charge of one of his eunuchs, in order that they might be questioned as to the fact. The ambassador refused to question them in the presence of the eunuch; he maltreated the eunuch himself: and, contrary to the king's order, he detained the women all night in his house by force,-where they were most barbarously used by the Russians. They made their escape in the morning, crying loudly through the streets for revenge. The indignation of the populace was roused; they collected, with threats, round the residence of the ambassador, which was protected by about 100 of the king's guards, and from twenty to thirty cossacks. The cossacks fired upon the populace, and killed six men. This exasperated the mob to the utmost. The bodies of these men were exposed in six different mosques, and the moolahs excited the people to fury, calling upon them to take revenge on the murderers. The mob had now increased to about 30,000, inflamed by a strong religious feeling of the sacrifice of six Mussulmans by the Muscovite infidels; and they rushed again to the house of the ambassador, vowing death to all whom it contained. The king, in the mean time, hearing of the tumult, ordered out two thousand of the troops, to the rescue of the Russians, and sent his son, Alli Shah to their assistance. The prince, at the risk of his life, succeeded in saving one of the ambassador's secretaries and two cossacks: but M. Grybydoff himself, and all the rest of his suite, to the number of about thirty, were massacred,

The court of Tehran, which had submitted to much provoking and

unjustifiable conduct on the part of the ambassador rather than risk a rupture, and by doing so had provoked the people to take the task of retribution into their own hands, immediately took every step which seemed necessary to appease the dreaded vengeance of its imperious neighbour. They went into mourning for the Russians who had fallen; the king offered every indemnity which could be required to expiate an offence which he could not control, and in which he and his government had no share. A confidential agent of the crown prince was despatched to general Paskewitsch, that the first bearer of the intelligence might bear likewise the expression of the regret which was felt, and offer every reasonable satisfaction. No less distinguished a messenger than a prince of the blood-royal, a grandson of the Schah, was sent to St. Petersburgh to propitiate the emperor, who, expressing himself satisfied with the steps which the Persian government had taken to disconnect itself with the crime, took no farther notice of an occurrence, which, however unjustifiable, had been provoked by the lawless conduct of his own officer, and was the sudden act of an exasperated mob, of which the government could not have been aware, and which it had done all in its power to repress.

The French expedition to Greece during the last year had expelled every armed Turk from the Morea. The French troops were about to march, if not with the knowledge, at least with the connivance of their government, beyond the Isthmus of Corinth, and deliver northern Greece, as they had done the

Peloponnesus, when they were ordered to undertake no farther operations for it was still undetermined by the allies, whether the new Greek state, which was to be created by their interference, would contain any territory further north than the Morea. If, therefore, the Turkish fortresses in northern Greece were to be reduced, that object was to be effected by the arms of the Greeks themselves. They set about the task with the greater eagerness, that, whatever they should make their own by their own arms, they would have a strong claim for retaining it in any subsequent negotiations with their allied protectors. The army in the west, under general Church, compelled Vonizza, one of the strongest of the Turkish fortresses, to surrender on the 17th of March, after a siege of some duration, in the course of which Turkish forces, greatly superior in number, had been unable to drive the besieging army from its positions. The garrison were allowed to retire to Prevesa. Having garrisoned Vonizza, and received a supply of provisions, the general, by a rapid march, took possession of the heights of Macrin-Osos, surprising a body of three hundred Turks, who were all made prisoners. The Turks immediately abandoned all their posts in the neighbourhood, and retired, to the number of fifteen hundred men, to Carvassara. The Greeks followed them, and took up a position which compelled the enemy, who were without provisions, either to attempt a retreat to Missolonghi, or to surrender. Having learned the good treatment which the garrison of Vonizza had experienced, they

preferred the latter alternative, laid down their arms, and dispersed to return to their respective countries. On the 24th of April, the town and citadel of Lepanto surrendered. The Turkish population was to be conveyed partly to Albania, and partly to Smyrna. A greater success followed. Anatolico, and Missolonghi, the scene of so much devoted bravery in resisting the arms of Ibrahim, gave themselves up to the Greeks by capitulation on the 16th of May; the Turkish families, and the troops, with their arms and baggage, being conveyed to Prevesa. The siege of Prevesa itself was then formed; but its strength, and more numerous garrison, threatened a longer resistance.

