Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844

When General Gordon (whose excellent history of the Greek revolution we recommend to our readers[31 - 2 vols. 8vo. Edinburgh, 1832.]) attempted to relieve Athens, then besieged by Kutayhi, (Reschid Pasha,) Kalergy and Makriyani commanded divisions of the troops which occupied the Piræus. Subsequently, when Lord Cochrane and General Church endeavoured to force the Turkish lines, Kalergy was one of the officers who commanded the advanced division. In the engagement which ensued, his adventures afford an illustration of the singular vicissitudes of Eastern warfare. The Greek troops landed at Cape Kolias during the night, and pushed forward to within a mile and a half of the Turkish lines, where they formed a slight intrenchment on some undulating hills. They threw up some ill-constructed tambouria, (as the redoubts used in Turkish warfare are termed,) and of these some remains are still visible. A ravine descending from the lower slopes of Hymettus ran in front of this position, deep enough to shelter the Turkish cavalry, and enable them to approach without exposing themselves to the Greek artillery. This movement of the Turks was distinctly seen from the Greek camp at the Piræus, and the approaching attack on the advanced posts of the army was waited for in breathless anxiety. The map of the plain of Athens is sufficiently familiar to most of our readers to enable then to picture to themselves the scene which ensued with perfect accuracy.

The Greek troops destined for the relief of Athens amounted to about 3000 men, and of these about 600 were posted far in advance of their companions, in three small redoubts. The main body drawn up in a long line remained inactive with the artillery, and a smaller corps as a rear-guard seemed destined to communicate with the fleet of Lord Cochrane at Cape Kolias. At the Piræus, about 700 men were scattered about in all the disorder of an Eastern encampment, without making the slightest attempt to distract the attention of the Turkish troops. The French General Gueheneuc and the Bavarian General Heideck, both witnessed the battle.

The Turkish cavalry, to the number of about 700, having formed in the ravine, rode slowly up towards the brow of the hill on which the tambouria of the Cretans, the Suliots, and the regular regiment were placed. As soon as their appearance on the crest of the ridge exposed them to the fire of the Greeks, they galloped forward. The fire of the Greeks, however, seemed almost without effect, yet the Turks turned and galloped down the hill into the shelter of the ravine. In a short time they repeated their attack with a determination, which showed that the preceding attempt had been only a feint to enable them to examine the ground. As they approached this time very near the intrenchments, the fire of the Greeks proved more effectual than on the former occasion, and several of the Delhis, horse and man, rolled on the ground. Again the Turks fled to conceal themselves in the ravine, and prepared for another attack by dividing their force into three divisions, one of which ascended and another descended the ravine, while the third prepared to renew the assault in the old direction. The vizier Kutayhi himself moved forward to encourage his troops, and it became evident that a desperate struggle would now be   made to carry the Greek position, where the few troops who held it were left unsupported.

The Turkish cavalry soon rushed on the Greeks, assailing their position in front and flanks; and, in spite of their fire, forced the horses over the low intrenchments into the midst of the enemy.[32 - The tambouria are always constructed with the ditch in the inside, in order that they may afford a better cover from artillery.] For the space of hardly three minutes pistol shots and sabre cuts fell so thick, that friends and foes were in equal danger. Of the Greeks engaged not one had turned to flee, and but few were taken alive. The loss of the Turks was, however, but trifling—about a dozen men and from fifteen to twenty horses.

The centre of the Greek army, on beholding the destruction of the advanced guard, showed little determination; it wavered for a minute, and then turned and fled towards the shore in utter confusion, abandoning all its artillery to the Turks. The Delhis soon overtook their flying enemies, and riding amongst them, coolly shot down and sabred those whose splendid arms and dresses excited their cupidity. The artillery itself was turned on the fugitives, who had left the ammunition undestroyed as well as the guns unspiked. But our concern with the battle of the 6th May 1827, is at present confined to following the fortunes of Kalergy. He was one of the prisoners. His leg had been broken by a rifle-ball as the Turks entered the tambouri of the Cretans, and as he received an additional sabre cut on the arm, he lay helpless on the ground, where his youthful appearance and splendid arms caught the eye of an Albanian bey, who ordered him to be secured and taken care of as his own prisoner.

