enable him to visit Constantinople. M. Musurus refused, and gave as the reason of his refusal the conduct of Karatassos in Thessaly. A few days after there was a court- ball at the palace, and at this ball King Otho addressed the Othoman minister in an unusually loud voice and with an air of offended dignity, saying that he thought the Othoman min­ister might have shown more respect to the guarantee which personal service in his court offered, than to refuse a passport to one of his aides-de-camp. M. Musurus could not at the time make any observation on the puerility of supposing that violations of national law and the consequences of personal crimes in Thessaly were to be effaced by the subsequent grant of a court title at Athens'-’. But on the following day he

¹      The diplomatic animosity of the English and French governments was at this time very violent, and it was strong in the breasts of their representatives in Greece. The reply of Kolettes was published at Paris in a French translation, which was generally supposed to be the original, prepared for the use of Kolettes. The French press called it a dignified and able state-paper. On reading it over at this distance of time, it appears to be a very impertinent and impolitic communi­cation, but it is a clever tissue of truth and falsehood. Lesur, Annuaire Historique, 1846; Documents, p. 204.

²      In 1859 Karatassos made an abortive attempt to incite an insurrection in Turkey, which King Otho was suspected of promoting in secret.

202 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

[Bk.V.Ch.V.

demanded an explanation of the king’s words from Kolettes as president of the cabinet and minister of foreign affairs. All endeavours to obtain any satisfactory explanation proved A^rain, and the Othoman government ordered M. Musurus to leave Athens. Before his departure a remarkable correspond­ence was carried on between Kolettes and Aali Effendi, the Othoman minister of foreign affairs, in which the superiority of the Turk over the Greek in both diplomatic knowledge and civility is very strongly marked¹. The interruption of diplo­matic relations was followed by an order of the Porte ex­pelling the Greek consuls from Turkey. Greek merchants and Greek trade were placed under the protection of the Othoman authorities, and the protection of the sultan was found to be so satisfactory that the Greeks generally became indifferent about the renewal of diplomatic relations between the two courts. The Greek government remained obstinate in refusing satisfaction. The sultan therefore advanced another step and issued orders to exclude Greek vessels from the coasting trade in Turkey which they had hitherto been allowed to carry on, and the Othoman consuls were ordered to leave Greece. These measures affected the interests of trade, and Kolettes, seeing the danger of his government becoming unpopular, immediately made King Otho sensible of the false position in which he had placed Greece. A letter of apology written by Kolettes in King Otho’s name was delivered to the Russian minister at Athens to be transmitted to the Othoman minister of foreign affairs, in which regret was expressed that anything should have occurred to cause M. Musurus to leave Athens, and the Sublime Porte was assured that if His Excellency should return he would be received with all the honour due to a distinguished representative of a friendly power. The phrases of this letter were carefully weighed in order to afford King Otho the pitiful satisfaction of offering the smallest measure of apology with which the sultan could be concili­ated. On receiving this communication, the Porte addressed a note to the ambassadors of the three protecting powers, de­claring that the sultan was satisfied with the explanations in the name of the King of Greece, and had ordered M. Musurus to return to Athens.

¹ Lesur, Annuaire Historique, 1S47; Documents, p. 75,

FINANCIAL MEASURES.         203

A.D. 1847.]

The ministry of Kolettes made an attempt to establish one good principle in the financial administration. It declared that it was the duty of government to collect all taxes by its own agents, whether they were paid in kind or in money, that the cultivators of the soil might be saved from the exactions to which they were exposed when the tenths due to govern­ment were sold to farmers. Metaxas was minister of finance when this resolution was adopted. The objection which w^Tas urged against its adoption was, that it placed great patronage in the hands of ministers who might employ it for the sole purpose of strengthening their own party, and not for relieving agriculture from oppression. For a time the revenues were collected by government agents, and the opposition asserted that the manner in which Kolettes made use of the patronage placed in the hands of the government caused more dissatis­faction than the system of farming the revenues. In many instances it appeared that the change of system had not diminished the exactions from which the cultivators of the soil suffered. It was resolved therefore by the opposition to force the government to return to the old plan. But a majority of the agricultural classes understood that in the long run it would be easier to check the injustice of permanent govern­ment agents than the exactions of annual farmers, and the dealings of the opposition to gain political support from mili­tary chiefs and farmers of the revenues of the state again revived the popularity of Kolettes.

The opposition in the chamber of deputies, consisting of the coalition of the English and Russian parties, seized an oppor­tunity afforded by the absence of many ministerial members immediately after the Easter recess in 1(847 to thwart the government by reversing one of its best acts. An endeavour was made to carry a resolution without discussion that the revenues of the state were to be farmed by the government. If the resolution had been put to the vote, the ministry would have been in a minority ; but the president of the chamber refused to put the question at the time, in order to give the absent ministerial members, who were daily expected at Athens, time to arrive. When the next meeting of the chamber took place, the coalition was still so strong, in con­sequence of the support it derived from the friends of those who had profited by farming the revenues, that all the

CO4         CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

[Bk.V. Ch. V.

exertions of Kolettes only enabled the ministry to carry a resolution for continuing the collection of the land-tax by government agents by the smallest possible majority. The votes were 55 to 54.

Several members of the English party, seeing that the conduct of the coalition was loudly blamed by the liberals out of the chamber and by the public generally, abandoned the opposition, and attached themselves to the faction under the immediate orders of the court. Unfortunately for their reputation they did not act so disinterestedly as Metaxas. The chief of the deserters was Tricoupi, who had been a member of the cabinet of Mavrocordatos, and he was re­warded by King Otho with the post of Greek minister at the British court.

Kolettes dissolved the chamber, in which he could 110 longer count on a majority, and introduced M. Glarakes, one of the leading members of the phil-orthodox party, into the ministry. The connection of Glarakes with the intrigues of his party in 1837 caused considerable alarm to King Otho at that time, but the king felt no longer any fear of the phil-orthodox party, being persuaded that Kolettes was able to keep every mem­ber of his cabinet in order. It may be remarked that no minister, either before or after, enjoyed the confidence of King Otho so fully as Kolettes did at this time.

The British government sought to create difficulties for Kolettes by demanding payment of the interest due on the portion of the Allied loan guaranteed by Great Britain. It would have conduced greatly to the good government of Greece and to the future prosperity of the country, had all the three powers insisted that the Greek government should so arrange its expenditure as to fulfil her financial obligations. But it was considered an unfriendly act on the part of the British government that it took this step in opposition to the desire both of France and Russia. The Greek government was relieved from any embarrassment which might have arisen from this demand by Mr. Eynard of Geneva, who advanced 500,000 francs to satisfy the British claim. The conduct of Mr. Eynard was generous, and his motive was a sincere desire to advance the progress of Greece, yet it cannot be doubted that this advance was productive of bad consequences by perpetuating financial mal-administration. In a note which

DEATH OF KOLETTES.  205

A.D, 1847.]

the Greek government addressed to the governments of Great Britain, France and Russia on the 30th August 1847, it was urged as a reason for failing to pay the interest due on the loan guaranteed by the protecting powers, that on the one hand the chamber of deputies struggled to reduce taxation, and on the other hand individual deputies and senators en­deavoured to increase the public expenditure in their own provinces by every means in their power. As no reduction of taxation was made, and as by the constitution only a minister of the crown could propose an increase of expenditure, this excuse for want of money and for a misappropriation of funds was a proof that the government was both weak and corrupt. Kolettes offered to raise money by the sale of national lands, which were hypothecated to the English bondholders, who advanced money to the Greeks at their sorest need in 1824 and 1825. He promised also to commence paying one third of the interest on the Allied loan in the year 1848, and en­gaged to increase the payment annually until the year 1860, when he declared that Greece would be prepared to pay the whole amount of annual interest due by the treaty. Little attention was paid to this note, for the Allied powers felt no confidence either in the sincerity or the honesty of Kolettes’ statements.

Kolettes, as has been already mentioned, died in office 011 the (5th of September 1847. No minister possessing equal knowledge of the people and of the circumstances in which the country was placed has succeeded him. He had a clear insight into the character of the society he governed, and of the agents he employed in governing it. He availed himself with discrimination and without conscientious scruples of men’s passions and vices to gain his own objects. He was not personally courageous, yet he could shew a firm character when there was no immediate personal danger to affect his mind. He wore a lion’s skin, and he wore it with dignity, for he knew how to use power boldly when he felt that he possessed it securely. In his political conduct, he trusted more to his astuteness in guiding his course through diffi­culties as they occurred, than to his foresight in averting danger, and he rarely attempted to form combinations for creating opportunities of success. His qualities enabled him to lead a party in a state of society where violence and

206 constitutional monarchy.

[Bk.V. Ch.V.

corruption were more prevalent than respect for law and justice; but he was deficient in capacity of organization, and he conducted the government without any administrative system, by a series of spasmodic acts, making his long ministerial career a succession of temporary expedients. His success was chiefly due to the errors of his opponents, and to the progress which comparative tranquillity and order enabled the population to make, while land of good quality was abundant, and a rapid extension of commerce offered profitable employment to all who engaged in agriculture and trade.                                                    .

Kitzos Djavellas, a Suliot chief without education, who was now a general and an aide-de-camp of King Otho, became prime minister after Kolettes’ death. Brigandage, which had assumed the character of insurrection during the life of Kolettes, continued to disturb the country. Grigiottes, who had fled from Euboea into Turkey, and generally resided at Chios or Smyrna, and Theodore Griva, who had sought refuge at Prevesa after the failure of attempts at insurrection, again fomented disorders. At Naupaktos, Pharmakes and several officers of the phalanx took up arms and occupied positions in the Aetolian mountains, where they maintained themselves with bands of armed men by plundering the magazines of the collectors of the tenths, and by levying contributions of sheep and goats from the shepherds of the neighbouring districts. Pappakostas, an officer of some dis­tinction, who w^Tas originally a priest, escaped from Salona (Amphissa), where he had been ordered to reside for par­ticipating in previous disorders, and seized the position of Mavrolithari; and Valentzas, an old offender, plundered the population of the valley of the Spercheus at the head of a band of brigands. Merendites, an officer of the irregular troops, known for his atrocities and exactions, who had always been attached to Theodore Griva, revolted with a part of the garrison of Patras in December 1847, and obtained possession of 120,000 drachmas of government money. He held the castle, and threatened to burn the town, unless the inhabitants consented to ransom their property by paying a sum of money, and allowing him to embark on board the vessels in the port and escape from the forces which were marching against him. The citizens were so alarmed lest Merendites should execute

• CHANGES OF MINISTRY.    20J

a.d. 1S4S.]

his threat, that they did everything in their power to get quit of him and his band. By their intermediation and the aid of the foreign consuls, the robbers embarked on board an Eng­lish schooner, and escaped to Malta. As soon as the Greek authorities regained possession of Patras a demand was made on the English government for the restoration of 36,000 drachmas which the robbers had succeeded in carrying on board the English vessel, and for the extradition of the criminals. The British minister, Sir Edmund Lyons, was accused by King Otho of fomenting these disturbances by the language he held, and of endeavouring to throw Greece into a state of anarchy by allowing the British flag to protect an act of revolt and brigandage like that of Merendites. The animosity against the British government, which had been hitherto confined to the court and the officials of the Greek government, now spread widely among the people. The other bands which have been mentioned were not subdued until Gardikiottes Griva, the brother of Theodore, who was one of the king’s aides-de-camp, took the command of the royal troops. Gardikiottes routed Pappakostas and the other leaders who had collected considerable bands of insurgents, and pursued them so vigorously that they were all compelled to seek safety either in Turkey or in the Ionian Islands. Some disturbances took place in the Peloponnesus, and an attempt was made to incite an insurrection by Perotes, a noted intriguer and farmer of taxes, but the disorders that occurred whether in Messenia, Pyrgos, or Corinth, were sup­pressed promptly and without difficulty. The Greek govern­ment attributed all its troubles to the intrigues of the English party; but the Russian government, which is generally pos­sessed of the best information on the state of Greece and Turkey, ascribed them, probably with more justice, to the political effervescence that was then strong over great part of the continent of Europe¹.

The instability of the government weakened the authority of the ministers. The cabinet of General Djavellas was dis­placed by a ministry nominally presided over by George Konduriottes in March 1848, and the cabinet of the w^Teak and incapable Konduriottes was displaced in October by a

¹ Lesur, Annuaire Historique, 1848; Documents, p. 177; Circular of M. Persiany, the Russian minister in Greece.

208 constitutional monarchy.

[Bk. V. Ch. V.

cabinet formed by the Admiral Kanares. Kanares remained prime minister until December 1849, when a new ministry was formed under the presidency of Admiral Kriezes, which held office until May 1854. The people despised their rulers, and their rulers violated the constitution. Whenever any law thwarted the interests of powerful men, it was, if it were possible, set aside without reference to justice or patriotism.

A law was passed authorizing the king to appoint a greater number of senators than the constitution allowed, though the chambers had no legal authority to legislate on the subject, since the constitution declared expressly that no modification could be made in any of the provisions of the constitution, except by convoking a National Assembly. Very little saga­city might have sufficed to convince King Otho and his senators that their position could not be strengthened by weakening the power of the law, but that it might be greatly improved by creating habits of deference to the letter of the constitution, and feelings of respect for established institu­tions. In a society where anarchy and democracy were striving for dominion, neglect of the constitution by the king, the senate, and the ministers was a first step towards revo­lution. The influence of the crown was so powerful, and the corruption of the legislative chambers rendered these bodies j so servile, that the revolutionary act of adding thirty-seven members to the senate was carried by a majority of seventy votes to two in the chamber of deputies.

Another violation of the constitution took place soon after, merely to suit the convenience of the ministry. According to law the chambers ought to have met for business on the 13th of November. They were prorogued in 1848 to the 22nd of December, while Admiral Kanares was prime minister, ap­parently only for the purpose of accustoming the Greeks to see their constitution violated with impunity.

An attempt to assassinate M. Musurus, the Turkish minister in Greece, and the demand of the sultan’s government for the extradition of the assassin, would have again caused a rupture of relations with Turkey, had the three protecting powers not intervened to arrange the difficulty.

In 1850 disputes with the British government diverted the attention of the Greeks from the internal condition of their country. The measures adopted by Lord Palmerston offended

jit

i£

RUPTURE WITH ENGLAND.  209

' A.D. 1S5O.]

! the national pride so much as to render King Otho extremely popular on account of the obstinate resistance he offered to

¹      the English demands. The whole affair reflects very little credit on any of the governments which took part in it. King Otho brought on the rupture by his injustice, and by the obstinacy with which he persisted in defending his illegalities. The British government acted with violence, and strained the authority of international law to enforce a blockade. The French government interfered rashly to protect King Otho in his misconduct, and ended by compelling him to sign a convention, the stipulations of which implied that he had acted from the first with injustice. All the foreign ministers at Athens did everything that lay in their power to foment the quarrel instead of honestly using their influence to show each party how far it was wrong.

The subjects of the dispute between the British and Greek governments were, first, a claim by George Finlay for the price of land purchased from a Turkish proprietor in 1830, when a protocol of the three protecting powers allowed the Turks to sell their property before Greece was put in possession of Attica. This land King Otho had enclosed in the royal garden without any communication with the proprietor; and in 1837 the Greek government had stated in an official com­munication to the British minister, that ‘ Mr. Finlay’s land was not wanted for any purpose of public utility,’ and con­sequently he had no claim on the Greek government for indemnity. At that time it was impossible to sue King Otho in the law courts of his kingdom, for his government was absolute. The second claim was for indemnity to M. Pacifico for the plunder of his house and the destruction of his property by a mob, while the police remained inactive. This happened in 1847. The third, fourth, and fifth claims were caused by ill-treatment and denial of justice to Ionian subjects. The sixth was a claim for the possession of the islands of Cervi and Sapienza, on the ground that they belonged to the Ionian Islands. Of these two islands the Greeks had been in pos­session ever since the expulsion of the Turks from the Peloponnesus.

Sir Thomas Wyse, who succeeded Sir Edmund Lyons as British minister in Greece, vainly endeavoured to persuade the government of King Otho to arrange the five private

VOL. VII.         P

210 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

[Bk. V. Ch. V.

claims by an amicable arbitration. But he met with the same tergiversation which had characterized the conduct of King Otho in his relations with England for many years. Lord Palmerston persuaded the British cabinet to order the Mediterranean fleet under Sir William Parker to visit Greece, in order to enforce a settlement of these demands. On the 17th of January 1850 immediate redress and complete satis­faction of all pending claims was demanded, with a threat that coercive measures would be employed if justice was denied. The Greek minister of foreign affairs replied with statements which were in part evasive and in part false. The British fleet established a blockade of the Piraeus. The Greek man-of-war ‘ Otho ’ and several merchantmen were seized and detained as security, or in diplomatic language, as material guarantees for the satisfaction of the claims. The foreign ministers at the Greek court agreed in counselling King Otho to offer a passive resistance to the acts of the British government, and M. Thouvenel, the French minister, availed himself of the opportunity to display the influence of France, and win credit on the continent among emperors and kings by opposing England. M. Thouvenel made an offer of what he called his ‘ good offices,’ which was declined by Sir Thomas Wyse.

In the mean time the republican government of France, which was inspired by a feeling of restlessness to make a display of its power in Europe, seized the opportunity of engaging in a violent altercation with Lord Palmerston. The affair could lead to no important consequences, though it was well suited to make a great noise in Europe, and furnish a pretext for contrasting the daring policy of the Napoleon who was president of the republic, with what was called the sub­serviency of Louis Philippe’s government to British policy in the East. Explanations were demanded from the British government, and Lord Palmerston stated in his answer that the British government had adopted the plan of seizing material guarantees in Greece, because that step appeared to afford the only means of obtaining justice. This answer looks like a covert allusion to the proceedings of Russia in the Rouman Principalities; and it was singular that the British government should justify its conduct towards Greece by a reference to proceedings which it blamed when adopted

RUPTURE WITH ENGLAND.  211

A.D. iSjO.]

towards Turkey. The demand which Russia made for the extradition of the Hungarian and Polish refugees, and the concessions which the Othoman government was forced to make, humbled the power of the sultan. The seizure of private ships and the hostile action of one of the protecting powers inflicted a serious wound on King Otho’s government. It has been the usage to seize private property in the shape of ships and cargoes for the purpose of enforcing national claims, but though the practice appears to be authorized by inter­national law, the common sense of mankind regards it as a violation of natural justice, which ought not to be tolerated till a declaration of war has taken place. No government in a civilized state of society ought to have a right to seize private property belonging to the subjects of another state lying beyond its jurisdiction, or to blockade a foreign port, without taking upon itself the responsibility of declaring war. Any material guarantee which it may be entitled to seize ought to be strictly confined to national and public property; and if the Greek government had been authorized by its pre­vious conduct to make an appeal to the principles of truth and justice, by placing its case in this point of view, it might have awakened general sympathy. But France, whose pro­tection Grecce was eager to secure, would have objected to an argument, which questioned the legality of proceedings which powerful governments wish to exercise at their own discre­tion. The British government in this particular instance found a difficulty in seizing public property of any value, for the custom duties at the ports of the Piraeus, Syra, and Patras being by the treaty of 1832 hypothecated for the payment of the Allied loan, the interest of which was constituted to be a first claim on the revenues of the state, any interference with them required the consent of the other two protecting powers. Lord Palmerston’s measures of coercion were there­fore perforce guided by the necessity of avoiding a direct dispute with France and Russia, and of keeping within the sanction of acknowledged precedents.

A patriotic opposition to the measures adopted to enforce the British claims was easily excited among the people by the united influence of King Otho and the foreign diplomatists ; and the strength of this feeling induced Lord Palmerston, who was confident in the justice of his claims, to accept the

P 2

212 CONS TIT UTIONA L MONA RCH V.

[Bk. V. Ch. V.

good offices of the French government on the 12th February 1850. France then virtually abandoned the only ground of resistance which could have authorized King Otho’s obstinacy. Baron Gros, the French plenipotentiary, was sent to Greece, not to question the right of Great Britain to establish a blockade, but to ascertain the amount of satisfaction due to the British government, in order to relieve Greece from the blockade that had already been established. The British government voluntarily declared that if any of its demands were unfounded, it would withdraw them as a matter of course.

The manner in which Baron Gros conducted his mission was so partial that it prevented his establishing the same amicable relations with the British legation which he formed with the Greek court. He acted the part of a court of review, but he sought for evidence only from the agents of King Otho and the Greek government, without making any attempt to procure proofs of the facts from the agents of the claimants. These proofs he received when they were thrust upon him by the British legation, as in the case of Finlay. Sir Thomas Wyse requested Mr. Finlay to see Baron Gros and state his case. An account of the interview was transmitted to the British minister, and Sir Thomas Wyse writes that Mr. Finlay’s statement of his case is substantially correct. The statements of King Otho’s agents had persuaded Baron Gros to believe that the case was still under arbitration. The fact was concealed from him that the deed of arbitration had been signed on the 18th October

1849,       and the Greek law requires that if a decision be not given by the arbiters named in a deed of arbitration, before the expiry of three months the arbitration ceases, so that to obtain a valid decision by arbiters it would be necessary to sign a new deed of arbitration before a notary public. The Greek minister of foreign affairs, M. Londos, stated in the chambers, and the Greek court repeatedly asserted, that Mr. Finlay’s claim had been settled before the blockade commenced, though King Otho, by retaining the papers relating to the arbitration, to which his majesty had been always opposed, had prevented a decision and allowed the deed of arbitration to expire ¹.

¹ Parliamentary Papers. Further correspondence respecting the demands made

BARON GR0S AT ATHENS.     213

A.P. 1850.]                       "

Baron Gros assessed the amount of indemnity due on all the British claims at 150,000 drachmas. Sir Thomas Wyse rejected his proposal and demanded 180,000 drachmas. The blockade was then renewed in a hasty manner, without any regard to the good offices of the French government. This violent proceeding produced the desired effect and received the approbation of Lord Palmerston. King Otho yielded on the 26th April 1850, and accepted the terms dictated by the British minister, who was so annoyed by the animosity displayed by M. Thouvenel and the partiality of Baron Gros, that he considered it necessary for the honour of England to terminate the business without foreign intervention. He was rash in drawing this conclusion, for after all the British government was compelled to make concessions to the pre­tensions of France. But when France obtained the required deference on the part of England, she immediately compelled King Otho to sign a convention, recognizing his denial of justice, and ratifying the rights of coercion exercised against his government.

An arrangement was concluded in London between Lord Palmerston and M. Drouyn de Lhuys, the French ambassador in London, before the arrangement forced on King Otho by Sir Thomas Wyse was known. The indemnity to be paid by Greece was fixed at the sum of 230,000 francs. This was signed on the 19th April and reached the French legation at Athens on the 1st May; but Sir Thomas Wyse had received information that the arrangement was about to be concluded on the 24th of April, and the French government was offended at his resorting to coercive measures, in order to deprive France of the honour of arranging the affair by her good offices. On the 14th May Lord Palmerston informed the French government that Great Britain was resolved to abide by the arrangement concluded in Greece, and this being regarded as a premeditated slight, M. Drouyn de Lhuys was ordered to quit London. The conduct of Lord Palmerston was generally considered to have been wanting in conciliation, but it must not be forgotten that there was at the time a violent struggle for influence going on in the East between Great Britain, France, and Russia, and that the feelings of

upon the Greek government, 17th May, 1850, p. 248. Baron Gros persisted in his ignorance of the fact that the arbitration had expired, 22nd April, p. 323.

214 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

[Bk. V. Ch.V.

Lord Palmerston were irritated by the fact that English influence was on the wane at Constantinople. His conduct was said not to have pleased several members of the cabinet, and it certainly endangered the existence of the ministry. On the 18th June the government was in a minority of thirty- seven in the House of Lords, on the question of their conduct in this affair; but the resignation of the ministry was pre­vented by a vote of the House of Commons on the 29th June

1850,       in which there was a majority of forty-six in favour of the ministry. Immediately after the condemnation of his conduct in the House of Lords, Lord Palmerston communicated to the French government that Great Britain was willing to accept the convention signed at London on the 19th April as a definitive arrangement of the claims on Greece, and thus succeeded in terminating an affair on which no party can look back with satisfaction. A comparison of the sums awarded under the two arrangements shows that Sir Thomas Wyse was not disposed to bear heavily on the Greek govern­ment in a pecuniary point of view ¹.

On the 19th February 1850, Count Nesselrode addressed a despatch to Baron Brunnow, the Russian minister in London, complaining of the conduct of the British govern­ment in violating treaties. The treaty of 15th July 1851, forbade the entrance of armed vessels within the Dardanelles, yet an English fleet passed the castles in violation of that treaty. The treaty of 1832, establishing the kingdom of Greece under the joint protection of Russia, France, and England, was disregarded by the assumption of the right to blockade Greek ports without the consent of the other protecting powers. The question which had been raised relative to the islands of Cervi and Sapienza was one which could not be decided by the action of Great Britain without the intervention and consent of Russia and France. This

¹ The Author received 30,000 drachmas under the convention of Sir Thomas Wyse as the estimated value of his property. The affair was definitively termi­nated before the London convention was adopted, under which he would have received 45,000 francs. The claim of M. Pacifico for the value of Portuguese documents destroyed in his house was referred to an English and French commis­sion which sat at Lisbon. It was reduced from 26,618/. 16s. 8c?. sterling to 3,750 francs. The affair was closed on the 5th May, 1851. The sum of 120,000 drachmas was paid to M. Pacifico for the plunder of his house, and 500/. sterling as indemnity for his personal sufferings. The Ionian claimants received 12,530 drachmas.

MONTENEGRO.     315

A.D. 1852.]

able despatch made some impression on the British cabinet by the justice of many of the observations it contained, and the futility of the demand for the islands of Cervi and Sapi- enza as belonging to the Ionian Islands, caused the claim to be dropped and nothing more was heard on the subject¹.

The diplomatic complications which led to the Crimean war began to exert an influence on the minds of the Greeks as early as the year 1852. The bold resistance which the Porte offered to the extradition of the Polish and Hungarian refugees when demanded by Austria and Russia after the termination of the war in Hungary, rankled in the breasts of the Emperor Nicholas and the statesmen of Vienna. The Austrian government was so eager for revenge that it rushed inconsiderately into a path which conducted to a revolu­tionary highway. In his eagerness to punish the sultan for protecting Hungarian patriots, the Emperor of Austria made religion and the rights of nationalities pretexts for protecting Montenegrin patriots and for Austrian interference in Turkey.

Tzernagora, the ^f Black Mountain,’ called by the Venetians Montenegro, is inhabited by about 120,000 souls who find scanty means of subsistence in the greater part of the territory they possess. They are cut off from the magnificent Gulf of Cattaro, which seems intended by nature to afford an occupation for their activity, by a strip of Austrian territory and by the commercial jealousy and troublesome police of the Austrian empire. They must either live in poverty among their rocks, or seek plenty by plundering their richer neighbours in the plains, who are ill-protected by the dis­orderly administration of the Othoman empire. For more than a century the sultans allowed the Montenegrins to enjoy a degree of local freedom that amounted to virtual independ­ence. Excited by their poverty and the long periods of idleness which occur where agriculture is in a rude state, and where a large part of the population is engaged in pastoral occupations, they found plenty of time to make plundering incursions into the rich districts in their neigh­bourhood. The Austrian government repressed these inroads

¹ See the Russian despatch in the Parliamentary Papers. Further correspond­ence, pp. 122, 127, 168. Also a pamphlet by Col. Wm. Martin Leake, On the Claim to the Islands of Cervi and Sapienza, 1850.       .

216 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

[Bk.V. Ch.V.

with promptitude and vigour, and the Montenegrins learned by severe lessons that Austrian troops and Austrian custom­houses presented an impenetrable barrier to cattle stealing and contraband trade. The Othoman government was weaker and more negligent. Religious hatred was strong between the Christians and Mussulmans, and immemorial hostility existed between the Sclavonian and Albanian races. Their mutual hatred was inflamed by incessant forays of the poverty-stricken Sclavonian Christians of Montenegro into the fruitful territory of the Mussulman Albanians in the district of Skodra.

The Montenegrins were long governed by their bishop who was called Vladika. The government was transmitted to the nephew whom the Vladika selected as his successor. This successor, if not already a priest, whether he was a monk or a layman, entered the clergy on being called to the sovereignty. At one period he received episcopal consecration from the orthodox metropolitan of Carlovitz in Austrian Servia ; for the free mountaineers were always averse to any direct dependence on the patriarch of Constantinople, both because he was an Othoman official in the exercise of his temporal power, and because some degree of Sclavonic prejudice existed as a tradition of Byzantine times against his Greek nationality. But when the power of the czar made itself felt in the Othoman empire the Montenegrins sought episcopal conse­cration in Moscow.

In the year 1851 the Vladika, Peter II., was succeeded by his nephew Daniel, who was formally recognized by the people as their sovereign without exacting from him the obligation to enter the priesthood. The sovereignty of Montenegro was declared hereditary in his family, and Prince Daniel visited Saint Petersburg accompanied by a deputation from the senate, and asked investiture as a temporal prince from the Emperor of Russia, on the ground that the Vladika had received the investiture both of the temporal and spiritual power from the church of Russia. The Emperor Nicholas ratified the assumption of princely rank by Daniel, though the act was sure to alarm the Porte as an unauthorized endeavour to transfer the suzerainty of a district at the farthest limits of the Othoman empire from the sultan to the czar, merely because it was orthodox and Sclavonic. The

r

MONTENEGRO.     217

a.o. 1853.]

event derived additional importance from the excitement it caused in the minds of the Sclavonians, who form the largest part of the sultan’s Christian subjects in Europe, and which was supposed to be fomented by Russian agents in order to produce a movement in favour of national independence.

The Porte considered the transformation of the ecclesiastical authority of the Vladika into the temporal sovereignty of a hereditary prince as a revolutionary act. The Montenegrins intended to make it the foundation of their complete inde­pendence, and they reckoned for support on both Austria and Russia, which manifested the most unfriendly sentiments towards Turkey on account of the protection accorded to the Polish and Hungarian refugees. This state of things induced the sultan to enforce his rights of sovereignty over the Monte­negrin territory as the surest means of arresting the aspira­tions for independence among his other Sclavonic subjects. The Montenegrins believed that they should obtain some protection, if not direct assistance, from France as well as from Austria and Russia.

They commenced hostilities by seizing the fort of Zabliak on the lake of Skodra. The Othoman army under the command of Omer Pasha, an Austrian renegade, invaded Montenegro. Austria then stepped forward to do a small political stroke of business for Russia and protect Sclavonian nationality. Her interference must have amused Russian statesmen, and it excited little jealousy on the part of the French and English governments, who saw her error. Fear of war on her frontier, revenge on the supporters of the revolutionists in Hungary, a wish to punish Turkey and to show gratitude to Russia for her recent services in the Hungarian war, deluded Austria into supporting rebellion and orthodoxy in Montenegro in 1853, as a similar want of political foresight induced her to support revolution and nationality in the Schleswig-Holstein war in 1863.

An Austrian envoy, Count Leiningen, was sent to Con­stantinople, who presented a note containing numerous de­mands for satisfaction. The principal complaints of Austria were that Turkey had commenced war near the frontier of the Austrian empire without obtaining the previous con­sent of a power which had always been friendly to the Porte. That this war had been made a religious war, and

218 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCH] \

[Bk. V. Ch. V.

that the obligation was thereby imposed on the Emperor of Austria, as a Christian sovereign, to protect his Christian neighbours. It was said also that the presence of Hungarian and Polish exiles in the Othoman army was a manifestation of an unfriendly feeling on the part of the Porte. The reply was dignified and prudent. The sultan yielded the desired satisfaction to all the Austrian demands, declaring that it afforded the Porte great pleasure to meet the wishes of an old ally and a tried friend of conservatism. The Austrian envoy, having terminated his mission successfully, quitted Constantinople on the 17th February 1853 \

Before the cabinet of Vienna had time to enjoy its triumph it became evident to all Europe that Austria had unwittingly smoothed a path for Russian diplomacy. Austria accused the sultan’s government of rousing the religious bigotry of the Mussulman population, and asserted that it was her duty as a neighbouring and Christian power to protect the Mon­tenegrins. Russia stepped forward as the natural protector of the whole orthodox population of the Othoman empire without any reference to geographical contiguity. Russia was as desirous of punishing the sultan for resisting the extradition of the Hungarian and Polish refugees as Austria, and the assumption of a right of suzerainty in the case of the Prince of Montenegro warned the sultan that the time had arrived for resisting encroachments on his authority.

At this time a pending dispute about the guardianship of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem involved France and Russia in a contest for influence in the East, which em­barrassed the Turkish government, and distracted the judg­ment of other nations on the line of policy to be pursued with reference to their rivality.

Shortly after the departure of the Austrian envoy from Constantinople Prince Menshikoff arrived as ambassador extraordinary from the Emperor Nicholas, with demands that, if conceded, would have authorized a constant inter­ference on the part of Russia in the internal affairs of the Othoman empire, by constituting the czar protector of the sultan’s orthodox subjects. The Porte replied to these

¹      The notes of the Austrian envoy, dated 3rd February, 1853, and the reply of the Othoman government, dated 10th February, were published in the Augsburg Gazette, 28th April, 1855.

RUSSIAN DEMANDS ON TURKEY.          219

A.D.1853.]

Idemands by offering to secure the rights of the orthodox hristians by charter, but declined to do so by treaty, Prince jVIenshikoff, who had negotiated haughtily, withdrew ab­ruptly¹. The Russian then occupied Moldavia and Vallachia is a means of compelling the sultan to yield, France and England supported Turkey, and the Crimean war ensued².

The Greeks thought the time favourable for attacking Turkey. They hoped to annex Thessaly and Epirus to :he Hellenic kingdom. They overrated their own military strength and political importance; they mistook the violence Df Christian hostility to Mohammedanism among the population Df European Turkey, and they magnified the power of Russia Decause it is orthodox and their ally against the Turks. The :ounsels of FYance and England were despised because their power was not duly appreciated when compared with the extent and population of Russia. In open violation of the treaties which created the Greek kingdom, King Otho, the government, and the people attacked Turkey, and forfeited the guarantee of foreign protection. The ‘great idea/ which means the establishment of Greek domination on the ruins of the Othoman empire, appeared to the men who governed Greece a practicable scheme. King Otho allied himself closely with the party, which in 1838 had formed the phil- it tkflorthodox society, and in 1840 had plotted to place an orthodox sovereign on his throne³. The persistence of Lord Palmerston and Sir Edmund Lyons in their endeavours to impose what was regarded as an English line of policy on the Greek government, ended in alienating both the king and the people. The manner in which France had used her good offices, after encouraging the Greeks to resist the demands of England in 1850, convinced them that the French govern­ment was on that occasion more intent on injuring England than on serving Greece. And the discussions relating to the

ntv.

¹      Prince Mensbikoff arrived at Constantinople on the 2Sth February, 1S53, and quitted it on the 21st May.

²      The Russian army entered Moldavia on the 3rd July, and Turkey commenced hostilities on the 23rd October, 1853.

³      M. Glarakes, when minister of the interior, of ecclesiastical affairs, and of public instruction, was dismissed from office on the nth January, 1840, by King Otho in great alarm, because he was suspected of connivance with the plot, and Count George Capodistrias, who was at Athens under the pretext of soliciting a pension on account of his brother’s services, was arrested as a conspirator. Greek Gazette, 1840, No. 2 ; Revue des Detix Mondes, October, 1844, p. 210.

%20         CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

[Bk. V. Ch.V.

Holy Sepulchre revived the orthodox prejudices of the Greeks against Catholic France.

Hatred of the Turks, combined with religious bigotry and national enthusiasm, was so strong that the Greeks invaded the sultan’s territory as soon as the disposable forces of Turkey were sent to the North to oppose the Russians. The sympathies of the Greek people were all on the side of Russia. The French and English were heterodox and unprepared for war. The Russians were the irreconcileable enemies of the sultan ; they were orthodox, near at hand, and had prepared numerous armies and powerful fleets for the enterprise which they were commencing. The Greeks believed that the European provinces of the Othoman empire would become an easy conquest, long before the allies of Turkey could take I any measures to prevent the catastrophe. Russia laboured to persuade the world, and the Greeks firmly believed, that all the orthodox subjects of the sultan would rise in rebellion the moment the Greeks crossed the frontier and displayed the ensign of the Cross at the head of a few armed men in Thessaly and Epirus. Indeed both the Russians and the Greeks asserted that these provinces were in a state of insurrection early in 1854¹. Austria and Prussia attempted in vain to arrest King Otho in his unprovoked attack on his neighbour; but he 1 adopted all the ambitious projects of his people and when he had made up his mind he clung to his opinions with his usual obstinacy. He delighted in his unwonted popularity, and Queen Amalia, who really shared the feelings and prejudices of the Greeks, was idolized by them. King, court, ministers, and people rushed blindly forward to attack the Othoman

¹ Despatch of Count Nesselrode, 2nd March, 1S54; Annuaire des Deux Mondes, 1854, p. 731 ; East and West, by Stefanos Xenos, p. 13. This author, writing in J 1864, says: ‘To say that nine-tenths of the Greek nation did not at that time j sincerely sympathize with Russia, would be to utter an untruth. To say that King Otho urged the Greeks to take up arms against the Allies would be equally false; nor could I, consistently with truth, deny that Russia was implicated in our revolution of Epirus; neither can I hide the fact, that the Greeks desired the defeat of the Allies, and were profoundly grieved at the fall of Sebastopol.’ At p. 15 he adds: ‘This movement (i.e. the invasion of Thessaly and Epirus) on the part of the Greeks was obviously a great advantage to Russia, and it was her interest to promote it. Of this the Greeks were fully aware, and when they accepted pecuniary aid from Russia they understood its exact value. Russia assisted—slightly, it is true, but still she did assist them—because she knew that an insurrectionary movement among the Greeks of Turkey would make a powerful j diversion in her favour.’ M. Xenos, the writer of East atid West, was named Consul in London by the Greek government of King George, but could not obtain an exequatur from the British government.

