XXXII. 1832. swelled up to colossal proportions; from being Egyptian CHAP. it became European. By the closing of the Dardanelles, and the entire subjugation of the Porte to Russian influence, the Cabinet of St Petersburg had acquired such a preponderance in the East that its power could hardly have been more thoroughly established if the Cross had been replaced by Muscovite hands on the dome of St Sophia. But meanwhile the thing was done, and could not be undone; the Dardanelles were closed to all but the Russian flag; the Euxine had become a Russian lake, and Sebastopol was rising in impregnable strength on its northern shore, threatening instant destruction by its fleets to the imperial city in the event of any disobedience to the dictates of the Czar! But the Cabinet of St Petersburg had chosen its time well for this vast aggressive stride. It had only taken advantage of the facilities afforded for making it, by the temporary alienation of reason on the part of the Western Powers. England and France, distracted by political passions, had not only become indifferent to foreign interests, but insensible to the strongest of all animal instincts-that of self-preservation. Antwerp, the great outwork of Napoleon against England, ceded, and the Flemish barrier abandoned in the north, and Constantinople, the Queen of the South, virtually ceded to Russia, were melancholy proofs of the infatuation which had seized upon the nations in Europe the most boasting of their intelligence; and they bequeathed one, probably two, dreadful wars in future times to the British people. 32. Greece since the treaty of 1829. The independence of GREECE was secured by the heroism of its gallant inhabitants and the flames of Navarino; Affairs of but much required to be done before its boundaries and government could be settled by the intervention of the allied Powers, and still more before the brand of fifteen hundred years of slavery could be erased from the foreheads of its inhabitants, or the descendants of the 1832. CHAP. heroes of Marathon and Platea become qualified to XXXII. emulate the civil virtues of their immortal forefathers. The great majority of men are always too impatient on these subjects, and the consequence is that their expectations so often end in disappointment. disappointment. They expect nations to be instantly converted by a change of institutions-men to be at once regenerated by the construction of an improved frame of government-forgetting that, as human degradation is the slow and melancholy result of centuries of oppression and misgovernment, so public elevation is the not less tardy growth of centuries of pacific industry and expanded energies. That men are to be at once changed by a change of the institutions under which they live, is the dream of the enthusiastic, the dogma of the revolutionary, but there is no one opinion which is more constantly negatived by the experience of mankind. The course of events in every age has demonstrated that such expectations are not less chimerical than to expect that a child is to attain the strength of manhood by simply putting on the dress of older years, or a colt the steady daring of a war-horse by merely clothing it in the panoply of battle. Everything, however, must have a beginning, and good things can never be begun too soon. It is no imputation on the wisdom of the authors of the treaty of 6th July 1828, to say that the State they rescued from Mussulman oppression has not yet attained the strength and maturity expected of it, any more than it is to say that he who has redeemed a child from the hands of gypseys has not been able in a few months to give it the habits and knowledge of civilised manhood. But it is no slight imputation on the political wisdom and information of a nation, to say that they become disheartened with a noble and generous act because such expectations have not been in the outset realised. The government and institutions of Greece, upon the termination of its revolution, were arranged with no regard to the character or necessities of its inhabitants, XXXII. 1832. 33. ment of Greece unEnglish idency of wasted Capo d'Is der the pre What tria. but entirely on the principle of compromise between the CHAP. powers which had taken a part in its liberation. Emerging from a frightful and desolating war of six years' duration, which had destroyed a half of its inhabitants, and almost First settleannihilated its industry, Greece was in the situation in which France was after the expulsion of the invaders, or Scotland after the liberation of its fields by the genius and heroism of Robert Bruce. it absolutely required was peace - protection under a strong government, and the extinction of the power of the feudal chieftains, who had acquired so great a sway over their followers during the war with the Turks. But these sober and rational ideas were but little in accordance with the views of any of the allied Powers who had signed the treaty of July 1828. England and France, carried away with the Liberal delusion of the times, thought they insured the happiness of the semi-barbarous Greeks just emerged from four centuries of Ottoman servitude, when they gave them a popular and aristocratic Assembly and elective president; the Russians, better informed