with remarkable success; their fleets covered the Grecian seas; many islands were provisioned and fortified in such a manner as to despise attack, whilst the vigilance of the tyrants gradually relaxed, in proportion as the spirit and resources of their slaves increased.

At length, the peculiar state of European politics; the ferment occasioned by other nations in attempting to recover their constitutional rights; above all, the attack made by the Porte upon its rebellious satrap, Ali Pacha, wherein its own impotency was abundantly manifested, these and some other causes, which it is not necessary to mention, stimulated the Greeks to this last, and as we ardently hope, successful, insurrection. They have arisen with a spirit worthy of their cause, to save their wives and children from barbarian lust, their altars from pollution, and their beautiful country from desolation.

One of the main springs of this insurrection was the Hetæria, a society founded at first by some patriotic Greeks, during the congress of Vienna, for the encouragement of literature and science. At its head was the learned and venerable Archbishop Ignatius, who had sought an asylum in Italy from the treachery of the Albanian tyrant, Ali Pacha. The association rapidly increased, and reckoned some of the most illustrious names in Europe amongst its members, when it suddenly altered its complexion with the nature of the times, and became a political engine for the emancipation of Greece. Whole tribes now entered into the confederacy, like those of Parga and of Suli; nay, even Ali Pacha himself was admitted a member, for the sake of that eclat which the name of so valorous and renowned a chief might throw over the cause. Indeed, scarcely had two years elapsed from the surrender of Parga into the hands of this ambitious chieftain, when he issued a proclamation, declaring himself the firm friend of the Christians, and the protector

of the Greeks, whom he invited to assemble under his banners for the extermination of their common enemy, and promised them a constitutional charter in case of their success.

The well-known character of Ali, however, prevented any reliance being placed upon these promises, especially as he was reluctant to open those hoards of wealth which he valued like his life-blood. At length his affairs grew desperate; his old associates forsook him, his capital was destroyed, and he himself was shut up and besieged in his fortified Serai. Conceiving, in this dilemma, that his only hope of safety lay in a general insurrection and confusion, he determined to spare no longer those treasures and resources which still remained to him. He delivered up, therefore, to the Suliots, with two thousand purses, their impregnable fortresses on the Acherontian hills, and despatching to their assistance a corps of about eight hundred Zagoriots, who remained faithful to his cause, he enabled those hardy mountaineers to spread havoc and destruction among the Turkish forces; and gained time to raise up that storm which will probably sweep away the Ottoman barbarians from those regions which they have so long polluted. When Ismael Pacha, alarmed at the consequences of these measures, endeavoured to seduce the Suliots from their new alliance, Ali confirmed them in it by fresh supplies, and the following assertion: "Continue faithfully to support me till the month of March, and the Sultan will then have so much upon his hands, that we shall be able to dictate to him the law."

His predictions were partly verified; and this rebel chieftain, whose country had been overrun and pillaged, whose whole force had been reduced to a few thousands of brigands, and whose dominion extended only over the fortress in which he was besieged, suddenly found himself, in the month of March, 1821, supported and encouraged by a general insurrection of the Greek nation.

This event may have been hastened by his crafty policy, but it had its origin much deeper, in that unconquerable spirit of freedom which had been for ages at work; and it was encouraged not only by the society of Hetærists just mentioned, by the vast number of unemployed troops which had been raised by the different powers in possession of the Ionian Islands, and by that fear which the Greeks began to entertain of all Christian powers after the surrender of Parga, but also by some other more powerful, though invisible, support, which has not yet been acknowledged.

The war, however, against Ali, was the prelude to this desperate and sanguinary struggle, which commenced in Wallachia and Moldavia, under Prince Alexander Ypsilanti, who had served with distinction in the Russian armies during the French invasion, and obtained the rank of major-general.

The spirited proclamations of this officer, and the aid he experienced from Michael Sutzo, Hospodar of Moldavia, had the effect of drawing vast multitudes to his standard, and affairs appeared highly promising for the insurgents. His movements and plans, however, were all thwarted, not more by the machinations of an adventurer named Theodore Vladimaresco, who aspired to the throne of Wallachia, now vacant by the unfortunate death of Alexander Sutzo, brother to Michael, than by the timidity of the Boyars, the general poverty of the inhabitants, the want of arms and ammunition, as well as the bad spirit of the greatest part of his troops. Among these, he had only one corps upon which he could rely; it was composed of about a thousand young Greeks, who had left the different universities of Europe, where they had been peaceably pursuing their studies, to attend the call of their country in arms, and emulate those glorious examples which they had contemplated in her annals. Like the ancient corps of Thebans, under Pelopidas, it was denominated the " Sacred Legion;"

like those heroes, each bound himself by a solemn oath to defend his standard to the last; and in the unfortunate combat which soon ensued, and which put an end to the insurrection of these provinces, each nobly redeemed his pledge, and fell, covered with wounds, upon the spot where he had stood.

Though the tone of Ypsilanti's proclamations, and of Michael Sutzo's decrees, was calculated to create a belief that this insurrection had been countenanced by Russia, yet there is no reason to believe that this was the case, although the armies of that power soon began to assemble in great force upon the frontiers, and to attract the eyes of Europe to that quarter. All idea of aggrandizing herself at the expense of her Mahometan neighbour was disavowed, and we think justly, by Russia; though she generously gave an asylum to such fugitives as could escape into her territories, and made the most noble exertions, through her ambassador at the Porte, to prevent those sanguinary scenes of vengeance which took place at Constantinople, and all other cities in the Turkish empire.

After the fatal battle in which Ypsilanti's troops were totally dispersed, and his sacred legion sacrificed to the cowardice of their comrades, he issued a proclamation totally different from his first, and having quitted the country in disgust, fled into Hungary, where he was arrested by the Austrian authorities, and confined in a fortress. His wisest plan would have been to have cut his way, with the troops that still remained faithful to him, through the Turkish territories, and joined the insurgents, now in arms throughout the south of Greece, to whom he might have brought important succours. His coadjutor, M. Sutzo, having quitted Yossi, with his family and adherents, sought refuge in Bessarabia, where he has found a generous protection against the reclamations of the Porte, which has made his unconditional

surrender the basis of every accommodation with the Russian government. The fate of Vladimaresco is unknown. In the mean time, the two unfortunate provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia were laid waste by the incensed Mahometans, who spared neither age nor sex, nor any rank of persons, in the unheard of enormities which they perpetrated.

In the month of April, 1821, when the flame of insurrection began to burn dimly in the northern districts, it burst out into a more fierce and durable blaze in the southern provinces of the Turkish empire. The Greeks of the Morea were long ignorant of the occurrences that had taken place north of the Danube; which, becoming first known to the Turks, occasioned them to regard their helots with an unusual degree of suspicion, and to treat them with extraordinary rigour. The Greeks, upon this, expostulated with their tyrants, and to secure a more lenient mode of treatment, gave up as hostages, into the hands of Chourschid Pacha of Tripolizza, many of their most distinguished primates, among whom was the Bishop of Monembasia, brother to the Bey of Maina. This measure tranquillized the fears of the Turks for a time; but soon afterwards, news arrived that Colocotroni*, with a few dozen followers, had landed from Zante, and taken a station among the mountains of Caritena, and the Pacha's suspicions were again excited. Being assured, however, that Colocotroni was acting the part of a kleft, or robber, so common in these countries, he unwarily allowed the Greeks to arm themselves for the purpose of attacking him. This being done, Colocotroni suddenly found himself at the head of seven or eight hundred followers, declared himself fighting for the independence of

* This man, the bravest of the Greek captains, served with much distinction in Colonel Church's Greek regiment, during the late war.