GREEKS INVADE TURKEY.    221

A.D. 1854.]

power and trample on the treaties which insured them the protection of Great Britain and France. Count Nesselrode spoke of the Othoman empire falling into pieces, as if a storm from Russia could blow it off the face of the earth. The Emperor Nicholas called the sultana dying man, and proposed to constitute anybody who would join him in taking possession 1 of the sick man’s property one of the heirs and executors of the Othoman empire. The Greeks rushed prematurely into the sick man’s house.

There must have been gross mismanagement on the part of those who planned and directed the invasion of Thessaly and Epirus in 1854, and the conduct of King Otho’s ministers and troops was marked by extreme incapacity as well as timidity in the field. The feelings that prompted the people to incite their countrymen to aspire at independence, deserve praise, but the manner in which the military operations were conducted was cowardly, and the brigandage of the armed bands that invaded Turkey brought disgrace on the Greek kingdom¹. The entrance of the Russian army into the trans-Danubian provinces, though it was not made the ground of an immediate declaration of war against Russia on the part of the Sultan, served as a signal to the Greeks for preparing to invade Turkey. The Russians crossed the Pruth on the 3rd of July 1853, and from that time the English and French ministers at Athens exerted themselves in vain to prevent the Greek government from taking part in the war. During the winter, bands of adventurers were formed at Athens under the avowed protection of the queen, and money for their equipment was collected publicly².

In the month of February 1854 the minister of war per­mitted the army to aid the armed bands that had entered

¹ The Greek government pretended that it took no part in the invasion of Turkey, but Colonel Skarlatos Soutzos, who had been marshal of the court, was sent as commander-in-chief of the forces on the frontier, and when everything was pre­pared, he returned to Athens and was appointed minister of war. Now whether the object of the Greek government was lo prevent the violation of treaties and maintain a strict neutrality, or to prepare for an efficient attack on Turkey, the measures adopted were equally ill-judged and inefficient. Either might have been carried out with better results. The people acted openly, decidedly, and with

energy in their animosity to Turkey. They plunged boldly into the war, and I showed that they were ready to perform their part. But those who allowed the

war to commence and employed money to carry it on, neither formed magazines

nor maintained discipline among the Greek troops even in the Greek territory.

S ² Parliamentary Papers; correspondence respecting the relations between Greece and Turkey, 1854, p. 3.

222                                       CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.                             ^f

[Bk. V. Ch. V j f

Turkey during the winter¹. But in spite of Greek and,!* Russian encouragement the Christian subjects of the sultan; $ refused to take up arms. The public administration was| so bad in Greece, that independence offered few attractions. •? when the result would be subjection to Greek misgovernmenti: The patriots that entered Thessaly and Epirus, both volunteers! ^ and Greek troops, plundered the cattle and property of the; & Christians and Mussulmans alike, and the rayahs soon dis-¹ fc covered that the lawless rapacity of those who pretended to' deliver them from oppression was more ruinous than the! systematic extortion of the Othoman officials. Never indeed ■ i was a more open violation of national treaties accompanied ’ a with such wanton robbery of private property. The Greek i government employed direct falsehood to conceal from the } English and French ministers at Athens the proceedings f which it employed to encourage these disorders. The Greek s minister in London, M. Tricoupi, attempted to deceive the! i British government by assurances that King Otho was making 1 :cj the greatest exertions to maintain neutrality, when he was | it perfectly aware from Greek newspapers and private letters i that these assurances were false. King Otho and Queen 5 i Amalia were, at the time, making a parade of patronizing \ h those who fitted out the volunteers. The jails were opened ) t with the connivance of the government, to allow all the prisoners able to bear arms to escape, on condition that they sit enlisted in the irregular bands on the frontier and invaded , it Turkey. Armed men were enrolled by the municipalities j under the direction of the prefects, and permitted to march ,. 1 from one end of Greece to the other, proclaiming openly that t \ they were going to attack the Turks. The troops placed to ; j guard the frontier found no impediment to their joining : j these bodies of invaders with their arms and ammunition, • and it was said at Athens that fifty men deserted in one j day.

A tent with the royal colours was put in the vicinity of j I the palace garden, camp equipage was ordered for the court, « t and the courtiers announced that the king and queen would *

¹ A list of six generals, five colonels, and three majors, who w^rere allowed to resign their rank in the Greek army to invade Turkey, is given in the Panhellenion, a French newspaper published at Athens, 14th April, 1854. They were all rein­stated soon after as a matter of course, and received their pay as if they had never s sent in their resignations.                              j

V.tti k an j sulti n wa

ictici

GREEKS INVADE TURKEY.    223

A.D. 1854.]

soon quit Athens for the frontier. Proclamations were printed and circulated, which pretended to be issued by subjects of the sultan, but which were prepared by Greek officials ; and copies of these papers were distributed among the Greeks in Western Europe to stimulate their enthusiasm and induce them to send money for the deliverance of their countrymen. Sir Thomas Wyse the English minister at Athens was not deceived even at the commencement of the movement by the language of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He reported to the British government that King Otho and the members of his cabinet were preparing to invade Turkey, and deter­mined to violate all their promises on the slightest chance jretffijof aggrandizement; and by the early information which he tl||gave concerning the disposition and conduct of the Greek government he prevented the false statements of the Greek jred| minister at London from gaining any credence. It would probably convey a false impression of the character of the ikinl!population and of the state of society in the Hellenic king­dom to record in detail the proceedings of the Greeks who invaded Turkey in 1854. They never encountered any body neeijjof Othoman troops nearly equal in number without suffering a defeat, and their only victories were over bands of Turkish peasants who resisted their plundering incursions, and over scattered detachments of Albanian police guards. They plundered friends and foes, Christians and Mussulmans in­discriminately ; and this invasion of Turkey did more to strengthen the sultan’s government in Thessaly and Epirus than the occupation of the Piraeus by French and English troops. About 6500 men are believed to have crossed the frontier from Greece, including volunteers, criminals released from jails, prisoners who were allowed to escape, and soldiers who were invited to desert; and all these men lived at free quarters in the southern parts of Thessaly and Epirus, which are chiefly inhabited by Christians, for about four months. In addition to what they consumed they sent over the fron­tier to be sold for their profit upwards of 10,000 cattle and 50,000 sheep¹. Good meat had not for many years been so

t

¹ Parliamentary Papers: Correspondence relating to Greece and Turkey, 1854, pp. 253, 254. Besides cattle, large quantities of grain and salt which belonged to Greek subjects of the Porte were sent over the frontier as plunder. The Christian population suffered severely, but fewer oxen were delivered from the Turkish yoke than from the Christian.

224 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

[Bk.V. Ch. V. I

abundant nor so cheap in the markets of Greece. The conduct of the armed men who invaded Turkey is not surprising J when we know the manner in which they were brought together, and the measures adopted to escape political re-! sponsibility by leaving them without control; but it is almost! incredible that the members of the Greek government and the military men who commanded the Greek force on the! frontier could expect either success or honour from counte­nancing such proceedings¹.

In the month of February 250 criminals from the prison of Chalcis in Euboea accompanied by 150 soldiers of the garrison, left that fortress, and dividing themselves into several bands marched openly to the frontier, part passing through Euboea, and part proceeding through Boeotia and Locris, both bands exacting provisions of the best kind and often contributions in money from the peasants where they stopped. The government authorities welcomed them, but no where attempted to check their disorders. On the western side of Greece, at Patras and other places where there were prisons, the prisoners were allowed to escape and the soldiers were encouraged to desert. Even from the prison of Kalamata in Messenia 110 criminals were allowed to depart and march through the whole Peloponnesus, exacting provisions from the villages when they did not receive rations from the authorities. A considerable body of troops was placed at Vonitza and Karavasera by the government under the pretext

¹      The accounts of the numbers who invaded Turkey were generally exaggerated at the time. The account published in the Augsburg Gazette in April requires to be controlled by consular reports and the information of volunteers present in different places. In the Augsbvrg Gazette—-

Theodore Griva is stated to have 1500 men. He was at Metzovo with . . 250

General Djavellas    6000 „       ,, Petta ,, . . 3000

The Suliotes are stated as . . 500 „ They were at Pentepegadia with 100 Zervas is stated to have . . . 1500 „ He was at Dramisi with . . 300

Kosta Nika       1000 „       „ Ratziko „ . . ico?

Georgios Tjames      600 „         „ Kalamo ,, . . 50

Georgios Va'ias        400 „         „ Gramena „ . . 50

Lambros Yeikos       2000 „ He was near Paramythia with . 100

In Epirus............... 13,500         In Epirus  3950

In Thessaly report said . 10,000       In Thessaly                 3000

23,500    6950

It is not probable, however, that the number at any time exceeded 6000, though it is possible that considerably more than 7000 may have crossed the frontier at different times.

nan:

flj

kf.

GREEKS INVADE TURKEY.    225

a.d. 1854.]

of enforcing neutrality, but in reality to facilitate their deser­tion with their arms and ammunition, and several young officers went off with the men under their command and joined the bands already in Turkey.

During the negotiations which preceded the rupture of t aii diplomatic relations with the Porte, and during the hostilities •j /that were carried on, the good faith and strict observance of treaties by the Mussulmans formed a strong contrast to the conduct of the orthodox Christians. The justice and candour of Fuad Pasha rendered the falsehood of M. Pa'ikos, the Greek minister of foreign affairs, more conspicuous, and the parliamentary papers furnish a record of their conduct in their own writings¹. When the invasion of Epirus com­menced, the Othoman troops on the frontier amounted to 1300 men. Prevesa, Domoko, and Volo were almost without garrisons, and the few troops that occupied them were in want of ammunition, stores, and money². The court of Athens and the Greek war department, having resolved to break loose from the restraints of international treaties and good faith, might with a little determination and military courage have gained possession of these fortresses by simul­taneous attacks without any very serious loss ; and it may be doubted whether either Turkey or her allies would have been disposed to send immediately a force to reconquer them. Greece might then have treated with a material guarantee in her hands like other powers. The indecision of a timid king, the want of capacity to execute any plan on the part of the Greek ministers, the neglect of discipline in the Greek army, and the disorderly and cowardly behaviour of the soldiers, criminals, and brigands who invaded Turkey, rendered the treachery of the Greek government abortive ³,

The Porte, exasperated by the false statements of the Greek government that it was exerting all its authority to

ison

e;ex(

¹                                             Parliamentary Papers: Correspondence respecting the relations of Greece and Turkey, 1854, p. 210, See.         ^

²                                 The garrison of Arta consisted of only 400 regular troops sent from Joann sna when the Greeks were about to attack it. The soldiers previously in the place were 700 Albanian irregulars and 200 police guards.                             _

³      The Augsburg Gazette was at this time the organ of Bavarian and Greek ambitious hopes, and it is curious to read over the accounts it contains of imaginary insurrections among the Christian subjects of the sultan. The German correspondents at Athens put more absurd exaggerations in circulation than can be found in the Greek newspapers published at Athens.

VOL. VII.         Q

1

226 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

[Bk.V.Ch.V.

maintain neutrality, broke off all communications with Greece, and ordered all Greek subjects to quit the Othoman empire in fifteen days. This caused a great scramble among Greek merchants and traders to divest themselves of Greek passports j and other marks of Hellenism. The protection of the Allied j powers was eagerly sought after; many Hellenes contrived j to become Ionians, and even the much vilified condition ofj rayah was in many cases thankfully accepted. Neither the sultan’s government nor the Turkish people bore hard on| the trading classes on this occasion, and many Greek citizens'] remained in the Othoman empire, and enriched themselves by supplying the wants of the enemies of orthodox Russia.

The Allies at last interfered to put a stop to the devastation of Epirus and Thessaly. The resources of the sultan were diminished by the ruin of these provinces, and he was com­pelled to detach troops for their defence, which were sorely wanted on the banks of the Danube to resist the Russians. Piracy also began to appear in the waters of the Archipelago. Two English vessels were found at sea among the Greek islands without a soul on board and with their decks covered with blood. The Allies feared that there might be a renewal of the atrocities of 1828 and 1829, and the state of Greece made it their duty as well as their interest to put an end to the aggression on Turkey and arrest piracy.

On the 22nd April 1854 the British government threatened King Otho that, in case the Greek government persisted in employing the revenues of Greece to attack Turkey in vio­lation of treaties, it would enforce the engagements of the treaty which, in placing King Otho on the throne of Greece, stipulated that the first revenues of the kingdom should be appropriated to paying the interest due to the protecting powers*. If this threat had been carried into execution, and effectual measures taken to enforce publicity and enable the Greek people to know the exact amount of money that was annually received by the treasury with every detail relating to its expenditure, a great boon would have been conferred on Greece, and the Greeks might have been saved from years of political misconduct, financial dishonesty, anarchy, and revolution. The time however was ill suited for proposing any financial measure or using a financial threat.

¹ Parliamentary Papers, 1854, Greece and Turkey, p. 201.

jreti*

DEFEAT OF THE GREEKS.     227

A.D. 1854.]

The invasion of Epirus and Thessaly was defeated by the Turks before any direct assistance arrived from the Allies, and the Greeks were driven back into their own territory with greater ease than could have been expected. Only two engagements of any importance occurred, one at Petta and the other at Domoko, and in both the Greek troops fled after offering a very feeble resistance to the attack of the Turks. At Petta the number of the Greeks amounted to 3000 men, who were intrenched in a position which they had carefully selected. The Turkish force consisted of 3000 regulars and 1000 Albanian irregulars, who marched out of Arta to attack the Greek position on the 26th of April. The Greek intrenchments were stormed after a single volley of musketry, and the whole Greek army fled in utter con­fusion, abandoning two pieces of artillery after the first discharge. Numbers threw away their arms, and the Turks collected the trophies of this almost bloodless battle, and exhibited them in triumph at Arta the same evening. The few prisoners captured were released by the Turks very soon >'^crt| after at the intercession of the English consul. At Domoko the Greeks were the assailants. They invested the place and made preparations for attacking it; but the contest was terminated by a vigorous sortie of the garrison, which completely routed the besieging force and drove the Greeks from all their positions. These two victories compelled the main bodies of the invaders to retreat over the frontier. The bands that remained in Turkey sought to evade pursuit, and endeavoured to carry on a war of plunder, until their final expulsion from the Othoman territory, which was effected during the summer.

In the month of May French and English troops were landed at the Piraeus, and King Otho was compelled to abandon the Russian alliance and cease from further attempts to disturb the frontier provinces of Turkey. Tranquillity was easily restored both in Epirus and Thessaly by the Othoman authorities. The armed bands of criminals and brigands, when driven back into Greece, carried on the same system of plundering the agricultural population which the Greeks had dignified with the name of war when it was pursued in Turkey; and for the next two years the Christian subjects of the sultan in Epirus and Thessaly enjoyed a

Q 2

I

I

J:

I

h

228 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

[Bk.V. Ch.V

far greater degree of security for life and property than the subjects of King Otho in the northern provinces of the Hellenic kingdom. The clandestine manner in which the Greek court encouraged the invasion of Turkey destroyed all discipline} _v* in the Greek army by making secret service the surest claim! to advancement and special favour; it corrupted the politicalj administration by tolerating illegal conduct on the part oil subordinate officials; it subjected the government of the! country to the fluctuating interests of the court, and it flattered_[ while it disappointed the passions of the mob. It also in-'A# flicted a serious injury on the Greek nation by exhibiting'U! the strongest evidence of its military weakness and political L incapacity¹.                               ‘

The occupation of the Piraeus by the Allied troops lasted from May 1854 to February 1857. On their arrival, the English and French ministers presented themselves to King Otho and required from him a promise that the Greek government would observe strict neutrality during the Russian war. He was informed that in case he refused to give this promise, Athens would be immediately occupied by French and English troops, and the revenues of the sea-ports- would be sequestrated to defray the expenses of the army of j occupation. King Otho felt no disposition to risk the loss ofj his throne. It appears that he had acted all along without) li, any definite plan, so that he found no great difficulty injf.; promising everything which the Allies required. The minis-' try which had pursued a line of conduct hostile to the Allies,j was replaced by a ministry which accepted a policy of> subserviency to their views. As soon as King Otho was made fully sensible that there was no alternative between absolute submission or a degree of restraint which might have! quickly compelled him to abdicate, he accepted the resigna­tion of the partizans of Russia and named a new ministry! agreeable to the Allies, pledging himself and his government in a solemn manner to maintain neutrality². Queen Amalia

¹      King Otho’s ministers during the invasion of Turkey were, Admiral Krizes, president; Paikos, foreign affairs ; Skarlatos Soutzos, war ; Vlachos, public instruc­tion ; Ambrosiades. interior ; Provelegios, finance ; and Pilikas. justice.

²      The declaration made by King Otho to the ministers of Great Britain and France on the 6th May. 1S54, was in the following terms:—‘ I declare that I willS observe faithfully a strict and complete neutrality with regard to Turkey, that 1 will immediately take ail the measures necessary for making this neutrality effectual, ana for this object I will call to my counsels new ministers who by their

t

OCCUPATION OF THE PIRAEUS.   229

.d. 1854.]

>n this as on many other occasions showed more sincerity han good sense. She made an open display of her dislike

o     the Allies and of her unavailing wishes for the success of he Russians. She encouraged opposition to her husband’s fninisters by holding out hopes of a speedy reaction, and by linting that the influence of the court would always be ible to secure rewards for its devoted servants in spite of the ^institutional ministers and the influence of the Allies. Alexander Mavrocordatos, who had conducted himself with more candour at Paris than Tricoupi at London, was recalled to become president of the council of ministers. Mavrocor­datos had not recovered the popularity he had lost when he was prime minister in 1844; he had been long absent from Greece, and the country had undergone considerable change during his absence. He had always been a bad leader of the party and an unsuccessful administrator, and his want of intimate acquaintance with the new men and new circum­stances brought these deficiencies into greater prominence. The only man of action in the new cabinet w^Tas General Kalergi, but he was deficient in administrative capacity and was disliked both by King Otho and Queen Amalia. The marshal of the palace, four of the king’s aides-de-camp, and the chief of the police of Athens, who had all taken an active part in the violation of neutrality, were removed from their places. Public opinion was adverse to the new ministry, and its members sought in vain for able officials to support them in their endeavours to conduct the government with order and justice. The animosity of the court and the prejudices of the people could not be immediately allayed, so that the only strength of this ministry lay in the power of the Allies \ The opposition of the people existed, but it was not active, and if the new ministers had pursued a well-digested system

character and ability are the most competent to carry this engagement of mine into execution.’ Sir Thomas Wyse, the British minister, replied:—‘We (the ministers of France and England) will hasten to inform our governments of the words of your Majesty, and we do not doubt that your Majesty, by giving your support to the new councillors, whom you have been pleased to call to your cabinet, will leave to us only the duty of transmitting to our courts the most satisfactory information concerning the state of Greece.’

¹ The cabinet was composed of seven members: Alexander Mavrocordatos, president of the council and minister of foreign affairs; General Kalergi, war; Rhigas Palamedes, interior; Perikles Argyropoulos, finance; Admiral Kanares, marine; George Psyllas, ecclesiastical affairs and public instruction; and L. Londinos, justice.

230 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

¹                               [Bk. V. Ch. V

of administrative reform, and sought the aid of public opinion by adopting measures to enforce economy and financial publicity, they would have won personal respect even if they had failed to obtain decided support. Measures of improve­ment from which the mass of the people would have derived: immediate benefit presented themselves in number ; but the weakness of most of the members of this ministry paralyzed its activity, and the disorders caused by the escaped criminals and the undisciplined bands driven back from Turkey were so great that life and property became more insecure in many parts of the kingdom than they had been at any period during King Otho’s reign. The ministry was unpopular because it was regarded as an instrument of an anti-national policy; it was weak because it was both incapable and un­popular ; and it was thwarted in its action by the court because it was weak and unpopular.

The condition of the people was little better than that of the government. The Greeks could not conceal from them­selves that they had failed to strike an effectual blow at Turkey by their own misconduct. They had violated every principle of honour and policy by suddenly assailing an unprepared neighbour, and they had conducted their attack so disgracefully as to draw down the contempt of their Russian friends as well as of their allied enemies. Success might have been accepted, as it generally is, as an apology for an international assault, but failure augments the crime of bad faith with nations and especially with statesmen. Greece really lost very little either in money or men by her attack on Turkey; but she lost greatly in moral character and political organization. She unveiled her administrative and military weakness to the Othoman government and to the Christian races in European Turkey, and forfeited her claim to lead the Albanians and Bulgarians in a war of independ­ence. The ‘ great idea ’ and the revival of a Byzantine empire became for some years a subject of ridicule. The Russians, finding that the Greeks could do little for them, became less disposed to do anything for the Greeks, and they did not conceal their contempt for men who received money to fight their own national battle, and after being paid fought only to enable them to ask for another payment. The Porte discovered that the Greek nation had less power

GREECE DURING THE OCCUPATION.  231

a.d. 1855.]

to injure the Othoman empire than was previously believed to be the case ; the attacks of the Greeks were less feared and their friendship was less valued. In Western Europe it was seen that the literary and commercial activity of a small number had produced a false estimate of the national strength and of the military and political importance of the Greek kingdom. A general suspicion was awakened that Greece might eventually become a secondary power in the ultimate arrangement of the affairs of the Othoman empire. The Greeks themselves were forced to feel that they were no longer the only Christian nationality in European Turkey that possessed a ‘great idea.’ The Roumans, the Bulgarians, and the Sclavonians are more numerous, and the Albanians are more warlike. The inhabitants of the Ionian Islands alone called loudly for union with the Hellenic kingdom, little thinking that their clamour would induce Great Britain to be so generous as to grant their demand.

The disasters of the Allies during the siege of Sebastopol revived the hopes of King Otho and of the Greeks that Russia would prove victorious in the war. An impropriety in a matter of court etiquette and the rights of society 011 the part of General Kalergi offended Queen Amalia, and the weakness of Mavrocordatos in not immediately settling the political difficulty which arose from this impropriety by exacting the resignation of Kalergi or resigning himself, enabled the court to get rid of the ^£ occupation cabinet ’ with very little credit to its members. On the 15th September 1855 a new ministry under the presidency of Demetrius Bul- gares was appointed. Bulgares was an Albanian of Hydra ; he was a man of honesty and firmness, but destitute of admin­istrative knowledge and the capacity to govern men. His obstinate character and personal pride were well displayed in his persisting to wear the long robes formerly worn by his father, when he bore the title of bey in Hydra as representing the Othoman authority. His arrogant self-importance ob­tained for him from Queen Amalia the nickname of Arta- xerxes. The ministry of Bulgares entered on office without any political principle to guide its conduct; its bond of union was blind devotion to the interests of the court and the pre­judices of nationality. The interests of Greece and the cause of good government were left in abeyance. Its administration

232                                      CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.                            I

[Bk.V. Ch.V. I¹;

was marked by the extension of brigandage to such a degree I*¹ that in some districts the agricultural population threatened I¹¹ to abandon the cultivation of the soil, and the chief merit it possessed was that it adopted vigorous measures for destroying the brigands.    j

The long political career of Alexander Mavrocordatos ter-1 minated with the resignation of his cabinet in 1855. His S last administration was characterized by the same want of political convictions and administrative capacity which had led to the failure of his government on former occasions.

He displayed the same disposition to meddle with men, and I the same incompetency to direct measures. Never perhaps was there a man whose talents and virtues were so generally considered to entitle him to high office in the government of ‘ his country, who failed so ignominiously when entrusted with power. Alexander Mavrocordatos, like King Otho, sought to control and direct everything; and the system of constant interference proved as injurious to good government when practised by an able as by a weak man. Prefects, justices of the peace, and demarchs were subjected to ministerial interference, instead of being taught to fear administrative responsibility. On the other hand the difficulties under which the government of Mavrocordatos laboured ought not to be overlooked before condemning his conduct. The centralization of the powers of government in the hands of the ministers of the crown centralized the whole discontent of the people against the person of the prime minister, and that discontent was caused in part by circumstances over which he had no control, and was increased by the encouragement which all who opposed his measures received from the Russian party, the court faction, and a number of influential Greeks | who pretended to be personally devoted to the interests of j King Otho. The difficulties of governing well were also . augmented by the absence of local institutions enabling the people to carry on self-government in that lower sphere of administrative business, which a central authority, whether it be representative or autocratic, cannot find time to perform ¹.

This last administration of Mavrocordatos, if it had been

¹ Self-government ought, I presume, to be applied to those cases of local or general administration, in which the people elect directly their executive officers

and financial officials as well as their legislators and councillors.

VIOLATION OF THE CONSTITUTION.   233

a.d. 1855.]

ably and prudently conducted, might have done something to improve the morality of the Greek government, but from net want of political principle to guide its action, it strengthened the vices of a system that was preparing the Greeks for a revolution. The support of the classes possessing political tej influence was purchased by violating the constitution in the most offensive manner. The salaries of the senators and deputies were illegally increased, and the dishonesty of Greek statesmen was so openly displayed that a deep stain was fixed on the national character. The constitution of 1844, which Mavrocordatos had taken an active part in framing, declared that the deputies and senators who exercised their functions were to receive from the public treasury, respec­tively, 250 drachmas for deputies and 500 drachmas monthly for senators, while the session lasted The legislative session of 1854 ought, according to the express enactment of the constitution, to have commenced on the 1st (13th) Novem­ber²; but from that inattention to duty which characterizes Greek society, the deputies neglected to assemble at Athens ia|l in sufficient numbers to form a house for business, and the king could not open the chambers until December. Even then the number of deputies was insufficient to transact busi­ness, and the president could not be elected until February 1855. Yet, though the deputies and senators neglected to meet for the affairs of their country, they insisted on receiving their monthly salaries from the 1st November 1854. Mavro­cordatos and his colleagues preferred retaining power and purchasing parliamentary support by violating the constitution to preserving their political honour unsullied and resigning office. In an evil hour for himself and for the senate Mavrocordatos gave his sanction to this iniquity, which he might have prevented, for he had only to remind the chamber of deputies that the initiative of every grant of salary be­longed neither to the chamber of deputies nor to the senate, but to the crown alone ; and to declare that, as long as he remained a minister of the crown, he was determined not to allow money to be voted in violation of the constitution³. By speaking this language he would have secured the support of public opinion, and on such a question King Otho could

¹ Articles 67 and 79. ⁱ Article 47.        ³ Article 17.

I

234 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

‘                             [Bk.V.Ch.V.

not have forced him to resign. Whether he could have averted the Revolution of 1862, saved the throne of King Otho, and prolonged the existence of a senate in Greece, may remain doubtful. Neither Mavrocordatos nor any of his col­leagues, living as they did in an impure political atmosphere which dulled their moral perception, perceived the abyss that their neglect of the constitution opened in the road along which their government was travelling.

The first method that the deputies and senators invented for increasing their salaries in violation of the constitution which they had sworn to observe, was by prolonging the sessions. This abuse caused so much inconvenience, that to remove it, and at the same time to satisfy the cupidity of the legislators, the cabinet of Mavrocordatos proposed a law to increase their salaries, and this violation of the constitution passed through both chambers almost without opposition and received the royal assent. It was enacted that the deputies were to receive an annual salary of 2500 drachmas, and the senators an annual salary of 5000 drachmas each. But the breach once opened in the constitution for the pecuniary profit of the legislators was soon widened, and a considerable addi­tion was subsequently made to their wages¹. The chamber of deputies, being a body in a state of constant change, and which could be rendered at any time a true representation of the people, incurred no direct responsibility by the misconduct of its members, for a new election could give it a new char­acter and new life. But the members of the senate, being nominated for life, fixed the responsibility of their perjury and cupidity on the body they composed, so that when the Revolution of 1862 expelled King Otho from his throne, it also abolished the senate.

As far as the Allies were concerned the ministry of Mavro­cordatos answered its purpose, for it maintained Greece in a state of neutrality, but the internal government of the country was weak, and the manner in which the executive

¹      The National Assembly of 1864 has endeavoured to guard against a repetition of similar illegalities. The 47th article of the Constitution of 1844 enacted that the chambers met of right on the 1st November, and that the sessions could not last more than two months. The Constitution of 1864 enacts that the dura­tion of each session cannot be less than three months nor more than six months, and fixes 2000 drachmas as the payment to be made to each deputy for the session.

BRIGANDAGE.        235

a.d. 1855.]

administration was conducted was a subjcct of complaint even among those who were inclined to support the ministry \

The outrages committed by bands of brigands in the year ^x^55 were viewed with indifference or applauded as outbreaks of a patriotic spirit as long as the ‘ occupation ministry ’ remained in office². But the crimes and devastations of these robbers became a subject of serious alarm, when the formation of a ministry devoted to the court under the presidency of M. Bulgares brought the responsibility of the disorganized condition of the state home to those who had ordered the prisons to be opened, and hundreds of criminals to be turned loose on society³. A series of daring acts of brigandage on the road between Athens and the Piraeus drew the attention of all Europe to the insecurity that prevailed in Greecc. Two French officers were robbed. A captain of artillery was car­ried off to the mountains and detained a prisoner until the Greek government paid 30,000 drachmas as his ransom. It was openly asserted at the time, that the court displayed unusual promptitude in obtaining the release of this officer, in order to escape from a too close investigation of its connec­tion with brigandage during the previous months, and from

¹      See the Greek newspapers, and particularly the ’AOrjva, in 1S55. ^

²      There was a remarkable passage testifying the alarming amount of brigandage in Greece in the king’s speech on the opening of the chambers on the 16th Dec., 1854: ‘The brigandage which continues to desolate many parts of the country, not only destroys the labours of honest and industrious citizens, and places life, property, and honour in danger; but also gives occasion for condemning unjustly the nation, which rejects with abhorrence the iniquitous deeds of the numerous criminals.’

³      A writer in the Edinburgh Review (No. 210, April, 1856) says, ‘Instead of those habits of industry which ought to flourish among a free peasantry, the tendency to atrocious agrarian outrages, called by the Greeks brigandage, has lamentably increased, and prevails to an extent which is deeply disgraceful to the government and to the community. The excesses committed within the last few months by these bands of robbers, murderers, and extoi tioners, are so abominable that all personal security is at an end in many districts, and nothing but the presence of a certain number of foreign troops appeals to save the kingdom from the horrors of social dissolution. The weak and profligate government of King Otho is responsible not only for the impunity which attends these crimes, but for the cause which has mainly produced them. Hundreds of adventurers and ruffians, encouraged by the king and queen, and stimulated by the hope of plunder and by Russian intrigues, flocked to the frontier at the outset of the war. They were soon driven back by the forces of the Porte, though not before they had inflicted atro­cious wrongs on the Turkish subjects of I hessaly. Yet these marauders were immediately amnestied by the Greek government.’

This article was written by Mr. Freeman, whose History of Federal Government from the foundation of the Achaian League places him in a high rank as a scholar and historian, and whose History of the Norman Conquest of England sheds new light on one of the most important periods in the history of the English nation.

I

236 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

[Bk. V. Ch. V.

a not ill-grounded fear that the necessity of providing for their own security might cause the Allies to interfere directly with the internal government of the country. The suppression of brigandage became the first object of King Otho's govern­ment, and as soon as the agricultural population was convinced that the agents of the government were sincere in their endea­vours to extirpate the brigands, the peasants joined the troops and gendarmes in hunting them down, and with this assistance the criminals were quickly exterminated. A circular of the minister of foreign affairs, addressed to the diplomatic agents of Greece at the European courts, dated 28th July (10th August) 1856, amidst a great deal of self-congratulation at the progress which the country had made under King Otho’s government, a large allowance of inaccurate statements, and much misrepresentation, declared that ‘ during the first three months of 1856, ninety-nine brigands were brought before the courts of justice, and of these thirty were condemned to death and executed, nine were condemned to labour for life, twelve to labour for terms of years, and twenty-five to various terms of imprisonment¹.’ Yet even in this document it is admitted that about thirty brigands continued to ravage Attica and Boeotia in the immediate vicinity of King Otho’s palace. In Acarnania alone forty persons were killed by brigands on the principal road since the year 1853². The general administrative disorder, of which brigandage was one of the most striking features, caused the Allies to prolong the occupation of the Piraeus for some time after the treaty of peace was signed on the 30th March 1856. During the congress at Paris, both the representatives of Great Britain and France stated that the deplorable condition of Greece rendered the continuance of the occupation necessary, to avoid anarchy and prevent the repetition of the disorders in the army and the prisons which preceded the occupation. The Russian plenipotentiary also

¹      This document is printed in Le Moniteur Grec, 21 December, 1857.

²      A convention for the suppression of brigandage was concluded between the Greek government and the Porte on the 20th April, 1856, which aided the Greeks in destroying the bands of brigands by cutting off their retreat into Turkey. The Greeks, nevertheless, continued to inveigh against the Turks, and tried to persuade the world that brigandage would be unknown in Greece if brigands could be prevented from passing the frontier from Turkey. They neglected, however, to tike proper precautions against the frequent escapes of their own criminals, after their condemnation even for the most atrocious crimes, and they persisted in grant­ing amnesties to brigands who became tired of a life of hardship in the mountains.

BRIGANDAGE.        237

A.n. 1856.]

offered to concert with Great Britain and France the measures necessary for improving the condition of a country which the three powers had undertaken to protect.

The ministry of Bulgares displayed great confidence in the policy of conducting public business by false pretences. The delusion that deceit is the surest road to success is not un­common with Greek statesmen. The Bulgares ministry boasted that it was liberal, yet it prosecuted the ‘Athena,’ the oldest and most independent newspaper in Greece, for publishing official documents proving that the ministers had adopted various subterfuges to delude Mr. Smith O'Brien, the Irish rebel, who was travelling in Greece, into a belief that per­fect security for life and property existed in the agricultural districts and along the roads he travelled. Advertisements were inserted in the newspapers of Western Europe, to create a belief that public improvements were an object of attention, and that great public works were about to commence¹. Pre­tences of economy in the financial administration were put forward as an inducement to the protecting powers to accept a composition in lieu of the full payment of the interest due on the Allied loan. The acts of this ministry did not cor­respond with its promises, and if it succeeded in cheating public opinion, it was only for a short time.

When the brigands were deprived of secret protection they were soon destroyed. The feeling of the peasantry was shown by their endeavouring to kill the brigands and not to make any prisoners. The fear was still strong that any brigands who might be taken would be ultimately allowed to escape, or only subjected to a light punishment or a short imprison­ment. Even in the case of condemnation to labour for life, the peasants believed that the criminals would soon be released by an amnesty, obtained by the political influence of the men in power who were supposed to employ brigandage as a means of intimidating their opponents ; and the rural population felt

¹ An advertisement was inserted in The Times, 24th October, 1856, by the Greek consul-general in London, addressed to contractors, engineers, and others in which the minister of foreign affairs invited capitalists to drain marshes and lakes, con­struct roads, and form harbours. The real object of the Greek minister was revealed in the concluding sentence of his communication to the consul general: ‘ Please to give the desirable publicity to this circular.’ Publicity now proves that the object of the ministry was to make a great display of activity without any intention of acting.

238 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

[Bk. V. Ch. V.

great dread that a captured brigand might return and inflict cruel vengeance on his captors¹.