On the morning after the battle, the prisoners were all brought out before the tent of Kutayhi, who was encamped at Patissia, very near the site of the house subsequently built by Sir Pulteney Malcolm. George Drakos, a Suliot chief, had killed himself during the night; and the Pasha, in consequence, ordered all the survivors to be beheaded, wishing, probably, to afford Europe a specimen of Ottoman economy and humanity, by thus saving the lives of these Greeks from themselves. Two hundred and fifty were executed, when Kalergy, unable to walk, was carried into the circle of Turkish officers witnessing the execution, on the back of a sturdy Albanian baker. Kutayhi calmly ordered his instant execution; but the prisoner having informed his captor that he would pay 100,000 piastres for his ransom; the Albanian bey stepped forward and maintained his right to his prisoner so stoutly, that the Pasha, whose army was in arrears, and whose military chest was empty, found himself compelled to yield. As a memento of their meeting, however, he ordered one of Kalergy’s ears to be cut off. The ransom was quickly paid, and Kalergy returned to Poros, where it was some time before he recovered from his wounds.

Capodistrias on his arrival in Greece named Kalergy his aide-de-camp, and as he was much attached to the president, he was entrusted with the command of the cavalry sent against Poros and Nisi, when those places took up arms against the arbitrary and tyrannical conduct of Capodistrias. We are not inclined to apologize for the disorders which the Greek cavalry then committed; they were unpardonable even during the excitement of a civil war.

The marriage of Kalergy was as romantic as the rest of his career. Two chiefs, both of the family of Notaras, (one of the few Greek families which can boast of territorial influence dating from the times of the Byzantine empire,) had involved the province of Corinth in civil war, in order to secure the hand of a young heiress. The lady, however, having escaped from the scene of action, conferred her hand on Kalergy, whose fame as a soldier far eclipsed that of the two rivals.

As soon as the Bavarians arrived in Greece, they commenced persecuting Kalergy. An unfounded charge of treason was brought against him; but he was honourably acquitted by a court-martial, of which our country-man,   General Gordon of Cairness, was the president; and from that period down to the publication of the order of the day, last September, he has been constantly an object of Bavarian hatred.

About twenty-four hours before the revolution of the 15th of September broke out, the court of Greece received some information concerning the extent and nature of the plot, and orders were given by King Otho to hold a council of his trusted advisers. The Bavarians Hess and Graff, and the Greeks Rizos, Privilegios, Dzinos, and John the son of Philip, (for one of the courtly councillors of the house of Wittelspach rejoices in this primitive cognomen,) met, and decided on the establishment of a court-martial to try and shoot every man taken in arms. Orders were immediately prepared for the arrest of upwards of forty persons.

A good deal has been said about the revolution as having been a mere military movement. This, however, is not a correct view of the matter, either with reference to the state of parties, or to the intensity of the national feeling at the time. Sir Robert Inglis most justly observed in Parliament—“That revolution in Greece had been prepared during years of intolerable despotism, and the soldiery merely shared in, and did not by any means lead, the proceedings of the great body of the nation.” The fact is, that a plot for seizing the king and sending him to Trieste, had been formed by the Philorthodox or Russian party, in the early part of 1843; but the party, from some distrust of its own strength, and from the increasing unpopularity of King Otho, was induced to admit a few of the most determined of the constitutionalists into the plot, without intending to entrust them with the whole of the plan. The rising was at last fixed for the month of September. This occurred in consequence of the universal outcry raised by the Greeks, on finding that the representations of Great Britain in favour of the long-promised constitution, and the warnings which Sir Robert Peel threw out on the discussion of Greek affairs on Mr Cochrane’s motion, were utterly neglected by King Otho. This indignation was reduced to despair when it was known that Mr Tricoupis, on his recall from London, had assured the king that the English cabinet was so determined to maintain the statu quo, that the constitutional party would meet with no countenance from England. Every party in Greece then prepared for action, and entered into negotiations, in which the opinions of the constitutionalists prevailed, because they were actively supported by the great body of the people.