as to the real tendencies of savage tribes, disquieted themselves little about the representative bodies, and were satisfied with the nomination of the chief who was to wield the military power of the State. To effect a compromise between these conflicting principles, it was agreed that the infant State should be governed by a senate and chamber of deputies, and president, and that the choice of the latter officer should be accorded to the iii. 406, Emperor of Russia, who conferred it upon his private 407, 411. secretary, COUNT CAPO D'ISTRIA.1 1 Ann. Hist. and xiv. 34. overturned. The consequences of intrusting the government of a young State, composed partly of warlike mountain tribes, Who is soon who owed a feudal obedience to their chiefs, and partly of island traders, whom necessity and suffering had forced to become pirates, to a representative assembly composed of such heterogeneous materials, were soon apparent. Capo d'Istria did not long enjoy the honour bestowed upon him by the favour of Russia. Jealousy of the CHAP. foreign influence to which he had owed his appointment, obliterated the recollection of all his services to the Hel XXXII. 1831. Nov. 10, 1831. lenic cause. To such a degree did this feeling proceed, that he was assassinated at Napoli on the 24th October 1831, and anarchy for some time succeeded his decease. At length the presidency was bestowed by the Senate and Provisional Government on Count Augustin de Capo d'Istria, brother to the deceased, on 10th November 1831. This election was followed by a convocation of the entire national assembly, and it at once revealed the magnitude of the dangers with which, under such a form of government, the country was threatened, and the violence of the parties by which it was torn. The island deputies, fortyfive in number, met at Hydra, and opened a negotiation with the Provisional Government, the chief object of which was an absolute and unqualified amnesty to all the deputies. This, which was intended to secure the murderers of Capo d'Istria, the Government refused, tendering instead one from which the perpetrators and abettors of that crime were to be excluded. The opposition declined these terms, and in order to prevent the Hydra deputies from joining the Assembly, which was to meet at Argos on 10th December, the majority asked and received the assistance of Russian ships of war to blockade the island, and prevent the refractory deputies getting out! This ominous commencement was not belied by the future proceedings of the Greek Assembly. The majority at Argos, who were in the Russian interest, confirmed the election. of Augustin Capo d'Istria by the Provisional Government; the minority protested against the election until the Hydra deputies were admitted, and constituted themselves into a separate assembly. This schism in the legislature was speedily followed by sanguinary contests between the two parties in the streets of Argos. Blood flowed on all sides; an hundred persons were slain, and after two days' fighting, Capo d'Istria and Colocotroni, with the government, retired to Napoli di Romania, XXXII. 1833. and the opposition, headed by Condurriottis, Coletti, CHAP. and some other chiefs of the rival party, established themselves and elected a separate government at Corinth. Public opinion favoured the opposition. Capo d'Istria stigmatised as a Russian slave, the armed bands from the mountains all flocked to the standard of Coletti, who soon found himself at the head of seven thousand men, while the forces of the Government were not half the number, and its authority did not extend beyond Argos and Napoli. The consideration of the opposition government was soon increased by the appearance of the Hydra deputies, who had contrived to elude the vigilance of the Russian cruisers, and arrived safe at Corinth. As this accession of strength raised their numbers to one hundred and forty-five, they were the majority of the Assembly, Jan. 18. and they immediately proceeded to pass a decree, annul- Ann. Hist. ling the election of Capo d'Istria to the presidency, and 408; Monideclaring him an usurper, and author of all the calamities 6, 1833. in which the country was involved.1 xv. 406, teur, Feb. elected Greece, These violent dissensions, and the assassination of 35. Capo d'Istria, sufficiently proved that Greece, in its pre- Otho is sent state, was unfit for an elective and popular form of King of government, and that its longer continuance would only perpetuate bloodshed and anarchy in the country. The allied Powers accordingly wisely resolved on a monarchical constitution; but much difficulty was experienced in the choice of a sovereign, chiefly in consequence of the refusal of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, to whom the crown had been offered, to accept it. At length, as a sort of compromise between the contending influence of Russia on the one side and France and England on the other, it was agreed to offer the crown to Otho, second son of the King of Bavaria, a youth still in minority, and little qualified to hold the helm through the storms with which the infant State was environed, but who had the advantage, inestimable in the eyes of rival powers, of being in a certain degree exempt from the influence of either. |