The measures that the three protecting powers adopted for improving the condition of Greece, in the affairs of which they recognized the necessity of interfering during the conferences at Paris, were confined to the establishment of a financial commission. This commission, composed of their diplomatic representatives at Athens, commenced its examination of the financial administration in February 1857. That it proved of no avail in improving the condition of Greece, was a natural consequence of the circumstances which induced the powers to establish a commission to examine only the finances, when a commission to examine into the condition of the whole executive administration was required, in order to ascertain how the acknowledged defects of the government were to be reformed. The financial imperfections of the Greek govern­ment were one of the consequences of the general mal­administration, and could only be effectually removed by a reform in the system of government. But the discordance that existed in the views of the cabinets of Great Britain, France, and Russia, on the most important political questions at issue in the internal policy of nations, prevented their entering into any examination of the political condition of Greece that could prove advantageous to the country, lest it should reveal their difference of opinion. The British government considers that personal liberty, and the power of self-government created by the existence of free local institutions, forms the surest means of attaining national progress and good government. France and Russia believe, on the other hand, that a powerful central executive and a

¹ The following passage is extracted from a pamphlet entitled Le gouvernement et Tadministration en Grice depi/is 1833 par un temoin oculaire, 1863 (p. 18) : ‘Nous avons ete temoin oculaire du fait suivant. Un premier aide-de-camp du Roi entra un jour dans le cabinet du redacteur d’un journal de l’extreme opposition, bien etonne de cette visite inattendue. “Je viens vous prier ” Iui dit l’aide-de-cainp “ de me rendre un grand sei vice; vous etes membre du jury et vous aurez demain a vous occuper d’une affaire de brigandage; je m’interesse au chef de la bande et a huit de ses co-accuses; ils sont de nos enfants, c’est a dire, ils sont de mes proteges. Faites moi le plaisir de me promettre le concours dc votre vote pour les faire acquitter.” Nous devons ajouter qu’il s’agissait d’une bande de brigands qni avait commis les crimes les plus atroces.’ The pamphlet is attributed to a writer of authority, and the circumstance is believed to be true. Even while I write, in 1866, public opinion persists in believing that the band of Kitzos. which now infests Attica, finds protectors as highly placed as those who protected brigands in the time of King Otho.

FINANCIAL COMMISSION.    239

A.D. 1857.]

well-organized administrative police are necessary to control the movements of nations and to secure order. These adverse views had each their partizans in Greece. It was therefore impossible to enlist the cordial support of all the three powers to any definite scheme of administrative reform, and they found their action paralyzed except in financial matters, over which the treaty of 1832, which conferred the crown on King Otho, furnished them with a right of interference. Article xii. section 6 of that treaty is in these words—‘ The sovereign of Greece and the Greek state shall be bound to appropriate to the payment of the interest and sinking fund of such instalments of the loan as may have been raised under the guarantee of the three courts, the first revenues of the state, in such manner that the actual receipts of the Greek treasury shall be devoted, of all, to the payment of the said interest and sinking fund, and shall not be employed for any other purpose, until those payments on account of the in­stalments of the loan raised under the guarantee of the three courts shall have been completely secured for the current year.’

‘ The diplomatic representatives of the three courts in Greece shall be specially charged to watch over the fulfilment of the last mentioned stipulation¹.’

This article is an interesting example of the cynical views that actuated European statesmen in the year 1832. It seems strange that British diplomatists could so recently take part in a treaty which invested foreign powers with a right to deprive Greece of funds that might be necessary for main­taining the administration of justice, preserving order in society, and paying the interest of the national debt previously contracted without any authority from the Greek nation, or any clause for obtaining the ratification of a Greek house of representatives. The Swedish chancellor Oxenstiern observed to his son that a little intercourse with the greatest diplo­matists would show him with how little wisdom the world was governed, and two centuries have not done much to assimilate the courtly practices and embroidered coats of diplomatists to the honest usages and plain habits of the nineteenth century. In 1832 an English minister consented to make

¹ Parliamentary Papers: Convention relative to the sovereignty of Greece, signed at London May 7th, 1832.

240 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

[Bk.V.Ch.V.j i¹

the administration of justice and social order a matter ofj \ less importance than the power of enforcing payment of a loan! \ forced on the Greeks to secure the acceptance of the throne by a king, whom they found it necessary to dethrone after he had reigned for nearly thirty years. This is an impor­tant fact in the diplomatic history of Europe.

The abuses of the administration in Greece, when the protecting powers established the financial commission, were *' great, and they were constantly increasing. Financial reforms, enforced by a well-regulated system of publicity of all finan­cial accounts at short intervals, would have gone far towards extirpating one class of abuses. But to root out the evils that were corrupting political society, the protecting powers might have perceived that it was necessary to base their right of interference on grounds sanctioned by reason and the interests of the Greek people, not on stipulations imposed on Greece by a treaty, of which the Greeks heard nothing until long after it had been signed, and which encouraged them to repudiate their previous debts.

The financial commission held its first sitting at Athens oil' < the 18th February 1857, and it drew up its report on the 24th ( May 1859, which appears however not to have been officially communicated to the Greek government until October¹. During the two years which the commission devoted to the examination of the financial condition of the government, it collected much valuable information concerning the amount of taxation paid by the people, the manner in which the public and municipal revenues were collected and adminis­tered, the extent to which the resources of the country were dilapidated, and the means by which the progress of the people was impeded through the neglect and mal-administration of the government. This mass of papers and documents was not published, and even the report of the commission was not generally known until it was printed among the parliamentary papers of i860. This report is of little value by itself, as it only repeats what had been often said and was well known. After stating ‘that the national property was neither marked out, nor known to the government; that it was constantly

¹ King Otho, on opening the Chambers on the ioth November, 1S59, noticed the result of the commission.

I

vert

FINANCIAL COMMISSION.    241

A.D. I859.]

lessened by encroachments ; that the law entrusted the govern­ment with a supervision over the funds of the communes ; that the government neglected this duty; that the manner of ollecting the land-tax impeded the progress of agriculture ; that the ministers of finance since the year 1845 had scarcely verified the resources and accounts of the public treasury; that of the accounts of the years 1850, 1851 and 1852, only the accounts of 1850 had been submitted to the chambers; that the court of accounts had not proved by the reports which it is bound to publish the official regularity of the accounts of ministers, nor that they are such as they ought to be ; that the chambers have not remedied this state of things, and the legislative control has been no more exercised than the judi­cial ; that the accounts produced by the Greek government did not offer the legal guarantees required for exactitude and authenticity; and that the publicity and the control of the administration, which are the guarantees to the country, did not exist.’ After this strong condemnation of the conduct of the government, the commission came to the impotent con­clusion, that the attention of the Greek government should be .tlif seriously called to this state of things, and that Greece should be compelled to pay annually the sum of 900,000 francs to the three protecting powers in lieu of the interest and sinking fund due on the Allied loan, this sum being liable to be increased as the resources of Greece improved ¹.

The financial commission by this recommendation assisted King Otho in maintaining the state of things which they reprobated. For after ascertaining and proclaiming that no dependence could be placed on the financial administration of the Greek government, and that the true position of the public treasury was systematically concealed from the people, the commission kept the knowledge it collected concerning the resources of the country, and the proofs it obtained of the mal-administration of the government, concealed from the Greeks, for whose benefit it was said that the commission had been established. Even when the members were convinced that King Otho would adopt no financial reforms until compelled either by public opinion or the direct interference

¹      The Allied loan, amounting to 2,400,000/. sterling, was contracted with the house of Rothschild in January, 1833, and was guaranteed by Great Britain, France, and Russia.

VOL. VII.         R

242 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

[Bk.V. Ch.V.

of the protecting powers, the commission did nothing to form public opinion or to enforce better administration. They agreed to abstain from reforming abuses, if the Greek govern­ment would promise to pay the protecting powers a small sum on account. When the protecting powers ascertained the| impossibility of direct interference to enforce the literal execution of the twelfth article of the treaty of 1832, they con­tented themselves with such a modicum of protection to their own interests as they found practicable. Past mal-admini- stration received their condonation, and they relinquished their authority to demand a reform of abuses, for the sum of 900,000 francs (.£40,000), with hopes of increase at a future period, to be paid in lieu of the interest and sinking fund on the sum of £2,400,000 guaranteed by Great Britain, France and Russia¹.

This result of the financial commission diminished the respect felt for the protecting powers. Indeed there is no transaction in the history of the Greek Revolution which places the cabinets of Europe in so contemptible a position. Whether the neglect of the interests of the Greek people arose from an obtuse sense of moral obligations, hostility to popular liberty, ( or aversion to aid constitutional government in enforcing financial reforms on an unwilling sovereign, cannot be certainly known until the secret diplomatic correspondence of the time shall become public². The report itself is remarkable for the confused manner in which its most important recommenda­tions are mixed with vague statements ; and its most striking result was the contempt with which King Otho treated the advice it contained. Two clauses deserve especial notice. The commission reported that the attention of the Greek government should be directed ‘to the advantage that would result from the modification of certain laws on taxation, particularly of the law on the land-tax, and finally to the imperious necessity of insuring publicity to the acts of the administration, and their control by the judicial and legislative

¹      Parliamentary Papers, Greece, No. 2, 1S64. Papers relating to the arrange­ment concluded at Athens in June, i860, respecting the Greek loan.

²      Count Sponneck, in a letter to General Kalergi (see lhe Greek newspaper HaXiy'ya'eoia, 21st Dee, 1865) says, ‘The three protecting powers, or, as you Greeks are in the habit of calling them, the Powers, the benefactors of Greece.’ This sarcasm is amusing, when we remember that it comes from the most ignorant statesman, and the greatest political nuisance, which the influence of the three protecting powers ever brought into Greece.

FINANCIAL COMMISSION.    243

A.D. 1859.]

powers created by special laws and by the constitution.’ Surely a commission which pronounced that one of the characteristics of the Greek government was financial in­experience as well as administrative incapacity and fiscal dishonesty, ought not to have stopped short at a general recommendation to act ably and honestly. When the pro­tecting powers interfered with the financial administration, they assumed the obligation to improve it, and were bound to lay before the Greeks a scheme of administration better adapted to develope the resources of the country than the system they condemned, and to point - out the details necessary for giving it efficiency. When they declared that publicity was an imperious necessity, they imposed on themselves the duty of enforcing it, of giving publicity to their own labours, and of submitting the statistical and financial information they had collected to a deliberate ex­amination, in order to hear the voice of public opinion, which they acknowledged to be the true ordeal for determining the soundness of financial measures. But though the three powers might agree on a verbal report, it was more diffi­cult for them to agree on a practical measure, and King Otho was fully aware of the discordance of their views concerning the manner of giving practical efficacy to their opinions. The Greek government therefore persevered in its course of irresponsible expenditure and mal-administration. If the twelfth article of the treaty of 1832 had any value, it authorized Great Britain, France, and Russia to insist that the Greek government should carry into execution the special laws and constitutional enactments which controlled the financial administration, and that the general report of the court of accounts on the annual expenditure of the government should be published at the same time that it was delivered to their legations at Athens. Had the protecting powers performed this duty Greece would have been deeply indebted to their interference.

The financial commission declared that a modification in the manner of collecting the land-tax would be advantageous to the country. It is therefore important to understand how it is that the land-tax retains the agriculture of Greece in a stationary condition. Greece is essentially an agricultural country. Her commerce is great, but while her commerce

R 2

_ ¹ Some statistical information was published by the Bureau d’Econoinie Publique in 1S61 and 1862, but implicit reliance cannot be placed on the printed details. At p. 17 it is said, ‘au brigandage et a la piraterie dont la Grece est delivree depuis de longues annees.’ The Greeks seem to suppose that strangers are deceived by official falsehoods more easily than is now the case, or they would not so wantonly deviate from truth.        '

244 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

[Bk. V. Ch. V.

supports hundreds, her agriculture nourishes thousands. She has comparatively a much greater extent of sea coast than any country with the same amount of population ; her faci­lities of maritime transport are great and her coasting vessels are numerous. But two-thirds of her population live by agriculture and pasturage, and about one-third of her arable land remains uncultivated^l. An acre of land sowed with the same kind of grain does not yield a larger return in 1865 than it did 50 years ago. While everything around improves, there has been no improvement in agriculture for' the last two thousand years. The best proof that civilization has pervaded a whole nation is the fact that man’s labour extracts more produce from each acre of the soil which he 1^ cultivates than could previously be obtained, that the labour employed in agriculture is better remunerated, and that capital seeks investment in land and in agricultural improvements. These signs of social civilization and national progress are wanting in Greece, and the importance of relieving agricul­tural industry from the trammels that impede improvement cannot therefore be doubted. National independence and civil liberty have been enjoyed by the Greeks for the lapse of a whole generation without producing any change in the material condition of the agricultural population.

The manner of levying the land-tax by taking a tenth, or since the year 1863 a smaller proportion, of the produce of the soil, impedes the improvement of agriculture by the habits which it forces the cultivator of the soil to adopt.

Ten per cent, of the produce of the land may in many circumstances be an equitable proportion of the income of the cultivator to be set apart for supporting a good govern­ment. But the manner in which a tenth of the annual produce of an exhausted soil, cultivated in the rudest manner, has been hitherto collected in Greece, has proved an insur­mountable obstacle to the improvement and extension of the cultivation of grain of every kind. The obstructive effects are the same, whether the tax be sold to farmers of the

LAND-TAX.     24 5

A.D.1859.]

revenue or collected by agents of the government. From the nature of the tax, it is necessary to confer great power on those who collcct it, and in a thinly peopled country inhabited by a rude agricultural population, that power must remain without any efficient control.

When the harvest time approaches, the collector of the tenths is constituted by law the lord of the soil, and every agricultural operation is subjected to his control. The cul­tivator cannot reap his field when the com is ripe for the sickle, until he obtains the permission of the collector. It often happens that the permission is delayed to the serious injury of an early crop, because it does not suit the farmer or collector to visit the district until a larger portion of the crop be ready. The contest of interest between the cultivator and the tax-gatherer has engendered mutual suspicion ; so dishonesty on the one hand and extortion on the other are perpetrated almost as duties by each class from the traditional habits of ages. The tax-gatherer becomes the real proprietor of the crop as soon as the grain is ripe; he fixes the day on which the cultivator commences the harvest, the time when the grain is trodden out on the threshing-floors, and when the winnowing and separation of his portion is to take place. The profit of the cultivator is diminished, for the tax-gatherer can always forestall the producer in the market, and reap the benefit of the high price which defective means of communication create during the period immediately pre­ceding the new harvest. The gains of the proprietors of nine-tenths of the produce of the country are subordinated to the gains of the government, which has a claim to a tenth. A considerable loss is incurred annually by the overripeness of a part of the crop, by the compulsory transport of the sheaves from distant fields to traditionary threshing-floors, and by the necessity of allowing the crop to remain in the open air awaiting the permission for threshing and winnowing.

The peasant cannot, unless he live in the vicinity of a large market, be certain that he will increase his gains by devoting additional labour to the cultivation of produce that comes earlier into the market, or which is of superior quality. The tax-gatherer is sure to be the first and the largest seller in the market. The miller and the merchant can secure a large and regular supply with greater ease by dealing with him

246 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

[Bk.V. Ch.V. '

than with individual cultivators, and as the stock of the tax-gatherer is of an average quality, formed by the mixture¹! ' of the grain of many soils, the producer cannot generally obtain a higher price for a crop of superior quality, unless ^ the quantity be considerable. To expect extraordinary in- ^; dustry or scientific agriculture, when industry and science ' afford no prospect of additional gain, is unreasonable.               ^:

There seems to be only one way by which the agricultural classes of Greece can be conducted from the stationary con- ' dition of the present time to an improving future, and that is by the total abolition of the land-tax. Perfect freedom from all interference with agricultural operations would be ^: the surest and the quickest way of promoting the increase of agricultural industry, for it would immediately increase the profits of agricultural labour. It would open a door to ’ the employment of capital in land, and produce an aug­mentation in the number of the agricultural population. The uncultivated land of Greece would offer as rich a field for i ^; profitable industry as land in other countries that attracts emigrants and capital. The marshes at the mouths of the ■ Eurotas and the Alpheus would furnish larger harvests than the marshes that are drained in England and Holland. Little change can be wrought in the traditional habits of a rude population by direct legislative enactments, but the greatest changes may be spontaneously brought about, as soon as the ^; people discover that they gain by adopting new habits and practices.

The system of the land-tax in Greece has formed old habits and bad practices, which oppose obstacles to the I improvement of agriculture and to the employment of capital in the production of grain. The most effectual and speedy manner of removing them is the best. The culture of the I vine, the olive, and the mulberry-tree may prosper and yield j profitable employment for capital, because the cultivator is in P a great degree emancipated from the thraldom that paralyzes the industry of the ploughman. Grain, which constitutes the principal food of the people, and in the purchase of which the greater part of the nation’s income is annually em- j ¹ ployed, is produced in the most wasteful manner, and any j improvement in that manner is hopeless without a total change of system.     j

COMMUNAL ADMINISTRATION.  247

a.d. 1859.]

The objection urged against the total abolition of the system of tenths is the difficulty of replacing it by another tax of equal amount, and the necessity which the government feels of getting the money. It is not necessary to examine the financial question, for an improving and prosperous agri­cultural population would easily supply the government with an increased revenue.

The want of communal administration was noticed by the financial commission, but self-government was not a subject which France and Russia were disposed to promote. The commission nevertheless stated in its report, and the British minister repeated in a communication to the Greek govern­ment, that the general prosperity of the nation must flow from the good administration of the communes; that the amount of the revenue and expenditure of the communes in Greece was unknown both to the government and the people, and that the government of King Otho had neglected systematically the duty imposed on it by law of superintending the communal administration *.

On communicating to the Greek government the results of the commission of i860, Lord John Russell boasted that the unanimity of the commission ‘ must impress on the Greek government the necessity of those reforms in the financial ad­ministration of the country which the Greek government are recommended to effect V Experience proved that advice was wasted on King Otho’s government, which soon ascertained that the protection of the three powers would not be withdrawn if their sermons were listened to patiently, and if the 900,000 francs which were asked were paid regularly.

The protecting powers, having allowed the Greek govern­ment to evade publicity and escape responsibility, and having conferred 011 the people the boon of re-establishing their commercial relations with Turkey, left both King Otho and the Greeks to forget the past and to enjoy the present. The king strove to extend his personal authority, the people sought to make money. The impulse of the time, to make everything a subject of gain, did not escape the observation

¹                                 Compare the Report of the Financial Commission with the communication of its results by the British minister, Sir Thomas Wyse, to the Greek government. Parliamentary Papers, Greece, No. 2, 1864.                                 _

²      Parliamentary Papers, Greece, No. 2, 1864. Lord John Russell to Sir Thomas Wyse, 22nd August, 1859.

248 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

[Bk.V. Ch.V. ¹

of King Otho; indeed, it was forced on his attention byj senators and deputies, and he resolved to profit by it. His | first care was to form a ministry whose members should be ' the servile instruments of his policy. He selected Athanasios; Miaoulis, a younger son of the great admiral, to be prime minister. Athanasios Miaoulis possessed neither official ex­perience nor administrative capacity, but he was a man of excellent private character, a member of the court faction, . and sincerely attached to the Bavarian dynasty. He remained I' prime minister until June 1862, but during his unusually long administration several changes were made in the composition J of his cabinet. The greatest names in Greece (and the only aristocracy of the country is in mere names) and the ablest men were at different times members of this ministry. The names of Miaoulis, Botzaris, Ivonduriottes and Zaimes could not replace their want of talent and independent character, 1 and the ability of Koumoundouros and Christopoulos could j not make them rcspected by the nation \    |

The Miaoulis ministry adopted measures to conceal the financial abuses of their predecessors, but no effort was made to place their administration in accordance either with the financial laws of the state or the recommendations of the protecting powers. No accounts of revenue and expenditure had been presented to the chambers since the year 1850. I The accounts of several years were now presented, but in such I a condition that the formalities imposed by the organic law of 1853 were completely neglected. Though no faith could be J placed in these accounts, the ministers, backed by the in­fluence of the court, persuaded the servile chambers to accept f them as satisfactory and ratify them with all their illegalities. I

A considerable social change had been unconsciously effected in Greece by the lapse of time. The military chiefs, whose influence long formed an obstacle to many improve- 1 ments, had almost died out. The interests of commerce were

¹ Athanasios Miaoulis became prime minister in November, 1S57. Rhiga j Palamedes, Koumoundouros, Rhangabes, Konduriottes, Botzaris, Zaimes, Spero Melios, Christopoulos, Ralles, and Simos—men, in short, of all parlies—were at different times members of his cabinet. 'When it resigned in June, 1S62. it was composed of the following members, who were stigmatized by the National Assembly as the ‘ministers of blood’ on account of the bloodshed that occurred in i suppressing the revolt of the garrison of Nauplia :—Athanasios Miaoulis, President nnd Marine; Konduriottes, Foreign Affairs; Botzaris, War; Potles, Justice; Simos, Finance; Christopoulos, Interior and Public Instiuction.

STATE OF GREECE.        249

a.d. 1859.]

no longer neglected. Some reforms were made in the custom-duties. The passage of the Euripus was open for navigation. Brigandage was repressed with vigour 011 both sides of the frontier. The predominant influence of the crown, even in the weak hands of King Otho, neutralized the power of the old parties which contended for places and salaries, for King Otho made it generally felt that he was the sole dispenser of places and rewards. The occupation of the Piraeus taught Queen Amalia how roads between rows of houses in a town could be converted into streets. The labour of the French troops was not lost. She sent to France for an engineer, and exerted herself not ineffectually to give her husband’s capital the appearance of a prosperous little city.

The celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of King Otho's reign occurred in the year 1857, while the state of Greece and of public opinion smiled on the Bavarian dynasty. Emperors and kings sent embassies to congratulate King Otho as the founder of a new throne in Europe ; foreigners and Greeks vied in their assurances of respect and devotion, so that stronger minds than those of King Otho and Queen Amalia might have been deceived by the semblancc of personal attachment which every class exhibited

In the year 1859 public opinion began to change. The Greek court did not conceal its attachment to Austria when war broke out in Italy; and the Greek people sympathized strongly with the Italians, moved by the revolutionary traditions of their own war of independence. King Otho desired to afford Austrian vessels the protection of the Greek flag, in order to invest them with the privileges of neutrality. A protest from Franee prevented his taking this imprudent step, which would have involved Greece in war both with Italy and France. The feeling in favour of the Italian cause was strongly displayed by the Greek people ; a spirit of discontent spread ; quarrels broke out between the students of the university and the police. The professors, who were appointed by favour, often neglected their duty,

¹      Prince Adalbert, brother of King Otho, represented Bavaria and the hopes of the Bavarian dynasty; one of the aides-de-camp of the Emperor Nicholas came from Russia, and a special mission, consisting of General Count de Paer with two aides-de-camp, was sent by Austria. England and France sent ships of war to the Piraeus.

250 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

[Bk. V. Ch. V.

and students, who had very little respect for some of them, behaved with unrestrained license. Yet instead of reforming the abuses in the university and enforcing discipline, the government dismissed the prefect of police, left the disorders of the students unpunished, and the neglect of the professors without a remedy.

There exists in Greece a numerous body of men who are j always striving to make themselves of importance by urging their countrymen to take up arms against the sultan. These J men believe that if by any means the appearance of an insurrection of the Greeks in Turkey can be produced, the Christian powers of Europe will be compelled to annex the insurgent provinces to the Hellenic kingdom. Both the French and English governments obtained proofs that King Otho fomented the excitement caused by this feeling, to divert public attention from his Austrian sympathies. But the people of Greece were at this time generally opposed to any invasion of Turkey. They wished to live in peace with the Turks, and to enjoy the advantages which their trade , with Turkey afforded, and not to enrich themselves by plundering the Christians in Thessaly and Epirus. It was rumoured that the Greek court had received counsels and warnings from the protecting powers, and questions concern­ing this interference and its causes were asked in the chamber of deputies. A foolish statement of M. Rhangabes, the minister of foreign affairs, revealed more than was previously known to the public. He admitted that France had commu­nicated to the Greek government that the Emperor Napoleon was prepared to repress promptly any act of hostility against Turkey, and he confessed that this communication had been supported by observations on the part of England and Russia. The minister, with an unfortunate fluency of phrases, went on to say, that under such pressure Greece felt it a duty to observe a strict neutrality. The word neutrality seemed to imply that Greece had contemplated taking part with Austria ' in the war with Italy, for the invasion of Turkey, though it would have been a violation of treaties, had no relation to neutrality. The obstinacy of King Otho and the ambition of Oueen Amalia were so well known, that when Karatassos (the royal aide-de-camp who caused the rupture with Turkey in 1847) published a proclamation calling the Greek subjects

tii!

DISSOLUTION OF THE CHAMBER.        251

A.D. i860.]

of the sultan to rebel, the king and queen were suspected of favouring the movement¹.

The discordant views of the king and the great body of the nation were revealed by events which attracted the attention of all who were interested in the maintenance of tranquillity in Greece. A new chamber of deputies met in November 1859, composed almost entirely of candidates who had received the support of the government authorities. The system of selecting government candidates began to cause dissatisfaction, for though the people were not disposed to reject the persons recommended by official authority, which had it in its power to confer favours, they were desirous of selecting their own men without opposing the government. Kanares expressed this feeling in the senate, and gained great popularity by his observations. He demanded that the ministry should distinctly repudiate the system of recommending government candidates to the constituencies, and alluded to the dissatisfaction that arose from the use of the King’s name and the influence of the court at elections.

The second session of the sixth chamber under the constitu­tion of 1844 was opened on the 12th November i860. The success of the Italian war roused the spirit of liberty in Greece, and created an unusual opposition to the Bavarian dynasty. The president of the chamber was elected on the 27th November, and although the court and the ministry exerted all their powers of intimidation and corruption to secure the election of Kalliphronas, the opposition succeeded in electing Zaimes by a majority of 62 to 50. This unex­pected check disconcerted both the ministry and the court. The Miaoulis ministry tendered their resignation, but King Otho preferred dissolving the chamber.

By this dissolution the government involved itself in a conflict with the nation. The first signs of the collision were the seizure of newspapers and attempts to intimidate the press. In a single day five newspapers were seized at Athens, but the cause of the editors was popular,, so that they treated the prosecution with contempt, and used it as an advertise­ment of their political principles and a means of increasing the sale of their papers ². While Garibaldi was conquering

¹      See p. 201.

²      Avj-q, November 21, 28, and 30, December 19 and 21, 1S60,

252                                       CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.                             ,

[Bk.V.Ch.V |.

the kingdom of Naples, there was little chance of the liberty ■■ of the press in Greece succumbing to King Otho. On the!

16th January 1861 the ministry issued a proclamation, 1, reprobating the conduct of the opposition in electing aj I president who was not agreeable to the government and) ’• inviting the people to avenge the dignity of the crown. At^ . the same time it yielded so far to public opinion as to declarej . that the government would abstain from proposing ministerial! 1 candidates at the coming elections^l. The partizans of the. ministry, the agents of the court, the officials of the central ¹ administration, and the officers of the municipalities, paid no attention to this proclamation, and on no occasion were violence and corruption more generally employed to insure! the election of the candidates favoured by ministers.! Nomarchs, eparchs, officers and men of the gendarmerie, collectors of taxes, custom-house officers, judges, justices of the peace, schoolmasters, demarchs, forest guards, and rural policemen, were ordered either openly or secretly to support! particular candidates. The principal object of the govern­ment. and more especially of Queen Amalia, was to exclude from the new chamber every one of the sixty-two deputies who had voted against the government candidate for the presidency of the chamber in the preceding session. The municipal system had been falsified and perverted into an agency of the central administration, by making the demarchs nominees of the minister of the interior and instruments of the nomarchs. An attempt was now made to reduce the chamber of deputies to complete subserviency by filling it with demarchs. From the Peloponnesus alone, twenty-nine demarchs were returned as deputies, and in other parts of the kingdom the proportion was not less. This phalanx of servility was headed by the demarch of Athens, and the fact was so striking that the people gave the chamber the name of I the chamber of demarchs². In order to render the senate as I subservient as the representatives, eighteen new senators were I appointed from men of inferior rank, and the organic law of the senate was violated by intruding men not legally qualified into the body ³,

¹                                            Aiyrj, 5th (17th) January, 1S61.                                            I

²                                            Av't’f], 25th February, 1S61.                                                     f

³      Among these was Tipaldos Kotzakos, chief librarian of the University, who

CHAMBER OF 1861.        2^

A.D. 1861.]

The seventh parliament of King Otho’s constitutional reign was opened by the king in person on the 27th February 1861. Nearly two months were employed in reviewing the elections, and the chambers then voted replies to the royal speech, expressing servile devotion to the policy of the ministers. The English minister, Sir Thomas Wyse, warned the government of the danger of acting thus openly in defiance of the general feeling of the people. He pointed out the imprudence of committing the control of the legisla­ture to men notoriously elected by corrupt influence, and who were despised by the people, whom they pretended to repre­sent, for their poverty and avidity as well as for their ignorance and servility. But King Otho and Queen Amalia were reminded in vain that political corruption only increases the power of government for a time, while it invariably diminishes the strength of the nation. It was impossible to make them perceive that the royal authority v/as weakened by the contempt the people imbibed for their rulers.

General discontent and military disorganization made great progress during 1861. The spirit of the country became more liberal, and the ministry became more violent and arbitrary. It also became more unpopular even among the official class by the resignation of Koumoundouros, the minister of finance, who was succeeded by Simos, a member of the English party, which has supplied a succession of deserters to the court faction. A plot against the king and the Bavarians was discovered with extensive ramifications among the officers of the army, and in this many were engaged who owed their advancement to the favour of the court and not to their merit or their seniority. Even this symptom of moral cor­ruption made very little impression on the mind of King Otho.

The health of King Otho rendered a visit to the baths of Carlsbad advisable ; and it was said that he desired to arrive at some definite arrangement with his family on the subject of the succession to the throne of Greece. The regency of Queen Amalia was not agreeable to the house of Bavaria, and the Greek court was divided into two parties ; one remained devoted to the king and the house of Bavaria ; the other

had made a short apparition in Greece among the followers of Prince Demetrius Hypsilantes in 1821. His case is noticed in the AU717, 7th March, 1S61.

i

254 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

[Bk.V. Ch.V.

desired a change of dynasty and an orthodox successor, and this party sought support by attaching itself to the queen. These intrigues and the general discontent of the country threatened to cause a revolution, or at least an insurrection, when an attempt to assassinate Queen Amalia on the 18th September 1861 suddenly revived the feeling of loyalty throughout Greece and restored to the queen all her former popularity. Aristides Dosios w^ras the name of the assassin. He was a young man of eighteen, and his father had held several official appointments under the ministers of King Otho. This youth fired a pistol at the queen in the streets of Athens as she was returning from her evening ride on horseback. He was immediately arrested. His crime excited universal indignation, for whatever might be the political errors of Queen Amalia she was respected for her private virtues, and even those who blamed her conduct acknowledged that she possessed many estimable qualities. The sincere but often exaggerated assurances of devotion which she received on this occasion were calculated to mislead her into a belief that her government was extremely popular and her person universally beloved. Young Dosios, crazy with political fanaticism, boasted of his patriotism as a sufficient excuse for his crime, and argued that if he had succeeded in assassinating the queen-regent his country would have been delivered from foreign tyrants, since a provisional government must have been created which would have prevented the return of King Otho and insured the expulsion of the Bavarian dynasty. During his imprison­ment he never showed any marks of fear, nor appeared to be shaken for a moment in the conviction that his crime was a meritorious act of patriotism. The vitiated state of public opinion was revealed by the popularity of his crime with a large portion of the youth of Athens. Several conspiracies were formed to deliver him from prison, in which many military men took part.

The chambers met on the 2nd October 1861. King Otho returned from Germany on the 30th, and though he was well received by his subjects, every day furnished proof that the ^£ chamber of demarchs ’ was extremely unpopular, and that a hostile feeling against the corrupt senate, the servile minis­ters, and the incapable king, who supported every abuse and

NEGOTIATIONS WITH KAN ARES.         255

A.D. 1862.]

made his crown and not the nation the object of his care, was rapidly increasing.

The year 1862 opened with gloomy forebodings. The prime minister, Miaoulis, could not overlook the national discontent, and he at last warned King Otho that the state of the public mind afforded cause of alarm ; he offered the resignation of his ministry and advised the king to make some concessions to public opinion. Admiral Kanares was the most popular man in Greece at the time. His services, his fame, his position as a senator which he had not abused, and his declared opposition to the system of falsifying consti­tutional government by corrupt chambers, had made him the idol of the people. His great influence, if wisely used, might enable him to unite the best men in the country as members of a ministry under his presidency. He had kept aloof from the court, when servility was the only path to court favour, and he was universally respected for the sim­plicity of his private life. Greece was proud of having one distinguished man of the Hellenic race who was neither a sycophant nor a place-hunter. But unfortunately Kanares possessed neither the sagacity nor the experience necessary to hold a steady course in the midst of the political intrigues of his friends ; so that with all the inherent greatness of his character, he was utterly unfit to be a prime minister. King Otho understood his deficiencies perfectly and resolved to profit by them.

King Otho acted under the strange delusion that he was himself an honest statesman, and he believed that it was his honesty which rendered him superior to the ablest politicians in Greece. He could not understand, for his mental percep­tions were very circumscribed, that what appeared to him to be fair in a king, must appear to be something very like trickery in a private person. One of the leading features of his policy was to exhibit the public men in Greece in an unfavourable light, either as seeking and receiving unmerited favours, or as voluntarily exhibiting themselves as venal in­struments of his power. It forms a remarkable trait in King Otho’s dull intellect, that he knew how to conduct a game of personal intrigue with patient sagacity and to foil the restless activity of the acutest Greek. His caution in con­cealing his combinations, and his inert watchfulness in

256                                      CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.                           I I

'                              [Bk. V. Ch. V. I*¹

observing the errors of others, enabled him to profit by

every event that conduced to the success of his schemes. V

The facility with which he won over deserters from the I*¹

liberal party, like Tricoupi and Simos, destroyed both his I¹

own and the people’s confidence in political honesty. Ka- l?i

nares was still a man whom neither the king nor the people T

believed could be gained by any bribe, either of wealth, rank, ^

or honours, so that King Otho schemed to make Kanares

himself the pilot of his own political shipwreck.       ^r

In January 1862 Admiral Kanares was invited by the king r to form a ministry. Before accepting the charge he presented to his Majesty a memoir stating the principles on which he ₍ proposed to act, and asked for the royal sanction of these ’ principles and the king’s promise of support, as the only I grounds on which he could rest any hope of success. Kanares was a man destitute of education, and King Otho knew that !' the memoir must be the work of some person under whose guidance the admiral was acting. The important point was to ascertain whether Kanares could secure the assistance of able and influential colleagues, or would fall entirely into the hands of a cabinet of personal followers. Before offering the premiership to Kanares, King Otho had already taken mea­sures to deter the ablest senators and deputies from accepting ■ office in a ministry which was likely to prove of short duration, and he allured the ambitious with hopes of be­coming members of a more permanent cabinet. When the admiral sought the co-operation of several members of the opposition whose official assistance he considered valuable, he met with a refusal from every senator or deputy of political influence to whom he applied. This threw him entirely into the hands of a few intriguers, who used his name as a means for furthering their own advancement.

The memoir presented by Kanares to the king was pre­pared by one of the admiral’s followers who hoped to force himself into a cabinet office. It was an able document, but all its demands were not suited to the actual condition of public affairs, nor to the character of Greek politicians. It attempted to give the ministry stability in office, but it neglected to insure a better conduct of ministerial business, and to enforce responsibility in financial matters by greater publicity. The maxim that the king as a constitutional

lies

NEGOTIATIONS WITH KANARES. 257

A.D. 1862.]

sovereign must reign and not govern, was crudely stated, though it is a principle to which the Greek people are decidedly opposed, for the Greeks look to the governing power of the king as their best defence against ministerial oppression and party jobbing. It appears to them also to be the best guarantee for the equitable administration of justice. The king alone in the corrupt political society of Greece has, in their opinion, no interest to cheat and op­press the people, and he has, they think, the same interest as the people to prevent injustice. The phrase, moreover, that the king should reign and not govern, with Kanares for prime minister, could only signify that the personal ad­visers of Kanares were to direct all political business and govern Greece, while King Otho was to confine himself to pageantry and court ceremonial. There could be no doubt that the country would gain nothing by substituting the camarilla of Admiral Kanares for the camarilla of King Otho.

The memoir stated that the formation of the cabinet was to be entrusted to the prime minister, and that the cabinet was to conduct the government on its responsibility without direct interference on the part of the crown. But it omitted to state by what means the king was to exercise his constitutional control over his ministers, and enforce responsibility both to himself and his people in the conduct of the different minis­terial departments. It contemplated establishing parliamentary government without parliamentary control. The king was required, after taking a reasonable time for examining the measures submitted to him, either to adopt them, when they had received the approval of a formal cabinet council, or dis­miss the ministry. The existing anaktobonlion, of which M. Wendland, the king’s secretary, was a member, and which was called the camarilla, was to cease ; the members of the royal household, the aularch and staularch, were to be expressly prohibited from influencing the votes of the senators and deputies by promises of court favour, and the influence of the court was not to be again employed to encourage opposition to the ministry. The existing chamber of deputies was to be dissolved, and the senate, which the intrusion of eighteen servile members had degraded, was to be reformed. The laws relative to the press were to be equitably administered,

VOL. VII.         S

i

258 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

[Bk.V. Ch. V

and public credit was to be restored by enforcing economy in the public expenditure.

