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of Christ has risen! Liberty! Liberty! proclaimed the capture of Athens. Nearly two thousand peasants, generally armed with clubs, had scaled the walls and forced the gates. The prisoners taken were treated with humanity. But, unfortunately, this current of Christian sentiment was immediately arrested by the conduct of the Turks in the Acropolis, in killing nine hostages, and throwing over the walls some naked and headless bodies.

The insurrection next spread to Thessaly; and at last even to Macedonia, from the premature and atrocious violence of the Pacha of Salonika. Apprehending a revolt, he himself drew it on, by cutting off the heads of the Christian merchants and clergy (simply as a measure of precaution), and enforcing his measures on the peasantry by military execution. Unfortunately, from its extensive plains, this country is peculiarly favorable to the evolutions of the Turkish cavalry; the insurgents were, therefore, defeated in several actions; and ultimately took refuge in great numbers amongst the convents on Mount Athos, which also were driven into revolt by the severity of the Pacha. Here the fugitives were safe from the sabres of their merciless pursuers; but, unless succored by sea, ran a great risk of perishing by famine. But a more important accession to the cause of independence, within one month from its first outbreak in the Morea, occurred in the Islands of the Archipelago. The three principal of these in modern times, are Hydra, Spezzia, and Psarra. They had been colonized in the preceding

*Their insignificance in ancient times is proclaimed by the obscurity of their ancient names-Aperopia, Tiparenus, and Psyra.

century, by some poor families from Peloponnesus and Ionia. At that time they had gained a scanty subsistence as fishermen. Gradually they became merchants and seamen. Being the best sailors in the Sultan's dominions, they had obtained some valuable privileges, amongst which was that of exemption from Turkish magistrates; so that, if they could not boast of autonomy, they had at least the advantage of executing the bad laws of Turkish imposition by chiefs of their own blood. And they had the further advantage of paying but a moderate tribute to the Sultan. So favored, their commerce had flourished beyond all precedent. And latterly, when the vast extension of European warfare had created first-rate markets for grain, selecting, of course, those which were highest at the moment, they sometimes doubled their capitals in two voyages; and seven or eight such trips in a year were not an unusual instance of good fortune. What had been the result, may be collected from the following description, which Mr. Gordon gives us, of Hydra: "Built on a sterile rock, which does not offer, at any season, the least trace of vegetation, it is one of the best cities in the Levant, and infinitely superior to any other in Greece; the houses are all constructed of white stone; and those of the aristocracy — erected at an immense expense, floored with costly marbles, and splendidly furnished-might pass for palaces even in the capitals of Italy. Before the revolution, poverty was unknown; all classes being comfortably lodged, clothed, and fed. Its inhabitants at this epoch exceeded twenty thousand, of whom four thousand were able-bodied seamen."

The other islands were, with few exceptions, arid rocks; and most of them had the inestimable advantage of being unplagued with a Turkish population. Enjoying that precious immunity, it may be wondered why they should have entered into the revolt. But for this there were two great reasons: they were ardent Christians in the first place, and disinterested haters of Mahometanism on its own merits; secondly, as the most powerful* nautical confederacy in the Levant, they anticipated a large booty from captures at sea. In that expectation, at first, they were not disappointed. But it was a source of wealth soon exhausted; for, naturally, as soon as their ravages became known, the Mussulmans ceased to navigate. Spezzia was the first to hoist the independent flag; this was on the ninth of April, 1821. Psarra immediately followed her example. Hydra hesitated, and at first even declined to do so; but, at last, on the 28th of April, this island also issued a manifesto of adherence to the patriotic cause. On the third of May, a squadron of eleven Hydriot and seven Spezzia vessels sailed from Hydra, having on the mainmast "an address to the people of the Egean sea, inviting them to rally round the national standard: an address that was received with enthusiasm in every quarter of the Archipelago

*Mr. Gordon says that "they could, without difficulty, fit out a hundred sail of ships, brigs, and schooners, armed with from twelve to twenty-four guns each, and manned by seven thousand stout and able sailors." Pouqueville ascribes to them, in 1813, a force considerably greater. But the peace of Paris (one year after Pouqueville's estimates) naturally reduced their power, as their extraordinary gains were altogether dependent on war and naval blockades.

where the Turks were not numerous enough to restrain popular feeling."

"The success of the Greek marine in this first expedition," says Mr. Gordon, "was not confined to merely spreading the insurrection throughout the Archipelago a swarm of swift armed ships swept the sea from the Hellespont to the waters of Crete and Cyprus; captured every Ottoman trader they met with, and put to the sword, or flung overboard, the Mahometan crews and passengers; for the contest already assumed a character of terrible ferocity. It would be vain to deny that they were guilty of shocking barbarities; at the little island of Castel Rosso, on the Karamanian shore, they butchered, in cold blood, several beautiful Turkish females; and a great number of defenceless pilgrims (mostly old men), who, returning from Mecca, fell into their power, off Cyprus, were slain without mercy, because they would not renounce their faith." Many such cases of hideous barbarity had already occurred, and did afterwards occur, on the mainland. But this is the eternal law and providential retribution of oppression. The tyrant teaches to his slave the crimes and the cruelties which he inflicts; blood will have blood; and the ferocious oppressor is involved in the natural reäction of his own wickedness, by the frenzied retaliation of the oppressed. Now was indeed beheld the realization of the sublime imprecation in Shakspeare: one spirit of the first-born Cain" did indeed reign in the hearts of men; and now, if ever upon this earth, it seemed likely, from the dreadful acharnement which marked the war on both sides, the acharnement of long-hoarded vengeance and mad

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dening remembrances in the Grecian, of towering disdain in the alarmed oppressor, - that, in very simplicity of truth, "Darkness would be the burier of the dead."

Such was the opening scene in the astonishing drama of the Greek insurrection, which, through all its stages, was destined to move by fire and blood, and beyond any war in human annals to command the interest of mankind through their sterner affections. We have said that it was eminently a romantic war; but not in the meaning with which we apply that epithet to the semi-fabulous wars of Charlemagne and his Paladins, or even to the Crusaders. Here are no memorable contests of generosity; no triumphs glorified by mercy; no sacrifices of interest the most basely selfish to martial honor; no ear on either side for the pleadings of desolate affliction; no voice in any quarter of commanding justice; no acknowledgment of a common nature between the belligerents; nor sense of a participation in the same human infirmities, dangers, or necessities. To the fugitive from the field of battle there was scarcely a retreat; to the prisoner there was absolutely no hope. Stern retribution, and the very rapture of vengeance, were the passions which presided on the one side; on the other, fanaticism and the cruelty of fear and hatred, maddened by old hereditary scorn. Wherever the war raged there followed upon the face of the land one blank Aceldama. A desert tracked the steps of the armies, and a desert in which was no oasis; and the very atmosphere in which men lived and breathed was a chaos of murderous passions. Still it is true that the war was a great

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