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which render it more or less probable that they may proceed to substantiate their claim by voies de fait. In any alternative it is not wise to attempt to get past the present disturbance without giving their existence even a thought.

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"It will but skin and film the ulcerous place."

For months the Christians of Turkey, other than Slav, have been out of sight and out of mind. It certainly is not too early to examine a little into their cases.

There are four Christian races under the dominion of the Porte. The question of the Slavs is going to the Conference, or the sword. The case of the Wallachs of Roumania is happily disposed of; one of the greatest and best results of the Crimean War. The case of the Armenians, who, like the Wallachs, are stated to be four millions, is presented argumentatively in a Mémoiret dated October, 1876, and laid before each of the Great Powers. The more proximate case of the Hellenic provinces of European Turkey is that which I shall now endeavour to unfold. And this not only because it is the portion of the house next to the present conflagration, and most likely to be caught by it; but also because the history of the proceedings, through which the Kingdom of free Greece was established, affords most interesting precedents, and an admirable guidance for any Government, or representative of a Government, desirous to deal with the great Eastern problem in the spirit of the best traditions of his country. On their title to be dealt with by the Conference I do not presume absolutely to proWe may see applied to these populations the maxim

nounce.

"The voice of any people is the sword

That guards them; or the sword that beats them down."

I cordially hope that it will be deemed wise and just to consider their case. But without prejudging the point, I proceed to sketch in outline the most material parts of an interesting history.

In common with the Italians, but in a still more conspicuous degree, the Greeks have been remarkable among men alike for the favours and the spite of fortune. And it is no wonder if, amidst many difficulties and discouragements, and even such discouragements as arise from defects and vices of their own, they cling to the belief that the severity of their trials is in truth a presage of a happy and distinguished future, acting like the flame of the furnace on the metal which is to issue from it. The fall of the race was indeed from so great a height, and to such a depth of misery, as is without parallel in history. The first stage of their descent was when they came under the Roman dominion.

Hamlet iii. 4.

† Mémoire sur la situation actuelle des Arméniens et sur leur avenir. Dated from 74, Lancaster Gate, Lon lon. Tennyson's Harold.

great distinction between them: "The Slavs have risen this year, the Greeks have not." And the distinction is most important. Repudiating heartily the doctrines of the supreme right of overbearing might, which still appear to find some countenance among us, I must still admit a material difference between those who show that their enfranchisement is required for the general tranquillity and those who do not. It is much, if right be done in the firstmentioned class of cases; for Human Justice is ever lagging after Wrong, as the Prayers of Homer came limping after Sin.* Even to the great Healer, during his earthly walk, the "sick folk" were brought. Gratuitously to search out all the woe of those who suffer in silence and inaction, desirable as it might be, is scarcely within the conditions of human strength.

But this is not disputed by the Greeks of, or beyond, the Kingdom. It appears to be met by a plea of fact which, if it can be made good, is relevant and important. It is thus stated by Professor Papparrhigopoulos :

"The Powers have made use of every means to repress the disposition of the Greeks to war, by promising that the Greek nation, which for the time refrained from complicating the situation, should at the settlement obtain the same advantages as the Slavs."+

Professor Kokkinos, following in the discussion, says that free Greece, loyal to the Powers of Europe, had encouraged their brethren still in servitude to rely on those Powers, and that Europe had praised the prudence and patience which were exhibited accordingly. The Minister Coumoundouros, in reply to a deputation appointed by the assembly, encourages them to hope that the enlightenment of the Porte, and the humanity of Europe, will not drive them to embrace the belief that the gates of Justice may be shattered, but opened never.§

Of the steps thus alleged to have been taken by the European Governments, the public, and also the Parliament, of this country are, I apprehend, up to this time in ignorance. It does not appear to me that such steps, if taken, were necessarily wrong, or that, in the midst of the existing complications, it must have been wrong to postpone a statement of their nature. We have indeed, in the Parliamentary Papers of 1876,|| a communication from the Consul at Caneia, affirming the existence of general and deep-seated content in Crete, together with the draft of a large me change proposed by the Christians; but there is no ind opinion, or account of any steps taken, at the Foreign I have thus stated the claim put forward h

selves to a hearing at the Conference

affairs, if such a Conference shoul

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*Il. ix. 498.

which render it more or less probable that they may proceed to substantiate their claim by voies de fait. In any alternative it is not wise to attempt to get past the present disturbance without giving their existence even a thought.

"It will but skin and film the ulcerous place."

[ocr errors]

For months the Christians of Turkey, other than Slav, have been out of sight and out of mind. It certainly is not too early to examine a little into their cases.

There are four Christian races under the dominion of the Porte. The question of the Slavs is going to the Conference, or the sword. The case of the Wallachs of Roumania is happily disposed of; one of the greatest and best results of the Crimean War. The case of the Armenians, who, like the Wallachs, are stated to be four millions, is presented argumentatively in a Mémoiret dated October, 1876, and laid before each of the Great Powers. The more proximate case of the Hellenic provinces of European Turkey is that which I shall now endeavour to unfold. And this not only because it is the portion of the house next to the present conflagration, and most likely to be caught by it; but also because the history of the proceedings, through which the Kingdom of free Greece was established, affords most interesting precedents, and an admirable guidance for any Government, or representative of a Government, desirous to deal with the great Eastern problem in the spirit of the best traditions of his country. On their title to be dealt with by the Conference I do not presume absolutely to proWe may see applied to these populations the maxim

nounce.

"The voice of any people is the sword

That guards them; or the sword that beats them down."‡

I cordially hope that it will be deemed wise and just to consider their case. But without prejudging the point, I proceed to sketch in outline the most material parts of an interesting history.