Doubtless King Otho read this memoir with the greatest astonishment as well as indignation ; unfortunately he directed his attention so entirely to its defects, that he neglected to observe its importance as an echo of national feeling. He regarded it as an attempt of designing men to rob him of his sacred rights as a king, and to use Kanares as a stepping- stone for concentrating power in their own hands. Animosity sharpened his intelligence, and he soon devised a plan for frustrating what he viewed as a conspiracy for robbing royalty of its lawful authority in the state. Otho had no clear con­ception of what patriotism really was, and no settled conviction that the Greek people had a better right to good government than a foreign king could have to occupy the Greek throne. He looked round with his usual cunning for the means of placing his conduct as a constitutional sovereign in advan­tageous contrast with the ambitious demands of Kanares as prime minister. To deny the leading principles of the memoir was dangerous, and King Otho knew enough of Greece to fear that any hesitation might place him in such violent opposition to his people as to cause a revolution. The danger he had encountered in 1843 was not forgotten at this crisis. He accepted the principles of the memoir without offering any objections, and authorized Kanares to form a ministry, re­solved to seek for a chance of overthrowing the schemes of the admiral's advisers.

The king’s intrigues, as has been noticed already, prevented Kanares from obtaining the support of the men best suited for giving efficiency to his ministry. He was consequently com­pelled to select as his colleagues men in the secondary rank of Greek politicians. Instead of choosing men of official expe­rience and honourable character in this class, he formed his cabinet of personal adherents and political adventurers. Kanares presented the list of his colleagues to King Otho, who read it with satisfaction, for the names proved that the royal policy had triumphed and forced Kanares into bad company¹. The king dismissed Kanares from his last

¹ This ill-famed list was, Admiral Kanares, President of the Council and Minister of the Marine; D. Kalliphronas, Interior; P. Soutzos, Foreign Affairs; Petzales,

NEGOTIATIONS WITH KAN ARES.         2KQ

a.d. 1862.]

audience as soon as he had read the list, observing that the royal decision would be communicated to the admiral in a few hours. Copies of the list were immediately dis­tributed among the people, and when the names were read aloud ^ they were received with shouts of derision. Noisy politicians and students of the university had filled the square before the royal palace from sunrise to sunset for two days, while the negotiations with Kanares were going on. Each day the admiral had walked through admiring crowds attended by enthusiastic followers, who hailed him as a hero and the saviour of his country. The names of the colleagues he had selected to form his cabinet, produced an instantaneous revulsion of public opinion. The saviour of his country showed himself as a tool in the hands of selfish place- hunters. Patriotism was declared to be in a state of bank­ruptcy. The crowds that filled the square slunk away to their homes, every man grievously disappointed, and many in the frame of mind that fits men for revolutions.

King Otho thoroughly enjoyed this victory, which he regarded as a proof of his ability in king-craft; he had no doubt of the righteousness of his cause, nor of the justice of the means by which he obtained success. Indeed, he was one of those who hardly believed that a king, who was seeking to increase or defend the royal power, could go wrong in politics. He informed Kanares in a written communication, that the persons proposed as ministers were so unsuited to the exigencies of public affairs, that he thanked the admiral for his zeal in endeavouring to form a ministry and would relieve him from all further exertions. The news of this step was received with cynic indifference, for public opinion unhesitatingly pronounced the cabinet proposed by Kanares to be a very bad substitute for the Miaoulis ministry. King Otho suddenly became the popular hero of the hour to the people of Athens, who still take great delight in any intellectual contest, and who were doubly pleased by the unexpected acuteness with which their stolid monarch had won the game of intrigue when the odds were deci­dedly against him. His cunning in frustrating the scheme

Justice; M. Schinas, Public Instruction and Religion ; Anastasios Mavromichales, War; the Finance department remained vacant.

S 2

26o CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY.

[Bk.V. Ch.V.

of the political adventurers who believed they could force their way into the ministry by making use of the fame of Kanares, struck a responsive chord in the hearts of his subjects. For a few days the Greeks lost sight of the ulti­mate result, overlooked the national degradation, and forgot that if a revolution was at hand nothing had been done to avert it.

On the evening of the day on which Kanares made ship­wreck of his political influence, King Otho and Queen Amalia rode out of their palace gates amidst the acclamations of an admiring crowd. The royal pair flattered themselves that I they listened to the voice of the nation proclaiming its devotion to royalty, when they really heard only the applause of spectators gratified by a peep behind the scenes at a political comedy.

Had Kanares possessed any political sagacity, or had his advisers possessed a fair amount of political honesty, the personal defeat of the admiral might have been converted into a victory of constitutional principles and a step to good government. The contents of the memoir were known to few, but it had received the king’s approbation. By pub­lishing it immediately, and appealing to public opinion concerning measures, the names of his colleagues would have soon become a thing of the past, and the policy he recom­mended might have served as a permanent guide. It was a duty he owed to himself and his country, to make public the conditions on which he proposed to accept office, and to which he had vainly solicited the co-operation of the most eminent senators and deputies of the opposition. His contest with the court would then have been transferred from a question of a few insignificant politicians to a question of principles of government; and to recover his lost popularity, it would only have been necessary for Kanares to declare in his place in the senate, that as a senator and a citizen he was ready to support any ministry that adopted the principles of his memoir. The question of the practical application of administrative reform would have been fairly brought forward, and Greece might have made a step towards good government without being under the necessity of making a revolution. If the reports circulated at the time were correct, either King Otho or the camarilla gained over some

NEGOTIATIONS WITH KAN ARES.         261

A.D. 1862.]

adviser of Kanares, who had sufficient influence to prevent the publication until it ceased to be of any political im­portance. The report, whether true or false, shows the estimation in which the admiral’s advisers were held by their countrymen.

CHAPTER VI.

[SUPPLEMENTARY.]

Chance of Dynasty.—Establishment of New Constitution—1862 to 1864.

Revolt of the garrison of Nauplia.—Question of the succession to the throne of Greece.—The Hon. Henry Elliot's first mission to Greece.—Revolution of 1862.—Negotiations relating to the election of Prince Alfred to te King of Greece.—Results of the revolution.—Election of Prince Alfred.—Mr. Elliot's second mission.—Election of George I.—Military disorders and civil war at Athens.—Position of the new King.—Union of the Ionian Islands.— National Assembly.—Constitution of 1864.—Abolition of the Senate.—Crea­tion and abolition of a council of state.—Conclusion.

The storm that swept the Bavarian dynasty from Greece began now to burst on the country. In less than a month after the failure of the negotiations with Kanares the first thunderbolt fell. On the 13th February 1862 the garrison of Nauplia, which consisted of 900 men, broke out in open rebellion. It w^ras a mere military revolt, caused by the demoralized and disorganized condition of the Greek army, not by political conviction or patriotism; and it received no support from the nation. In vain the leaders published proclamations calling on the people to take up arms. The names of those who headed the movement inspired no con­fidence that they sought anything but promotion and the gratification of personal ambition. For some time previous, it had been evident that the army was in a state of anarchy. Plots had been discovered, in which officers who had received unmerited favour from the court were prominent conspirators. Several had been tried and condemned to imprisonment. Most of these were confined at Nauplia. Others suspected

REVOLT OF NAUPLIA.

2 63

of discontent were ordered to reside in that fortress. Military honour and personal gratitude to the king for favours conferred were alike forgotten. In the undisciplined, ill-commanded, and ill-organized army of a badly governed country, doubtless treachery must exist, but as Milton says of tyranny, ‘to the traitor thereby no excuse.’

The government took prompt measures to suppress the revolt. Troops were assembled at the Isthmus of Corinth, where they were harangued by King Otho. But the com­position of the force revealed the fact that the government did not place implicit reliance on the regular army, on which millions of drachmas had been lavished to no good purpose. Irregular bands of armed men who carricd old fire-locks were placed under the command of military chiefs who called themselves generals. The abbot of the monastery of Phane- romene in Salamis was allowed to place himself at the head of a body of Albanian peasants¹. The generals in fustanella were spies on the colonels in uniform, and the clerical soldier was a spy on all. Both Greece and King Otho were fortunate in having in their service a foreign officer who could be entrusted with the chief command without awakening new jealousies. General Hahn, a Swiss Philhellene who came to Greece as a volunteer during the Revolution, and in thirty-five years of constant service had risen to the highest rank, free from all political and party ties, was a gentleman and a soldier. He possessed the character as well as the experience required for repressing the disorders and intrigues of the irregular officers, who sought to prolong the civil war for the purpose of reorganizing bands of personal followers, reviving military chieftainships, and wreaking vengeance on private enemies.

On the 13th of March the royal troops carried all the outworks of the rebels by assault after a feeble defence, in which Colonel Koronaios one of their leaders was wounded and taken prisoner. The insurgents were then shut up within the walls of Nauplia, and from that moment their cause was desperate ; still the younger officers, both commissioned and non-commissioned, rejected all offers of capitulation. King Otho also delayed the termination of the revolt by

¹ The name of this monastery is connected with a local tradition, and is not derived from the ‘ manifestation ’ (tpavepajais).

264 CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

[Bk V. Ch. VI.'

refusing for some time to grant a comprehensive amnesty; but he was warned that his own troops would not allow the insurgents to be severely punished ; and slowly and reluctantly he was persuaded to place full power for arranging! a capitulation in the hands of General Hahn. The king’s! concessions were made so ungraciously that the promises of amnesty were received with distrust. More confidence was placed in the honour of General Hahn than in the word of King Otho. At last a capitulation was concluded, allowing the officers and men who were excepted from the amnesty, or who refused to accept it, to quit Greece. The number was 220, and of these 200 asked to be embarked under the guarantee of the English flag, and were carried to Smyrna by H. M. S. ‘Pelican.’ This was one of the first indications of the revived popularity of England in Greece. The others were embarked in a French corvette. On the 20th April 1862 the royal troops entered Nauplia, but the victory caused no joy in Greece.

The revolt at Nauplia was not an isolated act of rebellion. Other revolutionary movements were commenced at Syra, Chalcis, and Kythnos, but they were quickly suppressed, though not without bloodshed. Nor could the fact be con­cealed that the victory of government had neither increased its strength nor decreased the popular discontent.

The court made an effort to regain popularity by affecting to patronize a scheme for invading Turkey. A ministerial paper, when noticing what it called ‘ the glorious victory of the royal army over the bravest rebels who ever fought in a bad cause,’ proceeded to boast that if the king could unite such heroes in propagating the ‘great idea’ with the sword, he would have it in his power to change the condition of the East. The conquest of the kingdom of the two Sicilies by a handful of volunteers under Garibaldi was assumed to be an irrefragable proof that a brigade of Greeks under some cattle-lifting general who had plundered the Turkish frontier in 1854 could march to Constantinople and establish a new Byzantine empire. On this occasion public opinion was not misled, and no Greek believed that either the king or the court party had any serious intention of committing such an act of folly as openly to attack Turkey. Otho knew well that a rupture with the sultan would annihilate the commerce

QUESTION OF THE SUCCESSION. 265

A.D. 1862.]

of Greece, produce an occupation of his capital by foreign troops, and in all probability put an end to his reign ; while the people saw that the loss of a national government, at least for a time, would be the immediate consequence of foreign interference.

The invasion of Turkey was not thought sufficient to gratify the ambition of the Hellenic race. The triumph of the union party in the Ionian Islands was also the subject of articles in «ii newspapers devoted to the interests of the court. Loyalty nursr to King Otho was supposed to be best indicated by expressing in® hatred of England ; and some of the organs of the continental erl press countenanced the opinion that hatred of England in- nnrs sured the support of a numerous party in France and Germany, atior Neither King Otho nor Queen Amalia perceived what others fe* saw clearly, that they were forfeiting their self-respect by Apn- their hypocritical hostility to Turkey, and making themselves W contemptible by their vain animosity against England.

¹      The question of the succession to the Greek throne occupied .liioiT more of public attention than either the invasion of Turkey jyn or the union of the Ionian Islands ; yet the servility of the senators and deputies prevented the question from being cod- discussed in the chambers, and settled by a clear and definite decision. It is well known that King Otho from the habit of his mind and the nature of his position was averse to a solution of the question. Even the Greek newspapers, for they generally represent place-hunting parties much more than public feeling, said comparatively little on a subject t in concerning which it was difficult to publish.anything impressive without drawing down the vengeance of the court. But the 3rd, question was so constantly discussed and so thoroughly sifted in private society and in the Athenian coffee-houses, that it exercised no inconsiderable influence in determining the course of events.

The treaty that placed the Bavarian dynasty on the throne of Greece in 1832 provided that ‘in the event of the decease of King Otho without lawful issue, the crown should pass iot to his younger brothers and their lawful descendants in the order of primogeniture.’ But the 40th article of the con­stitution of 1844 modified this provision by declaring ‘that the successor to the throne of Greece must profess the religion of the orthodox Eastern Church.’ And further, a decree

v

266 CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

[Bk. V. Ch. VI.

of the national assembly of 1844, ratified by the king, con­ferred the regency on Queen Amalia during her widowhood, in case the successor to the throne should be a minor. This decree was particularly displeasing to the court of Bavaria. The article of the constitution and the decree were never­theless embodied in a treaty between the three protecting powers, Bavaria, and Greece in 1852. But the Bavarian plenipotentiary, before signing this treaty, delivered to the protecting powers a declaration that the court of Bavaria did not consider it incumbent on the princes who might be called to the throne of Greece after King Otho’s decease to fulfil the condition of the 40th article of the Greek con­stitution before the succession opened to the heir, and that the prince of the house of Bavaria who fulfilled the condition should then ascend the throne of Greece. And he protested that the regency of Queen Amalia could not prejudice any rights of succession which the princes of the house of Bavaria had acquired by treaties. The declaration of the Bavarian plenipotentiary implied in addition, that the three protecting powers were bound by the explanatory convention of 1833 to guarantee the throne of Greece to the two younger brothers of King Otho and their descendants. This declaration caused the Greek plenipotentiary to deliver to the powers a statement that the Greek constitution only referred to the conditions in the 8th article of the treaty of 1832, and that he was not authorized by the Greek government to recognize any inference not expressly indicated in the words of the treaty and of the 40th article of the Greek constitution. This solemn warning did not open the eyes of the house of Bavaria to the true position in which it stood with reference to the throne of Greece. The members of the royal family of Bavaria imagined that King Otho would be both able and willing to persuade the Greeks to modify the application of the 40th article of their constitution, and supposed that they had a right to claim the support of the three protecting powers under the stipulations in the treaty of 1832 and the convention of 1833, without reference to the change of religion imposed on the suc­cessor to the throne of Greece by the constitution of 1844.

Queen Amalia adopted the views of the constitutionalists on the question of the succession, for their support was to her indispensable, since her right to the regency was derived

QUESTION OF THE SUCCESSION. 267

A.D. 1862.]

solely from the constitution. Her interest was therefore opposed to the views of the Bavarian court; and the un­decided mind of King Otho was subjected to the adverse influences of his wife and his family. A coldness arose between Queen Amalia and the house of Bavaria, and little pains were taken to conceal this from the Greeks. Rumours were from time to time disseminated at Athens, that a younger brother of the queen was about to enter the Greek Church, and that every member of the house of Bavaria having refused to embrace the orthodox faith, he was to be proposed as the successor to the Greek throne by King Otho with the consent of the three protecting powers. It was believed both in Greece and Bavaria that these reports were countenanced and perhaps originated by Queen Amalia. The interests of the Greek people required that the question of the succession should not be allowed to remain indefinitely a cause of disturbance and intrigue. No prince of Bavaria having entered the orthodox church, the throne had remained without a constitutional heir ever since the year 1844. This fact was recognized by the treaty of 1852, but only in an indirect and diplomatic way. The case which was foreseen by the 39th article of the Greek constitution had occurred. That article declared that in the absence of an heir to the throne, the king was authorized to name his successor with the consent of two-thirds of the chamber of deputies and senate. The constitution and the three protecting powers consequently favoured the views of Queen Amalia and of those who wished to exclude the Bavarian dynasty from the throne without a revolution. The Bavarian court would not recognize the illegality, and was ignorant of the danger of its position. King Otho could not make up his mind to demand that a prince of his house should undergo the offensive ceremony of rebaptism, which Greek bigotry considers neces­sary to efface the stain of heresy from a Catholic or Protestant who desires to become a member of the orthodox Eastern Church. Certainly it would have been difficult for a prince of the Catholic house of Bavaria to conceal even under a royal title the disgrace which apostasy would fix on any member of the house of Wittelsbach. If Queen Amalia survived her husband, she would adopt the inter­pretation of the constitution generally adopted by the Greeks,

268 CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

[Bk.V. Ch.VlJ i*¹*--

jliltiT,

'I®

and a Bavarian prince according to that interpretation could: only mount the throne of Greece in virtue of an election, according to the form indicated by the constitution. A Catholic who offered to embrace the orthodox faith after vacancy of the throne occurred, could have no legal claim to the crown, since he had not complied with the terms required by the constitution. The delay on the part ofi King Otho was natural. He had no desire to recognize an orthodox successor, with whom his orthodox subjects might feel a disposition to carry on orthodox intrigues, which had often caused him serious alarm when there was no orthodox successor in existence.

Though the principles of Queen Amalia on the questionfljioft of the succession were constitutional, her proceedings werejjpy impolitic. Had she survived King Otho, her position as regent would have rendered her the arbitress of the question; but her partizans, the votaries of the great idea, and all the phil-orthodox faction, urged the necessity of naming a successor during King Otho’s life; and all the political adventurers who desired a revolution aided in keeping the subject before the public. The Greek nation never had any sympathy with the house of Bavaria, and these discussions concerning the succession persuaded them that the three protecting powers were not disinclined to a dynastic change. Little did Queen Amalia think that the question with which she trifled from a want of any rational occupation and of all cultivated society, was supplying arguments for a revolution. Neither she nor most of those who advocated her views were aware that they were nourishing opinions the most adverse to the success of their projects. The public at Athens, seeing the want of unity in the policy of the court, often repeated with a sneer ‘ if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.’

When a nation desires to reform its own abuses, and feels reproaches of conscience for not enforcing the principles it advocates, discontent becomes dangerous, and the government is generally made responsible for the national faults, even though it has only acted as the agent of the nation. The Greek government had to answer for many errors of its own, and it was now held responsible for the national faults also. The British government saw that Greece was in a dangerous

$

IVCj

FIRST MISSION OF MR. ELLIOT.   269

u>. 1862.]

position. Sir Thomas Wyse, the British minister, died at ,iis post, and the Hon. Henry Elliot, who had fulfilled a somewhat similar special mission to Naples, was sent on a special mission to warn King Otho. The instructions of -jMr. Elliot have not been published, but it is probable that ‘ jhe was charged to point out the dangerous position of the jBavarian dynasty in consequence of there being no con- jstitutional heir to the Greek crown, and the critical position ' jof King Otho from the discontent caused by the manner jin which the chamber of deputies had been elected. The British government may have thought it prudent to relieve itself from all responsibility arising out of the treaty of 1832, in case fresh insurrections should occur in Greece, for it can hardly have entertained any hope that either the king or queen, the Bavarian court, or the Greek ministers would pay the slightest attention to its remonstrances. The mission of Mr. Elliot proved useless. King Otho would not dissolve his obsequious chamber of demarchs, nor change his policy. He only changed his ministers, and the names of the members of his new cabinet inspired even less confidence than those of their predecessors in every one except Lord John Russell¹. Before leaving Athens Mr. Elliot communicated to King Otho’s government a despatch of the British foreign secretary approving of the change of ministry, and this result of the special mission, like the result of the finance commission, afforded the enemies of Great Britain plausible ground for declaiming against English hypocrisy. Lord John Russell could know very little about the merits or demerits of the new cabinet, and there were strong reasons for his not giving any opinion on the subject. There was something inane in the British government offering a voluntary approval of a ministry in which Spiro Melios, the champion of the great idea and the organ of steady hostility to British policy, was a prominent member. The disturbed state of the country was certainly not quieted by the acts of this new ministry. It endeavoured vainly to divert the attention of the people from their own business to the affairs of Turkey and the

)r)

tier

¹ The members of this ministry were, General John Kolokotrones, President and Minister of the Interior; General Spiro Melios, War; Mexes, Marine; Chat- ziskos, Public Instruction; Levides, Finance; Eliopoulos, Justice; Theochares, Foreign Affairs, replaced by Dragoumes.

270 CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

[Bk. V. Ch. VI.

succcssion to the crown. The visit of an orthodox prince of the house of Oldenburg supplied the occasion for the one, and hostilities against Montenegro a pretext for the other. Subscriptions were set on foot in Greece to aid the orthodox Montenegrins to resist the sultan, and articles appeared in the Greek newspapers, foretelling that the Greeks would soon be in possession of Constantinople. In the meantime, there were constant rumours of plots and ap­proaching insurrections, but Kolokotrones and Spiro Melios, relying on their own servile informants, assured King Otho that there was no cause for serious alarm \

Information that the people of Acarnania were going to take up arms was transmitted to Mr. Scarlett, the British minister at Athens, by Mr. Black the vice-consul at Mesolonghi. But the report of the nomarch made no mention of any danger, and Queen Amalia ridiculed the warning because it came from an English source. She could see so little into the upright and honourable character of Mr. Scarlett, that she supposed he made the communication merely to frighten the Greek court into adopting measures agreeable to British policy. The in­surrection in Acarnania was to take place in the beginning of

¹      The state of Greece at this time is described by a French writer (Francois Lenormant) who has written much on the subject, but who often confounds rumours with facts. ‘ Depuis que l’insurrection de Nauplie s’etait terminee sans amener aucun changement, l’imminence d'une crise encore plus grave ne pouvait etre meconnue de personne. Ainsi les intrigues les plus contradictoires se crois- aient, poussees avec une inconcevable aclivite. Le Roi lui-meme conspirait avec le parti d^:action italien, pour detourner vers une entreprise exterieure l’agitation des esprits, et pour eviter ainsi la necessite d’accordcr des reformes liberates. Des agents parcouraient la Turquie afin d’y preparer un soulevement, tandi-. qu’une correspondance suivie s’echangeait entre Caprera et le palais d’Athenes. Une autre intrigue, ourdie aussi dans le palais meme, tendait a faire passer le sceptre de la maison de Wittelsbach dans celle d’Oldenburg, a laquelle appartenait la reine Amalie. En revanche, la legation de Liaviere etait en relations etroites avec les revolutionnaires: elle les flattait, les encourageait, s’efforgait de leur servir de centre, esperant sauver la dynastie en sacrifiant le Roi, elle poussait a un mouve- ment qui contraignit Othon a abdiauer en faveur d’un de ses neveux, fils du Prince Luitpold. Les autres ambassades, au lieu de chercher a detourner la crise, tra- vaillaient a en lirer parti. La Turquie fomentait le desordre uniquement pour le desordre, son interet etant d’entraver le progres, qui, en se developpant en Grece, devient un danger pour elle ; la legation d’ltalie accueillait les mecontents qui parlaient d’appeler au trone un prince de la maison de Savoie. Quant a la Russie, elle intriguait en faveur du Due de Leuch ten berg, un pretendant de la religion Grecque, neveu du roi Othon, proche parent du Czar et de l’empereur des Frangais ; et la legation de France, si elle ne s’associait pas activement a toutes ces intrigues, les voyait du moins d’un ceil favorable. Enfin l’Angleterre ne s’endormait pas non plus; inactive en apparence, elle ourdissait une traine encore plus serree, et preparait sous main la candidature du Prince Alfred. Partis interieurs et gouveme- ments etrangers, tous etaient d’accord pour porter le dernier coup a une monarchie qui se mourrait.’

REVOLUTION.        271

A.D. 1862.]

October ; circumstances delayed the outbreak until assurances arrived that it would be supported by a movement at Patras.

King Otho and Queen Amalia had made preparations for a tour in their kingdom, designed to encourage the court party in different parts of the country. The time fixed for the insurrection in Acarnania passed without any disturbance. It was then supposed that the information received by Mr. Scarlett was false, and there appeared to the king and his ministers no reason for delaying the royal tour. Queen Amalia was so firmly persuaded of her own popularity that she thought it a duty to make large purchases of jewellery to reward her faithful subjects. The royal pair left Athens on the 13th October 1862, and the feelings of the people were so effectually concealed by the manoeuvres of the government officials, central and municipal, that their majesties were received at every place they visited with loud demon­strations of loyalty.

Nearly about the time the king quitted Athens, the garrison of Vonitza, a small and useless fortress on the gulf of Arta, revolted. The insurrection spread rapidly in Acarnania and Aetolia. Theodore Griva, ever ready to take part in any movement that held out a prospect of anarchy and pillage, placed himself at the head of the insurgents and entered Mesolonghi, when the garrison and the people immediately joined the insurrection. On the 20th October a provisional government was formed at Patras with M. Rouphos at its head. On the night of the 22nd October the garrison of Athens, which had been prepared by agents who worked unnoticed by the ministers, broke out in open revolt. The minister of war, Spiro Melios, had assured King Otho on the eve of his quitting Athens that the spirit of the troops was excellent, and that his majesty might place the greatest confidence in the loyalty of the officers and men. But when the garrison took up arms, the ministers either from incapacity or cowardice deserted their duty, and made no effort to uphold the royal authority, nor to assemble a band of faithful adherents to protect the palace. The disorder was unchecked at Athens, where it was greater than in any other part of Greece, and at Athens it was greatest among the troops. The soldiers rushed out of their barracks with their pouches filled with ball cartridges, and

272 CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

[Bk. V. Ch. VI.

paraded through the streets in small bands during the whole night, keeping up an incessant fire of musketry, which sent the balls in every direction, breaking tiles, chimney pots, and windows, entering rooms, and killing several of the peaceful inhabitants.

Several discarded ministers of King Otho and a few young patriots assembled as soon as the troops had frightened the members of the government and the local authorities into places of concealment. A provisional government consisting of three members, and a ministry composed of eight persons, were invested with the executive power¹. In the morning the troops were joined by the populace, who rivalled the disorderly conduct of the soldiery. Many of the leading revolutionists obtained arms and ammunition for men devoted to their party interests. The wine-shops were filled with armed men, some in military uniforms and some in plain clothes, who drank revolutionary toasts, screamed revolutionary songs, and fired rifles loaded with conical balls at every conspicuous sign board². The public prison was broken open and the worst criminals were released. Several shops were plundered ; a few persons were killed and wounded by stray bullets, and one or two individuals were murdered from motives of private hatred. Many disgraceful scenes occurred. The houses of several Germans were pillaged, and a number of valuable objects from the royal palace and from the collection of antiquities in the Acropolis were stolen by those who ought to have guarded them. The shop of an English watchmaker was broken open, and watches to the value of from ^350 to £450 were stolen³. The shops remained shut and the streets remained insecure for two days.

¹      The members of the provisional government were, D. Bulgaris, President, K. Kanares, and B. Rouphos. The ministers were, T. Manghinas, Finance; T. Za'imes, Interior; A. Koumoundouros, Justice; D. Mavromichales, War; Ep. Deligeorges, Public Instruction; B. Nikolopoulos, Religion; A. Diamantopoulos, Foreign Affairs; and D. Kalliphronas, Marine.

²      The arms over the American consulate were pierced by a dozen bullets. Two conical balls entered the house of the Author, and several fell in the garden and yard.

³      Parliamentary Papers; Correspondence respecting the Revolution in Greece, October, 1862. Vice-Consul Merlin to Mr. Scarlett, p. 14. The valuable vase from Tenia, published by Ross, was stolen from the museum and purchased by Mr. Merlin, who restored it to the Archaeological Society. Other consuls who purchased stolen antiquities were not so conscientious, and Greece lost one or two curious objects. The antiquities which belonged to Queen Amalia were sold in the streets, and a terra-cotla of great interest was purchased by a Greek officer,

DEPARTURE OF KING OTHO.        273

A.D. 1862.]

The provisional government circulated printed papers during the night of the 22nd of October, and issued a proclamation on the morning of the 23rd, declaring that the reign of King Otho was at an end, that the regency of Queen Amalia was abolished, and that a national assembly would be immediately convoked to choose a new king and frame a new constitution.

The first information of a revolution in their capital recalled King Otho and Queen Amalia back towards Athens, which they were not allowed to enter. As soon as the guards on the look-out in the Acropolis and on the hill of the Museion signalled that the frigate bearing the royal standard was in sight, the self-disbanded soldiery and the people rushed down to the Piraeus determined to oppose the landing of the king. The commandant of the Piraeus was murdered by his own soldiers when he attempted to prepare for receiving King Otho with royal honours. His body was dragged through the streets and then cast into the sea. The frigate had not been many hours at anchor before the crew declared in favour of the provisional govern­ment, and King Otho was obliged to appeal to the ministers of the three protecting powers to enforce the treaty which thirty years before had placed the crown of Greece on his head and guaranteed the throne to the house of Bavaria. The declaration of the powers ‘that the election of King Otho had been made in virtue of a formal authorization on the part of the Greek nation, and that the three courts are all strictly obliged and firmly resolved to maintain it/ was of no avail, for their representatives at Athens saw clearly that the Greek nation had resumed its inherent right of sovereignty, and they knew' that King Otho had himself annulled many articles of the treaty. The protecting powers refusing to support the king against the nation, there remained nothing for King Otho but to quit Greece. He preferred embarking on board H. M. S. Scylla, which was the only British ship on the station, though it was a small vessel and afforded little accommodation to the royal passengers. King Otho, in spite of his dislike to the British government, preferred departing, as he came,

who afterwards presented it to King George, and it is now in the collection of the Archaeological Society. Soldiers and policemen continued for some time to offer valuable objects from the Acropolis for sale in the streets.

VOL. VII,         T

274 CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

[Bk. V. Ch. VI.

under the protection of the English flag. Before quitting the bay of Salamis he issued a proclamation dated on board the ‘ Scylla ’ 24th of October 1862, announcing that he left Greece for a time in order to avoid plunging the country in civil war. He has not abdicated his pretensions to the throne

This revolution cannot have taken any of the three pro­tecting powers by surprise, though the events that followed greatly astonished both the French and Russian governments and were quite unexpected by the English. The opinion that King Otho’s conduct and refusal to dissolve the chamber of demarchs would cause a civil war, if it failed to produce a revolution, was general. Neither Bavaria nor Austria ventured to appeal publicly to the treaty of 1832, and make a formal demand that the protecting powders should uphold the rights of the Bavarian dynasty. The right of the Greeks to expel King Otho for failing to establish good government, first as an absolute monarch and afterwards as a constitutional sovereign, was recognized by all Europe. The Greeks justified their revolution by the necessity of putting an end to a system of government that impeded their industrial progress and corrupted the public administration. Every day’s continuance of King Otho’s power increased the number and the influence of those who derived personal profit from misgovernment, and consequently delay in dethroning him tended to make the difficulties of reform grow hourly greater. The people were advancing in honesty and intelligence more rapidly than their government.

A generation had grown up since King Otho accepted the constitution. The wants and opinions of the people had undergone a great change, and the influence of the industrious classes had increased considerably. But, on the other hand, the class that furnished political leaders, military chiefs, and courtiers had undergone less change. The old men in the senate had the moral defects of an education among Turkish officials; the younger men had entered the senate by political subserviency ; the chamber of deputies was filled with hunters of places and pensions. Neither the king, the senators, nor the officials appear to have observed

¹      King Otho died at Bamberg 011 the 26th July, 1867.

UNANIMITY OF THE GREEKS.       275

U). 1862.]

the alteration in the national feeling. All classes among the people were impelled by a strong desire to better their ondition; the strict centralization of power in the hands Df the executive often thwarted progress. The liberty of the press enabled discontent to make its voice heard. The opinion prevailed generally that constitutional government and municipal administration, if fairly carried out in practice, would improve the condition of the country, and the people saw that they were not fairly carried out in practice, so that the nation and the ruling class were sure, sooner or later, to be involved in a political contest. The administrative mis­management of King Otho disorganized the army, paralyzed the public service, and wasted the financial resources of the ijcountry, when the events that have been narrated concen­trated against his person all the resentment of his subjects, jand he was expelled from Greece as a scape-goat for his own land for the nation’s sins, with the vain hope that his absence [would alone suffice to make those who remained behind do tid§their duty. Unfortunately for Greece, the errors and vices of ministers, senators, deputies, and officials, who had corrupted the public administration by creating places and appropriating money, could not be eradicated merely by the expulsion of the king.

The position of Greece was certainly improved by the revolution. The people showed a determination to correct the imperfections of their constitution and elect their new king themselves. The opinion which the British government gave on the question of the revolution and the conduct of the Greeks deserves to be recorded, because the promptitude with which it was given and the first mission of Mr. Elliot testify that it was the result of previous reflection. It is dated the 6th of November 1862.

‘During a long course of years the British government endeavoured to impress on King Otho the mistaken nature of the system of government which he pursued, and the necessity of adopting a system better calculated to conciliate the affection and confidence of his subjects and to promote the prosperity of Greece.

‘ The kingdom of Greece having by the transactions of 1832 been acknowledged as an independent state, the people of Greece are entitled to exercise the rights of national

T 2

lit

276 CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

[Bk. V. Ch. VI

independence; and one of the rights which belong to anj !st& independent nation is that of changing its governing dynasty upon good and sufficient cause.

‘ Her Majesty’s government cannot deny that the Greeks have had good and sufficient cause for the steps they have taken.

^£ Her Majesty’s government have no desire to influence the decision which the Greeks may come to as to the choice of their new sovereign, except to remind them that, by the agreements and engagements concluded in 1832 between England, France, and Russia, no person connected with the royal and imperial families of the three powers can be placed^ on the throne of Greece V   1

The British government was accused both by foreign states­men and French pamphleteers of having secretly and perfidi­ously cajoled and bribed the Greeks to elect Prince Alfred for their king. Foreign ministers perhaps believed the accusa-!j® tion, for they repeated it². The fact that the Russian¹ government, which has many Greeks of talent and education employed in its diplomatic and consular services, and innu­merable Greek priests and monks sincerely attached to its interests and eager to furnish it with information, was uninformed on the subject, might have taught the Russian® foreign secretary that there was great improbability in the'| supposition that the British government had been sufficiently! clcver to mould the opinions of the Greek nation and suffici-: ently unprincipled to deceive its allies. The truth is, that, the whole Greek nation simultaneously and in the most! distant quarters of the East proclaimed the candidature ofi Prince Alfred, before either Greek politicians or British consuls had time to act³. The writer of this work remembers

CM

r

fair,,' ij Ik

•a' ac

2::

din i! tn

?Pu

Gftrr!

iF

h.

,ir:-

E;

¹      Parliamentary Papers; Correspondence respecting the Revolution in Greece in October, 1S62. Earl Russell lo Mr. Scarlett, 6th November, 1862.

²      Prince Gortschakoff, the Russian minister of foreign affairs, said to Lord' Napier, the English ambassador at St. Petersburg, that ‘the English consular! authorities were perhaps not idle in the matter, and influences of the same kindi proceeded from the Lmian Islands.’ And Lord Napier mentioned that His Excel­lency wou!d ste in the official newspaper of Russia of the preceding Thursday! amongthe telegrams that the British government had ‘again taken up the candi-; dature of Piince Alfred. Parliamentary Papers, 1S62 ; Correspondence, p. 66.

Dimrgiei de Hauranne in an article in the Revue des Deux Mondes, October,! 1844, Si r la situation actuelle de la Grece (p. 207), says, with Parisian naivete, • S'il existe en Giece quelque chose d inexplicable, e’est l’existence d'un parli Anglais.’! And Irenchmen held the same opinion in .862. It is not worth while recording the falsehoods reiterated with obstinacy by the French press. A single example j

|                                         ELECTION OF PRINCE ALFRED.                                  277

D. 1862.]

hat Englishmen well acquainted with Greece were as much

•      ■^.stonished by the sudden enthusiasm of the whole Greek lation in favour of England as Frenchmen and Russians were.

is true that some Ionian politicians had framed one of hose plans for partitioning Turkey which are periodically >ut forward by Greek intriguers, and the name of Prince rUfred was introduced as a means of forming a kingdom to ;e composed of the Ionian Islands, Epirus, and Albania. The name of Prince Alfred became known to the Greeks t»e#:herefore as early as 1859 when he was only fifteen years old, !ia|jjind after the revolution, when a strong desire was felt to iDossess free institutions, it was natural to seek in a son of l^ueen Victoria a king who could both govern constitutionally tatejjind make the law respected.

.ni^| The British government, far from endeavouring to obtain my advantage from the popular enthusiasm in favour of Prince Alfred, only felt alarm lest any interference on the part of England should insure the success of a Russian zandidate. This fear was warranted by the conduct of the nhabitants of the Ionian Islands, by past events in Greece, and by the policy of Great Britain with regard to the Otho­man empire. Two recent circumstances however proved that a sincere respect for the English character existed in all classes. The rebel garrison of Nauplia preferred the pro­to;:! tection of the English flag, and King Otho declined the offer of a French frigate which Admiral Touchard placed at his disposal in order to embark in a small English ship like the Scylla.’ During the diplomatic negotiations which ensued e: after the Revolution, the primary object of the British govern- ent throughout was to exclude a Russian prince from the hrone of Greece, not to promote the election either of an

:• will suffice. M. Fram^ois Lenormant, who has written much on the political affairs and the archaeology of Greece, speaks of the candidature of Prince Alfred thus: ‘ Son succes tient a 1’espoir qu’entretient soigneusement Ia-bas le gouverne- ment britannique.^que le Prince Alfred apporterait en dot a la Grece. en montant sur le trone, les lies Ioniennes, et procurerait ainsi I'agrandissement dont le pays a besoin. Depuis plus de trois ans des intrigues poussees par Lord John Russell ont pris pour foyer Corfou. et avant la revolution d’Athenes elles excitaient les Grecs de 1’exterieur & se detacher du royaume hellenique pour former sous le sceptre du second fils de la reine Victoria un etat compose des lies Ioniennes, de jla Thessalie et de Candie, lequel s’annexerait un jour les etats du Roi Othon.’ He says also—‘ Au reste. le cabinet britannique a montre dans toute cette affaire une etrange duplicite,’ and adds, ‘nous doutons done encore si le Prince Alfred est elu par les Grecs.’ La Revolution de Grece, ses causes et ses consequences, extrait du Correspondant. Paris, 1S62.

