called in their merchant ships; in November, the Suliots returned to their country from the Ionian islands, and raised the standard of rebellion, in alliance with their former persecutor, against the Sublime Porte; in February 1821, Hourshid Pacha arrived before Yanina, from the Morea, leaving that country almost destitute of Turkish soldiers. Shortly after his arrival various Greeks, who were in the service of Ali Pacha, left Yanina, and returned to their homes, where they hoped very speedily to be more actively employed; and in the first days of the April following, the insurrection did, in fact, break out at Patras."* They "In 1821, Turkey presented a scene of continued disorder. The successful resistance of the Pacha of Albania had given encouragement to the enemies of the Turkish yoke to venture upon open hostilities; and in the beginning of March, (1821), insurrections broke out in various provinces of the empire."+ Theodore, a native of Bulgaria, at the head of 10,000 insurgents, raised the standard of revolt in Wallachia. The Boyars, or chiefs, fled before them. entered Bucharest, the capital, and took entire possession of it; and the appearance of Bucharest was that of a town delivered into the hands of a merciless enemy, and daily scenes of disorders and atrocities took place." Prince Ypsilanti revolted in Moldavia; and "the news of his insurrection excited general consternation." "The alarm was raised to a still greater height by the intelligence of the insurrection which had broken out in every part of Greece. The people of the Morea were in arms: their chiefs had formed themselves into the senate of Calamata ; Candia had refused the usual tribute; the islands • Waddington's Visit to Greece, introd. pp. 7, 8. of the Archipelago had thrown off the yoke, and were fitting out fleets to cruise against their tyrants. The government and populace of Constantinople exhibited the most violent exacerbation."* "Moldavia and Wallachia were reduced; but the insurgent Greeks were more formidable than ever. So early as the month of May, the Greek fleet had the command of the Archipelago. In June their naval force was estimated at 250 vessels, which formed four squadrons. The war in the Morea was a series of bloody skirmishes. The Greeks rose suc cessively on a multitude of different points; and the Turks, unable to keep the field against their opponents, defended themselves in their fortresses. Many of these were reduced, generally through famine. The revolt had spread far to the north. Thessaly, Ætolia, Acarnania, and Epirus, were in a state of insurrection." A national congress was convoked at Epidaurus. "In September 1821, two irruptions were made into the Turkish dominions by the Persian princes Mahomed Ali Mirza, and Abbas Mirza. The former penetrated into the province of Bagdad; the latter into that of Erzerum. This invasion, occurring at such a moment, might have given a mortal blow to the Ottoman power in Asia. This year, (1821,) may be regarded as the date of the final extinction of the Mamelukes."+ The Prince Royal of Persia, towards the close of summer 1821, having "marched a strong body of troops into the province of Wan, a district situated on the eastern banks of the Euphrates, the invaders advanced as far as the town of Bayazid, a considerable station on the road from Tebriz to Constantinople; their farther progress, however, was stopped * Ann. Reg. pp. 247, 248. Ibid. p. 256. + Ibid. pp. 254, 255. by the cholera morbus, which made its appearance in the army. The prince royal crossed the frontier towards the end of July 1822, with an army of 30,000 men, and marched upon Erzerum." He completely defeated an army of 52,000 Turks, who fled in disorder from the field. "The prince royal followed up his successes, and advanced within two days march of Arzerum, but the cholera morbus is said to have again broken out in his army, and in such a manner as effectually to arrest its further advance. "On the 13th of the same month a physical calamity came to consummate the general disorder of the empire. Aleppo, the capital of Syria, and one of the finest and most populous cities of the empire, was visited by an earthquake, which instantly overthrew a great portion of the buildings, burying thousands of its inhabitants under the ruins-at the lowest computation not less than 14,000 individuals perished. The shock was felt more or less in all the towns of Syria. Antioch is represented as having suffered scarcely less than Aleppo."+ The massacre of Scio, in 1822, roused, in a tenfold degree, the sympathies of Europe. The fire ships of the Greeks scattered the fleets of the Ottomans. A Turkish army penetrated into the Morea, but having been harassed in their retreat, and assaulted incessantly by the Greeks, was repeatedly defeated, with the loss in one conflict of 2500 left dead upon the field," it is calculated that of 26,000 or 30,000 men, who in June had entered the Morea, there scarcely remained 10,000 at the end of August."+ "In 1823, the war between the Greeks and the Turks continued to rage with undiminished fury." * Annual Register, 1822, pp. 270, 272. + Ibid. p. 284. † Ibid. 1822, p. 282. After the death of Ali, "the pachas who, under the sultan, commanded in Albania, were at the head of a considerable force; but that force, instead of being employed in the subjugation of the Morea, found more than sufficient employment in checking the insurgent beys of Albania." Another Turkish army, partly by defeat and desertion, "ceased completely to exist." And the Greeks, becoming the assailants, made predatory inroads along the coasts of Asia Minor. The year 1824 was peculiarly signalized by the triumphs of the Greeks both by sea and land. They continued to harass the Turks in Thessaly; completely routed, with great courage, the seraskier of Roumelia; contended in daily encounters with the army of Dervish Pasha, till it was utterly defeated and nearly annihilated. "In the various naval engagements, first with the Turkish fleet and in detachments alone, and then with the combined Turkish and Egyptian armaments, the Greeks were universally and completely successful. In the engagements of 16th, 18th, 26th, and 30th September, the Turks are said to have lost twelve frigates, twenty brigs, and more than eighty transports." While Turkish armies, whose chief bond of union is the love of plunder, thus successively "melted away" before the bands of intrepid Greeks, the Ottoman empire was threatened with new dangers. "Both the populace and the janisaries in Constantinople were in a state of great fermentation. In February 1825, four ortas of janisaries, in which signs of insubordination had appeared, received orders to proceed to Thessaly, and join the corps opposed to the Greeks; but they unanimously refused to march."+ The sultan of Turkey called in the *Annual Register, A. D. 1825, p. 184. +Ibid. 1824, pp. 200, 207. aid of the Pacha of Egypt to suppress the revolt of Greece. The campaign of Bonaparte, in the land of the Pharaohs, had broken the power of the unruly Mamelukes; and the troops of Gaul had, by dire experience of its power, taught the Egyptians the use of military discipline, as practised in the modern art of war. Order had hence begun to be established in the basest of kingdoms. The unhappy dissensions of the contentious Greeks, so soon as for a moment they were free of a foreign enemy, laid that land of liberty open to the ravages of the disciplined soldiers of Egypt, whom all their fiery energy, though renewed, could not drive from their coasts. But Europe could not bear to see Greece crushed again, SO soon as it was free. The Turks had executed their charge, and had for ages realized the character of a woe to Christendom. But to them" the beginning of the end" was come; and the "last end of the indignation" in progress of accomplishment. And, like an exhausted executioner, their strength failed them, till self-defence against an aggressor passed their power. A great change had come over the spirit of the time, since Paleologus in vain implored Christendom to make an effort to save the empire of the Greeks. The cry of that bleeding people now resounded through Europe. And whatever it was the purpose of a worldly policy to effect, or the mutual jealousies that may have given birth to the scheme, the desolation which was spread over Greece by ruthless barbarians, though disciplined troops, combined in her behalf the great powers of Europe, who guaranteed her independence in defiance of the sultan and all his vassals. While the Grand Turk was thus ignominiously bearded, as Mussulmen are wont to term them, by "the Christian dogs," the contrast between the time when the period was completed in which the four angels of the Euphrates were prepared for to slay the |