In common with the Italians, but in a still more conspicuous degree, the Greeks have been remarkable among men alike for the favours and the spite of fortune. And it is no wonder if, amidst many difficulties and discouragements, and even such discouragements as arise from defects and vices of their own, they cling to the belief that the severity of their trials is in truth a presage of a happy and distinguished future, acting like the flame of the furnace on the metal which is to issue from it. The fall of the race was indeed from so great a height, and to such a depth of misery, as is without parallel in history. The first stage of their descent was when they came under the Roman dominion.

Hamlet iii. 4.

+ Mémoire sur la situation actuelle des Arméniens et sur leur avenir. Dated from 74, Lancaster Gate, London. Tennyson's Harold.

But Græcia capta ferum victorem cepit. This first reverse was mitigated by the majesty of the Power to which they succumbed, and by a continuous intellectual reign; such that, when Christianity went forth into the world, no sooner had it moved outwards from its cradle in Jerusalem, than it assumed the aspect of a Greek religion. That aspect it bore for centuries. In the Greek tongue, and by minds in which the Greek element predominated, was moulded that Creed, which still remains the intellectual basis of the Christian system. In the second century, it was still the ruling Christian tongue in Rome, where Pope Victor was the first who wrote in Latin on the business of the Church.* Perhaps the greatest measure, ever accomplished by a single man at a single stroke, was the foundation of Constantinople; whose empire survived, by a thousand years, that of the elder Rome. Here, too Greek influences acquired ascendency: and we ought to wonder, not so much at the final fall of the great city, as at its long survival; a survival, only brought to its term by the appearance on the stage of foes far more formidable than those, before whom Italy and its proud capital had licked the dust.

But, all this time, numerosa parabat excelsa turris tabulata. When still the exclusive mistress of the most refined learning of the world, she was called to bear, in common with other not yet patrician races, the fearful weight of the Ottoman yoke. By the far-sighted cruelty of Mohammed II., the aristocracy of the Greek lands was completely swept away. They exhibited, indeed, no case like that of the general apostasy of the landholders in Bosnia: the repetition of this infamy on a smaller scale in Crete took place at a much later period. Greeks were not only deprived of their natural leaders; they were assailed at every point, and in the very citadel of the family life, by the terrible exaction of the children-tribute. Not only was the system indicated by that phrase a most cruel and wicked one on the part of the conquerors who invented it, but it carried with it an amount of degradation to the sufferers who bore it, such, perhaps, as never was inflicted even on African slaves. Endured at first in the stupidity of terror, it laid wide and deep, during the two centuries for which it lasted, the foundations of baseness, and it is probably not too much to say that two centuries since its cessation† have not yet everywhere effaced its effects. Nor is effeminacy, especially where thus engendered, a guarantee for humanity. The fathers who gave over the bodies and souls of their children to the tyrant were, thus far, sunk into the region of the brutes, and acquired of necessity something of that habit of mind which is as ready upon occasion to enforce the law of violence, as to cringe before it.

*Döllinger, Hippolytus und Kallistus, chap. i. p. 28. Plummer's Translation, p. 25. † Finlay's Greece, from 1453 to 1821, pp. 194, 195.

While such was the condition of the Greek race, considered on the side of their Ottoman masters, their horizon was not a whit less black in every other quarter. There is no chapter of history more disgraceful to Western Christendom, than that which exhibits the conduct of its various Governments with respect to the entrance of Turkish rule into Europe, and its continuance there. It made, indeed, vigorous and even noble efforts to repel the invaders; but this was when the Turks, having overrun that portion of the South of Europe which adhered to the Oriental Church, began at length to menace, and to some extent to occupy, European ground within the precinct of the Latin Communion. These efforts were ultimately successful; but it was only towards the close of the seventeenth century, that the danger could be said to have passed away from Western Europe. And it was during the same period, which witnessed the great overthrows of the Turks at Vienna (1685) and Peterwaradin (1717), that they were allowed to add to their empire by wresting Crete from the Venetians, and by finally recovering the Morea. The efforts made by Venice were remarkable as proceeding from so small a State, confident only in maritime resources; but they were neither liberating nor crusading efforts, so far as the Christian populations were concerned. They were commercial and territorial; and if the civil yoke which they imposed were lighter than that which they removed, it was sometimes found that they carried with them a new stumblingblock in the shape of religious rivalry,* whereas the Turks were, as a rule, in regard to questions between one form of Christianity and another, supremely impartial. At all events we find that, when the long war waged in Crete ended in 1669 with its surrender to the Porte, the Greek population of the island, who might have given the victory to Venice, did not think it worth their while to bestir themselves for the purpose. In general, either Europe was indifferent to the subjugation of Eastern Christendom, or at any rate, governed by their selfish jealousies, the Powers could not agree on the division of so rich a spoil, and therefore they suffered a very unnatural oppression to endure.

But even political jealousy was not so keen and sharp-eyed an enemy as ecclesiastical ambition. Of this we have the most extraordinary proof in the letter addressed by Pope Pius II. to Mahomet II. shortly after the capture of Constantinople. The Pontiff exhorts the victorious Sultan (1461) to embrace Christianity, and not only promises, upon that condition, to confer on him, by virtue of his own apostolical authority, the legitimate sovereignty of all the countries he had conquered from the Greeks, but engages to use

Gordon's History of the Greek Revolution, i. p. 9. + Finlay's Greece, p. 132.

Pichler, Geschichte der Kirchlichen Trunnung, i. 500.

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