278 CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

[Bk.V. Ch. VI ¹

English prince or an English candidate. Their first act was to invite the courts of Russia and France to concur in a¹ joint declaration ‘that the treaties and protocols binding the governments of England, France, and Russia not to allow a member of their reigning families to accept the crown of Greece remained in force.’ And without waiting for answers to this invitation Earl Russell informed Mr. Scarlett, rather prematurely as it turned out, in a despatch dated 6th Novem­ber 1862, ‘that in virtue of the protocols His Imperial Highness the Duke of Leuchtenberg and His Royal High­ness Prince Alfred, who were mentioned as possible candi­dates, would be excluded from the Greek throne.’ They were excluded ; but the exclusion did not receive the adherence of Russia and France until it was certain that Prince Alfred would be elected almost unanimously to fill the Greek throne, and it was certainly not caused by any respect for treaties on the part of the Emperor Napoleon III or the Emperor of all the Russias ^x.

When the proposal of the British government reached Paris and St. Petersburg, neither the French nor the Russian governments could persuade themselves that an English prince had the smallest chance of success, and neither would give a candid and immediate answer. The French govern­ment waited till the 20th November, when it declared its readiness to join in the declaration, but qualified its promise by adding that it would not think itself authorized to refuse indefinitely the recognition of a prince whom the Hellenic nation should elect by free suffrage ; perhaps, had it uttered all its thought, it would have added, unless the prince elected by the free suffrage of the Greeks should be an English prince ².

The communications with Russia merit more attention ! than those with France, on account of the light they throw on the views of the Russian cabinet, and on the extent to which diplomatists can blunder in estimating national feelings. On the 4th November 1862, when Prince Gortschakoff received telegraphic information that the British government proposed a joint declaration excluding every member of the reigning

¹      ^^ar^^amsntary P^aP^ers >' Correspondence respecting the Revolution in Greece, |

²      Parliamentary Papers; Correspondence, 1862, note verbale, p. 47.

VIEWS OF THE RUSSIAN CABINET.       279

A.D. 1862.]

families of the three protecting powers, he laid considerable stress on ‘the right of the Greek people to determine their own destinies, and on the injustice of which the protecting powers would be guilty in exercising any constraint in this matter¹.’ At this time all Russians believed that the Duke of Leuchtenberg was the candidate preferred by the Greeks. The British government inclined to the same opinion, and on the 15th November Earl Russell disclaimed any desire to interfere with the rights of the Greek people, but at the same time pointed out that the object of a joint declaration was, like the original stipulation, to prevent any exclusive influ­ence arising in Greece to foster international jealousies and create political dissensions which might become a cause of danger to the peace of Europe. On the 17th November the British government became aware that Prince Alfred had a firmer hold on the minds of the Greeks than any other candidate, and the refusal of Russia to take part in a joint declaration induced Earl Russell to instruct Mr. Scarlett to take no steps in regard to the election of the sovereign of Greece without direct instructions from Her Majesty’s government². While the public voice in favour of Prince Alfred’s candidature was swelling from a murmur of appro­bation into an universal shout of enthusiasm, Mr. Scarlett declared on the 4th November to the Greek minister of foreign affairs, ‘ that he could not perceive at that moment any chance whatever of the acceptance of the throne by Prince Alfred V During the whole of the proceedings which took place in Greece the conduct of Mr. Scarlett was so candid that he obtained the confidence of his colleagues as well as of the Greeks.

The British government suspected the Russian cabinet of being not disinclined to set aside the engagements of 1827 and 1830, if the Duke of Leuchtenberg could have obtained the votes of the Greeks. It might then have been asserted that he was not a member of the imperial family of Russia, and against that contingency it was necessary to provide. Two important despatches of Lord Napier from St. Peters-

¹      Parliamentary Papers; Correspondence, Lord Napier to Earl Russell, p. 30.

²      Parliamentary Papers; Correspondence, 1862, Earl Russell to Mr. Scarlett,

34­

³      Parliamentary Papers; Mr. Scarlett to Earl Russell, p. 50.

280 change of DYNASTV.

[Bk.V. Ch. VI.

burg, dated the 19th and 20th November 1862, which were received by Earl Russell on the 26th November, confirmed the suspicions of the British government. Prince Gortschakoff, j who was both minister of foreign affairs and vice-chancellor of I the empire, declined to give a categorical answer to the I inquiry whether Russia considered the Duke of Leuchtenberg a member of the imperial family, and as such excluded from the throne of Greece by the stipulations of 1830. Prince Gortschakoff declared that the question was susceptible of juridical discussion ; and when the English ambassador asked for the official construction placed upon the treaties and protocols by the Russian government, he could obtain no other answer than that the vice-chancellor could give no premature and uncalled-for explanation in the case On the 28th November the British government determined to bring the question to a decision. It resolved that England having excluded Prince Alfred, Russia must step forward and exclude Prince Romanoffsky, as the Duke of Leuchtenberg was termed on being admitted into the imperial family of Russia. The ambassador was instructed to inform the Russian government that the British government having insurmountable objections to seeing a Russian prince on the throne of Greece, the election of the Duke of Leuchtenberg would lead to serious differences, and would in fact endanger the peace of Europe ².

The telegram from England informing Russia of the nature of this despatch, and announcing that it was on its way, reached St. Petersburg when a telegram arrived from another direction, bringing the unwelcome news that the Duke of Leuchtenberg had not the slightest chance of being elected King of Greece, and that the almost unanimous election of Prince Alfred no longer admitted of any doubt. Russia instantaneously and unhesitatingly changed her lan­guage and conduct. On the 3rd December the Russian government determined to concede everything that England asked in order to make sure of the exclusion of Prince Alfred. On the 4th December the Russian ambassador in London, in consequence of telegraphic instructions which he received from St. Petersburg, presented a note to the British

¹      Parliamentary Papers; Correspondence, p. 53.

*      Parliamentary Papers; Correspondence, Earl Russell to Lord Napier, p. 58.

VIEWS OF THE RUSSIAN CABINET.       281

A.D. 1862.]

government, in which it was stated ‘ that the imperial court of Russia maintains in all its force and value the engagement by which the members of the reigning families in France, England, and Russia are excluded from the Hellenic throne, and in virtue of this engagement the imperial government agrees to declare as null and void the election of his Imperial Highness Prince Romanoffsky, the Duke of Leuchtenberg, nephew of H. M. the Emperor of all the Russias, in case he should be called to the Hellenic throne by the vote of the Greek nation V No time was lost in transmitting the decision of the three protecting powers to Greece ; and on the 13th December 1862 a joint declaration was delivered by their ministers to the provisional government, stating that on the 4th instant their courts had signed an engagement, declaring that no member of the imperial and royal families reigning in France, Great Britain, and Russia could accept the crown of Greece, and that in consequence of this declara­tion neither His Royal Highness Prince Alfred, member of the royal family of England, nor His Imperial Highness Prince Romanoffsky, Duke of Leuchtenberg, member of the imperial family of Russia, could accept the crown of Greece if it should be offered by the Greek nation ².

The Greek people was in the mean time waiting patiently to receive the benefits which were expected to flow from the Revolution, and which too many believed could be secured by the election of an English prince, without any exertion on their part to reform the evils of King Otho’s adminis­tration. Much required to be done in order to improve the government, and those who possessed power in the central and municipal administrations showed little disposition to commence the task. The people soon perceived that they were themselves almost helpless, and they consequently demanded everything from their government. Patriotism and self-denial were supposed to be the principal virtues required to constitute a good as well as an honest govern­ment ; and these words were for several months in every mouth. Neither wisdom nor honesty appear nevertheless to have guided the conduct of those who acted as the leaders of the nation. The people waited vainly for the

¹      Parliamentary Papers; Correspondence, Baron Brunnow to Earl Russell, p. 84.

²      La Grice, a newspaper published at Athens in French, iSth December, 1S62.

282 CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

[Bk.V. Ch. VI.

provisional government to establish order and adopt measures of economy. Too many even of the people who had taken an active part in the Revolution considered that it was the duty of the new government to provide every partizan with a place, a salary, or a pension, and at the same time to cure the disease of place-hunting in Greek society, fill the public treasury with money, and place the crown on the head of a rich prince, so able that he should find the means of creating resources, so just that he should only promote merit, and so powerful that he should extend the frontiers of Greece without increasing the burdens of the people. The popular Utopia consisted of irreconcileable incompatibilities, but the impossibility of attaining it did not render the delusive halo less attractive to the Greek mind.

The provisional government was composed of men who had learned what they knew of administration in King Otho’s service. Bulgaris, Kanares, and Rouphos had been ministers of King Otho, and had not shown any administra­tive talent while they held office. Bulgaris was a man of some natural ability and of great ambition, but of a jealous disposition, and incapable of acting cordially with men of superior capacity. As prime minister of King Otho, and subsequently of King George, he upheld the maxim that a constitutional king should reign and not govern ; but while he exercised supreme power as head of the provisional government, he attempted both to reign and govern, and if his capacity had equalled his ambition, he would have made himself dictator and compelled the ministers to act as his secretaries. The eight members of the revolutionary ministry were equally divided into two classes: four had been ministers of King Otho, and four were now introduced into the cabinet for the first time¹. It was a heterogeneous assemblage, and some of the members were so insignificant that it was matter for wonder how they were thought of for ministers. The ministry contained two men of recognized talent. Koumoundouros, the minister of justice, had been

' Manghinas, Zaimes, Koumoundouros, and Kalliphronas had been ministers of King Otho, and were imbued with the principles of his administrative system. Kalliphronas and Zaimes were the rival candidates for the presidency of the Chamber of Deputies in 1861, when the rejection of Kalliphronas, the court can­didate, caused a dissolution. The new men in the ministry were Deligeorges, D. Mavromichales, Nikolopoulos, and Diamantopoulos.

PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT.      283

A.D. 1862.]                      "

minister of finance during the earlier part of the Miaoulis ministry, but had quitted office in 1861, when the government was compelled to stop in its career of wasteful expenditure. He had a thorough knowledge of the system, the men, and the expedients, by which King Otho had manipulated the government; but he was deficient in the administrative talent that makes a statesman. His capacity lay in dealing with personal interests and party combinations. If he felt the necessity of large measures of reform, which may be doubted, he knew not how to frame them so as to accelerate the progress of the nation. The other man of talent in the ministry was Epaminondas Deligeorges, the minister of public instruction. In him were concentrated the hopes of young Greece. He was younger than Ivoumoundouros, and having entered public life as an opponent of King Otho’s system of government, he had escaped the corruptive influence of official service¹. He was convinced that Greece required large measures of reform in its whole administrative system. He was eloquent, and his legal knowledge gave precision to his public oratory. His want of official experience, which was not replaced by intuitive administrative capacity, prevented his attacking with practical effect the corrupt system of governing by patronage, which was supported by all the older members of the government. He was more successful as a legislative reformer in the National Assembly than as an administrative reformer in the cabinet. Deligeorges as a reformer, and Koumoundouros as a conservative, were soon placed in direct rivalry, and became the leaders of adverse parties. The policy of Koumoundouros was to make things as easy as possible for the ruling class, and he sought to persuade his countrymen that he was the safest minister because he was the most moderate reformer. In fact he was more hostile to reform than to change.

The revolution failed because it left too much power in the hands of the old place-holders. Otho was weak-headed. Bulgaris, Kanares, and Rouphos were all three wrong-headed, and they allowed the public administration to remain in

¹      King Olho and the Miaoulis ministry made it a matter of state to exclude Deligeorges from the new chamber after the dissolution in 1861. His house at Mesolonghi was surrounded by gendarmes, and he was cut off from all communi­cation with his friends by violence during the week that preceded the election.

2'U CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

[Bk.V. Ch. VI.

a corrupt and disorganized condition, without seeking any aid from public opinion to enforce responsibility. Never­theless, though the revolution failed to destroy the system it attacked, it weakened the power on which that system rested, and it gave effect to the wishes of the people by two important acts. A national assembly was convoked, which gave Greece a better constitution and laid the foun­dation of free municipal institutions ; and the national guard received an active organization in many parts of the country. The prompt organization of the national guard in the capital proved to be a most valuable measure, for it saved the government from falling into the hands of the military. The citizens performed military scrvice with a degree of steadiness and energy which rendered their force imposing, enabled the government to expel the soldiery from Athens when they commenced a civil war, and maintained order in the capital until the arrival of the new king.

After a short period of deliberation the Greeks considered the election of their king to be a matter of too much importance to be entrusted even to the National Assembly. The conduct of the senate and the houses of representatives elected under the constitution of 1844 had destroyed their confidence in public men. Every Greek statesman who attained power had deserted the cause of the people ; and during King Otho’s reign more than eighty persons had held office as constitutional ministers. The Greeks resolved therefore to elect their sovereign themselves, and with won­derful unanimity they chose Prince Alfred. For a few days the candidature of Prince Alfred was a subject of ridicule to French and Russian diplomatists, but their merriment was soon changed into anger. The determina­tion of the whole nation to elect an English prince took all Europe by surprise. The French, who appealed to universal suffrage as the only touchstone of national truth, suddenly announced the discovery that the gold of England was more powerful than patriotic feeling in determining the votes of Greeks: they lost their faith in their own touchstone. Russia, never having felt as much confidence in the votes of nations as in the power of bayonets, devoured her disgust in silence, trusting that feelings of orthodoxy and hatred of Turkey would eventually revive the attach-

I

ELECTION OF PRINCE ALFRED.   285

A.D. 1862.]

ment of the Greeks to their old religious and political ally. The feeling in favour of an English prince was so sudden, that the members of the provisional government remained ignorant of the rapidity with which it embraced the whole nation, and believed for some days that the election of the new king would be left to the National Assembly. Visions of ambition floated through the minds of different members of the ministry, and projects for securing the election of different candidates were mooted by Greek political intriguers and foreign diplomatists for a short time. The popular enthusiasm in favour of an English prince gained all ranks so rapidly, that opposition was soon seen to be hopeless, and the provisional government, finding itself unable to direct the choice of the people, issued a decree on the 1st of December 1862, inviting the Greeks to give their votes for the election of their king by universal suffrage at every municipality in the kingdom and every consulate abroad, commencing on the third day after the publication of the decree at each locality where the voting was to take place. The places of voting were ordered to be kept open for ten days, and the examination of the votes was to be made by the National Assembly, which would announce the result of the elections.

Public meetings were held both in Greece and in many towns in Turkey, at which it was proclaimed that the Greeks desired Prince Alfred for their king. Municipal councils, regiments of national guards, lawyers, doctors, and professors of the university, publicly advocated his election. On the 3rd of December a proclamation was issued at Athens, signed by the nomarch, the commander of the national guard, the military governor, and a number of influential inhabitants, announcing that the people had assumed the responsibility of electing their king, because the destiny of Greece and the progress of civilization in the East depended on the proper selection of the sovereign ; and that the nation had fixed upon Prince Alfred for the king of Greece, because his country, his family, and his education offered those guarantees which gave assurance that he would govern constitutionally, and would render his reign glorious to himself and prosperous to the nation.

The voting commenced at Athens on the 6th December.

286 CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

[Bk.V. Ch. VI.

Something was done to allay the public enthusiasm by the communication of the decision of the protecting powers that neither Prince Alfred nor the Duke of Leuchtenberg would be allowed to accept the crown. This communication was made on the 13th December, and the voting did not close until the evening of the 15th, so that its influence was not likely to have produced any serious change. But the Greeks in general attached less importance to it than it really merited. They had seen protocols set aside and treaties annulled so recently in the case of the Bavarian dynasty and the Danubian principalities, that they counted on the unanimity of their vote by universal suffrage to annul even the political jealousies of the three protecting powers. The Greeks frequently deceive themselves and commit great political errors by overrating their national importance. When the votes were counted it was found that 241,202 Greek citizens had voted: of these 230,016 voted for Prince Alfred, and only 2400 for the Duke of Leuchtenberg^x.

On the 3rd of February 1863 the National Assembly ratified the election, without taking any notice of the com­munication of the protecting powers that both Prince Alfred and the Duke of Leuchtenberg were excluded from the Greek throne. An unanimous decree was passed declaring that Prince Alfred, having been elected by the people, was proclaimed constitutional king of Greece, and instructing the president of the provisional government to notify the election to His Royal Highness without delay, and invite him to take possession of the throne. The Greeks allow themselves to be easily deluded into a conviction that they are able by their ability and by their political importance in the solution of the Eastern question to guide the policy

¹ Ihe published lists of votes differ slightly. The numbers are sometimes printed inaccurately, and the voting papers arrived from some consulates after the official list of the National Assembly was completed. It is—

Prince Alfred ....       230,016

Duke of Leuchtenberg .   2,400

An orthodox King . . .       1.917

The Emperor of Russia .  1,841

^A King               1,763

Prince Napoleon . . .         345

Prince Imperial of France         246

A republic        93

Prince Amadeo of Italy . .         15

Count of Flanders ....        7 Prince William of Denmark

(now King George) ...       6

Prince Hypsilantes ....      6

Fifteen other names appear in some lists, and the votes sometimes slightly exceed the 241,202, as given 111 the official list.

PREFERENCE FOR A FOREIGN KING.  287

A.D. 1863.]

of other nations according to their wish. They never gave a stronger proof of their sincerity in this persuasion, that every international arrangement ought to be set aside for their convenience and pleasure, than on this occasion.

The acceptance of the Greek crown by Prince Alfred having been rendered impossible by the three protecting powers, diplomacy undertook to fill the vacant throne, and in an evil hour for the reputation of British statesmanship, England engaged to select a king¹. Nothing could be more perverse, injudicious, and in more direct opposition to the principles they had previously announced, than the conduct of the British government in this affair. On the 29th November 1862 the British minister of foreign affairs stated in a despatch to the minister in Greece that, ‘ with regard to Greece, it appeared to Her Majesty’s government that her first interest was to elect a prince to rule over her who should be generally accepted. That he ought not to be a prince under twenty years of age, but rather a prince of mature years and of some experience in the world².’

Before narrating the adventures of Earl Russell in search of a king, the reason that induced the Greeks to prefer a foreigner to a native statesman must be noticed. Without attaching too much weight to the saying omnc ignotum pro magnifico cst, it must be conceded that it was not without influence. But there were strong objections to a native king. No public man in Greece possessed either the moral influence

¹      There were stronger reasons than those publicly stated that ought to have prevented an English prince from accepting the throne of Greece. _ The King of Greece would have been bound to forget both his country and his religion, to abjure his patriotism and his family traditions, and embrace the interests of Hellenism and orthodoxy. The following passage is contained in a despatch of Earl Russell to Mr. Scarlett, dated 29th November, 1862, nor was the view it contained generally overlooked by Englishmen acquainted with the East before the despatch was known. ‘ There are other considerations, besides those which I thought it proper to communicate to the charge d’affaires of Greece, which influ­ence Her Majesty’s resolution on this subject. It is Her Majesty’s duty to look to the due succession to the crown. Prince Alfred stands next to the Prince of Wales in the order of succession, and is heir-presumptive to the duchy of Saxe- Coburg and Gotha. Among the contingencies which are far from being impos­sible, it might happen that the sons of Prince Alfred, after being brought up as members of the Greek church, might be called to ascend the throne of England. It is necessary to provide against chances of this kind, and you will therefore not be surprised to learn that it is Her Majesty's fixed determination not to give her consent to the acceptance by H. R. II. Prince Alfred, or any other of Her Majesty’s sons, of the crown of Greece.’ Parliamentary Papers; Correspondence respecting the Revolution in Greece, October, 1862, p. 65.

²      Parliamentary Papers; Correspondence, Earl Russell to Mr. Scarlett, p. 64.

288 CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

[Bk.V. Ch. VI.

or the talents, which offered a guarantee for his being able to govern otherwise than as a party leader. The country re­quired above all things administrative organization, and the people were not inclined to trust the task of organizing the administration to a party. No Greek statesman could form a cabinet composed of the ablest and most upright men in the country, and a foreign prince seemed likely to do this, because it was clearly his interest to do it, in order not to govern by means of one party, but to govern all parties with the support of public opinion. The Greeks wanted a foreign king to command his ministers and watch over the whole body of officers and officials, to prevent their looking more to their own interests and the interest of their party than to the service of the commonwealth. Public opinion declared emphatically that Greece wanted a foreign king who could govern as well as reign, for they expected him to control the executive administration, and prevent every officer of the government from abusing the power with which he was entrusted, and from conniving at the abuse of power by his partizans. The Greeks resolved also, that their king should be selected from a royal family, or at least from a reigning house, in order to insure the respect which is willingly accorded to high station. It may not be easy to decide whether the Greeks were right in preferring impartiality to local knowledge and personal experience, but there can be no doubt that they attached too much importance to high hereditary station, and sacrificed the great advantage they might have derived from raising some eminent statesman and experienced administrator to their throne.

The national enthusiasm in favour of Prince Alfred was recognized as giving the Greeks an especial claim on the aid and support of England. France and Russia could not avoid feeling the humiliation of an unexpected defeat, and to con­ceal their mortification they left England to select the new king, and gave a passive approbation to all the blunders of the British government. It required very little foresight to divine that the sympathy of the Greeks for British policy would be allayed by the unavoidable course of diplomacy, even had the negotiations been conducted by a warmer heart and more piercing judgment than England employed. When the Greeks elected Prince Alfred they knew nothing

MR. ELLIOT'S SECOND MISSION. 289

l.D. 1862.]

Df his character, nor of his personal qualifications to act as :he head of a disorganized government. A vague hope that in English prince would give Greece some of the advantages enjoyed by England, would extend the limits of his kingdom it the expense of Turkey, and would obtain large loans, con- :ributed greatly to Prince Alfred’s popularity. When Great Britain stepped forward to select a king, it was not surprising :hat many Greeks inferred that the British government tacitly pledged itself to promote the views of the nation.

The British government, on the other hand, appears to have plunged into the business without any very clear idea of how it was to be conducted in order to insure a good result. It acted as if nothing was to be done but to look out among the cadets of friendly reigning houses for any prince who would agree to accept the vacant throne. In the month of December 1862, the Hon. Henry Elliot was sent to Greece a second time on an extraordinary mission. He communicated to the provisional government that, if the Greeks maintained constitutional monarchy as their form of government, refrained from all aggressive acts against Turkey, and chose a king agreeable to the British government, the queen would bestow the Ionian Islands on Greece. Mr. Elliot also informed the Greeks that the British government expected the National Assembly would choose a king from whom a regard for religious liberty, a respect for constitutional freedom, and a sincere love of peace might be expected. It did not escape the observation of the friends of Greece, that only those qualities advantageous to British policy in the East were enumerated, and that no mention was made of the qualities most necessary for securing the election of a king possessing a knowledge of the art of government, and as Earl Russell had expressed it ‘ mature years and some experience of the world.’

The British government marred the effect of Mr. Elliot’s second mission by the precipitancy with which it announced two abortive attempts to find a king. The first was a peculiarly ill-judged selection. The crown of Greece was offered to King Ferdinand of Portugal, a prince of Saxe- Coburg Kohany, who married Donna Maria Queen of Portugal, and received the title of king. The reigning king of Portugal was his son. The consent of France and Russia

200 CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

[Bk. V. Ch. VI.

was given promptly but coldly. France disliked a Coburg, and Russia disliked a Catholic. Singular as it may appear, Mr. Elliot was instructed to inform the Greeks of the selection of this candidate before the British government was in posses­sion of King Ferdinand’s promise to accept the crown. When the leading men in Greece were informed that King Ferdinand was the candidate recommended by England, ‘ they expressed neither approval nor disapproval, but observed that he was a Catholic, and that the crown would continue without an heir V Whatever might be the virtues and talents of this king, the Greeks knew nothing about him, and they could only learn from the envoy of the British government that he was a Coburg, a Catholic, and a constitutionalist. In their revolutionary enthusiasm the Greeks believed that they could themselves take care of their constitution, but they felt and owned that they were averse to receive a Catholic king even at the recommendation of England. Fortunately King Ferdinand refused the crown, peremptorily and without hesitation.

Some negotiations took place which w^rere never made public, and some princely candidates were spoken of whose names the Greeks never heard of before, and may probably never hear again. After a short interval a second choice was announced, which was more judicious though not more successful than the first. Mr. Elliot informed many members of the National Assembly that the British government ex­pected to be soon able to announce that Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, had accepted the candidature. The news was received with satisfaction, for the Greeks had learned that Prince Alfred was heir-presumptive to the duchy of Saxe-Coburg, and they believed that the three protecting powers had agreed to an arrangement which would ultimately place Prince Alfred on the throne of Greece and realize all their hopes. They were not aware that the crown of Greece possessed fewer attractions for foreign princes than they supposed. Duke Ernest required conditions that Eng­land had no power to grant, and the Parliament of Saxe-

¹      Parliamentary Papers; Correspondence, Mr. Elliot to Earl Russell, 25th December, 1S62, p. 125. M. Franfois Lenormant observes, ‘par une dispensalion particuliere de la Providence, cetle heureuse famille de Cobourg a des candidats pour tous les trones et de toutes les religions.’

ELECTION OF KING GEORGE.       291

j A.D. 1863.]

j Coburg objected to his absence from his hereditary states.

| He had no children, and as Prince Alfred was excluded from t the throne, the British government had to search for an heir | as well as for a king, and British diplomacy was again foiled. A young prince of Coburg Kohany was found in Austria, and to him the succession was offered ; but he was a Catholic, and he refused to quit his religion for an orthodox crown. Duke Ernest showed no eagerness to obtain the throne, and the states of Coburg refusing to consent to his absence, he at last informed the British government that he declined the honour of becoming a candidate for the throne of Greece¹.

In utter oblivion of the opinion of her Majesty's govern­ment that ripe years and mature judgment were necessary qualities in a king of Greece, and in a fit of desperation lest no English candidate should be found, the British government offered the crown to the second son of Prince Christian of Holstein-Glucksburg, who succeeded to the throne of Denmark on the 15th November 1863, as King Christian IX, in virtue of a family arrangement. Prince William George of Denmark is the brother of the Princess of Wales, and was then only seventeen years of age. The Greek government was informed that the guardians of the young prince were disposed to accept the crown in his name, if an offer of it should be made by the National Assembly. The affair was delicate, but the Greeks were docile. They had reposed their trust in England, and they felt no wish to withdraw it. Nations are in some respects easier to deal with than courts and cabinets. The president of the execu­tive government, M. Balbes, proposed the vote suddenly, in order to avert intrigues and party opposition. On the 30th March 1863, Prince Christian Ferdinand Adolphus George, second son of Prince Christian of Denmark, was unanimously elected King of Greece with the title of George the First, King of the Hellenes, and it was declared in the decree of election that his lawful heirs should profess the faith of the Eastern Orthodox Church².

¹      The candidature of the duke was communicated to the National Assembly on the 12th February, ib63. ^,'Emar)fj.os ’E(prjfj.(pts ttjs Svi'eXfvaews, i. 45S. After the refusal of the duke was announced, a long debate ensued on the 5th and 6th of March, but the National Assembly did not venture to assume the responsibility of choosing a king.

²      Prince Christian of Sleswig-Holstein-Glucksburg, though a younger son, was

U 2

202 CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

[Bk. V. Ch. VI.

Negotiations then commenced between the British govern­ment and the court of Denmark, to settle the conditions on which the King of Denmark and Prince Christian would give their consent as guardians to the acceptance of the crown offered to the young prince. The manner in which the haggling was carried on reflects no honour on the parties concerned, and the correspondence and the protocols which resulted from this election having been laid before Parlia­ment, will enable the world to judge whether the cause of the people was not neglected from exclusive attention to the interests of the prince. While the family of Den­mark was negotiating for a larger civil list than the Greeks had paid to King Otho, the political parties at Athens were left at liberty to commit acts of violence, which threat­ened to plunge the country into a state of anarchy, and renew the disorders and the desolation of 1832. The election of a king, so young that he must be placed under the guidance of others, naturally roused the ambition of all the leading politicians and factions to obtain the direction of the govern­ment before the young king’s arrival. This state of party feeling made the election an immediate cause of disorder.

A deputation from the National Assembly, consisting of Admiral Kanares, Captain Grivas, and M. Zaimes, was sent to Copenhagen to offer the crown to the Danish prince. The return of this deputation in the month of June, with the assurance that the crown was accepted, brought the struggle of rival parties for the possession of power to an open civil war. The ultimate design of each party was to secure to itself the means of exercising the royal authority in the king’s name until he arrived in Greece; official position at that time, it was supposed, would entail the possession of power for a considerable time after his arrival. A decree was passed in the National Assembly declaring the majority of King George, and the principle which Greek statesmen had adopted that a constitutional king must reign and not govern insured his docility \

The army had remained in a state of disorganization ever since the revolt of Nauplia, and after the expulsion of King

selected as heir to the throne of Denmark by a protocol signed at London, .Sth May, 1852, and mounted the throne at the death of Frederic VII, 15th Novem­ber, 1S63.

¹ Decree XLIV, 27th June, 1863.

MILITARY DISORDERS.          293

h..B. 1863.]

Otho it had fallen into complete disorder. Each party in "he National Assembly sought by favour and flattery to ^ain over as large a number as possible of officers and men to support their intrigues and further their schemes. Officers md men were allowed to quit their duty in the provinces and remain in the capital, whenever it was thought that :heir services could be useful for strengthening the party of men in office. Discipline was relaxed, promotions were made so lavishly by each successive government and ministry, that the number of officers, commissioned and non-commissioned, in Athens was said to exceed greatly the number of privates. The insubordination of the troops was allowed to go on in­creasing, without any effort on the part of the members of the government or of the officers to restore discipline. Great alarm prevailed among the citizens lest the soldiers should unite with the armed men whom various party leaders and military chiefs had brought to the capital from different parts of the country to support their claims for rank and pay. These men might easily be excited by the rabble of the city to begin plundering the shops and levying contributions on the wealthy inhabitants. This fear had the good effect of causing all classes who had anything to lose, to pay great attention to the efficiency of the national guard, which was brought into a much better state of discipline than the regular army. Its imposing strength saved Greece in all probability from a series of military revolutions and disorders, like those which have of late years occurred so frequently in Spain and Mexico.

During the month of April 1863 repeated acts of violence were committed. Officers and soldiers were seen at all hours driving about in carriages, singing or shouting voci­ferously. Peaceful persons were frequently insulted ; respect­able women could not walk from one house to another without fear, and squads of soldiers went from house to house demanding money¹. At last the abduction of a

¹      Sanipoulos, professor and member of the National Assembly for the University of Athens, published a pamphlet, in which he describes the condition of the army in the following terms: ‘C’etait un ramassisd’hommesd’une moralite ties equivoque, que recrutaient les officiers appartenant a l’un ou a l’autre des parties politiques. Ces hommes gorges d’argent et du vin parcouraient en voiture la ville et ses environs avec des filles de joie a leurs cotes, commettant toutes especes d’horreurs non seulement sur les regnicoles mais sur des etrangers aussi.’ Le passe, le present et Vavenir de la Grece, Trieste, 1866. But when it was proposed to establish a court-

d'ul

2Q4         CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

[Bk.V. Ch. VIi -

foreign actress, accompanied with circumstances of publicity which rendered its infamy doubly atrocious, compelled th^ ministers of France and England to demand that the govern-l ment should adopt effectual measures for repressing the disorders and crimes of the military, and preventing the recurrence of ‘acts disgraceful to a civilized nation.’ The previous neglect of the ministry of war and of the military authorities had fomented the insolence of the troops. When twenty were guilty, one was arrested, and he was either released after a short confinement or forcibly set at liberty by his comrades. The denial of justice was systematic andj notorious, and the foreign ministers became so indignant at the false answers and false assurances they received from the members of the government, that they announced their intention to quit Athens unless measures were adopted to establish personal security. The worst feature of these disorders was that the authorities were always ready to seize every occasion of boldly denying their existence, whenever they could find an opportunity of doing so in writing ; calling their dishonesty patriotism, and hoping by their effrontery to conceal the truth. While the government was lavish of assurances to the foreign ministers that those criminals who had been seized should be severely punished, it generally facilitated their escape. The protests of the French and English ministers after the public outrage on the actress produced a temporary cessation of the disorders of the soldiery during the month of May, but no change for the better took place in the conduct of the government

At last the state of parties in the National Assembly brought about a civil war in the streets of Athens between their adherents in the army.

On the 29th of June 1863 the National Assembly elected Lieutenant-Colonel Koronaios minister of war in place of Lieutenant-Colonel Botzaris, who had been minister since

£

martial extraoidinary to enforce discipline by punishing the crimes of the military which the civil tribunals could not judge, Mr. Sanipoulos opposed the measure in the National Assembly. He asked whether the army was to be dishonoured because it contained ten or even a hundred criminals, and said that a criminal is a man and not an instrument set apart for the benefit of the community. ’Eiriotjuos - ’Etpyntpts rfjs SvveAevcrecvs, vol. ii. No. 65, p. 19, 1S63.              i

^ Parliamentary Papers, 1863; Correspondence relating to the election of Prince ‘ William of Denmark and to the state of Greece. Mr. Scarlett’s despatches in > May, 1S63, p. 6.                                   !

CIVIL WAR.    2Q n

. A.D. 1863.]

• the month of April. The faction of which Koronaios was ! an active member, considered the time favourable for seizing the executive power and excluding all rivals from any share in the government. Koronaios was bold enough to attempt 1 making use of the disorderly army as an instrument for I effecting this object: but he possessed neither the influence nor the judgment for executing a successful coup-d'ctat. His party trusted to his energy for securing their permanent ascendancy, but his violence did more harm to their cause than the weakness of his predecessors had done to the cause of their opponents.

After the revolution of October 1862 Leotzakos, then only a lieutenant, was raised by the suffrages of the officers and men of the 6th battalion to be its commanding officer. By his good management and good conduct this battalion was now the strongest and most efficient in the army. It was stationed in the villa built by the Duchess of Plaisance near Athens, called Ilissia, beyond the royal garden on the road to Ivephisia and Marathon. The influence of Leotzakos rendered it a matter of importance that he should be removed from his command, for he belonged to one faction of the revolutionists and Koronaios to another. Both parties in the National Assembly knew that they were on the eve of a civil war, and both prepared for an appeal to arms. A brigand chief, Ivyriakos, who was suspected of being in connivance with the partizans of Bulgaris, made his appearance with his band close to Athens at this crisis. Pappadiamantopoulos, the commandant dc place, and Leo­tzakos were accused of neglecting to seize him with his band when he posted himself in the buildings of Aghios Asomatos. Leotzakos was invited by the minister of war to a council of war, and when he arrived he was arrested and hurried down to the Piraeus, where he was placed on board a man- of-war in the port. At the same time orders were issued

*      superseding Pappadiamantopoulos both as commandant de place and commanding officer of the artillery, and Colonel Artemes Michos as commander-in-chief of the gendarmerie. Both the artillery and the gendarmerie refused to receive the officers named by Koronaios to command them, and continued to obey their old commanders. As soon as the 6th battalion heard that Leotzakos had been arrested and

2Q6         CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

^y                             [Bk.V. Ch. VI.

sent to the Piraeus it broke out in open revolt. Mr. Koumoun- douros, the minister of finance, and Mr. Kalliphronas, the minister of public instruction, happening to pass in a carriage before their barracks at Ilissia, were recognized and detained as hostages for the release of their commanding officer. The leaders on both sides were now eager to commence hostilities, confident in the strength of their armed partizans, and per­suaded that the young king would find it necessary on his arrival to confirm any party in office whom he should find in possession of power. The civil war that ensued in the streets of Athens was a party fight for place.

The combatants on both sides consisted of several factious leaders linked together by no political principle but only by projects of personal interest. Koronaios was the represen­tative of those in power, and he had at his disposal a much larger force than his opponents. His infantry consisted of the ist, 2nd, 8th and 9th battalions, but they were incomplete and without either discipline or order. He was also sup­ported by the cavalry, the corps of potnpicrs, and a number of armed men who were collected at Athens as personal followers by members of the National Assembly, and who received pay either from municipal or national funds¹. Admiral Kanares and Captain Grivas, who had recently returned from Copenhagen, were both warm partizans of the ministry, and increased its authority by their supposed favour at the Danish court, and the inference that they would become influential persons after the king’s arrival.