In order to prevent the country from becoming a scene of anarchy, in case a civil war proved unavoidable, it was necessary to employ all the regular authorities who could be induced to join the national cause, in their actual functions, without any reference to party feelings. This was done; and the fact that it was so, proves the intenseness of the public feeling. The constitutional party decided that the recognition of Greece as a constitutional state, and the immediate convocation of a national assembly, were to be the demands made on King Otho. The Russian party allowed these two questions to be first mooted in the firm persuasion that the king would be induced by his own pride, his despotic principles, and the mistaken views of several of the foreign ministers at Athens, to refuse these demands; and, in that case, the throne would infallibly have been declared vacant.

About midnight, on the 14th of September, the gendarmes were ordered to surround the house of General Makriyani, an officer of irregulars on half-pay, and to arrest him on a charge of treason. On approaching the house they were warned off; but pressing forward they were fired on, and one gendarme was killed and one or two wounded. In consequence of the alarm given by the minister of war, for the purpose of supporting the arrests to be made, the garrison was all in readiness. In the mean time the greater part of the officers had been admitted into the secret, that a general movement of all Greece was to be made that night, and that their duty would be to maintain the strictest order and enforce the severest discipline.

Kalergy, therefore, as soon as he   was informed that the movement had been made to arrest Makriyani, assembled all the officers, and, in a few words, declared to them that the moment for saving their country from the Bavarian yoke had arrived; and that they must now, if they wished to be free, call on the king to adopt a constitutional system of government. The importance of this step, which Kalergy adopted with his usual decision, can only be understood when it is recollected, that there existed a strong party determined to avail itself of every opportunity of driving King Otho from the throne. Had Kalergy, therefore, delayed pledging the officers and the army to the constitution, or allowed them to march out of their barracks before making the constitution the rallying word of the revolution, there can be no doubt that the agents of the Russian and Philorthodox parties would have raised the cry of “Death to the Bavarians! down with the tyrant!” Kalergy, however, put the garrison in motion amidst shouts of Long live the constitution; and as the cavalry moved from their barracks, these shouts were echoed enthusiastically by the citizens who were waiting anxiously without.

As soon as Kalergy had taken the command he marched all the troops to the square before the palace. Two squadrons of cavalry, two battalions of infantry, a company of Greek irregulars, and a number of half-pay officers and pensioners, were soon drawn up under King Otho’s windows. His monstrous palace had begun to produce its effects. Strong patrols were detached to preserve order in the town, and to compel the gendarmes to retire to their quarters. Makriyani, on being relieved from his blockade, repaired to the square, collecting on the way as large a body of armed citizens as he was able.

The king had been waiting at one of the windows of the palace in great anxiety to witness the arrest of Makriyani; and on seeing the shots fired from the house, and the suspension of the attack by the gendarmes, he had dispatched a Bavarian aide-de-camp, named Steinsdorff, to order the artillery to the palace. The young and inexperienced Bavarian returned without the guns; but assured his Majesty that they would soon arrive. In the mean time, the whole garrison appeared in the square, and was ranged opposite the palace: the king, however, expected that the arrival of the artillery would change their disposition. In a short time, the guns came galloping up; but to the utter dismay of King Otho, they were ranged in battery against the palace, while the artillerymen, as soon as the manœuvre was executed, gave a loud shout of “long live the constitution.”