While the Greeks were thus preparing to extend their permanent territory by shewing that they were able to conquer it, so long as the Turks were cut off from all reinforcements, the ambassadors of France and England were about to renew, at Constantinople, the attempt to arrange their interests by negotiation. They had quitted the Turkish capital, because the Sultan had refused to accede to their terms; they now returned to try again the very same thing, the rejection of which before had been thought sufficient to justify their departure. the French expedition had cleared the Morea, the ministers of the three powers at London had come to a determination regarding the territory, which, in the mean time at least, should form the subject of their negotiations on behalf of Greece. At a conference held on the 16th November, 1828, they had resolved upon a declaration, that the allied powers took under

After

their provisional guarantee the Morea and the Cyclades, without prejudicing the question of the future boundaries of Greece. This protocol was communicated to the Sultan, but no notice of it was given to the President of Greece. The Sultan consented that the negotiations should be renewed; he had never been willing that the ministers should leave Constantinople. The bases of the intended negotiation were finally arranged among the allies at a conference on the 22nd of March in the present year, and were as follows: "1. "The continental boundary line "of the Greek State is to be "drawn from the gulph of Volo "to the gulph of Arta.

All "countries south of this line to "be included in the Greek State, "to which the adjacent islands, "comprehending Euboea and the "Cyclades, are likewise to be"long. 2. An annual tribute of "1,500,000 Turkish piastres to "be paid by this Greek State. "Only a third part to be paid "during the first year, and to be "gradually increased till it reaches "the maximum in the fourth. 3. "Turkish subjects, who may be "forced to depart from the Greek "territory, to be indemnified. 4. "Greece is to remain under the "suzeraintè of the Porte, with "the form of government best "calculated to secure its religious "and commercial liberty. The "government is to approach as "nearly as possible to a monarch"ical form, and to be hereditary "in the family of a christian "prince, to be chosen for the "first time by the three powers, "in concert with the Porte. He "is not to be a member of the "families reigning in the States VOL. LXXI.

"which are parties to the treaty "of July 6."

A copy of this protocol was communicated to the president of Greece by Mr. Dawkins, the British resident accredited to the Greek government, on the 18th of May. The communication was accompanied by a note stating, that, as the President would perceive the determination of the three powers to exact from the Ottoman Porte the maintenance of the armistice announced by the Reis Effendi on the 10th September, 1828, as existing de facto on the part of the Turks, he had no doubt but his excellency would justify the expectation of the allied courts" to see immediately "adopted by the Greek govern

ment measures conformable to "their wishes, either by declaring "a suspension of hostilities on all points on which the contest is "at present carried on, or by re

calling its troops within the "limits of the territory placed "under the guarantee of the "three powers by the act of the

16th November, 1828;" which territory, as already stated, included only the Morea and the Cyclades. To this request of the allies Capo d'Istria returned a long answer, containing a great deal of unbusiness-like declamation and unnecessary indignation. He took it up, as if he had been required absolutely to recall the Greek troops within the isthmus of Corinth, abandoning all their conquests in northern Greece. He assured the allies that it was not, and never would be, in the power of the Greek government,

to transport," as he rhetoricallyexpressed it, "into the heart of the Peloponnesus, and the adja- . [Q] ·

cent islands, the miserable population of the provinces situated beyond the isthmus of Corinth. These provinces, as well as those of the Peloponnesus and the islands, contracted, in the hour of trial and misfortune, a solemn engagement never to separate their cause. These engagements are confirmed by public acts under a double sanction-the sanction of national congresses, and the still more inviolable sanction of oaths. Can the Greek government, whose only power is founded on these same acts, infringe them by establishing a line of separation between continental Greece and the Peloponnesus, seeing that it is to the immense sacrifices of this country that the Peninsula has more than once owed its salvation? and should the government arbitrarily assume to itself this right, would it have the means of effecting this separation without exposing to new calamities people who are just beginning to regain their habitations, and to hope for that repose which the Morea en joys from the protection and services of the allied powers? It is not in their power, either by persuasion or force, to obtain such a result.