The military force of the opposition was less numerous but in a better state of discipline. It consisted of the 6th battalion, the artillery, the gendarmerie, and a corps of armed police. The royal palace, which commands the town, was occupied by the troops of the ministry. The royal stables were occupied by the artillery, and the villa of the Duchess of Plaisance by the battalion of Leotzakos. The fighting commenced at daylight on the 1st of July². The

¹      La Grece, a French newspaper published at Athens (9th July, 1S63), states the number of the troops under Koronaios to have been 6000 men. Perhaps the party were then paying for the services of that number, but half that number did not take part in the fight. There were then not more than 3000 regulars in Athens, and of these 1000 fought against Koronaios.

²      Prince Napoleon and Princess Clotilde visited the Acropolis 011 the 30th June, while Ihe rival parties were preparing for action.

FIGHTING AT ATHENS. 297

A.D. 1863.]

operations of the ministerial forces were directed by Koro- naios, who expected by his coup-cVctat to become master of the government. The ministerial party, in spite of its numerical superiority, failed to cut off the communications between the artillery and the 6th battalion, and was vigor­ously assailed by these bodies, who kept the palace closely invested. Aristides Kanares, son of the admiral and brother of the minister of the marine, was killed, and about forty of those who were with him in the palace were either killed or wounded, so that the garrison considered its position untenable.

The National Assembly held a meeting while the fighting was going on, and sent a deputation to establish an armistice between the combatants. The first attempt failed, and a member of the assembly was wounded. But a second attempt succeeded, and the terms of an armistice were arranged. The palace was evacuated, and a truce was established for twenty- four hours, but both parties employed their leisure in making preparations for renewing the combat.

M. Rouphos, the president of the government, and two members of the ministry who disapproved of the appeal to arms, resigned office when the fighting commenced¹. The National Assembly on receiving these resignations charged its president, Diomedes Kyriakos, to act as president of the executive government, dismissed Koronaios from the ministry of war, and Miltiades Kanares from the ministry of the marine ; and ordered the immediate release of Leot- zakos by the one party, and of Koumoundouros and Kalli- phronas by the other. But according to the rules of the assembly, the number of deputies present when these decrees were adopted, was insufficient to constitute a house, for many deputies absented themselves from an inherent spirit of personal intrigue, in order to make sure of joining the victorious party. In consequence of this irregularity, the party that supported Koronaios treated these acts of the assembly as null.

The night was spent by Koronaios in bringing up artillery

¹ The ministry of Rouphos was elected by the National Assembly on the 12th May, 1S63, and was composed of B. Rouphos, President; Koumoundouros, Finance ; Kalliphronas, Public Instruction ; P. Deliyannes, Foreign Affairs ; Londos, Interior; Platys, Justice; D. Botzaris, who was Minister of War until the 22nd June, was then replaced by Koronaios; Miltiades Kanares, Marine.

2q8 change of dynasty.

[Bk. V. Ch. VI.

and additional forces from the Piraeus. He concentrated a strong body of troops in the north-west quarter of Athens, and it was feared that he designed to make himself master of the National Bank, where it was known that a large sum in specie was kept in reserve. He had ordered a part of the guard to be withdrawn from the bank on the day before hostilities commenced. Grivas occupied the Acropolis with armed irregulars and a few soldiers. On the morning of the 2nd July both parties were ready to renew the fight, and not disposed to respect the armistice established by the National Assembly. Koronaios, surrounded by his staff, approached the bank on horseback, and was fired at by the guard to whom he was an object of suspicion. The bank was immediately attacked with some vigour but very little military judgment, and it was bravely defended by its small garrison, which repulsed its assailants until a detachment of artillery arrived and placed it in security. The attempt to carry the building was renewed with ad­ditional troops, and fighting went on round the bank during the whole day and in many streets of the city. At last the national guard and the citizens began to take part in the combat, and all communications between distant quarters were interrupted ^x.

The ministers of the protecting powers, finding that the authority of the President of the National Assembly was not recognized by the party of Koronaios, and that the forces of the belligerent factions were too nearly balanced to promise a speedy victory to either party, determined to interfere. They were guided by a wish to place the National Bank in security and avert the pillage of the city, not by a desire to favour either party. The passions of the soldiers on both sides were inflamed by the losses they had sustained from

¹ An account of the eivil war by a partizan of the president of the National Assembly says,—‘ La fureur des bourgeois contre les defenseurs de la banque avait quelque ehosede hideux et de barbare : et pourtant cet etablissment, eomme renfer- niant des capitaux considerables tant nationaux qu'euangers, pent etre eonsidere comme la vraie representation de la propriete en Grece.’ Another account by a partizan of Koronaios says. ‘ Les gardes nationaux ont pris part a la lutte. mais toutefois seulement contre les gendarmes et les huissieis de la police. 11s tiraient sur tons eeux qu’ils rencontraient; ils les epiaient, les traquaient partout comme des betes fauves Ceux-ci, de leur cote, tiraient sur les gardes nationaux: de sorte que dans toutes les rues dans tous les quartiers de la ville, on faisait le coup de fn-,il, et on vovait tomber quelques vietimes.’ There is truth in these accounts, though with some exaggeration, as the Author saw with his own eyes.

wmxMaaou

FIGHTING AT ATHENS. 299

■ A.D. 1863.]

j the national guards and citizens, and both sides threatened to i set fire to the buildings occupied by their enemies. In the , evening of the 2nd of July the foreign ministers sent their ^! secretaries of legation to the rival leaders, and succeeded in 1 establishing an armistice for forty-eight hours, to afford time j for the National Assembly to take measures for restoring peace. This armistice was not adopted until the foreign ministers threatened to retire on board their ships in the Piraeus, if hostilities were renewed. Everybody was now anxious for the re-establishment of order, except the ambi­tious leaders who had planned the coup-d' ctat. About two hundred men had been killed and wounded without producing any decisive result. For the purpose of placing the bank in security, the ministers of the three protecting powers, moved by the anxious solicitations of the governor, sent a garrison composed of detachments of marines from their ships in the Piraeus to guard the buildings. There were many foreign shareholders, and it was suspected that the hope of plundering the specie which the bank contained was a principal object with its assailants. Koronaios opposed the occupation with such vehemence, that the foreign ministers addressed him a note, declaring that they would hold him personally responsible for any act of aggression against the Allied force which they thought it necessary to land \

The National Assembly met during the night at the Varvakeion, whence Koronaios had directed his unsuccessful operations against the bank. The national guard of Athens declared in favour of peace, and engaged to protect the Assembly wherever it might hold its meetings, but its usual place of meeting was in the immediate vicinity of the royal stables, which were occupied by the artillery, and those who planned the conp-d'ctat insisted that some other place of meeting should be found. Considerable difficulty was en­countered in adopting the measures required to insure order, for the military leaders were at heart adverse to a peaceful arrangement, knowing from the state of public opinion that all power would be taken out of their hands as soon as the

¹      Parliamentary Papers; Correspondence relating to the election of Prince William of Denmark and to the slate of Greece, 1863, Mr. Scarlett’s despatches, 2nd and 4U1 July, 1^63. with their annexes. Documents and statements published by Diomedes Kyriakos, the president of the National Assembly, and by Colonel Koronaios, in French and Greek, give the views of their parties.

300 CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

‘                              [Bk. V. Ch. VI.

supremacy of the National Assembly should be again restored. And this was the case, for the moment the National Assembly found itself invested with the power of enforcing obedience, it decreed that all the regular troops in Athens were to march out of the capital and occupy the stations indicated by the government. It was declared that the presence of the army was required in the provinces for the purpose of maintaining order and collecting the revenues of the state¹. News had already reached Athens that a revolutionary movement was commenced in Laconia, and that the civil war in the capital was serving as a signal for disorder everywhere. The offices of commandant-in-chief of the gendarmerie, of commandant superior of the garrisons of Athens and the Piraeus, and of director of the administra­tive police, were abolished ; and the chief command of the national guard, instead of being concentrated in the hands of one officer, was divided, and vested in the demarchs of Athens and the Piraeus ². A new ministry was elected by the Assembly, consisting of men of secondary importance, selected from different parties, and destitute alike of com­manding influence and distinguished talent. The object of the Assembly was to prevent the rival factions from recom­mencing a civil war, and by no means to establish a strong government before the arrival of the young king³. This ministry was formed to neutralize the intrigues of ambitious men without inciting them to strong measures of opposition, and perhaps the plan was the best the National Assembly could adopt considering the materials with which it had to operate. There was no party and no statesman in Greece possessing the confidence of the country. The mediocrity of the new ministry allayed opposition. It was certain that it

¹      The disorganization and indiscipline of the army was not less in the provinces than it had been in the capital, but it was hidden from strangers. Even after the arrival of King George, the Greek newspapers mention that the minister of war was left for several weeks without any report concerning the movements of a com­pany of infantry, which marched about the country and took up its quarters wherever it thought fit. It was at last surrounded and disarmed.

²      Decree of the National Assembly, XLVI, 1863.

³      The members were, Rouphos, President; A. Petimezas, Interior; Kalligas,

I* oreign Affairs ; Nikolopoulos, Public Instruction ; Kehayas, Finance; all these had been members of previous ministries. Klimakas, an officer of irregulars without civil or military capacity of any kind, was made minister of war; liouboules, who had commanded a steamer of the Greek Steam Navigation Company, was the minister of the marine; and P. Mavromichales, a young lawyer, minister of justice. jl These were new men in ministerial offices.

;                                         CHANGE OF MINISTRY.  301

A,D. 1863.]

! would carry no great measure of administrative reform, and it | seemed impossible for it to retain office after the king’s i arrival. These circumstances combined to leave Greece almost without a government for four months.

On the 5th July 1863 the Greek army quitted Athens, and its absence from the capital was a benefit not too dearly purchased even by a few days of civil war, for it had kept the inhabitants in constant fear of pillage, and had committed a series of disgraceful crimes in quick succession since the 22nd October 1862. The national guard performed the ordinary military duty, and displayed so much zeal and discipline that a feeling of security was soon established. It is possible that Koronaios, had he commenced by restoring discipline in the army and creating a feeling of confidence in the people, might subsequently have succeeded in his ambitious projects. But his measures were precipitate, his military plans ill-conceived and feebly executed, and his arrest of Leotzakos an injudicious and premature exhibition of arbitrary power. He was driven out of the palace, defeated at the National Bank, expelled from the ministry, and deprived of the chief command of the national guard, without being considered dangerous by his opponents when out of office, so completely had his failure revealed his want of capacity to execute his schemes.

While the leading men in Greece were throwing the government into a state of anarchy, the three protecting powers were making protocols which were to secure good government at some future period. On the 27th May 1863 they declared, that the Bavarian dynasty having lost its rights to the throne of Greece by events over which the protecting powers exercised no control, they were released from the guarantees to King Otho and his heirs contained in the treaty of 1832 ; but, considering that they were bound to uphold the monarchical principle, they announced their firm resolution to watch over the maintenance of tranquillity in the Hellenic kingdom, which they contributed to found in the general interest of civilization, order, and peace *. On the 5th June they signed a protocol recognizing George I. King of the Hellenes as the elected sovereign of the people, and

¹ Parliamentary Papers relating to Greece, No. 2, 1863; Protocol, May 27, 1863.

303                                           CHANGE OF DYNASTY.                                                          ,

'                               [Bk.V. Ch. VI. ;

regulated their relations with him as an European monarch. ^u The resolutions embodied in that protocol afford a remark­able example of the manner in which the protecting powers carried into execution their ‘ firm resolution to maintain tranquillity in Greece, and watch over the general interests of civilization.⁵ They made the position of the sovereign as ^u agreeable to him as possible, and they made not one single ¹ effort to improve the public administration for the benefit of "^l the people \      /

The acceptance of the crown having been communicated ¹ to the protecting powers by the King of Denmark under the " express condition that the Ionian Islands should be united to Greece, the following resolutions were inserted in the protocol ¹¹ recording the election of the new king :—         .

1.     Great Britain engaged to recommend the Ionian state, before it voted the annexation to Greece, to appropriate from

the Ionian revenues a sum of £10,000 sterling to increase ³ the civil list of King George.

2.    Each of the three protecting powers engaged to bestow " on King George a sum of £4000 annually, making a total of ‘ £12,000 a year for his private expenditure, in addition to the ¹ civil list voted by the Greek chamber. This sum they resolved to deduct from the million of drachmas which the ¹ Greek government was bound by the convention of i860 1 to pay as a composition for the interest due on the Allied

loan of 1832.

3.    The legitimate successors of the crown of Greece must ■ profess the tenets of the Orthodox Church of the East.

4.    In no case can the crowns of Greece and Denmark be united on the same head.

5.    The protecting powers engaged to use their influence to ₁ procure the recognition of King George by all the sovereigns

and states with whom they had political relations.

The first and second of these resolutions were both unjust j and impolitic, and the British government ought to have known that they were unconstitutional. It was impolitic to ! invest an inexperienced youth with more wealth than his I people deemed that his situation required. It was unjust to j allure the Greeks to believe that wealth in the opinion of

¹                                                 Parliamentary Papers relating to Greece, No. 2, 1S63; Protocol, June 5, 1863, I

and annexes.                         |

POSITION OF THE NEW KING.      303

' A.D. 1863.]

j European statesmen was the first essential of royalty. And j it was a violation of those constitutional principles which j English diplomatists were constantly obtruding on the I attention of foreigners, to invest a sovereign with a revenue derived from the national income, but placed by a foreign treaty beyond the control of the representatives of the nation. No act of the Ionian state could legally increase the civil list of the sovereign of the Hellenic kingdom by any appropriation of Ionian revenue to take effect after the Ionian state had ceased to exist, and there was something undignified in creating treaty rights securing .£10,000 a year from Greece in case the new king should meet with the fate of King Otho. The vote of the Ionian parliament could have no practical value unless enforced by Great Britain, and to enforce it would be an act of unconstitutional violence. The proceedings of the three protecting powers in endowing King George with a larger civil list than the Greek nation accorded will be judged by the use the king makes of his wealth rather than by the justice and policy of their conduct.

The third resolution, that the legitimate successors of King- George must be members of the Eastern Orthodox

o     o

Church, was also an obtrusion of foreign opinion on a question of constitutional law that concerned the Greeks alone, and which they were entitled to set aside if they thought fit. The British government certainly could not pretend that the powers possessed any right to prevent the Greeks from changing their constitution and recognizing a Protestant or a Catholic as heir to their crown, if they should think fit to do so, at any future period. They could not have less right to change their constitution than to change their king. It may indeed be questioned whether a British minister was warranted by the policy of Great Britain to enter into any engagements relating to the Greek crown beyond—1st. The recognition of Prince George as King of the Hellenes. 2nd. A stipulation engaging the British government to use every means for accomplishing the union of the Ionian Islands with the Hellenic kingdom. 3rd. A provision against the union of the crown of Greece and Denmark. 4th. An engagement to solicit the recognition of King George as constitutional king of Greece by friendly powers; and 5th, A declaration

204 CHANGE OF DYNASTV.

[Bk.V. Ch. VI.

in favour of constitutional government, and a recommenda­tion that the government of Greece should establish some

o

guarantee for publicity in its financial and administrative proceedings.

For some years it had been evident to those who studied the progress of events in Greece that the union of the Ionian Islands was a measure which the British government had many reasons for accomplishing and little interest to prevent. A change had taken place in the relative position of the powers bordering on the Mediterranean since the islands had been placed under the protection of Great Britain. The fortress of Corfu had lost much of its importance to England, while the importance of Malta had been greatly increased. The British government had honestly, though perhaps not always judiciously, and certainly most unsuc­cessfully, endeavoured to train the Greeks of the islands to become a constitutional people. The Ionians had used their liberty not to improve their condition, but to excite the animosity of the Greek race against the English as heretics and tyrants. The leaders of the people declared that British protection impeded the progress of the Greek nation, and that the first step towards the improvement of the country must be to get rid of all connection with England. The British government desired to reform abuses and improve the administration ; but, when it found that all its measures were thwarted, and learned by experience that the Ionian parliament was determined to reject every improvement, it resigned the hope of doing good, and being resolved not to suspend the constitution for the purpose of forcing im­provements on an unwilling people, it became indifferent to the proceedings of the Ionian legislature. The British government in the Ionian Islands was exposed for years to a system of calumnious attacks in the Greek and French press. The French propagated the opinion that the English governed the Ionian Islands with greater severity and in a less liberal spirit than they governed Algeria, and they kept carefully out of sight that the British government had given the Ionians a free press and a representative assembly. The liberty which the Ionians enjoyed, of declaiming against English oppression under English protection, might have afforded Frenchmen a point of comparison with the repres-

THE IONIAN ISLANDS.  305

IA.D. 1858.]

⁽ jsion of public opinion in every French possession and with jthe silence imposed on the French press. The systematic misrepresentation of the Greeks and French ended in per­suading the whole continent that the Ionian government was a stain on the character of England, and caused English­men to view Ionian politics with disgust and the affairs of Greece generally with repugnance. The fact was, that the state of society in the Ionian Islands presented complex rights of property and political anomalies which obstructed good government, and eould only be removed by the power of an enlightened despot, or the ability of a popular minister commanding the support of an honest house of represen­tatives. Unfortunately the educated classes were tainted with sycophancy and other moral defects that destroyed their influence, while traditionary habits retained the cul­tivators of the soil in a state of bigotry, poverty, and ignorance. These evils were increased by temporary cir­cumstances. The protectorate threw the executive authority into the hands of a governing class, while the constitution which the British government gave to the islands in 1849 invested the popular representatives with a licence to attack the protectorate that paralyzed the progress of administra­tive reform.

The relations of the Greeks to the British protectorate became at last the means of creating feelings of deep-rooted aversion. Ionian patriots denied the validity of the treaty of Paris to override Ionian nationality, and maintained that 230,000 inhabitants dispersed in seven small islands possessed an inherent right to determine their own condition as an independent state. Demagogues gained popularity by de­i claiming against the tyrannical conduct of Great: Britain, perfectly aware that the British government would protect them in their exercise of the freedom of speech.

In 1858 a change of ministry in England placed the Ionian Islands under Sir Edward Buhver Lytton (Lord Lytton), who wished to connect his eminence in English literature with the memory of benefits conferred on the Greeks. He selected Mr. Gladstone, one of the ablest states­men in England, to visit the Ionian Islands, with the vain hope that the eloquence and candour which gave power in England would charm the subtle demagogues of Greece, VOL. VII.   X

306 CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

[Bk. V. Ch. VI.

and establish harmony between the British government and the Ionian people for the period that the protectorate might still endure. Mr. Gladstone was appointed High Com­missioner Extraordinary, and was directed ‘ to examine all matters affecting the contentment, well-being, and good government of the Ionians, so far as those objects were connected with the protection exercised by the British go­vernment V

Unfortunately, neither the Secretary of State for the Colonies nor Mr. Gladstone possessed any previous know­ledge of Ionian politics to aid their good intentions. They directed their attention to the means of applying sound theories of government to a state of things where a change in the social relations of the inhabitants and modifications in the tenure and rights of property were the real evils that required remedy, and over these the British government could exercise very little influence, if opposed by the Ionian representatives. The deputies to the Ionian parliament were by the constitution of 1849 elected by a constituency approaching universal suffrage. They were highly paid, and declamations in favour of the greatness of the Greek race and of union with the Greek kingdom were the surest means of securing their re-election and the continuance of their salaries.  ,

On the 25th of January 1859 Mr. Gladstone, having com­pleted his examination of the islands as High Commissioner Extraordinary and succeeded Sir John Young as Lord High Commissioner, commenced carrying his theories into practice. An extraordinary session of the Ionian parliament was con­voked to consider his proposals for political and admini­strative reform. This assembly commenced its proceedings by voting that it was the unanimous zuill of the Ionian people of whom it was the mouth-piece that the seven islands should be united with the kingdom of Greece. This contemptuous treatment of a well-meant desire for improve­ment enabled Mr. Gladstone to see, what others had already observed, that the Ionian assembly and the British govern­ment were separated by irreconcileable differences. Mr.

¹      Parliamentary Papers, 1S61. Papers relative to the mission of the Right Hon. \V. E. Gladstone to the Ionian Islands in the year 1858. Despatch of the Right Hon. Sir E. B. Lytlon to the Right Hon. Sir John Young, Bart., p. 37.

it

tut;

MR. GLADSTONE'S MISSION.         307

a.d. 1859.]

Gladstone passed over this attack on the protectorate without taking offence, and fixed all his attention on the word 6tE\ri<ns, which, he endeavoured to persuade himself, signified disposition, and not will. It would have been more consonant with fact to accept it as it was intended by those who used it, simply to mean determination¹. Mr. Gladstone, therefore, overlooked the fact that the Ionians appealed to the right of nationality against the treaty which placed the islands under British protection ; he sent a message to the chamber stating that it could have no will in direct opposition to the constitution from which it derived its existence, and instead of telling the members that they had violated the constitution, dissolving the chamber, and declaring that no deputy should receive a salary from the public treasury, he only hinted that if they really entertained a will hostile to the constitution and the protectorate, they must give their treasonable wishes the form of a petition to the Queen of England as pro­tecting sovereign. The plan of recording their hostility to British protection in a petition to the protecting sovereign delighted all parties in the Ionian Islands. No party at that time considered the withdrawal of British protection as likely to occur for many years; all were therefore ready to join in a cry against it. The democratic party gained a legal status for agitating the question of union with Greece at every change of circumstances, and the oligarchical party considered that the agitation by increasing the aversion of the protectorate to the democrats, secured to the members of the oligarchy a larger share in the power and patronage at the disposal of the executive ².

A petition to the queen was forwarded by Mr. Gladstone, It argued that the treaty of Paris in 1815 placed the islands under British protection for the purpose of perpetuating their existence as a free and independent state. But that treaty was contracted without the participation of the Ionian people, and the establishment of the Greek kingdom rendered

¹      Papers relative to the mission of the Right Hon, W. E. Gladstone to the Ionian Islands in the year 185S. The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone to the Right Hon. Sir E. B. Lytton,’3ist Jan. 1859, and 1st February, 1859, PP- 61 and 64. _

²      The question of union was again brought forward in the Ionian chamber in

1861.        Parliamentary Papers; Ionian Islands, 1861. Sir H. Storks to the Duke of Newcastle, nth March, 1861.

X %

308 CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

[Bk.V.Ch.VI.

British protection now superfluous. Moved by these con­siderations the Ionian parliament on the 20th of June 1857 expressed the unanimous desire of the Ionians in favour of union with Greece, which was again proclaimed by the vote of the 27th of January 1859, that ‘the single and unanimous will of the Ionian people has been and is for their union with the kingdom of Greece.’ The chamber submitted these representations to Her Majesty, and prayed the queen to communicate this declaration to the other powers of Europe, and co-operate with them to give effect to the sacred and just desire of the Ionians. It may be doubted whether the Lord High Commissioner acted constitutionally in trans­mitting this petition to the queen, who having no power to grant its prayer, was unnecessarily forced to give a negative answer, which Mr. Gladstone ought to have given in the strongest terms instead of transmitting it. He might have added that he would avail himself of constitutional means to put an end to attempts to overthrow the protectorate by the votes of paid deputies. The queen replied that she would neither abandon the protectorate nor permit any application to a foreign power for that object. Neverthe­less, the transmission of a petition against her authority by her Lord High Commissioner produced a conviction that the retention of the Ionian Islands was regarded by British statesmen as no longer a question of much political importance, and that it was the position of the Othoman empire and the conduct of King Otho, rather than the policy of Great Britain, which rendered the immediate union unadvisable. A despatch of Lord John Russell to the British minister at Turin, dated the 27th of October i860, was cited by the Greeks as a confirmation of this opinion. It was stated therein, that the British government recognized the right of the Italians to judge of what was most suitable for their interests. The Greeks argued that Lord John Russell could no't have written this passage without thinking of the mission of his colleague Mr. Gladstone to the Ionian Islands^l.

When the question of union was negatived by the queen’s reply, Mr. Gladstone stated his plans of reform, and submitted

¹ Parliamentary Papers; Ionian Islands, 1S61. Sir Henry Storks to the Duke of Newcastle, iSth January, 1861.

MR. GLADSTONE’S MISSION.         ooq

A.D. i8₅₉.]                      ⁰ ^

to the Ionian parliament a series of resolutions extending the constitutional powers of the representatives of the people, and establishing a more effectual control over the public expenditure. It was then proved that both the democratic and oligarchical parties were opposed to reform. The demo­crats feared lest reform should retard the union and keep them excluded from power, and the oligarchs feared a diminution of their influence in the public administration. The chamber voted that Mr. Gladstone’s resolutions were inadmissible, and appointed a committee to draw up an answer. Nearly half the majority in this vote consisted of men who ranked as belonging to the oligarchical section, and who at heart desired that the British protectorate should not cease in their days. The British government was sup­posed to have secured their support by the senatorial and other places of profit conferred on members of their families, so that their desertion of the cause of the protectorate on this occasion convinced many Englishmen that it would be wise to seize the first favourable opportunity of getting rid of all political connection with the Ionians, since no party would give British protection sincere support.

Mr. Gladstone quitted Corfu before the rejection of his pro­posals was formally announced, and left to his successor, Sir Henry Storks, the task of recording the total failure of his mission. The sudden departure of Mr. Gladstone on the 19th Feb., without waiting to receive the reply of the Ionian parliament to his communications, was caused by the dis­covery that he had disqualified himself from sitting in the House of Commons by holding the office of Lord High Com­missioner, since it brought him under the provisions of the act which excludes governors of plantations. At all events his seat was vacated by acceptance of a place under the Crown, even if he could be legally re-elected¹. The discovery of this oversight on the part of a great statesman who had gone forth to improve a foreign constitution created some ridicule. The disagreeable shock Mr. Gladstone received by finding that he had heedlessly exposed himself to the danger

¹ Stat. 6 Ann. c. 7. The letters patent, dated 12th January, 1S59, appointing Mr. Gladstone to be Lord High Commissioner, are printed in the Parliamentary Papers relative to his mission, presented to both Houses of Parliament in i86j, p. 79.

*10 CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

[Bk. V. Ch. VI.

of losing his seat as a legislator at home, awakened him from his dream of gaining immortal honour as a legislator in Greece. It was necessary for him to get quit of his Lord High Commissionership and appear in his place in parlia­ment, before any member could move for a new writ for the University of Oxford, on the ground that its representa­tive had accepted an office under the Crown which excluded him from the House of Commons. To escape such an event, Sir Henry Storks was hurried out to Corfu as Lord High Commissioner, and Mr. Gladstone returned to England in the precipitate manner that astonished the Greeks.

In 1861 the Ionians again attacked the British protectorate. The parliament met, and proposals were placed on the order of the day for discussion, that an address to the representa­tives of the peoples, to the governments, and to the philan­thropists of Christian Europe against British protection should be drawn up. Mr. Gladstone was accused of persuading the Ionian parliament to send a petition to the Queen of England with the expectation of settling the question of union by a final negative. But it was asserted that union with Greece could alone save the Ionian Islands from ruin. The seven islands, ‘ the first star in the regeneration of the East,’ were decaying and falling to ruin civilly, politically, and economi­cally, in consequence of the opposition of the British govern­ment to their union with Greece. The question of union, it was triumphantly asserted, was not a question. This revo­lutionary act of inviting foreign intervention was not punished. Sir Henry Storks, ‘carrying,’ as he said, ‘forbearance to the utmost limits of his duty,’ sent a message requiring the repre­sentatives to expunge the proposals from the order of the day. The majority determined to discuss them in contempt of this message, and the Lord High Commissioner to prevent the debate prorogued the parliament for six months¹. The proposals implied an act of rebellion against British protec­tion, and they were filled with foolish and false assertions, but they stated one truth which no Englishman was disposed to

¹ A Greek writer says, ‘ If ever a state was prosperous, free, and progressing under the dominion of another, that state was Ionia under the protection of Great Britain; and yet no people could be more restless in their position, and more anxious to escape from the shelter afforded by the patron power than the Ionians.’ East and West, a diplomatic History of the Annexation of the Ionian Islands to the Kingdom of Greece, by Stefanos Xenos, p. 26.

r

CESSION TO GREECE.   311

j A.D. 1863.]

| contest. The seven islands were placed under the protection [of the sovereign of Great Britain as a sacred deposit which ought to be restored to a regenerated nation. The question was whether Greece was entitled to receive the deposit. It was evident that things were brought to a crisis. In vain Mr. Gladstone, speaking as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the House of Commons, on the 7th of May declared that the abandonment of the protectorate by Great Britain would be nothing less than a crime against the safety of Europe. Facts w^rere stronger than his eloquence, and it was evident that the British government must either permit its protectorate to be rendered contemptible by a parliament that insulted it annu­ally, or else the islands must be governed without a repre­sentative assembly. From this alternative there was no escape except by uniting the islands with Greece¹.

The revolution of 1862 afforded an opportunity of which the British government took advantage, and in the month of December, as has been already mentioned, the provisional government was informed that, if the king whom the Greeks elected should be a person against whom no well-founded objection could be raised, Queen Victoria would take mea­sures for uniting the Ionian Islands with the Hellenic kingdom. The election of King George fulfilled every condition required, and on the 14th November 1863 a treaty was signed by France, Russia, Austria, Prussia, and England, regulating the conditions of the annexation. The three protecting powers undertook to conclude a treaty with the Greek kingdom for completing the union, because Austria and Prussia had not acknowledged the Danish prince as King of the Hellenes. Great Britain, France, and Russia, as protecting powers, con­cluded a treaty with Greece for carrying into effect the stipu­lations of the treaty signed by the five powers, and bound themselves to communicate this treaty to Austria and Prussia. The Ionian Islands were transferred to Greece under the con­dition of neutrality, the dismantling of the fortifications, and the maintenance of the commercial privileges enjoyed by foreigners. The neutrality and the dismantling of the forti­fications, instead of being regarded as an advantage by a weak state dependent on the protection of the great powers,

¹ Parliamentary Papers; Ionian Islands, 1861. Sir Henry Storks to the Duke of Newcastle, with enclosures, nth March, 1861.

312 CHAXGE OF DYNASTY.

[Bk.V.Ch. VI. ^

caused great dissatisfaction in Greece, where all classes in- £ dulged in visions of new annexations¹.        j ^!

The Greek plenipotentiary sent to London to conclude the j ¹ treaty was instructed to protest against the destruction of the ■ fortifications as unjust to Greece, and the neutrality as useless and impracticable, and in case his representations should prove of no avail he was ordered to decline signing the treaty². Negotiations were carried on at London for four months. The Russian ambassador, Baron Brunnow, an able and experienced diplomatist, told the Greek plenipotentiary that ^£ the alleging of impossibilities was a bad and dangerous weapon,’ but the bold and inexperienced Greek replied that the impossibility was a matter of fact. The three protecting powers made as many concessions to Greek susceptibility as they thought consistent with their duty to the other powers interested. They restricted the neutrality to Corfu and Paxos. and the dismantling of the fortifications to the de­struction of some of the most important works at Corfu. They were finally compelled to put an end to further ob­jections on the part of the Greek government by declaring that the great powers were the proper judges of what the general interest of Europe required, and that the Greek plenipotentiary must sign the treaty prepared by the three guaranteeing powers, or else the Greeks must accept the responsibility of delaying the union. In the mean time the dismantling of the fortifications of Corfu was completed, and

¹      Parliamentary Papers; Correspondence respecting the revolution in Greece, October, 1S62. Earl Russell to Mr. Elliot, 12th December, Xo. 3, 1863. De­spatch respecting the union of the Ionian Islands with Greece ; Earl Russell to Lord Bloomfield, 10th June, 1863. This last document is a circular which reads like a caiicature of Earl Russell's diplomatic style. He informs the British ambas­sadors and ministers to whom it is addressed, ^; that the Ionian Inlands are not, as some persons appear to suppose, a pait of the possessions of the British crown. They form the republic of the seven islands, placed by treaty under the protection of the sovereign of the United Kingdom.’ It is curious to find a British statesman supposing so much ignorance in British ambassadors as to require to be reminded of this, had it been true. But it is a strange display of ignorance, for the first article of the treaty of 1815. which is cited in the despatch, says that the Ionian Islands were, not as the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs appears to have supposed, a republic, but ‘ that they form a state, under the denomination of the United States of the Ionian Isles.’ In the year 1815 they had long ceased to be a republic.

²      "Eyyp'itpi eirtffrjpa atpooUjvra ras eiri tov 'EvTavqffiaKov ZrjTTjpiaTos Aiarrpayfjia- Ttvans. Iv ’AOf/vais, 1864. 'Oorjyiai, p. 3. These documents are translated in the woik of Mr. Stefanos Xenos, East and West; Correspondence 2‘elating to the union, presented to the Greek X’ational Assembly, Instruction to M. Charilaos Tiicoupi, p. 1.

ENGLISH LEAVE CORFU.       313

A.D. 1S64.]

at last the treaty was signed on the 29th March 1864; and a protocol on the same day recorded the engagement of King George to maintain the conditions of his election, in virtue of which his legitimate heirs and successors must profess the tenets of the Orthodox Church of the East¹.

On the 2nd June 1864 the Lord High Commissioner delivered up the government of the Ionian Islands to a Greek commissioner, the English forces left Corfu, and the United States of the Ionian Islands ceased to exist, and its territory became a part of the Greek kingdom. The poli­tical connection between Greeks and Englishmen, which had existed ever since 1815 with little satisfaction to either nation, was terminated without any regret. Instead of creating feelings of mutual esteem, it had produced con­stantly increasing divergences of views, which had ended in dislike, if not in positive aversion.

In destroying the monarchy of 1832 the Greeks abolished the constitution of 1844. They preferred making a new constitution to the slower method of improving what was imperfect in their institutions, and reforming what was vicious in their social habits. They imagined that it would be easier to create a perfect government from theory than to improve the existing administration with the aid of experience. National servitude has prevented them from looking to their past with feelings of attachment and respect, and they have not yet enjoyed the advantages of a regular administration for a sufficient length of time to understand that the per­manence of institutions is one of the best defences against arbitrary power, whether it be exercised by kings, ministers, or mobs. In 1862 the people did not perceive that the evils of their government proceeded more directly from the corruption of their administrative system than from the imperfections of the constitution of 1844. Administrative

¹ The Russian ambassador at London insisted 011 King George giving this engagement. Confidence in the honour of princes and sovereigns had been greatly diminished by late events in Europe. And the Russian ambassador observed that, although the matter was decided by a decree of the National Assembly, and that decree was acctpled by the three protecting powers and the King of Denmark, who acted as tutor of King George, there was not yet a direct engagement and acceptance on the part of the King of the Hellenes. Such acceptance it appeared was deemed necessary, in consequence of the conduct of the Prince of Augusten- burg, which showed the inefficacy of obligations undertaken by parents and tutors. Xenos, East and West; Correspondence, p. 146.

3 [4 CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

"                              [Bk. V. Ch. VI.

reform lies beyond the direct sphere of popular action, and

the officials of King Otho’s government who crept into power

as revolutionary leaders, administered public affairs under the

new constitution as badly as under the old. The evil of

place-hunting which degraded the character of the educated

classes was not diminished, and the progress of the nation

continued to be obstructed by the wasteful manner in which.

the revenues of the state were expended.

The National Assembly met on the 22nd December 1862, and was dissolved on the 28th November 1864. Its merits and defects arose from the nature of its composition, which explains why it frequently allowed its proceedings to be guided by theory instead of practice. Within the limits of the Greek kingdom, the members were elected in the same manner as the deputies had been elected to the chamber of representatives under the constitution of 1844, only the number was doubled. The reaction against King Otho’s system and revolutionary influences caused a large majority of new men to obtain seats, and these men were often inexperienced in parliamentary business. A new principle of representation was also introduced, in order to give this assembly a national character, and add to its moral as well as its political influence by making it embrace a wider sphere of opinions and interests. Every community of Greek citizens resident in foreign countries was authorized to send a representative to the assembly, if its number exceeded 100 souls; if it exceeded 1000 souls it was authorized to send two representatives, and if it exceeded 10,000 souls three representatives. The elections were to take place in the consulates The decree of the provisional government that established this principle of representation was illogical and unjust, and it was carried into execution in a way directly at variance with the reasons urged for its adoption. The electoral districts of Greece generally elected a represen­tative for every 7500 souls. The Greek citizens abroad, who paid no taxes to the Greek state, and suffered nothing from bad fiscal laws and the misapplication of the public expendi­ture, whose families were not liable to the conscription, and whose chief national object was to attack the Othoman

¹      Decree of the'Provisional Government, dated 23rd October (5th November),

1862.

Jtifil

vli'd

leriti

■                                      NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.         qi z

Ld. 1863.]                      ^J °

ajgt empire, were privileged to elect two deputies in many cases tori (where native communities were only entitled to elect one. -r'JjThis anomaly was justified by the argument that small i< Greek communities in England or Palestine could send men of high character and varied experience as merchants and capitalists, whose knowledge of the world would add dignity to the grand council of the nation. A wider sphere would secure the services of higher intellectual powers, diminish the influences of party passions, and command more general respect. But the privilege was exercised in direct opposition to the reasons employed for its justification. The commu­nities abroad, instead of electing experienced merchants and :j«|great capitalists of independent character, in most cases elected government officials trained up under the administra­tive system which it was the principal object of the Revolution to destroy. These consular elections introduced into the National Assembly a number of ex-ministers, foreign office clerks, and other officials, who were mere party organs or political adventurers ^x. Comparatively few foreign communi­ties elected members of their own societies.