His Majesty, after a long period of profound silence, appeared at a window of the lower story of the palace, attended by the Bavarian captain, Hess—the most unpopular man in Greece, unless Dzinos, the agent in the celebrated cases of judicial torture, could dispute with him that “bad eminence.” One of the servants of the court called for General Kalergy in a loud voice; and when he approached the window the king asked—“What is the meaning of this disturbance? What am I to understand by this parade of the garrison?” To this Kalergy replied, in a loud and clear voice, “The people of Greece and the army desire that your Majesty will redeem the promise that the country should be governed constitutionally.” King Otho then said, “Retire to your quarters; I shall consult with my ministers, with the council of state, and the ambassadors of the three protecting powers, and inform you of my determination.” This appeared to the audience to be acting the absolute sovereign rather too strongly under the circumstances, and a slight movement of the officers, who overheard the king’s words, was conveyed like lightning to the troops, so that the king received a distinct reply from the whole army in a sudden clang of sabres and noise of arms. Kalergy, however, immediately replied in the same distinct tone in which he had before spoken—“Sire, neither the garrison of Athens, nor the people will quit this spot, until your Majesty’s decisions on the proposals of the council of state, which will be immediately laid before you, is known.” At this moment Captain Hess put himself forward beside the king, and said—“Colonel Kalergy; that is not the way in which it becomes you to   speak to his Majesty.” But to this ill-timed lesson in politeness Kalergy replied sharply—“Draw your head back, sir: you and such as you have brought the king and the country into their present unfortunate circumstances. You ought to be ashamed of your conduct.” The Bavarian hero at these words disappeared; and this was the last occasion in which this champion of Bavarianism appeared in a public character.

At this time, Count Metaxas, Lieutenant-General Sir Richard Church, and Major-General Londos, members of the council of state, who had been in the square with the troops, were engaged preparing the council for its share in the revolution. At the meeting which took place, Spiro Milios, the commandant of the military school, and an active member of the Russian party, was present as a representative of the army. It was evident that the council of state comprised three parties. One was willing to support King Otho and the actual system. This party included Kondouriotis, the president; Tricoupis, the late minister in London; and a German Greek named Theocharis. Another party was eager to drive King Otho from the throne, in order to proceed to the nomination of a regency preparatory to the choice of an orthodox prince. We are not sure that any individual is now anxious to identify his name with this party. The third party made the demand for a constitution their primary object; and as this party was led by Metaxas, Londos, Church, Palamidhis, and Mansolas, it was soon joined by the majority.

The meeting was long, and it is said that the conduct of the members was much more disorderly than that of the people and the troops in the square; but at last, a proclamation and an oath were drawn up, by which the council of state, the army, and the people, all pledged themselves to support the constitution. A committee consisting of Metaxas, Londos, and Palamidhis, was also charged to prepare an address to the king, recommending his majesty to convoke a national assembly, in order to prepare a constitution for the state; at the same time they invited his majesty to appoint new ministers, and in the list presented they of course took care to insert their own names. As soon as this business was terminated, the council dispatched a deputation to wait on his majesty, consisting of the president and five members, who were to obtain the king’s consent.

The conduct of King Otho on receiving this deputation was neither wise nor firm. He delayed returning any answer for two hours, and attempted to open a negotiation with the council of state, by means of one of the members of the camarilla. The delay excited some distrust even among the best disposed in the square, and the report was spread that the king was endeavouring to communicate with the corps diplomatique, in order to create a diversion. At this very time a train of carriages suddenly appeared at the gates of the palace, and the ministers of the three protecting powers—Sir Edmund Lyons, Mr Katakazy, and Mr Piscatory, accompanied by General Prokesch d’Osten, and Mr Brassier de St Simon, the representatives of Austria and Prussia—requested to be admitted to see the king. General Kalergy, however, declared that he had orders to refuse all entry to the palace, until his majesty had terminated his conference with the deputation of the council of state; and repeated, in the presence of the ministers of Austria and Prussia, the assurance he had given at an early hour of the morning to Sir Edmund Lyons, Mr Katakazy, and Mr Piscatory, that the greatest respect would be shown to the person of his majesty. Mr Katakazy, the doyen of the corps diplomatique, satisfied that any parade of foreign interference could only increase the difficulties of the king’s position, accepted the answer of Kalergy and began to withdraw. The representatives of the powers which had never protected Greece, deemed the moment favourable for a display of a little independent diplomacy, and accordingly the Prussian minister asked Kalergy in a tone, neither mild nor low, if he durst refuse to admit him to see his majesty. To this Kalergy, who was extremely anxious to avoid any dispute with the foreign ministers at such a moment, politely replied that he was compelled to refuse   even the minister of Prussia. Mr Brassier, however, returned to the charge aided by his Austrian colleague; but as the Greeks place all Germans in the category of Bavarians, they gave some manifestations of their dislike to any German interference, which could not be otherwise than displeasing to the Prussian, who addressed Kalergy in a very rough tone. His words were lost to the spectators, but they were supported by General Prokesch d’Osten with a good deal of gesticulation. The patience of Kalergy gave way under these repeated attacks, and he turned to Mr Brassier, saying—“Monsieur le ministre, you are generally unlucky in your advice, and I am afraid his majesty has heard too much of it lately.”