"The inhabitants of the provinces would answer them, that the third article of the treaty of the 6th of July, and the clause of the demarcation contained in the protocol of the 22nd of March, encourage them to hope, that the justice and magnanimity of the august allies will not abandon them, and that it would be an abandonment without redemption, to constrain them to quit the defensible positions which they now occupy. In the number of the

positions which they have occupied latterly, are Vonizza, Lepanto, Missolonghi, and Anatolico. The Mussulmen, who compose the garrisons of these places, being completely left to themselves by their government, and deprived of external resources by the blockade of their coasts, have themselves demanded to return to their own country. This retreat, far from giving occasion to bloodshed and other miseries, has been effected under the safeguard of conventions, which demonstrate the moderate and pacific views of the Greek government, and which deserve the confidence which they inspire in the Mussulmen themselves. The letters, which the commandant of the castle of Romelia and the Pacha of Lepanto addressed to us at the time of the evacuation of these garrisons, furnish an irrefragable proof of this fact. In this state of things, it is not impossible that the feeble garrison of Athens, and of the two or three other places included in the demarcation laid down in the protocol of the 22nd of March, may follow the example of the garrisons of western Greece. By such results the Greek government would have contributed, as far as its feeble means allow, to the success of the negotiations with which, in the names of the three courts, the Pienipotentiaries of England and France, who are going to Constantinople, have been intrusted." Now in all this the President, for the sake of writing oratory, quite forgot that the Greeks were not called on to "quit the defensible positions which they now occupy," unless they preferred that course themselves. They had the alternative of doing that, or of sub

mitting to a simple suspension of hostilities, not giving up a single post, nor withdrawing a single man; and to this latter branch of the alternative the President gave no answer. The three powers had declared in the treaty of 6th July, that, if the belligerents refused to consent to an armistice, they would enforce one upon them de facto. The Greeks had accepted the conditions of that treaty with apparent gratitude, for the sword was then at their breast; but now that the three powers had brought them uppermost, and a French army had cleared the Morea, any suspension of hostilities was contrary forsooth to their "oaths," and "the public acts of national congresses." Even if the allies had demanded that the Greeks should abandon their conquests in northern Greece, and retire within the isthmus, it would have been unfair dealing in the Greek government to have refused, so long as they claimed and obtained the benefits of that interposition which had alone enabled them to make these conquests, or to retain the naine and attributes of a nation. If the consequences of protection and salvation were unpleasant, they ought to have declined the services of their saviours and protectors. To say to the allies," you shall fight and negociate for us, but you shall do it on our own terms, and shall thereby acquire no right either to bind or direct us; you are to destroy or disable our enemies, and then leave us at liberty to do what we choose,"-betokened neither modesty nor wisdom. In so far, again, as the President stated that the government had not the "power" of effecting in northern Greece what the allies requested,

he first told them, that neither he nor his government were persons to be treated with at all, since they had no control over their ostensible subjects. And, in truth, the very events, which were occurring, proved how incapable what was styled the government was of maintaining subordination. Whether from its general impotence, or from the misconduct of the President, dissatisfaction was widely spread among the military. In some places in the north of the isthmus the troops revolted. Pulo Pedro, a commander of a battalion, surprised Lepanto, expelled the garrison, and dismissed all the officers whom the President had appointed. At Missolonghi the troops fired on his own brother, count. Augustin Capo d'Istria, who had lately arrived in Greece, and had been appointed commander in chief of all the provinces to the north of the isthmus. This appointment itself seemed to be one great cause of discontent; the man, who held it, not having brought recommendation, either in temper or talent. General Church, who had commanded in western continental Greece to such good purpose, resigned his commission, from disgust, either at being thus superseded, or at the general debility, selfishness, and divisions of the government. in communicating his resignation to the National Assembly, which was convoked in the end of July, he stated his opinion of that government as frankly as could be expected, considering the persons whom he was addressing. "Had I consulted my feelings only, wounded as they have been on many occasions, I should have taken this step some time ago;