The decree of the people published during the night of the Revolution declared, that a National Assembly was to be convoked in order to elect a king and organize the state ; this was interpreted as meaning that it was to reform the executive government and frame a new constitution². The assembly spent a month in examining the credentials of its members, and on the 23rd January 1863 began to prepare its rules of procedure. On the 3rd February it decreed that Prince Alfred had been elected by universal suffrage constitu­tional King of Greece. Experience soon made it apparent that the assembly was incapable of reforming the executive government, and various circumstances created delay in adopting a new constitution. On the 30th March 1863 it

¹      M. Tricoupi, the historian of the revolution, who had been long Greek minister in England, was elected representative by the Greeks of the mercantile community at Manchester, because he failed to obtain the votes of his fellow- citizens in his native town of Mesolonghi. A Greek merchant was for a short time representative of the community in London, but he resigned to make way for M. Charilaos Tricoupi, who had been his father’s secretary of legation in England. M. Chrestides, a veteran minister of King Otho, was elected by the community of Cairo. M. D. Mavrocordatos, minister of foreign affairs in the Balbes cabinet, was the representative of the community of Leghorn.

²      Revolutionary Decree, 10th (22nd) October, 1862.

316 CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

[Bk.V. Ch. VI

was announced that the British government recommended a candidate, and on the same day King George I. was elected! ^1,1 by the National Assembly constitutional King of the Hel­lenes. The union of the Ionian Islands then became a cause of delay. At length the annexation was completed, and eighty-four Ionian representatives having taken their seats in the assembly, the discussion of the draft of the constitution prepared by a committee commenced on the ioth August 1864^l.

During the year which elapsed from the Revolution to the arrival of King George at Athens on the 30th October 1863, the leading men in the National Assembly were invested with all the powers of the executive government. The assembly was much occupied in choosing a president and ministers, rewarding the partizans of revolutionary opinions, and voting salaries. To create patronage had been a vice of King Otho’s government, and it continued to exist in the National Assembly. The administration of the assembly, instead of improving the finances and organizing the navy, army, and civil service, wasted the national revenues, and allowed every branch of the government to fall into a degree of disorder approaching anarchy². In the month of June, the army on paper amounted to upward of 9000 men, and ofj » this number 4000 were receiving pay as commissioned or 1¹ tit non-commissioned officers, and of the 5000 privates not morej^ than 2600 were with their regiments. It was subsequently stated that pay was drawn for 1160 in a battalion, when it could not muster more than 400 men³. Things were worse in the navy, for the number of officers exceeded the number of seamen, half the seamen were not afloat, and some

¹      The population of the Ionian Islands was estimated at 235,000. They had! ® consequently a larger share of the national representation than the Greeks of the | | kingdom, since they had a deputy to every 2500 souls of the Ionian population, and in the Peloponnesus in the most favoured districts there was only a deputy to double that number.

²      During the year that preceded the arrival of King George, there were seven cabinets, ineluding modifications, and forty-two changes of ministerial portfolios; twelve ministers, ineluding all the presidents of the government, had been ministers of King Otho, and twenty-three new ministers were introduced into the cabinet by the National Assembly.

³      Discussions in the National Assembly, 15th (27th) May, 1863. One of the battalions that took part in the civil war in the streets of Athens was only forty-1 five strong, viz.. five officers, ten sergeants-major, twelve sergeants, eleven corporals, and seven privates. It had disbanded itself after the revolution, and all the con­scripts returned home. See the statement of Lieul.-Col. Pappadiamantopoulos,

La Grece, 5th February, 1864,

I

NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.  oij

.d. 1863.]

>f the officers as well as the seamen were landsmen who cnew nothing of the service.

Partly from the inaptitude of a representative body to nanage executive business, and partly from the desire of he members of the assembly to prolong their power, their jroce'edings were very dilatory. Subjects were discussed of vhich the assembly ought not to have taken cognizance. The national disposition to get business out of the way when t presented difficulties was observable, and little practical ibility was shown in carrying good measures into immediate ;xecution. Sometimes the meetings took place only once i week, and both in the manner of attending and in the labit of preventing the formation of a house, there was a display of that want of a sense of duty which is one of the *rea.t social defects of the Greeks. The people desired the establishment of a strong and responsible government, in order that the laws might be executed with vigour and impartiality; and they left it entirely to the assembly to judge what laws w^rere required and how they were to be carried into effect. Unfortunately for Greece neither the civil nor military services produced a single man capable of taking the lead as an organizer, and the country produced no man with the talents that constitute a statesman and a ruler. These evils were increased by the docility of the people in politics, who, habituated to obedience by the centralization of action in the hands of the government, looked to the National Assembly for all practical measures of improvement. Little w^Tas done towards ameliorating the condition of the agricultural population ; the labour question and the obstacles that prevented the employment of capital in land were not examined ; no effort was made for diminish­ing the expense of transport, and no system was adopted for giving security to life and property and suppressing brigandage. The representatives of the Greek people and of the foreign communities, after voting salaries to themselves for performing public business, absented themselves from the assembly to attend to their own private affairs. Their con­duct caused many of their countrymen to consider Greek society as not yet prepared for representative assemblies and constitutional government. Despotic power may be the most certain means of enforcing responsibility on government

318 change of dynasty.

[Bk. V. Ch. VI.

officials, but the best despot cannot in the end prevent so much evil as a moderately good representative system. Public opinion is the safest mode of enforcing responsibility, because it is the surest mode of creating a sense of duty; but the value of public opinion is in proportion to the morality of the people.

A detailed account of the party contests in the National Assembly would add little to a knowledge of Greek history. Similar conduct will, in all probability, be repeated, when­ever men under similar circumstances find themselves invested with almost unlimited power, even if it be allowed that the modem Greeks excel in intellectual acuteness and , moral insensibility. Yet, in spite of the evils which resulted ' from power falling into the hands of politicians already corrupted by a bad administrative system, still the National Assembly of 1862 will occupy an important place in the history of the political institutions of Greece. Its bad executive administration will be forgotten, and its legislation I will obtain for it an honourable position. Its character will . be judged by the constitution of 1864, and by the municipal ’ law it enacted. Few will read the records of its administra­tive errors and its long debates on party measures, but its I legislation will be studied as reflecting the national opinions , on many questions connected with the general progress of European society. The abolition of an upper chamber of aged officials to represent aristocracy, the restriction of the ' previous exemption of officials of the central government from the jurisdiction of the courts of justice, and the relief of the municipal administration from its subordination to minis- j ters and nomarchs, were important improvements, and they were in opposition to the principles of the French system, which the Greeks had hitherto taken as the model for their government. Unlike the previous assemblies, which adopted Western theories and transcribed foreign constitutions, the National Assembly of 1862 endeavoured to frame a constitu­tion capable of remedying past evils and preventing future abuses. It sought to adapt the action of the executive to the existing state of society in the Hellenic population, and it is ! deserving of study, because it forms an authentic record of the wants and opinions of a people differing in many respects from the nations of Western Europe.         I '

COUNT SPONNECK.       319

A.D. 1864.]

Even after the National Assembly commenced its proper work, it advanced very slowly in framing the constitution. Instead of devoting every hour to the completion of the special business for which it existed, and making every effort to terminate the provisional and revolutionary position of the supreme power in the state which the assembly had assumed, and hastening by every means in its power the convocation of an ordinary legislature, it wasted day after day in stormy discussions on questions it ought not to have entertained. These questions were often selected to try the strength of the parties into which the assembly was split, and the delays created by the party which feared defeat ultimately caused much dissatisfaction. The respect with which the people regarded the assembly was in danger of being changed into disrespect.

Count Sponneck, a Danish ex-minister, who accompanied King George to Greece as a private political counsellor, took advantage of the misconduct of the members of the assembly to hasten its dissolution. Unfortunately Count Sponneck did not possess the talents of a statesman, and was deficient in the political discrimination that might have served as a substitute for experience in Greek politics. His position was one which required a cool judgment and great tact, and he possessed very little judgment and was utterly wanting in tact. He was entrusted with the delicate duty of directing the exercise of the authority of the crown in a country where revolutionary measures, without daring to dispute constitutional principles, held them in abeyance. On the 18th of October 1864, by the advice of Count Sponneck, the king sent a message to the National Assembly, reminding it that His Majesty had been a year in Greece, and that the union of the Ionian Islands was accomplished. The king invited the assembly to hasten its work and vote the remaining articles of the constitution during the next ten days, in accordance with the draft which the ministers of the crown would present, promising to ratify all the articles already discussed in the form in which they had been voted by the assembly.

This royal message was extremely displeasing to a ma­jority of the members of the assembly, but it was in accordance with the feelings of the people, and the assembly found that

320 CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

"                              [Bk. V. Ch. VI.

public opinion was strongly in favour of the action of the crown. The government project, or, to speak correctly, the pro­ject of Count Sponneck, was voted without any essential modi­fication, and sent to the king on the 31st of October 1864.

The law of election and the municipal law became pretexts for new delays, and on the 14th of November the king sent a second message to the assembly. The success of his first message, which forced the assembly to create a council of state, induced Count Sponneck to risk an unwise manoeuvre. The pressure of public opinion quite as much as the influence of the crown had enforced obedience to the first royal message, but the second was not supported by public opinion, and a minority of the assembly found means to render the count’s manoeuvre abortive. In the second message his majesty announced that he accepted the constitution as voted, and invited the assembly to vote the budget of 1865, and to modify the provisions relative to a revision of the constitution. Both these proposals were negatived ^x.

The demand on the part of the crown that the National Assembly, after it had completed the constitution, should vote the supplies of the coming year, was a gross violation of constitutional principles, and was condemned by the voice of public opinion. The work of the assembly was completed, and there was ample time to convoke a regular chamber for voting the supplies. Moreover the assembly contained a number of representatives who were elected by constituencies which paid no taxes and possessed no constitutional right to vote the supplies. The proposal was made for the convenience of Count Sponneck, to dis­pense with the necessity of convoking the chamber of deputies until the 1st of November 1865, when its meeting became obligatory by the constitution. The Greeks were offended by this transparent endeavour to avoid meeting the representatives of the country on the question of public expenditure. The proceeding traced out in the second royal message was so adverse to sound policy, that the assembly prevented ministers from forming a house to dis-

¹ The Assembly was also invited to make a verbal change in the second article, as far as related to the Catholic clergy, in consequence of a demand on the part of the French government, and this change was made.

NEW CONSTITUTION.   321

A.D. 1864.]

cuss the budget of 1865. The opposition rapidly regained the popularity it had lost, and the government found it necessary to abandon the project.

On the 28th of November 1864 King George ratified I the constitution in the hall of the assembly, took the oath it prescribed, and dissolved the National Assembly after it had sat nearly two years.

The constitution of 1864 forms a record of the state of public opinion among the educated classes in Greece, and of the legislation which they deemed necessary to secure good government. The revolution of 1862 was a national protest against the manner in which the executive government had been conducted under the constitution of 1844. The merits of the new constitution must therefore be estimated by its efficiency in protecting the people against the evils that caused the discontent which ended in the dethronement of King Otho, and not exclusively by political theories. Centralization invested the crown with a degree of power which ministers and courtiers used for party purposes. Corruption became an instrument for carrying on the government, and place-hunting became the principal employment of politicians. One great object of the Greeks in the Revolution of 1862 was to diminish the sources of corruption, to form honest administrators, and to organize a system of national control. Such an under­taking requires time for its success, and perhaps more than one generation must elapse before the vices of the modern Greeks can be ‘ burnt and purged away.’

One of the worst evils of King Otho’s reign was the destruction of self-government in the municipalities of Greece, and the conversion of the municipal administration into an agency for executing the orders of the central authority. This rendered the demarchies nests of ministerial, courtly, and party patronage. If self-government mean, that the people in their municipalities elect their executive officers, like mayors, as well as their legislators, like common-council- men, and that when the people elect to any office the law alone can remove or suspend their nominee from the exercise of his functions, then Greece had no such thing as self-government during Otho’s reign. He had so com­pletely nullified municipal institutions that the local revenues VOL. VII. Y

322 CHANCE OF DYNASTY.

[Bk. V. Ch. VI.

of the country were diverted from objects of improvement to paying officials. An example was often cited of two municipalities having raised funds for making a road, and the minister of the interior having compelled each of them to expend the whole sum it had raised in paying an en­gineer named by the central government, who was selected not for his engineering knowledge, but for his ability in electioneering. Truly or falsely, similar conduct was very generally ascribed to King Otho’s government, and it had the effect of smothering every attempt at local improve­ment.

The abuse of patronage in the municipalities by the central government revived the local feelings and prejudices which it was King Otho’s policy to eradicate. When Capo- distrias arrived in Greece, he found the action of the central government impeded by the strength of the spirit of local patriotism. In striving to correct the evil, he curtailed the just powers of the local authorities, because he found it difficult to restrain their abuses, and he destroyed in some degree the vitality which gives a nation energy. During King Otho's reign all local activity was sternly repressed, and there was never a country in possession of so large a share of political liberty as Greece after 1844 which had so little control over its internal administration. The system attained its most vicious form when the Revo­lution of 1862 destroyed the chamber of demarchs. The constitution of 1864 bears traces that a conflict has com­menced betw^reen the people and the classes who uphold corruption. The new municipal law contains many enactments calculated to give independence to local activity, without diminishing the necessary control which the central govern­ment must always exercise in order to enforce the equitable application of the law.

The first object of the constitution of 1864 was to give additional securities to the liberty of the subject and defend private property against the power of the government. King Otho was not prevented by the constitution of 1844 from keeping men in prison for more than a year without bringing them to trial. When he had ruined them, he turned them loose, knowing that the law would afford them no redress, if their imprisonment had taken place in virtue of a formal

LIBERTY OF THE SUBJECT.   qjo

A.D. 1864.]

official order. This exemption of the acts of officials from the jurisdiction of the ordinary tribunals, unless government consented to their prosecution, was a principle of King Otho’s constitutional administration which relieved tyranny from legal restraint. The constitution of 1844 declared that all Greeks were equal in the eye of the law, but the law in the case of government officials could take no cognizance of the violation of this principle, unless with the consent of those who had ordered the wrong¹ to be committed. Those who ought to have been peculiarly amenable to the authority of the courts of justice were able to obtain exemption from the law of the land. King Otho had often seized private property, both for objects of public utility and for his own private use, and left the proprietors unpaid for years. The constitution of 1864 en­deavoured to prevent the recurrence of these acts of injustice, and its provisions relative to the protection of personal liberty and the rights of property are wise and liberal. No one can be detained in prison beyond three months without a public trial, and the detention of a citizen by an officer of justice without a legal warrant is punishable as illegal imprisonment. The right of petition, of public meeting, and of association, and the freedom of the press, are fully recognized and well defined. No man can be deprived of his property except for public objects, and then only after previous indemnification.

Those who frame constitutions, being generally lawyers, have adopted some legal fictions which they repeat without hesitation, though they themselves treat them as conven­tional falsehoods. This practice of saying one thing and thinking another has made men despicable ever since the time of Homer¹. The constitution of 1864 commences its provisions for securing personal liberty by declaring that all Greeks are equal in the eye of the law, and it terminates them by a contradiction of this declaration, saying that for illegalities specially ordered by ministers, no govern­ment official can be prosecuted without a permission from government. The administrative power is left in the king’s hands above the law, and a door is opened to every abuse

¹ "Os x t^T€P°v ptv Kev0r) kvl cppealv, d\\o 5e uvy, Y 2

3.24         CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

[Bk. V. Ch. VI.

of authority by the central government. The people desired to enforce the supremacy of the law, but there were too many members of the National Assembly who were in­terested in escaping from legal responsibility, to allow com­mon sense to get the better of administrative logic. Had public opinion been fully enlightened on this subject, the constitution would have declared the supremacy of the law and not the fictitious equality of the Greeks. If it be - considered necessary to exempt ministers and other govern­ment officials from the jurisdiction of the courts of justice, it would be honest to omit the false assertion concerning the equality of all Greeks in the eye of the law. It was notorious in Greece, even while the National Assembly was sitting, that the military were exempt from the law as applied to other Greek subjects. Proofs of this privi­leged position of the military are contained in the consti­tution itself. Excessive exemptions are conceded to officers who may seek to be elected deputies to the legislative chamber¹.

The constitution omitted all notice of the rights conferred and the obligations imposed on citizens by the national organization which forms them into a state. Civil liberty can have no active life without national institutions based on a system of self-government in local affairs. It was therefore a great neglect not to indicate clearly the basis on which the national organization of political society must

¹ Art. lxxi. A case occurred which shows how far the military were removed from equality with the other Greeks in the eye of the law. While the National Assembly was sitting, an officer entered the office or house of the editor of a news­paper at Athens, and assaulted him, because he had published something offensive to the marshal of the court, who was the officer’s father. The civil tribunals, in spite of the declaration which existed in the constitution of 1844, that the Greeks are equal in the eye of the law, declared that they were incompetent to redress the wrong and punish the violence, because military men are amenable only to military tribunals. Of course military tribunals everywhere regard beating a civilian, and especially a newspaper writer, as a very venial offence, even if they do not in the particular case consider it a very meritorious act.

In place of vague assertions about equality, which seem to be made as a conso­lation to the vanity of nations who raise their governments above the law, it would be wiser to guarantee personal liberty by an article conceived in some such terms as the following :—

All Greeks are equally subject to the law, and amenable in similar cases to the same tribunals. Neither rank, official position, nor the command of a superior, whether civil, military, or ecclesiastical, can exempt any person under any circum­stances from answering before the competent tribunal for an act affecting the position or interests of another person. The law in Greece knows no distinction of persons, where a wrong has been done or an interest affected.

POWERS OF THE CROWN.    325

VD. 1864.]

rest. The social duties which the citizen is bound to perform in his parish ought to be noticed in the constitution of a free state, as well as the rights he is called to exercise in order to protect liberty against centralization ^J.

The powers conferred on the crown by the constitution of 1864 were ample, and well adapted to the position of a foreign king in an imperfectly organized country, where an efficient head of the executive government is required to control the administrative power of ministers and enforce responsibility on the leaders of parties. It is the general belief in Greece that good government is only attainable by a co-ordinate action of the king and the people in arraigning government officials before the great tribunal of public opinion, f This leads many to think that the best method of preventing

*      ministers and officials from abusing the powers with which they are invested by a party majority is to invest the king n with despotic power. Whether collectors of taxes, gen- | darmes, and irregular troops, who are sent out to pursue brigands, would oppress the people less, if an ill-organized administration be controlled by a careless king or by a corrupt faction, may be a matter of doubt. The consti­tution of Greece has proclaimed the sovereignty of the , people, which is perhaps as unpractical as the despotism of I a foreign king.

I With that spirit of indecision which marks political opinion

¹ The following provisions might perhaps have been inserted in the constitution as a guarantee for the national institutions. The municipal law is only the com­plement of one branch of this subject.   _

All Greeks have public duties to perform, local rights to exercise, and national institutions to defend. Some of these duties and rights are inherent in citizenship in a free country; others are created and defined by express laws.

All citizens have duties to perform as residents in a parish, a ward, a demos, and

a province.  .           .

Their duties in a parish refer to local charity and primary education.

Their duties in a ward to sanitary regulations, measures of police, and the maintenance of public order.                                                    .

Their duties in their demos and province are defined in the laws relative to municipal and provincial institutions which secure self-government to the Greeks.

The citizens of each ward in a demos have a right to elect a paredros to repre­sent them in the municipal council by the majority of the votes of the resident

citizens.                           _f

The citizens of each province elect provincial councillors by the votes of the 1 citizens who pay at least 50 drachmas annually of direct taxes.

Neither a paredros, demarch, nor provincial nor municipal_ councillor, can be suspended or removed from his functions except by the decision of a court ol

*      justice. For in Greece, where the people elect to an office, the law alone can terminate its exercise.

yz6 CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

[Bk. V. Ch. VI.

in Greece, the constitution declares that the king is irre­sponsible, and then it renders him responsible by exacting from him an oath. It cannot mean that he is not to be held responsible in case he deliberately violates this oath. It is astonishing that modern statesmen should persist in repeating the philosophic and feudal nonsense they are in the habit of inserting in the constitutions they frame. It is difficult to see what is precisely meant by royal irre­sponsibility in a constitution which proclaims the sovereignty of the people, and it would be wiser to say nothing about it when drawing up a contract between the king and the people. The fiction of royal irresponsibility or divine right, and the phrase ‘ the king can do no wrong,’ are incitements to the destruction of constitutions by what are called coups d'etat. The person of a king may be declared sacred to save him from the penalty of his crimes ; but to say that it is a constitutional maxim that a king can do no wrong, is simply nonsense. Even in England it never had any reason for existing, except as a rule of law to show that the king could not be sued in a court of justice. The sovereign of England can do wrong constitutionally and be punished personally. He can marry a Catholic, and the law punishes him for that act by the forfeiture of the crown; or he may himself become a Catholic, and he ceases to be sovereign and is dethroned without a revo­lution.

The Greek constitution contains a wise provision for upholding the proper authority of the executive. The crown alone can propose to the legislature a vote relating to the appropriation of money for the public expenditure.

The king is also invested with governing power to control his prime minister and his cabinet. He is not called to the throne to reign only, he must also govern. The prime minister is selected by the king: he chooses the members of his cabinet, and presides in the council of ministers. But the king controls the powers of his prime minister by the necessity of holding regular ministerial councils, which create systematic responsibility in the record of their proceedings that must be laid before the king. The power of organizing the procedure of the council of ministers is placed by the constitution in the hands of the crown,

POWERS OF THE CROWN.    oon

A.D. 1864.]

since it contains enactments requiring that many acts of the executive government should be countersigned by all the members of the ministry.

One of the greatest defects of the constitution of 1864 is that it confers on the king a civil list out of all proportion with the revenues of the country and with the private fortunes of his subjects.

While the constitution enforces constitutional forms on the crown, by providing that no act of the king is valid until it be countersigned by a minister who, by his signature, renders himself responsible for the consequences of its exe­cution, it contains no stipulations for enforcing ministerial responsibility. The influence of the official classes in the National Assembly was strong enough to prevent the in­sertion of any such provisions ; and it was only enacted that a special law, determining ministerial responsibility, the punishments to be imposed, and the forms of procedure to be followed, was to be submitted to the house of repre­sentatives and voted in the first legislative session¹. This stipulation imposed on the ministers of the crown the duty of presenting this law. They neglected to perform their duty, and already one of the articles of the constitution of 1864 has been deliberately violated.

How far a constitutional king ought to govern personally, is a question that in every constitutional country must be determined by the character of the monarch and the cir­cumstances of the time. The Greek constitution can hardly be said to adopt the maxim of many liberals, that the king must reign and not govern. The Greeks, generally, be­lieved that the state of their country required the king to exercise the governing power by controlling the whole central administration ; they wished him to act the part in the Greek government which is performed in the British government by the authority of the prime minister indepen­dent of any special office. The Greeks have an instinctive feeling that the constitutional prerogatives of the crown ought to invest the sovereign with the power of checking the authority of his cabinet, for the prime minister must be the leader, and in some degree the instrument, of a

¹ Art. lxxx.

328 CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

[Bk. V. Ch. VI.

party majority in a single chamber. The existence of only one chamber, and the great power which the union of parliamentary and governmental patronage confers on the leader of a powerful party in a place-hunting community, require that the royal authority should be strong in order to adjust the political balance. The king has the same interest in moderating party supremacy as the people, and the people look to the king for preserving the administration of justice free from the influence of faction, and for com­pelling the ministers and the majority of the house of re­presentatives to act in strict conformity with the constitution. Publicity is perhaps the most efficient means for enabling the crown to prevent the ministers and the chamber from abusing their powers, but the people in Greece are not yet fully aware of the action of public opinion¹.

The senate created by the constitution of 1844 consisted of about fifty officials of high rank in the civil and military service. No independent man could enter the senate by his position in the country alone, even if he united in his person the possession of large landed property, great talents, and general esteem. The place of senator was reserved for those who had occupied certain offices, been deputies during two parliaments, or held for several years municipal positions over which the government then exercised direct control. The consequence was that the senate became both an obstructive body, and a servile instrument of King Otho’s administrative system. Almost every member was accused of participating in some scheme for promoting his own pecuniary advantage or extending his personal patron­

¹ It is interesting to note what are considered to be the prerogatives of a prime minister in England. ‘ The power of the first minister is supreme in his cabinet; if he ceases to be first minister, the ministry is, ipso facto, dissolved ; individual ministers may retain their offices, and may form part of a fresh combination with another head; but it is a new ministry, and the colleagues of the new premier must make a fresh agreement with him. If a cabinet minister desire any recasting of the parts, he must go to the first minister to make known his desire; if he wish to resign, in the first instance he must communicate his wish to the premier to be laid before his sovereign. It is the first minister who, of his own choice, can make changes in the administration, subject of course to the pleasure of the sovereign. It is not that the premier is primus inter pares, but that he is primus, and the next is the next lotigo intervallo. The substantive power which he possesses in his cabinet is very great.’ This passage is extracted from George Canni ,g and his Times, by A. G. Stapleton, who was for many years Canning’s piivate secretary.

QUESTION OF A SENATE.      329

A.D. 1864.]

age, and many notorious cases were made public. The corruption of the senate at last destroyed it. By the 79th article of the constitution of 1844 the senators were to receive 500 drachmas monthly during the legislative sessions. They prolonged their sessions to ten months, and at length, em­boldened by the general neglect of the constitution, both the senate and the chamber of deputies concurred to increase the salaries of their members, in direct violation of their oaths to preserve the constitution inviolate. The senators took to themselves 700 drachmas a month all the year round. This act of dishonesty was neither forgotten nor forgiven. The Revolution of 1862 dissolved the chamber of deputies and abolished the senate. Every senator had rendered himself liable to a criminal prosecution for perjury, and to a civil action for the repayment of the sums he had received over and above the sum accorded by the constitution of 1844. But the three members of the provisional government established by the Revolution of 1862 had been senators, and the violation of the constitution of 1844 had been so general, that it was deemed prudent to escape from many difficulties by abolishing that constitution as well as the senate it created. There was a necessity for framing a new constitution, that it might serve*as an act of oblivion and of tacit indemnity.

The question concerning the existence of a senate in Greece presents itself in a different form from that which it assumes in other countries. It is not so much whether a senate be necessary, as whether it be possible, from the state of society, to form one. No class exists from which unpaid senators can be taken, and experience has proved that a paid senate, composed of servile notabilities or superannuated officials, can only become a house of retreat for corrupt politicians. The committee of the National Assembly of 1862, being in great part composed of officials, and being under the influence of the constitutional theories prevalent in western Europe, proposed to re-establish a senate. But the sound sense of the nation declared itself decidedly hostile to the existence of such a body. There was an evident im­possibility of constituting any senate that did not include many individuals of the old body, who had been guilty of perjury and proved themselves unfit to be entrusted with

5c>0        CHANGE OF DYNASTY.

'                              [Bk.V.Ch. VI..

the duty of guarding the constitution. A new senate, there­fore, could not fail to become a counterpart of that which the nation had abolished. When the question of re-establishing a senate was discussed in the National Assembly, Count Sponneck, who, like the foreign diplomatists at Athens, believed that a senate ought to be established as a necessary part of a constitutional monarchy, announced on the part of the king, that the existence of a senate would nevertheless not be made a government question. Bulgaris, the leader of the opposition, declared that he considered a senate composed of members nominated by the king for life, to be a necessary element in a monarchical constitution. Koumoundouros, the leader of the ministerial party, advocated the formation of an elective senate, to be chosen for a longer period, and by a different constituency from that which elected the chamber of deputies. The National Assembly, however, echoing the general feeling of the country, consigned the senate to oblivion, and made no mention of any such body in the constitution.

A single representative chamber, consisting of not less than 150 members, having completed thirty years of age, chosen by universal suffrage and secret voting, was estab­lished. Paid officials and demarchs are expressly excluded from scats in this chamber, but officers of the army and navy are granted great privileges and facilities for present­ing themselves as candidates. The salaries of represen­tatives are reduced to 2000 drachmas for each legislative session ¹.

As soon as the National Assembly had decided to estab­lish a single legislative chamber, Count Sponneck became alarmed at the danger of democracy. He may have feared that it would be more difficult for the government to manage one chamber which reflected the opinions of the nation, than two chambers where more avenues would exist for the admission of royal influence. Indeed the greater number of the foreigners in Greece agreed with him in believing that a nominated senate was necessary, in order to smooth

¹ The representatives of the people elected under the constitution of 1S64 attempted to violate this article and vote more money to themselves in their first legislative session, reminding us of what Polybius (vi. 56. 13) says of the Greeks, whenever they have any control over public money.

COUNCIL OF STATE.      rn

A.D. I864.]

the working of constitutional government by lubricating it with the oil of corruption. The royal message of the 18th October 1864 made an effort to supply the want of a senate, by recommending the creation of a council of state, under circumstances which, as has been already noticed, compelled the assembly to adopt the recommendation. A consultative body called a council of state was constituted, to which all projects of laws introduced into the chamber were to be referred for revision. The members of this council were not to be fewer in number than fifteen, nor more than twenty. They were named for ten years, and were to receive an annual salary of 7000 drachmas. The duty of a councillor of state was declared to be incompatible with any other public office except that of minister. But the duties of minister and councillor of state could not be exercised at the same time. It was acknowledged that, if it had been possible for King George to have selected fifteen able legis­lators of high character from among the politicians of Greece, the institution of a council of state would have formed a valuable addition to the organization of the Hellenic king­dom ; but it was felt that, as it was impossible to find men fit for the place of senators, the same difficulty existed in selecting councillors of state. The names of the men who were nominated proved that the public had formed a correct opinion. The National Assembly, in order to mark its dissent from the policy of establishing a council of state, inserted in the constitution an article authorizing the chamber of depu­ties to reconsider the measure during the first legislative period at the demand of three quarters of the members. This article caused no misgivings, for it was supposed that the king’s ministers would be always opposed to the abolition of the council of state, and always able to command the adherence of more than a quarter of the deputies to the views of the court.

The council of state was, from the first, extremely un­popular in the country. It was looked upon with aversion as the revival of a mitigated senate ; and neither the cha­racter nor the talents of its members tended to lessen the general dislike. Its existence was short. On the 1st Decem­ber (19th November) 1865, the chamber of deputies in its first legislative period decided that it should be abolished by

332 CHANCE OF DYNASTY.

[Bk.V. Ch. VI.

120 votes to 26. And on the 6th December a royal message communicated the king’s assent to the chamber¹.

Whatever may be the defects of the constitution of 1864, it affords decisive evidence that the Greeks see some of the imperfections of their government and desire to reform them. It proves also, that Greece wants something more than the rules of political procedure that are embodied in written constitutions, in order to infuse better moral principles among her people, whose social system has been corrupted by long ages of national servitude.

It would be an idle occupation to conjecture in what manner this last Revolution of the Greeks and their new constitution will affect the national progress, for both the political condition of the Hellenic kingdom and the moral condition of the Greek race are in a state of transition. Neither is clearly defined. The constitution of 1864 may become an instrument for strengthening the sense of duty in the king, the feeling of responsibility in the servants of the state, and the love of justice in the hearts of the people. Those who have long studied the condition of Greece never fail to observe that, until the people undergo a moral change as well as the government, national progress must be slow, and the surest pledges for the enjoyment of true liberty will be wanting.

I now close this work with a hope that the labour of a long life, spent in studying the Greek Revolution, and recording its history, will not be entirely labour in vain. Greece may soon enter on happier years than those of which I have been the historian, or than she has enjoyed in my lifetime. Con­temporary events have cast dark shadows around me and perhaps obscured my view, but even an imperfect sketch of great national and social convulsions by an eye-witness, though traced by a feeble hand, may prove valuable, if it preserve a true outline. Two thousand years of the life of the Greek nation have been passed in Roman subjection, Byzantine servitude, and Turkish slavery. During this long period Greek history is uninviting, even when it is most instructive. The efforts the Greeks are now making to emerge from their state of degradation will supply the

¹ ’E<pr)fiepls twv 'S.v^rjT-tjaimv Trjs BcvKrjs, 1865, vol. ii. 450, 460.

CONCLUSION.        333

a.d. 1864.]

materials for a valuable chapter in the history of civilization. I conclude with a sincere wish that these efforts may not be in vain, and that their complete success may find an able historian.

Athens, May, 1866.

APPENDIX.

The two papers which follow have been added to show the manner in which able officers urged the Greeks to avail themselves of naval and military science. Captain Hastings, the author of the first paper, never obtained any important command; and though he introduced great practical changes in naval warfare, and fell,

‘ dying in Greece and in a cause so glorious,’ he has missed gaining a name.

Sir Charles Napier, who gave the second paper to the writer of this work, has won imperishable fame on a wider and more glorious field than the Greek Revolution. The name of Hastings hardly finds a place in the history of Greece; that of Napier will live for ever in the history of England.

I.

Memorandum by Frank Abney Hastings, Esq., on the use of

Steamers armed with heavy guns against the Turkish Fleet.

Communicated to Lord Byron in 1823, and laid before the Greek

Government, with some modification, in 1824.

Firstly, I lay down as an axiom that Greece cannot obtain any decisive advantage over the Turks without a decided maritime supe­riority; for it is necessary to prevent them from relieving their fortresses and supplying their armies by sea.

To prove this it is only necessary to view the state of the Greek armies, and that of their finances.

They are destitute of a corps of artillery, of a park of artillery, of a corps of engineers, and of a regular army. With all these wants, I ask, how is it possible to take a fortress but by famine ? This, however, is difficult, even if the sea was shut against the Turks; for, from the state of the Greek finances, and the formation

APPENDIX.

of the army, troops can scarcely remain long enough before a place furnished with a formidable garrison, and tolerably supplied with provisions, to reduce it. However, famine is the only resource, and it is by that alone that the fortresses now in the hands of the Greeks have been reduced.

The localities of the country are also such, and the difficulty of moving troops so great, that, without the aid of a fleet, all the efforts of an invading army would prove fruitless. But on the contrary, were an invading army followed by a fleet, I fear that all the efforts of the Greeks to oppose it would be ineffectual. The question stands thus, Has the Greek fleet hitherto prevented the Turks from supply­ing their fortresses, and is it likely to succeed in preventing them ? I reply, that Patras, Negrepont, Modon, and Coron have been regularly supplied, and Mesolonghi twice blockaded.

Is it likely that the Greek marine will improve, or that the Turkish will retrograde? The contrary is to be feared. We have seen the Greek fleet diminish in numbers every year since the commencement of the war, while that of the Turks has undeniably improved, from the experience they have gained in each campaign. Witness the unsuccessful attempts with fire-ships this year (1823). The Turks begin to find fire-ships only formidable to those unprepared to receive them.

Is the Greek fleet likely to become more formidable? On the contrary, the sails, rigging, and hulls are all getting out of repair; and in two years’ time thirty sail could hardly be sent to sea without an expense which the Greeks would not probably incur¹.

We now come to the question, How can the Greeks obtain a de­cisive superiority over the Turks at sea? I reply, By a steam-vessel armed as I shall describe. But how is Greece to obtain such a vessel ? The means of Greece are much more than amply sufficient to meet this expenditure. However, there are various reasons which it is not necessary to detail, but which would probably prevent the Greek government from adopting the plan. It therefore becomes necessary to ascertain how such a vessel might be equipped without calling on the Greek government to contribute directly. If proper statements were made to the Greek committee in England, I think it might be induced to bear some part of the expense. I will contribute £1000 on the condition that I have the command, and that the vessel is armed in the manner I propose. If this does not form a sufficient fund, I think that the deficiency may be made up by a loan; a guarantee being given that a certain portion—say one-half of all

¹ The English loan had not yet been obtained.

HASTINGS' MEMORANDUM.

337

prizes—shall be applied to the payment of the interest and the extinction of the debt. The same proportion would be set apart to meet the expenses of the vessel, so that the Greek government might be called upon to bear no other expenses but the wages of the crew.

I shall now explain the details of the proposed armament, and the advantages which I think would result from it. It would be neces­sary to build or purchase the vessel in England, and send her out complete. She should be from 150 to 200 tons burden, of a con­struction sufficiently strong to bear two long 32-pounders, one for­ward and one aft, and two 68-pounder guns of seven inches bore, one on each side. The weight of shot appears to me of the greatest importance, for I think I can prove that half a dozen shot or shells of these calibres, and employed as I propose, would more than suffice to destroy the largest ship. In this case it is not the num­ber of projectiles, but their nature and proper application that is required.

In order that the vessel should present less surface to the wind and less mark to the enemy, combined with a greater range of point­ing and more facility for the use of red-hot shot, the bulwark should be sufficiently low to admit of the guns being fired over it. From the long 3 2-pounders I propose launching red-hot shot, because, though perhaps not more destructive than shells, they give a longer range; and the fuel required to impel the vessel could easily be made to heat the shot. The idea being rather novel, startles people at first, because, as it has never been put in practice, they imagine there must be some extraordinary danger to which it subjects your own vessel. But this is not the case. The real reason why it has never been adopted hitherto is, that on board a ship you cannot lay your guns before you introduce your red-hot shot, as on shore. This arises, of course, from the motion of the vessel. In other words, the danger arises from the possibility of fire communicating to the cartridge during the operation of running-out and pointing the gun. If, however, it be proved by experience that, with proper precautions, the shot may be allowed to remain any length of time in the gun without setting fire to the cartridge, this difficulty (and it is the only difficulty) vanishes. In fact, during the siege of Gib­raltar the guns were pointed against the block-ships after being loaded, it being found that one wet wad alone was sufficient security, and that with it the shot might absolutely be left to get cold in the gun. It may, however, be thought necessary to cast iron bottoms for the hot shot, of the same form as those of wood which I propose to make use of in loading the guns with shells. These may be VOL. VII. Z

33⁸

APPENDIX.

placed over the wad, and then the gun may be well sponged, to drown any particles of powder that might by accident escape from the cartridge. With this precaution the shot might be left to cool in the gun, and there could therefore be no want of time to run out and point it. But this would be unnecessary if the gun worked over the bulwark, for it could then be loaded with its muzzle just outside the vessel, having been previously laid to its elevation, the direction being obtained by a slight movement of the helm. Thus there would be no necessity for touching the gun after the shot was once introduced. Perhaps the precautions I propose are in part superfluous, as hot shot are fired on shore without observing them.

Of the destructive effect of hot shot on an enemy’s ship it is scarcely necessary for me to speak. The destruction of the Spanish fleet before Gibraltar is well known. But if I may be permitted to relate an example which came under my proper observation, it will perhaps tend to corroborate others. At New^r Orleans the Americans had a ship and schooner in the Mississippi that flanked our lines. In the commencement we had no cannon. However, after a couple of days, two field-pieces of 4 or 6 lb. and a howitzer were erected in battery. In ten minutes the schooner w^ras on fire, and her comrade, seeing the effect of the hot shot, cut her cable, and escaped under favour of a light wind. If such was the result of light shot imperfectly heated—for we had no forge—w'hat would be the effect of such a volume as a 32-pounder? A single shot would set a ship in flames.

Having treated the subject of hot shot, I shall now pass to the use of shells. It has long been well known that ships are more alarmed at shells than at other projectiles. However, they rarely do the mischief apprehended from them, in consequence of the difficulty of hitting so small an object as a ship with a projectile thrown vertically. This uncertainty prevents bomb-vessels being employed against ships. If, how^Tever, shells be thrown horizontally, their effect would be equally great, and the chance of hitting the object aimed at reduced to the same certainty as if shot were used within a certain range. If the shell passed inside the vessel and exploded, the result would be the same as if it had been thrown vertically. My object, however, w^rould be, to arrange it so as to make the shell stick in the ship’s side and explode there. The result in this case would be much more decisive, and it would tear away a part of her side, and might send her instantly to the bottom. In both cases it would probably destroy a number of the crew and set fire to the ship.

HAS TINGS’ MEMORANDUM,

339

It remains, therefore, to ascertain whether shells can be thrown to a sufficient distance with precision from guns and carronades, and without any danger to your own vessel. The danger of transporting shells is considerably less than the danger of passing powder. It is, therefore, only necessary to prove how they may be fired without danger. The danger of firing a shell from a gun longer than a howitzer or a carronade is, that it might, by rolling in the bore, destroy the fusee and explode in the gun; also, that the fusee might break from the successive blows it would receive before it quitted the muzzle. Now, both these objections are obviated by attaching the shell to a wooden bottom, hollowed out to receive its convexity. Each shell would be kept in a separate box.

We now come to the plan of attack. In executing this, I should go directly for the vessel most detached from the enemy’s fleet, and when at the distance of one mile, open with red-hot shot from the 32-pounder forward. The gun laid at point blank, with a reduced charge, would carry on board en ricochetant. I would then wheel round and give the enemy one of the 68-pounders with shell laid at the line of metal, which would also ricochet on board him. Then the stern 32-pounder with a hot shot, and again the 68-pounder of the other side with a shell. By this time the bow-gun would be again loaded, and a succession of fire might be kept up as brisk as from a vessel having four guns on a side. Here the importance of steam is evident.

With good locks, tubes, Congreve’s sights, and other improvements in artillery, I really see almost as much difficulty in missing a ship of any size in tolerably smooth water as in hitting her. In firing from a ship, the great difficulty is in the elevation; but when my guns were laid at point blank, or two degrees of elevation, neither shot nor shells would ricochet over the enemy.

With regard to any risk of the steam machinery being destroyed by the enemy’s fire, there is of course some risk, as there always must be in military operations of the simplest kind; but when w^re consider the small object a low steamer would present coming head on, and the manner in which the Turks have hitherto used their guns at sea, this risk really appears very trifling. The surprise caused by seeing a vessel moving in a calm, offering only a breadth of about eighteen feet, and opening a fire with heavy guns at a con­siderable distance, may also be taken into account. I am persuaded, from what I have seen, that in many cases the Turks would run their ships ashore and abandon them, perhaps without having the presence of mind to set fire to them.

It would be necessary to have a Greek brig always in company to

Z 2

340

APPENDIX.

carry coals and to tow the steamer, for the steam would only be used in action \

II.

Memorandum by Sir Charles Napier, G.C.B., on Military Operations in the Morea against Ibrahim Pasha in 1826.

If my judgment is correct, the following would be the outline of- operations for a regular military force, and explains why I think Napoli di Malvasia (Monemvasia) so important:—

1.     At Napoli di Malvasia I would establish my magazines and form the army. I would provision and garrison Napoli di Romania (Nauplia) the best way I could, and leave in it the best of the irre­gular troops under the command of the most deserving Greek chief. Having done so, I would leave them and the government (with the example of Mesolonghi) to make their defence, and, having cleared myself of all intrigues, take post at Malvasia.

2.    When the preparations for the campaign were sufficiently ad­vanced to enable me to act, I would advance with my whole force, regular and irregular, to Sparta, or near it, according to circum­stances of the ground and roads. Then I would prepare a position with field-works, to cover the fortress of Napoli di Malvasia against a force coming from Ivalamata, or Tripolitza, or Leondari.

3.    This done, if the enemy had his head-quarters at Tripolitza, with the mass of his force in that town, I would endeavour to cut off his communications with Navarin, Modon, and Coron, by occupying the position of Leondari, sending one-half of my irregulars into the defiles of Mount Chelmos, and the other half to my rear, towards the fortresses of Navarin, Modon, and Coron. I would concentrate my whole regular force at Leondari, except a small portion left in position at Sparta to secure my communications with Napoli di Malvasia. In fact, Sparta would be the pivot on which all operations would turn, according to the point on which the enemy had assembled his force.

4.    In this state I would remain, strengthening Leondari by field­works ; and the enemy, no longer able to pass his convoys of pro­visions from the coast, must attack me in my strong position (and

¹      The remainder of the memorandum is occupied with financial calculations, and with accounts relating to the numbers and pay of the crew. The manner in which the plan was eventually carried into execution, and some of its results, were narrated by Captain Hastings in a pamphlet written a short time before his death. Memoir on the use of Shells. Hot Shot, and Carcass-She.ls from Ship-Artillery. By Frank Abney Hastings, Captain of the Greek steam-vessel of war Karteria. London, 1828. Published by Ridgway.

NAPIER'S MEMORANDUM.

such positions cannot fail to be found in such a country at every turn). If he defeats me, I retire, and my troops rally on Sparta in the prepared position, where another battle may be fought. If again defeated, the remains of my beaten force retire into Napoli di Mal- vasia, and await a siege.

5.    Suppose that the enemy has begun the siege of Napoli di Romania. Then, instead of marching upon Leondari, I would march upon the rear of the besieging army, and post my force so as to cut off his supplies from Tripolitza; and I would send all my irregulars round that town and along the road to Navarin as far as Leondari and Kalamata. I would strengthen my position as before, and the enemy must again come and attack me or starve. If he beat me, I would (as before) retire to Sparta, and if again beaten, enter Mal- vasia and await a siege.

6.    Suppose neither of the above operations could be effected in consequence of the enemy’s force being too great, or from some other cause. Then I would remain at Sparta with my irregulars pushed into the defiles along my front, so as to guard the road from Leondari into Messenia; and I would closely observe him, that I might be ready to take advantage of any error he might commit, or fall with my whole force upon any convoy by a rapid march from Sparta, and retire with equal celerity to my position.

7.    It is pretty clear, by such a plan, the enemy could not besiege Napoli di Romania, unless he had so large a force that he could form two armies—one to besiege the town, and another to cover the siege by marching against Sparta; and, besides, he would require a force to protect all his convoys from my irregular troops. This, we know, he has not. The real defence of Napoli di Romania depends on Napoli di Malvasia.

8.    I have said, that if beaten at Sparta I would go to Malvasia and abide a siege. Suppose, then, the enemy attempted this opera­tion, he would find it very difficult, as I would leave all the irregular troops under an active partizan in the mountains. These would terribly infest his supplies. The place itself is, I am told, of great strength, and, however closely blockaded by the sea, could be supplied by boats at night, and under certain circumstances of weather. If not blockaded by sea very closely, the greatest part of the army would be transported to Napoli di Romania, from whence the same game would be played in favour of Malvasia that she played in favour of Romania, supposing the latter besieged.

Thus, in this sketch, I have endeavoured to show that you may always oblige the enemy to attack you in your own position with

343

APPENDIX.

your back to a fortress, thus uniting offensive war with defensive positions, which is the secret of mountain warfare—a warfare that requires more science and better drilled troops than any other.

Peasants may maintain a long war in their mountains without science, but no results are produced.

It will be seen in the plan I propose that a single defeat to the enemy would be followed by his total destruction, because, as he would be driven to fight for want of provisions, his army must starve - after a defeat, for the victorious army would remain between him and Navarin, from whence he received his supplies. It is true that, if his defeat took place at Sparta, he might escape by Kalamata, though to retreat through a country of defiles exposed to a hostile peasantry is very difficult. But let us suppose he accomplished his object and reached Navarin. Still great results are produced to the Greeks, who would at once besiege him, and the whole country would be recovered, and Tripolitza and Leondari fortified. It is much to be doubted if the Turks could long resist in Navarin when besieged in a scientific manner. I think it certain that ten days or a fortnight w'ould oblige Navarin to surrender.

With the force now under Ibrahim Pasha, I think he could not resist five thousand disciplined troops supported by one thousand veteran Europeans. With such a force, and twenty pieces of light artillery, the Morea might be liberated in a month, and great things undertaken.

It is evident that my plan is but an outline, which admits of modi­fications in filling up the details of execution according to accidents of roads, mountains, supplies, the enemy’s strength, positions, move­ments, &c. In the various operations of the foregoing plan, the garrison of Corinth would come out and take post in the passes commanding the entrance into the plain of Tripolitza from the north-east.

A great advantage of this plan is, that young Greek regulars are not required to attack, but to defend positions. Every old soldier knows how to estimate this advantage. My own opinion is, that neither Greeks nor Turks would succeed in attacking a well-chosen position. The first round of cannon-shot would defeat their column, and make them refuse to advance.

HASTINGS' LETTERS.

343

III.

Copy of a letter addressed by Frank Hastings, Esq., to Prince Mavro­cordatos, President of Greece.

The original, as copied in Hastings’ journal, was in French, which Hastings wrote with facility.

Corinth, 2\th April, 1822.

Monsieur le Prince,

I have determined to take the liberty of addressing your Highness in writing, as I found you occupied when I had the honour of presenting myself at your residence yesterday. I shall speak with freedom, convinced that your Highness will reply in the same manner.

I will not amuse you with recounting the sacrifices I have made to serve Greece. I came without being invited, and have no right to complain if my services are not accepted. In that case, I shall only regret that I cannot add my name to those of the liberators of Greece; I shall not cease to wish for the triumph of liberty and civilization over tyranny and barbarism. But I believe that I may say to your Highness without failing in respect, that I have a right to have my services either accepted or refused, for (as you may easily suppose) I can spend my money quite as agreeably elsewhere.

It seems that I am a suspected person because I am an English­man. Among people without education I expected to meet with some prejudice against Englishmen, in consequence of the conduct of the British government, but I confess that I was not prepared to find such prejudices among men of rank and education. I was far from supposing that the Greek government would believe that every individual in the country adopted the same political opinions. I am the younger son of Sir Charles Hastings, Baronet, general in the army, and in possession of a landed estate of nearly £10,000 a year. The Marquis of Hastings, Governor-General of India, was brought up by my grandfather along with my father, and they have been as brothers. If I were in search of a place I might surely find one more lucrative under the British government in India, and less dangerous as well as more respectable than that of a spy among the Greeks. I venture to say to your Highness, that if the English government wished to employ a spy here, it would not address a person of my condition, while there are so many strangers in the country who would sell the whole of Greece for a bottle of brandy. But it would not be either to the one or the other that it would

344

APPENDIX.

address itself; it would apply to a Greek, and with money traitors are to be found in all countries.

I quitted England because I believed that the government treated me in an arbitrary and unjust manner, in dismissing me from the navy after fifteen years’ service, for an affair of honour while I was on half-pay, and consequently when the Admiralty had no right to take such a step. But in virtue of the Royal prerogative I was dismissed without form, the affair having been misrepresented by an Admiral, who having had a personal quarrel with the Marquis of Hastings whom he conveyed to India, revenged himself on me.

What I demand of your Highness is only to serve, without having the power to injure, your country. What injury can I inflict on Greece, being alone in a ship of war ? I must share the fate of the ship, and if it sink I shall be drowned with the rest on board.

I hope therefore your Highness will give me a definitive answer, whether you will accept my services or not.

I have, etc.,

FRANK HASTINGS.

IV.

Copy of a letter addressed by Captaix Fraxk Abxey Hastings, com­manding the Greek naval force in Eastern Greece, to General Sir

Richard Church, Commander-in-chief of the Greek army.

Karteria, Karbousta, 14th Feb., 1828.

Sir,

It is painful to me to recur to the oft repeated subject of your interference with naval affairs. I am particularly desirous of quitting this station, that I may no longer be subjected either to this inter­ference or to the disagreeable alternative of addressing you in a strain similar to the present, which has (to my regret) been rendered so frequently necessary.

Our duties are so distinct that I cannot conceive how anybody can mistake them, even not having been brought up in the British service.

I met at this place a hracciera having your permission to carry grain. Had the grain been on board I certainly should have cap­tured her. I will capture any loaded boats I meet with your passports. Your Excellency will recollect that the blockade of this part of the Morea was not undertaken by me without your sanction. I represented to you the scandalous traffic carrying on to Patras by

CONSTITUTION OF GREECE.

345

land, and you concurred in the blockade as the only method to remedy it. If you had any exceptions to make, it would have been proper for you (I should think) to state the same to me, that I might give such passports, if the case should appear to me to require it, which I certainly think it does not. But what do you do ? You give a monopoly of grain (without my knowledge or approbation) to a person here, and when the Helvetia, gun-boat, sent away a boat licensed by you, you then inform me and request me to permit the traffic. My reply is justly, I cannot, now that I am asked, and would not, had I been asked in the first instance in the proper manner, admit a monopoly near Patras at the moment I have been endeavouring to suppress the commerce much further off. It would be such a glaring injustice, that I should be subject to the suspicion of profiting by the monopoly I was creating.

I hope this is the last time I shall be obliged to refer to this disagreeable topic, for I shall very quickly now quit this station. The length of time I have been upon it without receiving any order from my commander-in-chief, his temporary absence from Greece, the silence of the government, and the discretionary orders with which I was left by Lord Cochrane, all sanction my taking a step rendered necessary alone by your disapprobation of the manner in which I have conducted the naval affairs since I have been on this station.

I have, etc.,

FRANK ABNEY HASTINGS.

V.

The Constitution of Greece, 1864.

In the name of the Holy, Consubstantial, and Indivisible Trinity, the Second National Assembly of the Greeks convoked at Athens decrees :—

Concerning Religion.

Article I. The established religion of Greece is the Eastern Ortho­dox Church of Christ. Every other recognized religion is tolerated under the protection of the law, proselytism and all interference with the Established Church being prohibited.

II.   The Orthodox Church of Greece, acknowledging for its head our Lord Jesus Christ, is indissolubly united in doctrine with the great church of Constantinople, and with every other church of Christ

346

APPENDIX.

holding the same doctrines, observing invariably, as they do, the holy !: ' apostolic and synodal canons and holy traditions. It is self-governed, j * exercising its governing rights independent of every other church, and I administering them by a holy synod of bishops.     !

The ministers of every recognized religion are subjected to the [Jli same superintendence on the part of the state as the clergy of the |t Established Church.

-i.i

Public rights of the Greeks.      J.

III.  The Greeks are equal in the eye of the law, and contribute ^!i without distinction to the public burdens in proportion to their fortunes. Only Greek citizens are admissible to public employments. > Citizens are those who have acquired or may acquire the qualifi­cations required to constitute citizenship by the laws of the state. .

Titles of nobility or distinction cannot be conferred on Greek citizens nor recognized.

IV.                                        Personal liberty is inviolable. No man can be prosecuted, arrested, imprisoned, or otherwise restrained except when and how * the law provides.                                     _t

V.    Except when taken in the act, no man can be arrested or H imprisoned without a judicial warrant specifying the ground of arrest | or imprisonment.- He who is seized in the act or arrested by warrant j must be carried without delay before the competent examining judge, j who is bound within a delay not exceeding three days from his ' compearance either to release him or deliver a warrant for his im- ,¹ prisonment. Should three days elapse without the examining judge !;; granting a warrant of imprisonment, every jailor or other person, civil

or military, who may be charged with the detention of the person arrested, is bound to release him instantly. Any violation of these . provisions is punishable as illegal imprisonment.

VI.  The council of the Judges of the Court of Delicts (correctional f tribunal) in the case of political offences, can, at the demand of the person detained, authorize his release under caution to be determined by a judicial order against which an appeal is allowed; nor with a ' judicial order, can this preliminary detention be prolonged beyond ■ three months.

VII. No punishment can be inflicted unless appointed by law.

VIII.        No one can be withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the judge i assigned to him by law.

IX.  The right to address written petitions to public authorities may be exercised by a single person or by many on conforming to the laws.

CONSTITUTION OF GREECE.

347

X.    Greeks have the right to assemble tranquilly and unarmed. The police may be present at all public meetings. Meetings in the open air may be prohibited if they offer danger to public security.

XI.  Greeks have the right to form societies in conformity with the laws, and in no case can the law require a previous permission on the part of the government for the exercise of this right.

XII. The dwelling is inviolable. Domiciliary visits can only be made when and how the law authorizes.

XIII.        In Greece men cannot be sold nor bought. A purchased slave or a serf, of every race and religion, is free from the time he enters Greece.

XIV.         Every one may publish his opinions by speech, by writing, or by printing, conformably to the laws. The press is free. The censorship and every other preventive measure is prohibited. The seizure of newspapers and other printed communications whether before or after publication is prohibited. Exceptionally the seizure after publication is permitted in case of insult to the Christian religion or the person of the king. But in this case the public prosecutor is bound within twenty-four hours after the seizure to submit the case to the judicial council, and the judicial council is bound to decide whether the seizure is to be maintained or with­drawn ; otherwise the seizure ceases to be valid. Appeal is allowed only to the publisher of the article seized and not to the public prosecutor.

Only Greek citizens are allowed to publish newspapers.

XV. No oath can be imposed except in the form provided by law.

XVI.         Higher instruction is provided at the expense of the state. The state contributes to the schools in the municipalities according to the exigencies of the case.

Every one has the right of establishing private schools in conformity with the laws of the state.

XVII.       No one can be deprived of his property except for some public necessity duly certified in the manner provided by law and always preceded by indemnification.

XVIII.      Torture and general confiscation are prohibited. Civil death is abolished. The punishment of death for political crimes except in the case of complicated crimes is abolished.

XIX.         No previous permission of the governmental authorities is required to prosecute a public or municipal official for illegalities committed in the exercise of his functions except for acts specially ordered by ministers.

XX. The secrecy of letters is inviolable.

348

APPENDIX.

The form of Government.

XXI.         All power has its source in the nation, and is exercised in the manner appointed by the constitution.

XXII.       The legislative power is exercised by the king and the House of Representatives of the people (RovXtj).

XXIII.     The right of proposing laws belongs to the representatives of the people and the king who exercises it by his ministers.

XXIV.      No proposal relative to an increase of the public expendi­ture by salary or pension or in general for any personal interest can originate from the House of Representatives.

XXV.        If a project of a law be rejected by one of the two legisla­tive powers it cannot be introduced again in the same legislative session.

XXVI.      The authentic interpretation of the laws belongs to the legislative power.

XXVII.    The executive power belongs to the king, but it is exer­cised by responsible ministers appointed by him.

XXVIII.   The judicial power is exercised by courts of law. Judicial sentences are executed in the king’s name.

Concerning the King.

XXIX.      The person of the king is irresponsible and inviolate. His ministers are responsible.

XXX.       No act of the king is valid, nor can it be executed, unless it be countersigned by the competent minister, who renders himself responsible for it by his signature alone. In case of a change of ministry, if none of the retiring ministers consent to countersign the ordinance dismissing the old and appointing the new ministry, the new president of the cabinet appointed by the king will sign the ordinance after taking the oath of office.

XXXI.      The king appoints and dismisses his ministers.

XXXII.    The king is the highest authority in the state. He com­mands the army and navy, declares war and concludes treaties of peace, alliance, and commerce, communicating them to the House of Representatives with the requisite explanation as soon as the interest and security of the state allow of its being done. Commercial treaties and all conventions granting concessions, concerning which nothing can be determined according to the other provisions of the constitution without a special law, or which affect Greeks per­sonally, are not valid without the consent of the House of Repre­sentatives.

CONSTITUTION OF GREECE.

349

XXXIII.   No cession nor exchange of territory can take place without a law. No secret articles of a treaty can abrogate the public articles.

XXXIV.   The king confers military and naval rank in accordance with the law ; he appoints and dismisses public officials, saving the exceptional cases provided for by law. But he cannot appoint to any office not already established by law.

XXXV.     The king issues the ordinances for executing the laws, but in no case can he delay their execution nor make any exception in their operation.

XXXVI.   The king sanctions and publishes the laws. A project of law voted by the House of Representatives and not sanctioned by the king within two months of the conclusion of the session becomes null.

XXXVII.  The king convokes the House of Representatives once a year in ordinary session, and in extraordinary session as often as he deems necessary. He opens and closes each session either in person or by his deputy, and he has the right of dissolving the House of Represen­tatives ; but the ordinance dissolving it must be countersigned by the ministry, and must at the same time proclaim new elections within two months, and convoke the new House of Representatives within three months.

XXXVIII.         The king can prorogue the meeting or suspend the continuance of a legislative session. The prorogation or suspension cannot exceed forty days, nor be renewed during the same session without the consent of the House.

XXXIX.   The king has the right to pardon, commute, and diminish the punishments awarded by the courts of law, excepting those pro­nounced against ministers. He has also the right to grant amnesty, but only in case of political crimes under the responsibility of the ministry.

XL. The king has the right of conferring the legal distinctive decorations, according to the regulations of the law relative to this subject.

XLI. The king has the right to coin money in conformity with law.

XLII. The king’s civil list is fixed by law. That of George the First is one million, one hundred and twenty-five thousand drachmas, in which is included the sum voted by the Ionian parliament. The amount may be increased after the lapse of ten years.

XLIII. King George after signing the present constitution will take the following oath in presence of the National Assembly.

‘I swear in the na?ne of the Holy, Consubstantial, and Indivisible

35o

APPENDIX.

Trinity to maintain the Established Religion of the Greeks, to observe the constitution and lazus of the Greek nation, and to preserve and defend the national independence and integrity of the Greek state!

XLIV. The king has no powers but those expressly assigned to him by the constitution and the special laws annexed to it.

The Succession and the Regency.

XLV. The crown of Greece and its constitutional rights are hereditary, and are transmitted in direct line to the legitimate and lawful descendants of King George by order of primogeniture, giving preference to males.

XLVI. If no direct descendant exist in accordance with the preceding article, the king can appoint a successor with the con­sent of the House of Representatives convoked for the purpose, giving its consent by an open vote comprising two thirds of all its members.

XLVII. Every successor to the Greek throne must be a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church of Christ.

XLVIII. The crown of Greece can never be united with the crown of any other kingdom on the same head.

XLIX. The king attains his majority on completing his eighteenth year. Before ascending the throne he takes the oath in Article XLIII in presence of the ministers, the Holy Synod, the members of the House of Representatives present in the capital, and other high functionaries. The king convokes the House of Representatives within two months, and repeats the oath in presence of the repre­sentatives of the people.

L. In case of the king’s death, if the successor be a minor or absent, and there be no regent appointed, the House of Representa­tives, whether its session be terminated or it may have been dissolved, reassembles without summons within fifteen days after the king’s death at the latest. The constitutional power of the crown is exercised by the council of ministers under their responsibility, until the regent takes the oath or until the arrival of the successor. A special law will regulate the competency of the regency.

LI. In case of the king’s death, if the successor be a minor, the House of Representatives assembles and appoints a guardian. A guardian is only appointed when none has been named in the will of the deceased king, or when the minor has not a mother remaining in widowhood who is called by right to the guardianship of her child. The guardian of the minor sovereign, whether named by will or chosen by the House of Representatives, must be a Greek citizen.

CONSTITUTION OF GREECE.

351

LII. In case of a vacancy of the throne, the House of Repre­sentatives, even if its session be terminated or it may have been dissolved, elects by open voting a Greek citizen to act provisionally as regent; the council of ministers exercising the constitutional power of the crown under its responsibility in the name of the nation, until the regent takes the oath. Within two months at farthest a number of deputies equal to the number of the repre­sentatives of the people in the House of Representatives must be chosen by the electors, and these deputies, forming one body when united with the House of Representatives, choose a king by a majority of two thirds of the whole number convoked and by open voting.

LIII. If the king on account of absence or illness consider it necessary to appoint a regent, he convokes the House of Repre­sentatives for the purpose and proposes by his ministers a special law. If the king be not in a condition to reign, the ministry convokes the House of Representatives, and if the House recognizes the necessity by a majority of two thirds of its members in an open vote, the House of Representatives chooses a regent by open voting, and if necessary a guardian.

The House of Representatives (BovXjj).

LIV. The House of Representatives assembles annually by in­herent right on the ist of November, unless it be convoked earlier by the king. The duration of each session cannot be less than three months nor more than six months.

LV. The meetings of the House of Representatives are public, but the House may debate with closed doors at the demand of ten members; if the motion be adopted in secret sitting by a majority, it must be subsequently decided whether the discussion ought to be resumed in a public sitting.

LVI. The House of Representatives cannot hold a sitting unless at least one more than half the whole number of members is present, nor can it come to a decision without an absolute majority of the members present. In case of an equality of votes, the motion is rejected.

LVII. No project of law is adopted unless it be discussed and voted article by article thrice and on three different days.

LVIII. No one has a right to present himself before the House of Representatives to make any statement either verbally or by writing. Petitions must be presented by a member, or may be deposited in the office. The House has the right to send petitions addressed to it, to

352

AFP END IX.

the ministers, who are bound to give explanations as often as they are demanded. The House can appoint committees of its members to examine the subjects.

LIX. No tax can be imposed nor collected, if it has not been previously voted by the House of Representatives and sanctioned by the king.

LX. The House of Representatives votes annually the limitation of the military and naval forces, the conscription for the army and navy, and the budget, and it revises the expenditure of the preceding year. The budget must be brought before the House during the first two months of each session. The examination is made by a special committee, and it is voted as a whole.

LXI. No pension nor recompense can be issued from the treasury without a law.

LXII. A representative cannot be prosecuted nor questioned on account of any opinion or vote given in the exercise of his duty as a representative.

LXIII. A representative cannot be prosecuted, arrested, nor im­prisoned during the sessions of the House, except in case of seizure in the criminal act. Personal detention cannot be exercised against a representative during the session, four weeks previous to its com­mencement, nor three weeks after its termination. If a representative be in prison, he must be released four weeks before the commence­ment of the session.

LXIV. The representatives before undertaking their duties must swear the following oath in a public meeting.

‘ I swear in the name of the Holy, Consubsfantial, and Indivisible Trinity fidelity to the country, and to the constitution, and to the constitu­tional king, obedience to the constitution and to the lazvs of the state, and to fulfil conscientiously my duties

Representatives not of the Greek Church instead of the invocation ‘ in the name of the Holy, Consubstantial, and Indivisible Trinity/ swear according to their own religious formula.

LXV. The House of Representatives decides on the forms of procedure regulating the manner of fulfilling its duties.

LXVI. The House of Representatives is composed of deputies chosen by the citizens having the right to elect, by direct, universal, and secret suffrage, the votes being given by ballot according to the provisions of the law of election passed by the Assembly, which can only be altered in its other provisions.

LXVII. The deputies represent the nation and not the eparchy by which they are chosen.

LXVIII. The number of deputies from each eparchy is determined

CONSTITUTION OF GREECE.

353

in proportion to the population. In no case can the whole number of representatives be less than 150.

LXIX. The representatives are elected for four years.

LXX. To be elected a representative, it is necessary to be a Greek citizen of the eparchy, or to have been domiciled and possessed of political and civil rights for two years in the eparchy where the elec­tion is made; to have completed thirty years of age; and also to possess the qualifications required by the law of election.

LXXI. The duties of representative are incompatible with those of paid officials and demarchs, but not with those of officers of the army and navy in activity. Officers may be elected, but when elected they are placed on half-pay during the whole representative period, and remain so until recalled into activity.

. Leave of absence must be granted to officers on demand five months and a half before the commencement of the elections.

' LXXII. Representatives appointed by the government to paid offices whether civil or military, or promoted and accepting the promotion, immediately cease the exercise of their representative functions.

LXXIII. The House of Representatives examines the qualifications of its members and decides on doubtful questions of validity.

LXXI.V. The House of Representatives elects its president, vice­presidents, and secretaries at the commencement of each session.

LXXV. Representatives receive a salary of two thousand drachmas from the public treasury for each regular session. In case of extra­ordinary sessions they receive only the expenses of their journey.

LXXVI. Representatives receiving pay as military or civil officials or otherwise can receive only the addition necessary to bring their receipts to the above amount.

Concerning Ministers.

LXXVII. No member of the Royal family can be named a minister.

LXXVIII. Ministers have free entrance to the sittings of the House of Representatives, and are listened to whenever they demand a hearing. They only vote when they are members. The House can require the presence of ministers.

LXXIX. In no case can an order of the king, whether verbal or written, release the ministers from responsibility.

LXXX, The House of Representatives has the right to impeach ministers before a court of justice, presided over by the president of the Areiopagus, and composed of twelve more members selected

VOL. VII.         A a

354 APPENDIX.

from all those who have served as presidents or judges of the Areio- pagus or Court of Appeal.

A selection will be made by the president of the House of Repre­sentatives at a public sitting. This court of justice will regulate its forms of procedure until the publication of a special law.

A special law will determine ministerial responsibility, the punish­ments to be imposed, and the forms of procedure. This law shall be submitted to the House of Representatives and voted in the first legislative session \

LXXXI. Until the publication of the special law relative to the responsibility of ministers, the House of Representatives may impeach ministers, and the above-mentioned court of justice may condemn them for high treason, for abusive employment of the public wealth, for illegal collection of money, and for every other violation of the constitution and laws in the exercise of their functions.

LXXXII. The king can only pardon a minister, condemned according to the above-mentioned form, with the consent of the House of Representatives.

Concerning the Council of State².

LXXXIII. A consultative council is established for preparing and revising projects of laws, called the Council of State, which sits at Athens.

LXXXIV. All the projects of laws introduced into the House of Representatives by the government and not revised in the Council of State, and all projects of laws proposed by representatives after their principle has been adopted by the House, shall be remitted to the Council of State.

If the House judge necessary, it may also remit to the Council of State projects of laws which it has modified or amended.

The Council of State, having received the projects of laws sent to it by the House, will examine their clauses and give its opinion to the House in a detailed report within ten days.

If the Council of State judge necessary, it may demand an ex­tension of time from the House which may be extended to fifteen days.

If the Council of State make no report to the House within the

¹      This law was not submitted to the house and voted in the first legislative session. The Council of State appears not to have prepared or revised any law on the subject. The ministers certainly neglected to submit a law to the represen­tatives ; and when the house assumed the initiative there remained no time to vote the law.

²      The Council of State was abolished in 1865.

CONSTITUTION OF GREECE.

355

specified period, the House shall proceed without the report to the further discussion and voting the project of law.

LXXXV. The number of the members of the Council of State cannot be less than fifteen nor more than twenty. The salary of each member is seven thousand drachmas annually.

LXXXVI. The members of the Council of State are named by the king at the recommendation of the council of ministers, which 'countersigns the ordinance of their appointment. Their term of service is ten years. Those who have- completed this term may nevertheless be reappointed.

The duty of a councillor of State is incompatible with the duty of any other public office except that of minister. But in no case can the duties of minister and councillor of State be exercised at the same time.

Concerning the Judicial Power.

LXXXVII. Justice is administered by judges named by the king according to law.

LXXXVIII. Judges of the Areiopagus and Courts of Appeal, as well as members of the Court of Accounts having votes, shall be appointed for life after the lapse of four years from the publication of the present constitution, and the members of the primary courts after the lapse of six years. From the time the judges and members of the Court of Accounts are appointed for life they cannot be removed without a judicial sentence.

LXXXIX. The qualifications of judicial officials and members of the Court of Accounts having votes shall be determined by a special law within three years from the publication of the present con­stitution.

XC. Public prosecutors, their substitutes, and justices of the peace do not obtain the right of appointment for life.

XCI. Judicial commissions and extraordinary courts of judicature cannot be established under any pretext.

XCII. The sittings of courts of law are public, except when publicity would be injurious to good morals or public order, but in such cases the courts are bound to publish a decision to that effect.

XCIII. Every sentence must be founded on reasons assigned and announced at a public sitting.

XCIV. Jury trial is maintained.

XCV. Political crimes are judged by juries, as well as those relating to the press, as often as they do not relate to private life.

A a 2

356 APPENDIX.

XCVI. judges can accept no salaried employment except that of professor of the University.

XCVII. The establishment of military and naval courts of justice and courts to judge piracy and frauds in navigation shall be regulated by special laws.

XCVIII. A special law shall regulate the retirement of judges and members of the Court of Accounts named for life, on account of age or chronic disease.

XCIX. No body of foreign troops can be received into the Greek service, nor remain in nor pass through the state without a law.

C. Military and naval officers can only be deprived of their rank, honours, and pay, when and how the law provides.

Cl. Contested governmental questions must be carried before the ordinary tribunals, by which they are to be judged as cases of urgency. Conflicting jurisdictions are judged by the Areiopagus. No courts of justice, no jurisdiction for contested governmental questions, can exist without a special law. Until the publication of special laws the existing governmental jurisdiction remains in force.

CII. Special laws will provide for the disposal and distribution of the national lands, and for the regulation and extinction of the public debts, internal and foreign, at as early a date as possible.

Special laws will also provide during the first legislative period—

1.     For pensions, regulating the qualifications of officials generally;

2.    For indemnities to be granted to those who fought in the Revolu­tion of 1821. .

CIII. All law's and ordinances in opposition to the present con­stitution are annulled.

I}'

Special Provisions.

CIV. The first representative assembly shall be convoked before the xst October next year (1865) at latest.

CV. The election of the municipal authorities is to be made by direct, universal, and secret suffrage, by ballot with balls.

CVI. The national guard is maintained.

CVII. The revision of the whole constitution cannot take place. Particular provisions in it, with the exception of the fundamental principles, may be revised after ten years have elapsed from the time of its publication, and when the necessity of the revision has been verified.

The necessity of the revision is to be regarded as verified, when the House of Representatives in two successive representative periods, by a majority of three quarters of the votes of all the members,

CONSTITUTION OF GREECE.

357

demands the revision by a special act determining the provisions to be revised.

The revision having been adopted, the existing House of Repre­sentatives must be dissolved and a new assembly convoked for the object, consisting of double the number of representatives, which shall decide on the provisions to be revised.

CVIII. The revision of the articles relative to the Council of State may take place in the first representative period at the demand of three quarters of the members.

CIX. The present constitution comes into operation as soon as it shall have been signed by the king. The council of ministers is bound to publish it in the Government Gazette within twenty-four hours after the signature.

CX. The preservation of the present constitution is entrusted to the patriotism of the Greeks.

Change in the Constitution.

On Saturday 19 November (1 December) 1865, the House of Representatives decided by 120 votes to 26 that the Council of State should be abolished in virtue of the power conferred by Article CVIII. of the Constitution, and on Wednesday 24 November (5 December) 1865, the king signified his assent to the law annulling Articles LXXXIII, LXXXIV, LXXXV, and LXXXVI of the Constitution.