The thrust was a home one, and the Prussian minister, rather discomposed, addressed himself to Sir Edmund Lyons, who, while waiting till his carriage drew up, had been quietly contemplating the scene, and said—“Colonel Kalergy is insolent; but he only repeats what he has heard in the drawing-rooms of Athens.” Sir Edmund Lyons replied—“I do not see, Mr Brassier, how that makes your case better,” and withdrew to his carriage, leaving Austria and Prussia to battle out their dispute with Greece in the presence of the mob. The spectators considered the scene a very amusing one, for they laughed heartily as the corps diplomatique retired; but, if all the reports current in diplomatic circles be true, Mr Katakazy, the doyen of the Athenian diplomatists, was made to suffer severely for his prudent conduct; for it is said that his recall took place because he did not support with energy the foolish attempt of his enterprising colleagues. It is certain that any very violent support given to any feeling, in direct hostility to the national cause at the time, could hardly have failed to vacate the throne, or at least to push the people on to commit some disorders, of which the Russian court, and the friends of despotism at Vienna and Berlin, might have taken advantage.

The king, finding at last that there was no hope of his deriving any assistance from without, signed the ordinances appointing a new ministery, and convoking a national assembly. The troops, after having remained more than thirteen hours under arms, were marched back to their barracks, as if from a review; and every thing at Athens followed its usual course. Thus was a revolution effected in the form of government in Greece without any interruption in the civil government—without the tribunals’ ceasing to administer justice for a single day—without the shops’ remaining closed beyond the usual hours, or the mercantile affairs of the country undergoing the slightest suspension. Such a people must surely be fit for a constitution.

The national assembly has now met, and terminated its labours; and Greece is in possession of a constitution made by Greeks. In three months the first representative chamber will meet. It will consist of about 120 members. The senate, which is to consist of members named by the king for life, cannot exceed one-half the number of the representatives elected by the people. Faults may be found with some of the details of the constitution; but, on the whole, it must be regarded as a very favourable specimen of the political knowledge of the Greeks; and the manner in which the different articles were discussed, and the care with which every proposal and amendment were examined, gave all those who witnessed the debates a very high opinion of the legislative capacity of the people.

The form of the Greek government, as a constitutional monarchy, may now be considered as settled. We shall therefore proceed to examine the difficulties, of a social and political nature, which still obstruct the advancement of the nation, and render its prosperity problematical. Some of our statements may appear almost paradoxical to travellers, whose hasty glance at distant countries enables them to come to rather more positive conclusions than those who devote years to study the same subject. We shall, however, strive to expose our facts in such a way as to show that we state the plain truth, nothing but the truth, and, as far as our subject carries us, the whole truth.

That Greece has not hitherto improved, either in her wealth, population,   or civilization, as fast as the energy of her people led her friends to expect would be the case after she was freed from the Turks, is universally admitted. The great bar to improvement exists in an evil rooted in the present frame of social life, but fortunately one which good and just government would gradually remove. In Greece there is no clear and definite idea of the sacred right of property in land. The god Terminus is held in no respect. No Greek, from the highest to the lowest, understands the meaning of that absolute right of property “which,” as Blackstone says, “consists in the free use, enjoyment, and disposal by every Englishman of all his acquisitions, without control or diminution, save only by the laws of the land.”

The appropriation of Mr Finlay’s land by King Otho, without measurement, valuation, or payment, to make a garden for his palace—the formation of a great road leading to the French minister’s house, by the municipality of Athens, without indemnifying the owners of the land, though a road sufficiently good already existed—and the confiscation of half the estates purchased by foreigners from the Turks by Maurocordatos, when Minister of Finance under the Bavarian Regency, in a ministerial circular deciding on rights of property, are mere trifling examples of the universal spirit. When Maurocordatos wrote his memorable declaration, “that every spot where wild herbs, fit for the pasturage of cattle, grow, is national property, and that the Greek government recognises no individual property in the soil except the exclusive right of cultivation,” he only, in deference to the Bavarian policy of the time, which wished to copy Mohammed Ali’s administration in Egypt, caricatured a misconception of the right of property equally strong in every Greek, whether he be the oppressor or the oppressed. Even the late National Assembly has not thought it necessary to correct any of the invasions of private property by the preceding despotism. Individuals, almost ruined by the plunder of their land, have not even received the offer of an indemnity, though the justice of their claims is not denied.[33 - One English sufferer has for several years vainly attacked the king for justice, even with the assistance of the English Minister in Greece and the Foreign Office at home.]

The origin of this national obtuseness of mind on a question of interest, is to be found in the system of taxing the land. A Greek really views land somewhat as English labourers view game. The owner of the soil is absolute proprietor only during those months in which he is engaged in the labours of preparing the land and sowing the seed. As soon as the harvest time arrives, he ceases to be master of his estate, and sinks into the condition of a serf of the revenue officer, or of the farmer of the land revenue. It is true, that the government tax only amounts to a tenth of the gross produce of the soil; but, in virtue of this right to a tenth, government assumes the entire direction of all the agricultural operations relating to the crops, and the cultivator’s nine-tenths (for it is really a misnomer to call him proprietor) become a mere adjunct of the government tenth.

Many of our readers, who are unacquainted with Eastern life, may suppose that we colour our picture too strongly. In order, therefore, to divest our statement of all ornament, we shall describe the whole of the events of an agricultural year. Our classic readers will then comprehend practically how the vulture could feast on the perpetually growing heart of Prometheus—why Tantalus tempted the gods by murdering Pelops—and they will see that the calamities of the Theban race are an allegorical representation of the inevitable fate which awaits a people groaning under the system of taxation now in force in Greece.

The tenths in Greece are usually farmed to speculators, and, as the collection is a matter of difficulty, extraordinary powers are conferred on the farmers; hence it happens, that the social position of the cultivators and the farmers is one of constant hostility. If the cultivator has it in his power, he cheats the farmer of the   revenue, and if the farmer is able to do so he cheats the cultivator. The result is, that probably not one individual in the Greek kingdom really pays the exact tenth of the produce of his land. A few of the most active rogues contrive to cheat the farmers of the revenue; but these gentlemen, in virtue of the great powers with which the law invests them, contrive to cheat the greater part of the proprietors. As soon as the grain is ripe, the cultivator is compelled to address himself to the tax-farmer for permission to cut his crop; but as the farmer must keep a very sharp look-out after his interest, he only grants such permissions as accord with the arrangements he may have established for watching the cultivators at the smallest possible expense to himself, making the over-ripeness of the crop of the majority a very secondary consideration. It happens, consequently, that in Greece two-thirds of the grain are not gathered until it is over-ripe, and the loss is consequently very great.

When the grain is cut, it must be carried to a certain number of authorized threshing-floors collected together, in order that the tax farmer may take every possible care to secure his tenth. To these threshing-floors the whole grain of a district must be transported from the fields in the straw, though the straw may be wanted as fodder for cattle at the very spot from which it is taken, and will require to be carried back a very great distance. An immense loss of grain and labour is sustained by this regulation; but it is a glorious season for the donkeys;—long trains of these animals, lively under their heavy loads of sheaves, may be seen galloping one after the other, each endeavouring to seize a mouthful from his neighbour. The roads are strewed with grain and the broken-hearted cultivators follow, cursing man and beast.

The grain is at last collected in immense stacks round the threshing-floors—a cultivator perched on the top of each stack, defending it from the attacks of man and beast; and a tax-gatherer, seated with his pipe cross-legged in the middle of the circle, is watching the manœuvres of the cultivators. No person who has not examined the subject with attention can imagine the scenes of fraud and violence which a Greek harvest produces. The grain is usually kept piled round the threshing-floors under various pretexts, for at least two months, unless the cultivator pay the farmer an additional sum, to facilitate the housing of his crops. Even in the vicinity of Athens, the operations of the wheat and barley harvest generally occupy the exclusive attention of the agricultural population for three months. The grain is trodden out by cattle; and a Greek who bought a winnowing machine at Athens, was not allowed to make use of it, as the farmers of the revenue contended that the introduction of such instruments would facilitate frauds.

The farmers of the tenths likewise increase the evils of this ruinous system, by throwing every difficulty in the way of the cultivators, in order to compel them to consent to pay for each facility they may require. We have known regular contracts entered into with the peasantry, by which they agreed to pay from 3 to 5 per cent more than the legal tenth. We believe no honest man ever paid less than from 12 to 13 per cent on his crop, even in the neighbourhood of the capital. It may be supposed that some redress can be obtained, in cases of gross oppression, by applying to the courts of law; but this is not the case. A special tribunal, consisting of administrative officers of the Crown, and municipal authorities, and from which lawyers have been always carefully excluded, is appointed to judge summarily all cases relating to the tenths. The infamous conduct of these administrative tribunals excited general discontent, and an article has been inserted in the constitution abolishing them, and sending all the pending cases to the ordinary courts of law. Government, however, defended them to the last, and even pressed for decisions down to the very hour in which King Otho took his oath to the constitution. There is here, however, some ground for consolation; for it is clear that the Greek ministers fear the ordinary administration of justice as being above their control.

It is needless to say, that under such laws the improvement of agriculture in Greece is impossible. No   green crops can be grown with profit at any distance from a large town. The tenth of garden produce and green crops being generally valued and paid for in money, the disputes concerning the valuation, and the impossibility of obtaining any redress, in case of injustice, have induced the cultivators to give up such cultivation. We have known proprietors pay half the value of a crop of potatoes as the value of the tenth; and in one case, on our asking the farmer of the tenths, who after all was not a bad fellow at heart, though he wished to make his farming of the revenues turn out a good speculation in his hands, what he would recommend a proprietor to do in order not to lose money by cultivating potatoes; he looked grave, and after a few moments’ thought, candidly replied—“Never to plant them as long as the present law remains in force!” Vineyards which have been planted with care, and cultivated for eight years, have been lately abandoned, as the high valuation of their produce renders them unprofitable. The only agriculture which can be pursued in Greece without loss, is that in which only the simplest and rudest methods of cultivation are followed. The land only yields a rent when it is in the immediate vicinity of a large market, or when it is of the richest quality; the employment of capital in improvements only opens new channels for the extortions of the farmers of the revenue. No money can be safely invested on mortgage in such a country, and no loans by the Three Allied powers to the Government, no national bank, no manufactory of beet-root sugar, no model farms, and no schools of agriculture can introduce prosperity into a country taxed in such a manner.

We do not intend to discuss any plan for ameliorating the condition of the Greeks; but we can easily point out what it is necessary for them to do before they can, by any possibility, better their condition. The system of selling the tenths must be abolished; for a government so inefficient as to be unable to collect them by its own officers, is incompetent to perform the functions for which it was created, and ought to be destroyed. The owners of the land must be rendered the real masters of their property. They must be allowed to reap their crops when they are ripe, and to thresh their grain when and where they please. Until this is the case, we can assure the Three Protecting Powers, they count without the people if they suppose that they have established a permanent monarchy in Greece. We do not hesitate to say that the royal dignity, even with the support of England and France, is not worth ten years’ purchase until this is accomplished.

Every traveller who visits Greece declaims against the number of coffee-houses throughout the country, and the hosts of idle people with which they are filled. But nothing else can be expected in a country where the system of agriculture keeps the cultivators idle for three months annually, and deprives the proprietor of all profit from his land. Under such circumstances the demand for labour becomes extremely irregular. Many of the lower classes turn brigands and plunder their neighbours; the educated and higher classes turn government employés and plunder the country. This evil has arrived at an alarming pitch; the Greek army contains almost as many officers as privates; the navy has officers enough to man a fleet twice as large as that which Greece possesses, for she has three admirals, a hundred and fifty captains, and two hundred and seventy commanders. It has been in vain pressed on every successive administration, that a list of the army, navy, and civil employés ought to be published, in order to put an end to the shameful system of jobbing which has always existed. No minister would, however, adopt a principle which would so effectually have put an end to his own arbitrary power of quartering his friends and relations on the public. The loans of the three powers might be doubled to-morrow, and it is evident that, unless all the population of Greece were made pensioners, no surplus would be found to employ for any public improvement.

Indeed the national revenues of the Greek kingdom, as of old those of Athens and Rome, seem to be considered the property of that body of   citizens who pursue no useful occupation, and possess no taxable property; while the unlucky proprietors are viewed as a species of serfs, existing to supply a revenue to the state. This political principle has been exemplified in a decree of the late national assembly, excluding every Greek or foreigner from public employment who happens not to be a born subject of the new kingdom, or who did not take part in the war against the Turks before the end of 1827, and perhaps even more strongly in a very unconstitutional private vote of a committee of the whole house, giving 800 drachmas to each member—this vote being in direct violation of one of the articles of the constitution, which requires that all grants of money should originate from the crown. We do not deny the necessity of allowing the deputies this small grant; many of them were poor, and their conduct had been disinterested; but we are bound to complain of the slightest infraction of constitutional principles by those who frame a constitution.

The length of this article compels us to leave a few observations we desire to make on the municipal government of the Greeks, and on the state of education, and of their judicial and ecclesiastical affairs, to another opportunity. The late debates in the House of Commons, and the able statement which Sir Robert Peel gave of the principles of our policy with regard to Greece, render it unnecessary for us to say one word on that subject. We can assure our readers that the policy of our present ministers has been applauded by every party in Greece, except the Philorthodox; and they, as they could find no fault, remained silent. We believe that no two governments ever acted more disinterestedly to a third than Great Britain end France have lately done to Greece, and that no ministers ever acted more fairly, in any international question, than Lord Aberdeen and M. Guizot have done on the subject of the Greek revolution; but for this very reason we feel inclined to warn our countrymen against the leaven of old principles, which still exists in the palace at Athens. Let us judge of the new government of Greece by its acts, and let Great Britain and France remember that they are not looked on without some suspicion.

Ἔνεστι γάρ πως τοῦτο τῇ τυραννίδι
Νόσημα τοῖς φίλοισι μὴ πεποιθέναι.

END OF VOL. LV

notes

1

Midsummer Night’s Dream.

2

Dolmen; literally, stone table. Remarkable structures, learnedly ascribed to the Druids; unlearnedly, to the dwarfs and fairies; and numerous throughout Western Britanny. One or more large and massive flat stones, overlaying great slabs planted edgeways in the ground, form a rude and sometimes very capacious chamber, or grotto. The superstition which cleaves to these relics of a forgotten antiquity, stamps itself in the names given to many of them by the peasantry:—Grotte aux fées, Roche aux fées, &c.

3

Weirds. The French has—Lots. “Elles jettent des sorts.” For justifying the translation, see the fine old Scottish ballad of Kempion; or Kemp Owayne, at the beginning:—

“Come here, come here, ye freely fede, (i. e. nobly born,)
And lay your head low on my knee,
A heavier weird I shall ye read
Than ever was read to gay ladye.

“I weird ye to a fiery beast: