Art. I. 1. Ior«£/« TtvMtv xtcii Tlec^yaf, mfitfttw* m» xqncXtyuu *& r»vi x.\nui mxtpuv; fini itv 'ax* Tlctrt*: viz. The History of Suit and Parga, containing their Chronology as well as their Wars against Ali Pacha. Venice, 18)5. 2. A Series of Historical and Political authentic Documents, heginning from the year 1401 and ending with the year 1818, to .be presented to the Parliament of Great Britain in behalf qftJie Citizens of Parga. .3. Proceedings in Parga and the Ionian Islands, with a series qf Correspondence and other justificative Documents. By Lieutenant-Colonel C. P. De Bosset. London, 1819. 't'he concerns of this interesting and injured little State were ■*- brought before Parliament in the course of last Session: But, before the discussion had gone any length, its fate was understood to be sealed :—and the subject sunk again into that obscurity which naturally covers the transactions of a remote and inconsiderable community. It is worth while, however, we think, in this instance, at last to withdraw the veil; and to expose, in full day, a transaction in which this, country is but too much implicated, and which seems to afford a striking illustration of those new principles of international law by which we are to be rewarded for thirty years of suffering and bloodshed. Parga, which General Vaudoncourt conjectures, upon slight enough grounds, to be the ancient Ephyra—is situated on the coast ofTKpirus, at the foot of the mountains of Albania, and contained a population of about five thousand souk. No une VOL. XXXII. NO. 64. S quiyocal remains of Grecian art have been found, we believe, within its narrow district, though a few coins of the lower empire have been picked up; and the traces of antique buildings may be distinguished at the place still popularly known by the name of Antient Parga (n*x*J rt*ey«). In the decline' of't&e Itbmah power, the new city was built on a "rock, washed" on three sides by the sea, and backed by a precipitous cliff, on the summit of which is placed its impregnable citadel. It commands, of course, a very magnificent prospect, including on one hand the whole territory of Parga and the mountains of Albania, by which it is bounded from east to west; in a southerly direction, the eye ranges over a part of the Ionian Sea; on the left are seen the Isle of Santa Mora and the famous Sapphicpromontory of Leucadia; further on, Jam medio apparelJluctu nemorosa Zaci/nthos Dulichiumque Samcque et Ncritos ardua saxis, together with, the dark mountains of Ccphalonia; on the right, at the distance of twelve miles, are the Islands of Paxoand Antipaxo. The country is extremely fertile and salubrious, abounding with springs and rivulets, and exhibiting, in its slopes and hollows, innumerable .groves of oranges, olives, cedars and cypresses. The people were agricultural, and very warlike both by latld and water. Without this last quality, indeed, they could not have enjoyed an hour of independence; for they were surrounded on all sides by lawless and ambitions neighbours; and the lofty mountains which divide them from the Albanian clans and the Turkish frontier, were for four hundred years the scene of almost daily contentions. It would be useless, and not very easy, to inquire into the history of this little settlement, anterior to its-connexion with Venice. But, in the year 1401, it was confederated with that proud republic; and continued to enjoy honourable and entire independence in that alliance, till the subversion of the greater state in 1707. It is well known, that from the time ot Mahomet II., Venice was not only the great bulwark of Christendom against the growing power of the Turks, but exercised an almost unlimited authority over the eastern shores of the Adriatic, and the maritime and insular cities of Greece. For this dominion they were'indebted far more to their policy than their arms: For, taking advantage of the dissensions that always prevail among such small communities, they offered themselves first to one, and then to another, in the imposing character of mediators or allies; and, entering into treaties of perpetual friendship and federation, were gradually converted from generous protectors to absolute masters and tyrannical oppressors. [ocr errors] With Parga, however, they comported themselves differently: and the determined valour of its inhabitants concurring with their own obvious interest to preserve one willing and well-affected ally in that turbulent neighbourhood, insured from them the faithful observance of stipulations which, in other circumstances; they were accustomed to violate with very little scruple. On the 21st day of March 1401, the treaty of federation, thus singularly fulfilled, was first subscribed and sworn to between the two States. For the protection of the weaker power it was agreed, that the Venetians should maintain a body of Italian or Sclavonian troops within the walls of Parga;—but, to prevent the abuse of a power thus dangerously posted, it was solemnly stipulated, that the Pargiots should govern themselves freely and independently, according to the laws and constitutions of their ancestors, and by judges and magistrates of their own election; —that they should not be liable to serve by sea or land, in the militia or galleys of Venice,—nor to engage in any war but in defence of their own territory and the Venetian settlements in Albania;—that they should pay no taxes nor customs on export or import, and be chargeable only with half the ordinary duties when trading to the ports of Venice. This treaty was again confirmed with the same solemnities in August 1447,—and observed, to the mutual satisfaction of both parties, till the end of that century. In 1500, in spite of the Venetian assistance, the city was burned by the Turks—and again in 1560. On this last occasion, the inhabitants were massacred or dispersed, and. the whole territory laid waste and desolate. The scattered remnant of its people took shelter among the wandering tribes of the neighbouring mountains, but, by little and little, ventured back to their ancient possessions; and after several years, came at length to rebuild their houses and temples on the spot where their ancestors had fallen. They then sent deputies to Venice to demand their assistance, and the renewal of their ancient, alliance; requesting, among other things, that the Senate should, assist in fortifying their city, and should also lend them a sum of money to enable the poorer part of the citizens to rebuild their habitations. The Senate was not only just, but generous. It undertook the whole expense of erecting the fortifications; and, instead of a loan from its treasury, it sent, as a free gift, the requisite materials for the construction of their houses. When the particular points of the embassy were adjusted, a new chanter, ratifying and confirming all the former treaties, was regularly signed on the 5th of February 1571. It was afterwards repeatedly renewed; and was alwavs religiously fulfilled, not only In its letter, but its spirit, till the final extinction of Venice by the ambition of France and Austria in 1797. To explain the interest which concurred with the spirit of the people to produce this exemplary and unexampled fidelity to its engagements in a powerful ally, it may be necessary to consider for a moment the nature of the Venetian possessions to the east of the Adriatic, and the condition of the countries in their immediate neighbourhood. This great trading and political republic, it will be recollected, was mistress of the Ionian islands, and of various other islands and continental cities beyond them,—the secure possession of which was not only necessary to her maritime and political greatness, but essential to her commercial prosperity. The Turk had by this time spread himself over Greece, and was pressing heavily upon the Christian frontier both by land and water. To supply her insular settlements with provisions, it was necessary, at all events, that Venice should hold a variety of places on the shore of the Continent; and, by a judicious selection of these, she had also the prospect, from the singular situation of the country, of holding in check, and preventing the further progress of the Ottoman. On the coast of Albania, she had therefore established five fortified settlements;—Biwintro, anciently Buthrotum, the most central and convenient access to the interior of the country;— Gmnenilza, a large town, and the chief market of-the vicinage, from which, up to this day, Corfu derives its principal supplies; —Prevesa, a very strong place, and commanding the whole channel leading to the gulf of Arta;—Vonitza, anciently called Lionruca, considered as the key of Acarnania;—and, in the middle of these four, and as it were the keystone of the whole range, Parga, such as it has been already described. It was of importance that the attachment of a place so strong, and so situated, should be secured; and it was soon discovered that this could not be done without giving the inhabitants an interest in their fidelity, and making the power and tranquillity of their protectors the basis of their own prosperity and independence. If Parga was hostile, the other cities on the coast could not be maintained; and if they were all abandoned, not only would the insular dominion of Venice and her commerce be exposed to the greatest disadvantages, but the most effectual barrier against the Turk would be in a great measure destroyed. To understand this, it will be convenient, and we think not uninteresting, to cast an eye on the condition and extraordinary history of the district now called Albania, which has so long served as a frontier against the advance of the Mahometans. It is very singular, that this mountainous but populous region, placod as it is in a very favourable climate, and surrounded from the earliest times by the most warlike, as well as the most civilized nations of the earth, has never to this day been either conquered or civilized; but continues to the present hour to exhibit the same extraordinary picture of untamed and unpolicied life—the same eternal dissensions of hostile clans— the same scenes of predatory war and piracy, and contempt of art and industry, by which it appears to have been distinguished from the remotest periods of history. Though its natives have taken part in almost all the great revolutions to which human affairs have been subjected in the old world, and have frequently contributed materially to their success, they have never been an united, a polished, or even an agricultural people. From the first to the last, their occupation has been war—individual, predatory, mercenary and vindictive war; and the only habits they have cultivated, are those that belong to that vocation. In the most ancient times, they furnished a part of the first grand piratical expedition of the Argonauts; and fought among the myrmidons under the walls of Troy. They invaded the territory of infant Rome with Pyrrhus—and that of Greece in her glory with Philip. They formed a considerable part of the armies with which Alexander conquered the world. In later times, under their famous countryman George Castriotto, better known by the name of Scanderbeg, they checked the proud arms of the Ottoman, and drove him back from the shores of the Adriatic; and in the following age, followed a still more formidable chief of their nation, the warlike Abraham, in his rapid career of conquest over Syria, Mesopotamia, and Arabia. In more modern times, they have repeatedly supported the Porte against the most formidable assaults of its rebellious Pachas, and still more frequently enabled these rebels to set at defiance the utmost efforts of their masters. In our days, they contributed mainly to the defeat of our second descent on Egypt, by their sanguinary attack on our forces at Rosetta. It was by their means that Ali extended his conquests over the greater part of Greece; and they are at this moment busy in endeavouring to secure the sovereignty of Egypt for Mahomed Ali. In all these different scenes and periods, the character and habits of the Albanian have been as unvaried as they are remarkable; and the striking picture which Mr Hobhouse has drawn of them, would have been equally true, we believe, 3000 years ago, as it is at this day. 'They are distinguished, even in a land of barbarians, for the singular cruelty and implacability of their disposition. The men of one mountain watch these of a neighbouring hill, and neither sow nor reap, nor tend their flocks, singly or unarmed. Should one of them wander beyond the precincts of protection, he would be stalked like a doer,—and that without seeing his enemy. In many parts of the country the sowing and reaping of the harvest is delegated to the women, the old and the infirm; and only those labours which require the strength and skill of man, such as the felling of timber, and the cultivation of the vineyard, fall to the lot of the young mountaineer. Averse from every habit of active industry, it is with less unwillingness that they wander on the mountains, or in forests, with their flocks and herds: for the life of the shepherd is a life both of laziness and peril. But the delight of an Albanian, when unoccupied by the wars of his Pacha, or his village, is to bask in the sunshine, to smoke, to doze or to stroll slowly round the garden of his cottage, tinkling his tuneless lute. Yet though idle, he is still restless and ready to seize his gun, and plunge into the woods at the first summons of his chief. In the pursuit of riches, there is no toil or danger which they will not encounter; but they prefer the life of the soldier to that of the husbandman, and with much greater alacrity support the labours of war than those of agriculture. Even the civilizing conquests of Rome passed over them in vain. Flaminius, when he effected his tamous settlement of Greece, attempted to give them civil institutions, and to raise them to the rank of allies,—but abandoned the project as impracticable; und he and his successors were satishod with occupying the passes to their country, and shutting them up in their mountains, to wreak their predatory rage on each other. The issue of the servile war under Spartacus, and the expedition of Pompey against the pirates of the Mediterranean, greatly increased the population of this colony of outlaws, and made it of course still more necessary to watch, and still more hopeless to subdue them. In later times, the sanguinary conquests of the Turk had a similar effect; and among the Christian fugitives who were swept from Greece by the desolating advance of the Infidel, may be reckoned the first founders of Parga. At the period of the French Revolution, the country may be said to have belonged partly to the independent clans of the mountains, partly to the Turkish Beys and Pachas really or nominally tributary to the Porte, and partly to the Republic of Venice. The independent clans have always followed, avowedly and almost exclusively, the trade or occupation of robbery; and the name of KAi^mj, is given and assumed among them without the idea of reproach. On the borders of Dalmatia they are mostly Christian; some Catholics; but, the greater part, of the Greek church. They speak Sclavonian; have no chief or judge but their bishops; and have always adhered to the inter'jssts pf Russia, In the central parts of the country, the indor a pendent clans speak the Arnaut, which is unquestionably the oldestj and probably the primitive language of the country; and generally profess Islamism—though without any very rigid observance of its rites or injunctions; and often beat and insult their Dervises as freely as the Papas of their neighbours. On the frontiers of Greece, again, all the independent clans are Christians; and very zealous votaries of the Patriarch of Constantinople. They are more skilful warriors, perhaps, and more determined robbers, than any of the rest; and, until their independence was broken, and their numbers thinned by the sanguinary conquests of Ali Pacha, were the most formidable disturbers of the peace, and the most bloody persecutors of the unbelievers, that ever existed even in this turbulent region. Th« part of Albania which is claimed by the Porte, is ruled, like the greater part of its outlying provinces, by Pachas and Beys, who, while they profess -a nominal subjection to its authority, actually govern as absolute princes, and are engaged in perpetual wars with each other, for the extension or defence of their territories. The victors are generally native chiefs, who employ their hereditary influence .against those who are sent from Constantinople, and {ben bribe the Divan to wink at their usurpations, with a part of the booty of the vanquished;—a policy which seldom fails with that venerable cabinet, espescially when backed by the consideration, that it might not be quite safe or easy to chastise their rebellion, and that those eternal wars among the Pachas, probably prevents any one from obtaining such an ascendancy as might encourage him openly and «ntirely to throw ofF the pretence of subjection—and thus put an end to the chance either of tribute or of bribes. The portion of the country under the dominion of Venice, has been already sufficiently described. The ultimate fate of this singular region, and especially of the little State whose extinction we mean to record, forms a part of the history of Ali Pacha, and of his relations with the French revolution. That celebrated chief, indisputably the greatest of the Turkish viceroys, and the most brutal barbarian of his age, has been rendered interesting, and in some measure familiar to English readers, by the lively and detailed accounts of him that have lately been given to the public, both by Mr Hobhouse and Dr Holland. Yet his early history, and the unprincipled ferocity of his character, have neither of them been well understood: and our readers, we believe, will easily excuse us for presenting them with the following brief sketch of them, which we have had the means of obtaining from persons of the best information. His ancestors were chiefs of the independent clan of the Toczides— Mahometans settled in Tepeleni. His grandfather, in the capacity of a Bey appointed by the Porte, ruled over a pretty extensive district, adjoining to his hereditary domain, and fell at the siege of Corfu. His son, however, was not allowed to succeed to his command, and was plundered by the neighbouring Pachas of almost all his possessions. On his death, the young Ali, who was born about 1750, found himself under the guardianship of a mother, fierce, proud and warlike as any of her tribe,—and easily prevailed on her, when only in his sixteenth year, to commit to him the command of that faithful domestic band, by the help of which the Albanian widow had imperfectly preserved her independence. With those household troops, the youth repeatedly attempted to make reprisals on some of his oppressors, but was singularly unfortunate in all his early enterprises. In his very first campaign, he was completely routed, and taken prisoner by the Vizir Kourd Pacha, who was so much struck with his beauty, vivacity and apparent gentleness, that he was induced to look on the whole affair as a piece of youthful folly, and to send him away with a paternal rebuke. In less than a year, however, he was again in arms, and again defeated; and his mother's hoards being by this time exhausted, he betook himself to the vocation of a robber, to collect funds for a larger army. Even in this laudable pursuit, however, he had neither luck nor conduct,—but was speedily discomfited and made prisoner by the Vizir of Joannina, who was urged by all the neighbouring chieftains to leave the young bandit to the last sentence of the law. But the Vizir was desirous of finding occupation for those turbulent chiefs, of whom he was very reasonably jealous; and therefore thought fit not only to dismiss his prisoner, but secretly to supply him with the means of carrying on his depredations. He was destined, however, to acquire his military skill in the school of adversity. He was again attacked, and so totally routed, that he was obliged to seek refuge alone among the rocks of the mountains, and actually to pledge his scimitar to buy himself a meal. On his return in this low condition to his mother's house, he was received by the Amazon with a Spartan spirit of disdain, and told that he should put on the habit of a woman, and confine himself to the tasks of the Haram. He found means, however, to appease her fiery temper, and again took the field at the head of 600 men. But his adverse star was still in the ascendent,—and he was again defeated and forced to fly in the night with the broken remnant of his forces. In this disastrous state, he went into a ruinous building to rest himself, and meditate on his cheerless prospects, and remained a long time buried in deep thought, and scoring the ground unconsciously with the stick which he held in his band; when it was stopped in its motion by something solid just under the surface,—and on stooping to examine the nature of the obstacle, he found a casket containing a large quantity of gold. This anecdote he himself communicated to General Vaudoncourt; and the occurrence was too critical as well as extraordinary, to be readily forgotten. With the money thus strangely obtained, he raised a torce of 2000 men, turned suddenly on his pursuers, gained his first victory, and returned in triumph to Tepeleni. From this period he has been almost uniformly successful,— but has as uniformly stained his successes by the most incredible treachery and cruelty. The very day of his return to his home, he persuaded the chief men of his followers, that his brother had acted perfidiously, and been in correspondence with their enemies, and immediately went with them to his apartment, and with his own hand stabbed him to the heart before them. Next day, however, he laid the blame of the murder on his mother; who he said had poisoned his unhappy victim, to deliver him from a dangerous rival,—and then rewarded this imputed excess of maternal partiality, by deposing her from the authority she had hitherto exercised, and shutting her up a close prisoner in the haram,—where she speedily died of rage and vexation. To maintain and employ his troops, he now resumed his occupation of robbery on a more extended scale, and laid under contribution the whole country of Epirus and Macedonia, and blockaded the roads leading from the declivities of Pindus into Thessaly. His ravages at last excited the attention of the Divan; and the Dcrvendgi Pacha (or Protector-General of the High Roads) was ordered to march out against him. The wily robber, however, contrived first of all to defeat his advanced parties, and then to prpffer his assistance against the Vizir of Skutari, at that time in rebellion against the Porte. The offer was accepted; and the rebellious Vizir being brought to submission, the services of Ah were represented in such advantageous colours to the Diyan, that he was not only forgiven, but received into especial favour;—under the shadow of which he speedily recovered all that had been wrested from his father, and pillaged and plundered at his pleasure the Beys who had united against him. He was still but twenty years of age, when, after all these exploits, he obtained in marriage the daughter of the Pacha of Argiro Castro. Soon after, a quarrel arose between two of his brothers-in-law, which he thought would be best terminated by instigating the younger to assassinate the elder—which was accordingly done, and gave rise t$ a civil war; from which, however, the abhorrence of the people prevented him from deriving all the benefits he expected. In consequence, however, of a subsequent feud, he obtained possession of the town of Charmova, where he stabbed the goivernor, massacred the inhabitants, and sacked and ruined the place. He next attacked the Greek clans of Liebovo, and subdued them after a sanguinary resistance; and by these two conquests made himself master of the whole valley of the Chelyd j)Uo. A little time after, the Porte wished to rid itself of Selim Pacha of Delvino; and Ali took charge of this commission, on condition of being named Pacha in his place. Accordingly, he insinuated himself into hits confidence, as well as that of his son Mustapha, and was enabled to surround them with his own satellites. He then caused the father to be beheaded, and the son to be arrested; but, in spite of these vigorous and judicious measures, he was compelled to fly from the indignation and vengeance of their subjects. The merit of his conduct, however, was not overlooked at Constantinople; and the Porte considering him as a skilful and intrepid servant, named him Lieutenant of the Dervendgi Pacha. The principal, a native of Constantinople, being quite ignorant of the country, was dazzled by the hope of dissipating the brigands, by taking for his lieutenant the most celebrated of their number. Ali provided them with diplomas; and the chiefs of the robbers became lcitimate conquerors. This traffic and his own exactions brought him in a large sum of money. The Divan, however, finding at last that no road in European Turkey was free, divested the Dervendgi Pacha and his Lieutenant of their office. The first, on his return, was regularly beheaded at Constantinople: but Ali having prudently sent a good share of his plunder to some of the principal ministers, and followed this up with an offer to join the Grand Vizir in the war broken out at this period (17&7) between Austria, Russia and Turkey, was not only pardoned, but praised and promoted. During the war, his military experience, and the valour of his Albanian* obtained for him general esteem, and at the same time tended greatly to enrich him. But in order to secure to himself a retreat in case of disasters, he entered into a secret and treasonable correspondence with Prince Potemkin, under the pretext «f negotiating for the release of one of his nephews who had been made prisoner. He has still the imprudent vanity to show a watch set in diamonds presented to him by Potemkin, in tesr limoiiy 'of esteem for his bravery and talents.' Alter the peace, being possessed of considerable riches,, ho began regularly to entertain agents at Constantinople, in order to watch the rising or declining power of the different ministers, and bribe their patronage. By these means he obtained the title of Pacha of Trikala, a small district in Thessaly. His vicinity terrified the Greek merchants of Joannina, who feared his exactions. A complete anarchy, however, reigned at that time in the town; the government of which was vacant, and the subject of bitter contentions and busy intrigues, both among the inhabitants and the neighbouring Beys. The fear of Ali, however, composed all differences; and the people, and the various competitors for the rule, sent a joint supplication to the Divan, that they might have any Pacha but this dreaded freebooter; and actually obtained ajfirman prohibiting him from entering die city. By means of his agents, Ali was apprised of this order before those who had obtained it: and took his measures with the promptitude and audacity which belonged to his character. He presented himself with his troops at the gates of the city, and exhibited a ^firman from the Grand Signior, appointing him Dervendgi Pacha, and ordering him to enter Joannina without delay. The inhabitants, though stunned with this intelligence, did not dare to refuse obedience; and Ali and bis forces were quietly garrisoned in the citadel. His firman, the reader will easily understand, was a daring forgery of his own,—and almost immediately detected. But being now in the military occupation of the city, he compelled the inhabitants, under threats of a general massacre, to subscribe an urgent petition for his appointment as their governor; and this petition being forwarded to Constantinople along with a large sum of money extorted by him from the subscribers, produced such an effect, that he was confirmed in the government, and thus became master of the place, which has since been distinguished as his capital. Not being quite sure, however, of the forgiveness of the Porte, when all things should be known, he thought it as well to make himself strong by alliance, and secured the interest of the French resident at Prevesa, through whom he afterwards endeavoured, though without success, to open a correspondence with Louis XVI. in the character of an independent sovereign. Such was the career of Ali up to the era of the French Revolution. The increase of his power, and the boldness and desperation of his character, had long given the greatest uneasiness to the Venetians, upon whose continental settlements he scarcer ly disguised his pretensions. All they could do was to find svork tor him in the interior, and to foment insurrections among the clans and chieftains whom he had subdued, and was oppressing. Though nominally a subject of the Porte, they knew well that his conduct was looked upon with jealousy by that government, and found little difficulty in stipulating with them, 'that Ali should not be permitted to erect any fort on the con'tinent within a mile from the coast,'—a stipulation so rigorously enforced, that, while Venice had an existence, he was never able even to fortify his custom-house at Salamora, though at the very bottom of the Bay of Am. It was the possession of Parga that enabled the republic to maintain this control over the most faithless and daring of barbarians. Impregnable from its position and defences, it was closely connected by the ties of religion, and the relations of trade, with all the Christian tribes in the heart of Albania; and naturally became, not only the asylum of all who were driven from their homes by the violence of Ali, but the seat of those plots and cabals by which his government was continually menaced and disturbed. The Venetians winked at all those proceedings, and even encouraged them; but, being at peace with the Turk, they never allowed their garrison to take arms against its pretended subjects; and represented the hostilities in which the Pargiots were perpetually engaged with the forces of Ali, as mere acta of self-defence against the assaults of a banditti, whom no regular government could possibly avow. Ali, in his turn, could not but feel the importance of this little settlement; and openly avowed his animosity to its brave possessors. No stranger went to see him at Joanninn, to whom he did not pour out his abuse of the Pargiots. According to him, they were mere robbers and harbourers of outlaws; and no part of maritime Greece could be at peace till they were exterminated. Mr Hobhouse seems to have been somewhat influenced by those invectives, in the account he has given of this warlike community; but both Col. de Bosset and Mr Dodwell, who had far better opportunities of observation, vindicate them from those aspersions, and represent them as remarkably industrious, gay, and hospitable—the men handsome and sober, with more than the characteristic bravery of the climate—and the women chaste and unwatched, and cheerfully devoted to their primitive tasks and pastimes. All observers indeed concur in stating, that the smiling aspect of this little territory, and the busy prosperity of its inhabitants, formed but lately a striking contrast to the wastes and rains with which it was everywhere surrounded. And now it is the very centre and seat ot desolation! The voice of gladness has everywhere ceased in its fields; and it is more waste and ruinous than any other spot in this region of havoc and oppression! But we must resume the thread of our narrative. [graphic] In 1797, Venice fell before the arms of France—and the Ionian Isles passed of course under their dominion. The ready treachery of AH had already made overtures to Bonaparte, and offered to join him against the Turk, provided he would engage for his ultimate protection. The conqueror received these proposals favourably, and allowed him to embark troops, and transport them to different points of the coast; and, at the same time, furnished him with engineers to conduct his sieges, and repair his fortification. In 1798, the Porte having declared war on France on account of the invasion of Egypt, the sincerity of Ali was brought to the test. He accordingly recruited his forces, and drew out all his powers; and,"assuring the agents of Bonaparte that he was waiting for a favourable moment to strike a fatal blow at the common foe, he demanded instant payment of 80,000 livres as the value of provisions which he said had been furnished by him to Admiral Bruix. The Governor of Corfu having no money to make payment, presented him with battering cannon in exchange; and the double traitor having made all he could of his dissimulation, wrote to the French Adjutant-General Roze to come over to him without delay, that they might confer upon the best means of opposing the Russian and Turkish fleet that was advancing against them. Roze, who was the intimate friend and frequent guest of Ali, went without suspicion or attendants; when he was instantly seized, thrust into a dungeon, tortured to extort information, and then sent mangled to Constantinople,, where he speedily died. Having thus taken his part in the quarrel, he proceeded instantly to besiege all the French (formerly Venetian) settlements on the mainland; and, by prodigious superiority of numbers, and the arms which he had thus treacherously obtained, he speedily succeeded with the most of them. Bucintro fell the first—and he proceeded with near ten thousand men to Prevesa. This position was more defensible—and the French engineers were busy erecting batteries to protect its approaches, when the natives insisted that it would be much better to dig through a narrow isthmus by which the enemy must advance—and, although it was explained to them that this operation could not possibly be accomplished in time to be of service, they all deserted the batteries, and rushed out to work at the excavation. Ali was upon them before any thing effectual was done—and, although the defence was obstinate, and the victory most sanguinary, he forced his way at last over the dead bodies of his opponents. He took brutal and bloody vengeance for their resistance. On the day of the assault, men, women and childreu were butchered till night-fall—find the next morning all the in habitants fit to bear arms, were marched out to the edge of the great ditch they had begun to dig on the isthmus, and there barbarously slaughtered. The city itself was set on fire. The very day of this exploit, the conqueror addressed the following letter, the original of which, written in Romaic, with a mixture of Albanian, now lies before us, to the inhabitants of Parga. * Learn, men of Parga, the victory of this day, and the fate of Prevesa. In now writing to you, I would have you to understand, that being my neighbours, I do not desire war with you—but only that two or three of you should come to me, that we may confer about making you fellow-subjects of my sovereign. Whatever form of government you wish, I will grant to you. But. if you refuse, I will deal with you as enemies—and the blame be on your own heads.' The Pargiots made no answer;—and another letter was sent the day following—omitting the proposal of subjection to the Turk, but requiring them to massacre or drive out the French garrison among tliem. The following answer which we think was read to the House of Commons by Sir Charles Monck, was instantly returned. 'To A Li Pacha. We have received your two letters, and we rejoice that you are well. The compliance which you require of us, you will not easily obtain; because your conduct, exhibited to us in the fate of our neighbours, determines us all to a glorious and free death, rather than to a base and tyrannical subjugation. You write to us to fall upon and slay the French. This is not in our power; but jf it were, we would decline to do it; for our country has boasted her good faith for four centuries past, and in that time often vindicated it with her blood. How then, shall we now sully that glory? Never. To threaten us unjustly is in your power; but threats are no characteristic of great men; and, besides, wc have never known what it was to fear, having accustomed ourselves to glorious battles for the right of our country. God is just; we are ready; the moment comes when he who conquers shall be glorified. So fare you well. Parga, Oct. 16, 1798.' Ali stormed at this reply; but the place was too strong to be attempted by force, and he set himself to assail it by art and intrigue. The united arms of the Turks and the Russians hail now effected the conquest of the Seven Islands; and it became necessary for them to settle their future government. By the treaty of »1800, they were erected into an independent republic, tinder the special protection of the two allies;—but unluckily for Parga, and the other continental towns which had hitherto formed a part of them, Ali found means to have it settled that these should all be given up to the Porte. That all these places, with the single exception of Parga, had already been won by the arm* of Ali, was, no doubt, an apology for this arrange*merit—and the jealousy which existed between (he two allied powers of Russia and Turkey, made it difficult to come to any very satisfactory arrangement. But there is no doubt that, in consenting to this cession, the Russian negociators trusted too much to the chapter of accidents, and reckoned too securely on the opportunities which the perfidy and oppression of \\i would afford for resuming possession of those continental settlements—by the assistance especially of the Stdiotes, whose territory lay immediately behind that part of the coast, who had always been faithful to the interests of Russia, and upon whose mountain retreats Ali had never been able to make any serious impression. The result showed but too fatally the errors of this sanguine calculation,—the occupation of the coast having enabled the ferocious Ali in a very few years utterly to exterminate the heroic warriors of Suli, over whom, till he obtained that commanding position, he had never gained any decided advantage. There never was a more bloody or brutal course of warfare than that which is detailed by a native of Parga, in one of the works before us, as terminating in the extirpation, of his brave brethren of Suli;—we can only afford to give the closing scene as a specimen. The scanty remnant of the Suliote warriors occupied a strong position on a mountain* where for six days they maintained themselves against the des Eerate attacks of the Mussulmans, under the command of an eroic ecclesiastic of the name of Samuel, who had acted as their leader for nearly three years. Their provisions and water being cut off, they were at last obliged to capitulate, and. obtained leave to retire to Parga: and Samuel with four of his officers remained to deliver up their stores and ammunition to the commissioners of Ali. They had no sooner entered the place, however, than he set fire with his own hand to the magazine, and blew himself and the whole party to atoms. The greater part of those who were retreating to Parga, were massacredj without distinction of sex or age—a group of women who were pursued to the brink of a precipice, clashed their children over the cliff's, that they might not live in servitude to the infidels. One family of eight women and three infants—for all the men had fallen in battle—had obtained from one of the sore» of Ali a promise to be allowed to remain unmolested in the dwelling they then occupied; but, a few days after, a party of his soldiers came and insisted on carrying off the younger women, and threatened the older ones with death. The desperate inmates having obtained a short time for preparation, brought out three barrels of gunpowder which had boon secreted in the house, and drew in a circle round them. The younger women calmly recited their prayers; and the mother, after blessing her unpolluted daughters, and the infant orphans of her sons, set fire to the train, and blew the whole in the air! The Pargiots collected their bones, and interred them honourably, with an inscription commemorating the manner of their death; and thus was the tribe of the Suhotes exterminated in 1803! But we must return to the treaty of 1800. The Pargiots, after many vain entreaties to be incorporated with the new republic, succeeded at last in having certain conditions inserted into the treaty, by which the sovereignty, or patronage rather, of their State was to be ceded to the Ottoman. The chiefs of the Seven Islands, who knew that their subsistence depended chiefly on that community, and the Russians, who were far from wishing to put them thus at the mercy of the Porte, exerted themselves in support of their just pretensions. And it was at last solemnly stipulated in the definitive treaty, 'That they should retain all the privileges they had enjoyed of old under the Venetians—that no mosque should be built within their territory, nor any Mussulman be allowed to settle or hold land, within it—that they should pay no taxes but those which had been antiently paid to Venice, and should enjoy their laws both civil and criminal exactly as before—and, finally, that to secure the political rights of the new sovereign, a bey or officer of rank should be sent from Constantinople, whose functions, and the place of his residence, should be determined with the advice, and to the entire satisfaction of the republic of the Seven Islands.' This treaty, and the course of succeeding events, were found sufficient to control the violence and perfidy of Ali, and to exclude the Turks from the territory of Parga, till the possession of it was ceded to the English, and its fate referred to the Congress-of Vienna. An Aga, but without any troops, occasionally resided in the place; and a Bey on the neighbouring coast rather helped to keep Ali faithful to his engagements, than assisted him to infringe them. There can indeed be no better or more practical proof of their independence, than that they were allowed, three years after, to give refuge to the remnant of the Suliotes when driven finally from their territories by the arms of Ali. The power of this ferocious chief, however, was now greatly augmented. The Divan, in its dread of the establishments of Russia in the islands, lost for a time its jealousy and distrust of the most powerful and faithless of its subjects, and appointed him Governor-General of the whole of Romelia, with supreme authority over all the Pachas of the Grecian provinces. This 3 great power he rendered immediately subservient to his ruling passions of avarice and revenge. He kept two-fifths of the contributions he levied for government, for his own use—and punished the least delay of payment by brutal and bloody plunder. On one occasion he is said to have extorted in this wajf upwards of ten millions of piastres—and added 20,000 sheep to his numerous flocks. In the midst of this wealth and grandeur, however, he found time to avenge on the unfortunate inhabitants of Gardiki, an affront which some of them had put upon his mother and sister about forty years before. He surrounded their city with his forces, and starved them into a capitulation, promising solemnly that they should not be reduced into slavery. When he entered the place, he ordered all those who had been concerned in this antiquated offence, and their descendants, to be brought before him. Most of the actual delinquents, of course, were dead—but their progeny appears to have been numerous; for when their numbers were counted, it appeared that there were no fewer than 739 males, and nearly as many of the other sex. The males were bound and fastened in regular ranks, in an enclosed area; and the women round the outside of the walls. Ali then entered the enclosure, and immediately blew out the brains of the first man he came up to. His attendants followed his example; and the whole were butchered on the spot, in the hearing of their wives and daughters. They were allowed to rot where they fell—and their bones are there yet;—the monster merely shutting up the enclosure, and putting an inscription over the door, signifying that it was not to be opened again till his agents, who had been despatched all over Greece for that purpose, had collected more of the offenders, to share the fate of their associates. He looked, however, with unfeigned terror on the growing strength of the Russians; and, after the battle of Austerlitz, and the peace of Presburg had restored the ascendancy of France, he had the audacity to renew his overtures to Bonaparte—who sent to him, in the capacity of consul-general, a certain M. Pou Sueville, who, in a gasconading book of travels, had enlarged very eely on the vices and infirmities of the Pacha. The English consul, in hopes of producing a quarrel, contrived that Ali should hear of this book; but a Mussulman laughs at printed abuse, and Ali did not chuse at that moment to hazard a rupture with France for the pleasure of decapitating M. Pouqueville. From this time his dependence on the Porte may be said to have been merely nominal; for though, in his intercourse with the Divan, he still assumes the style of a delegate, he has not only acted in all VOL. XXXII. No. 6*. T things at his own' discretion, but lias quietly 'retained all his dignities, without seeking any confirmation of them from the suc-» cessive Sultans- he has outlasted:—and though he finds it convenient to send large sums cf money every now and then to* Constantinople* it is rather in the capacity of the munificent ally of every new vizier, than of a tributary of the Empire. Nothing*, indeed,- could be more wretched than the anarchy, or more despicable dian the feebleness, that had now overtaken this great State, and paralyzed even its most meritorious exertions;—insomuch that, when a great force was levied, with the popular approbation, to repress the insults of the Russians, the forces, upon reaching the Danube, actually found themselves without a leader or instructions—and so thought the best thing they could do ■was to enlist, in pretty equal moieties, in the- ranks-of the Ayair of Schecunla and the Pehluvurn Aga, who were very eagerly desolating their country with civil *jvar, in- the very face of the' common enemy. Ali, in this stirring scene,, endeavoured to takeV advantage of all parties; and, in order to come at their secrets,' made it H practice to open the despatches of all the diplomatic agents in his neighbourhood. In 1807 alone, he assassinated' thiee couriers j and then, to clear himself cf blame, hanged the ■wretches by whose agency the crime had-been committed. He ■was especially anxious, however, to stand well with Napoleon— and not quite liking the tone of M. Pouquevillc, despatched Mahomet Effendi.tohim in the capacity of his ambassador. This■worthy Mussulman had been formerly a Dominican friar*, and head of the Inquisition at Malta. When he took that island in his way to Egypt, Bonaparte had carried the good father along with him as an interpreter. On his return home, his reverence was unluckily captured by a Corsair, who gave him in a present tq Ali: and he, finding in him a decided vocation tolslamism, placed him at the head of his Divan. He danced attendance on Bonaparte through the campaign which terminated at Tilsit—and smuggled hard to get the Ionian islands for his master at the peace. But it pleased the high contracting parties*.at this time, to spare the young republic; and the eloquence of Mahomet was in vain. Baffled in this great object, Ali insisted that Parga at least should be delivered up to him, in terms of the treaty of 1800, as the Only representative of the Ottoman Porte o» the spot ?—for the Bey, who had faithfully fulfilled that.treaty, had been obliged to remove before the advance of the Russians; and at one time> an order was issued to comply with this request. But, ou' further consideration of the matter, Bonaparte instructed his ambassador to reply, with more regard both to truth and justice than was afterwards shown by the Congress, * that Ali haw c ing violated all the clauses of the treaty 1800 in favour of the * Ex-Venetian towns, the whole .stipulations of that treaty, as * to those towns, must be held as annulled; and that neither he 'nor the Porte had now any claim to the military occupation of 'Parga.' In reality* every one of those stipulations had been disregarded as to all the towns of which Ali had got possession; and it was merely because he had not been allowed to enter Parga, that its rights had been respected. Disappointed in his hopes from France, he now paid his court to the English; and certainly did receive from us more countenance than either his character or services deserved. Lord Collingwood at one time relied on his cooperation in Our expedition against the French forces in the Seven Islands; but it was soon found that he was not to be depended on; and in fact he never did any thing for us whatever, except supplying us with provisions at a dear rate—a favour which ho extended at the same time to our enemies, even in violation of our blockade. The notice we took of him, however, induced Bonaparte to show him a little more attention—after his fashion; and accordingly, he sent him several engineers to fortify his seaports, who took die opportunity to make a survey of iiis strehgthsj and to spy out all the vulnerable points in his positions. At last Bonaparte was overthrown; and the French power no sooner ceased to be formidable, than Ali darted at once like, a raven on his prey, and, so early as March 1814?, surprised the little town of Agia> which is in the territory of Parga; massacred all the inhabitants; sent the women and children to the slave market; raised a fort to maintain his conquest, and marched in open hostility against Parga itself. The French^ as successors to the Venetians, had a garrison of 200 men in the citadel, to whom the inhabitants instantly applied for assistance against this assault. Biit the commander, an Arab who had entered the French service in Egypt, pretended that France, being at peace with the Porte, could not fight against a Turkish commander, and declared that he could take no part in the' business. The inhabitants, thus left to themselves, went out, men and women, to meet the invaders: and kept up so hot u fire on their ranks—the women charging and handing their muskets to the men—that after a sanguinary struggle, in which one of his nephews was slain, Ali was forced to retire, and betake himself to negotiation with the French, who being at that time blockaded by us at Corfu, he thought could easily give up this more insignificant position to purchase his assistance against us. It rather appears, however, that his propositions were rejected. But the most material fact to be noticed is, that the Pargiots now made an application to our commanders to be taken under British protection, and, after some hesitation, General Campbell sent an aid-de-camp to hold a conference with their deputies at Paxo, where, being joined by Captain Hoste of the Bacchante, and Captain Black of the Havannah, it was agreed, that they should be taken under the protection of Great Britain, and share the fate of the Seven Islands; provided they would, in the first place, send a written declaration, signed by the principal inhabitTM ts, that this was their own wish; and, secondly, they should themselves displace the French flag, and mount that of England on their citadel, as soon as the two frigates appeared before the town. The deputies agreed to these terms, and got a flag, with which they succeeded in getting back to their city in the night; and immediately assembled a meeting of the principal inhabitants, to deliberate on the propositions which had been made to them. Among these was an aged citizen, regarded among them with great veneration, on account of his steady patriotism and extensive knowledge,—though his great age and austere disposition had for many years withheld him from taking any very active part in their affairs. After listening to the statements of the deputies and other citizens, he is said to have delivered the following very remarkable speech, of which we shall endeavour to present our readers with a literal translation from the vulgar Greek, in which it is printed in the volume of documents before us. In point of political wisdom and manly vigour, as well as in its general tone and maimer, it seems to us to bear a very striking resemblance to the business speeches we meet with in Thucydidcs; while in some points, on which it would be painful to dwell, the speaker seems to be inspired with something of a prophetic spirit. 'Fellow Citizens—The expulsion of the French appears to me tfo be so necessary, that I will not waste words in recommending it. But I exhort you well to consider, before you yield yourselves up to the English, that the King of England now has in his pay all the Kings of Europe,—obtaining money for this purpose from his merdiants; so that in that country the merchants and the King are but as one: whence, should it become advantageous to the merchants to sell you, in order to conciliate Ali, and obtain certain commercial advantages in his harbours, the English will sell you to Ali. If, however, you still persist in surrendering yourselves to England, beware how you confide in the promises of military men, whose trade, whatever may be their dignity, is but that of a servant; therefore, being taught only to obey, they seldom have wisdom to weigh their promises, and never have power to fulfil them—as you do, because you are all free men. But go and present yourselves before their King * If he mean to be the master of this city, let him swear it upon the Gospel »f Christ. Yet I would not entirely trust even him. For within these twenty years, Christian princes have openly turned their subjects and friends into merchandise, and have shown but little regard to the Gospel. . But suppose you are once in the hand of England—you may be governed well, or you may be governed ill. But the well is uncertain; and if ill, you will have bereft yourselves of all remedy. The King of England has not that sword of justice in his hands, that he can, like Napoleon, Alexander, or the Sultan, decapitate the misgoverning Pachas of his distant provinces. On the contrary, his justice is feeble; because, being surrounded by contending parties, he is compelled to lean for support upon one party to-day, and to-morrow upon another, and yet to pay regard to all; while each party, in its turn, conceals as much as it can; defends, and often praises the blunders of its partisans; so that a governor may treat you as slaves, and yet be fearless of punishment. Nor would you, O men of Parga,—I say you, because I hope soon to lay me down in the peace of God, and be buried by your hands in this church,—nor would you be able to obtain redress. This our city is small and poor, and simple and ignorant: whence then shall it have power, how find money? and where the learned citizens, who, being sent to the King of England, might show him the truth? However, this Parga still possesses those arms which have, for so many generations, prevented a single armed Mussulman from entering her walls. I say not this that you should be proud of the defeat which that butcher of the Christians lately sustained at your hands; for that victory came from God,—God who will not cease to protect you as heretofore, and who can do so because he is just, and because he is almighty; whilst, the Russians and the French, just and unjust, powerful and weak by turns, have, as the fruit of their protection, exposed you to inconceivable perils, and kept you for several years in perpetual anxiety. These English too are but men: and may you not live to see thein. expelled from all countries which they have no longer money to pay, caged up in their island, and preying upon each other from want? Why then recur to foreign aid? Parga is sufficient both to nourish and to defend you. Ali cannot take her by land: he cannot blockade her by sea, by which your countrymen in the Islands can always supply you with food, and which, in case of extremity, will always afford you an easy escape; though I, for my part, let the danger be ever so great, would never exhort you to go forth vagrants and beggars, with your wives and children, into a foreign land. Let us all die here at home; and, when no way of safety remains for the city, set it on fire, that these Infidels may only triumph over our ruined houses and mangled carcasses. However, this danger cannot last long: for as much as Ali is now old, and his head is always under the sword of the Sultan, whose wrath, though it has so long slept, should it at length awake, no Turk will be aoie to escape. At all events, as long as you remain masters of* your own city, so long will you be able to follow that line of conduct, which, under the mercy of God, circumstances may render fit. The Infidels, indeed, may force you to give them baitle, and reduce you to great extremity: yet you will slay many of them to appease the blessed souls of so many Christians slain by them. But, once garrisoned by strangers, you will be subject to the will of another; you will not be able to use good fortune, should it ever befal you; and you will for ever lose the right of defending your country, and even of burying yourselves beneath its ruins near your dear forefathers.' In spite of tins remonstrance, the majority of the meeting resolved to accede to the propositions of the English, and to sign the declaration required; upon which the old man refusing to set his hand to it, finally reminded them to be careful in enforcing the condition expressed in the English offer, that they should follow the fate of the Seven Islands. 'For you may be sure,' added he, 'that the English will employ every art of sophistry to subject as much as they can of Grecoe to the Porte, in hope of strengthening it against the dreaded preponderance of the Russians. Perhaps when they have once acknowledged your natural dependence upon Corfu, they will be unable to betray you, without, sacrificing at the same time all the Seven Islands to the Infidels; a sacrifice wjfiieh would cover them with infamy,—although, in proportion as men are powerful, they care less for dishonour.' He then made his admonition be recorded in the archives of the city; and the assembly coming out of the church before daylight, drew up and addressed to the English commander the following explicit declaration. 'We, undersigned Primates of Parga, engage, on behalf of the population, that at the moment when the frigates of his Britannic Majesty shall appear before our fortress, we will subject our country and territories to the protection of the invincible arms of Great Britain, and will plant on the walls of our fortress her glorious flag—it rbeing the determination of our countty to follow the fate of the Seven Islands, as we have always been under the same jurisdiction.—17th March, 1814-.' In the course of the day, the Bacchante appeared in the roadstead; and the British flag was displayed, not from the ramparts, of the citadel, but from a low spot near the shore. Our officers were not satisfied with this; and, after some negotiation, intimated, that unless the inhabitants hoisted the British flag on the proper flagstafr'of the citadel, they would make sail the day alter, and jeave them to their late. The French commander had threatened to blow up the town by firing the magazine, if any attempt was made to dislodge him rand some speedy and decided measure therefore now became necessary. Next morning very eai> ly, a widow, pretending business with the commander, went iiir to the citadel with the flag concealed under her clothes. She was followed by a lad who used to sell fruit and vegetables to the soldiers, and was accordingly admitted without suspicion. After ascertaining that everything was in the situation on which his friends had reckontd, he gave the signal, by pronouncing, as in the course of crying his vegetables, a Greek word on which they had previously agreed; and instantly the sentinels were'knocked down, and a crowd of armed citizens sprung at once upon every point of the works, some mounting by escalade, and ethers by different passages. In a few minutes they were .complete masters of the place; and the British flag was triumphantly'hoisted on the top of the castle. The Bacchante imme•diately came up to the fort. The French garrison wore ullow■ed to capitulate honourably; -and, on the 2'2d of March, Sir Charles Gordon landed with his detachment, sent-off the French to Corfu, and with his troops took full and solemn possession of the place. Some time after, Lord Bathurst, by command of •the 'Prince Regent, expressed to the king's commissioners for .the government of the Jonian islands, the royal approbation of ■what had been done in regard to the occupation of Parga. We come now to the last act of the tragedy. The Congress of Vienna was in session when this little.republic, and the greater part of the Ionian islands, had been thus taken possession of by the English; and their policy in 181* being to strengthen Austria, its a 'Counterpoise both to France rand to Russia, all those places would probably have been made over to that power, along with the Istrian, Dalmatian, and Venetian provinces that were then assigned to her. 'But after the return of Napoleon, the tardiness of Austria, and the great influence acquired by Russia in the Congress of Paris after the victory at Waterloo, led to a different, and, :in«o far as the Pargiots were concerned, much more fatal arrangement. The islands were left to us: 'But it was agreed, in pretended conformity with the treaty of 1800, that'the ex-Venetian towns on the coast should be given up unconditionally, and in full sovereignty to the Porte—or, in other words, to Aii, who took the title of its officer, and was already in possession of all of them but Parga. In conformity with this arrangement, Parga was totally extinguished, and its bare and deserted walls delivered over to the barbarian, bv the agents of that free government to whose honour it had committed itself! By wliat motives our negotiators were induced to consent to this miserable sacrifice, it would now be idle t» inquire. The common opinion on the Continent is, that Lord Castlereagh was cajoled into it by the Russians, who wished to' sbase our national character, and to embroil us with the Turks* by making us dependent on such a neighbour as Ali for the Crovisioning of our forces in the islands. But for our parts, we ave no great faith in those refinements of Machiavellian policy; and are of opinion, that the worst and most fatal acts of public men are far more frequently the fruit of mere ignorance and inattention, than of deep-laid schemes of perfidy or ambition. We think it by no means unlikely that the Noble Lord was actually ignorant of the compact made between our officers and the Pargiots, and are almost certain, that he was not at all aware of the vast importance of that place for the victualling of the islands which we were to retain ;—while it is difficult to imagine, that he was correctly informed either as to the tenor of the treaty of 1800, on which he professed to act, or as to the events that had subsequently occurred to discharge all claims under it. Such ignorance, we certainly think, is not less criminal in a minister, than the intentional violation of his duties which leads to the same results; but it is rather more credible; and requires to be even more loudly reprobated, both as more likely to recur, and more possible to be prevented. We have spoken of all those occurrences in the calm and dispassionate tone of history; and trust we shall not be thought to deviate from it when we add, that an arrangement more ungenerous, cruel, and unjust to those who were the objects of it, and at once more dishonourable and injurious to those who conducted it, cannot well be imagined, than that we are now considering. In \hejirst place, it was most impolitic and injurious to our interests, as possessors of the Ionian islands; because Parga was almost the only remaining channel through which they could be supplied with provisions;—and the Turk, who was known to be thirsting to regain them, would thus not only have a prodigious advantage in the event of hostilities, but would be constantly tempted to seek a pretext for hostility, in order to make use of this advantage. In the second place, it was in the face of a treaty recently entered into by our officers, and subsequently approved of by our commissioners in the islands, and by the Lord Bathurst, in name of the Sovereign. We know very well that it may be argued, that our officers had no proper powers to enter into such a treaty; and that the approbation of the Prince Regent, however generally expressed, should be understood as applying only to the military occupation of a place previously held by the French. But when it is considered, that the place had actually been delivered up to us on the faith of that treaty, and retained, to our great profit, for upwards of a year, without the least surmise that any of its articles were to be objected to^—and especially that the consequence of our tardy disavowal of it was, not to replace things in statu quo, as ought to have been done upon the most rigorous application of the rules of diplomacy—but to make over to their bitterest enemy, as a property or conquest of our own, that which, but for such a treaty, we should never have had the power to dispose of—it must appear that there never was a case in which this special pleading, or quibbling rather, on the law of nations, could be resorted to with so ill a grace or so little plausibility. But, in the third place, the treaty of 1800 to which we pretended to recur, had been annulled and abandoned by all the parties to it, and especially by the Turks, over and over again, from the year when it was adopted down to the year 1815. The leading stipulation in that treaty was the establishment of the Seven Islands, under the joint protection of the Porte and Russia. But, so early as 1802, the Porte admitted Great Britain as a guarantee of their independence; and, after the peace of Tilsit, they were all turned into French colonies, with the assent of Russia. It was sufficiently manifest then, that the whole of that original treaty was abrogated and gone. If any thing more, however, was wanting, it was supplied by the transaction* of 1809, when the Turks themselves concluded a peace with Bonaparte, by which they confirmed to him the whole of those conquests, including Parga, in which he had placed a garrisonSoon after, Lord Collingwood took from him Zante and Cephalonia; and the Turk then professing neutrality, our ambassador at Constantinople solemnly protested, ' that some of the loni'an islands having been delivered from the French by our 'arms, without the assistance of any of the other powers by * whom they should have been protected, his Majesty has a 'right to proceed to the settlement of those islands without con'. 'suiting them—and that he will accordingly do so, if the Porte 'will not now renew its guarantee for their protection;' and not only was this guarantee refused, but their pretended neutrality openly violated—not only by supplying the enemy at Corfu with stores and piovisions, in defiance of our blockade, but by allowing our merchantmen to be taken and condemned as prizes by the French privateers within the bounds of the Ottoman ports and harbours. Possession was accordingly retained cf these conquests, and of the others made in IS 14', without any reclamation or complaint on the part of the Turks. In the Congress of that year, the basis ol the whole proceeding was, that all conquests made from France by any of the allies should be at the disposal of the whole powers armed against her: But the Porte was not of this number, having all along remained at peace with Napoleon, and therefore had no right nor interest ia any partition of those conquests. Accordingly, the independence of the Seven Islands, and of' their dependencies, was expressly stipulated by several treaties signed with Prussia, Russia, Austria and France; and, in the Congress of Paris in 1815 and 1816, the Turk had no minister or accredited agent, and was no party to their proceedings—so that nothing could be more preposterous and unmeaning, than to refer, as to a document of binding authority, to a treaty long ago and repeatedly annulled by all the parties to it—and to a stipulation in it, introduced solely tor the benefit of a power that was in fact making no claim—and of whose claims it was at any rate impossible to take cognisance, without utterly disregarding the very basis and foundation of the whole scheme of adjustment. If we had any right at all to dispose of Parga, it was on the supposition that we had taken it by force of arms from France;—but all conquests from France were to be distributed among the powers allied to control her—and the Porte neither was one of these powers, nor one of the parties assembled to deliberate on the partition. She neither had any right, nor pretended to any. But, in iheJeuirlh place, and finally,—if all these things had been otherwise—if we had had no interest to keep Parga from the Turks—if they had never renounced and annulled the treaty of 1800—if they had been belligerents allied against France, and parties to the Congress which was to dispose of what that ■alliance had wrested from her; we say, with the most unlimited confidence, that all this would have afforded no justification, or apology even, for the act of which we are now speaking, and would still have left it, though stripped, no doubt, of some aggravations, one of the most flagrant instances of impolicy and oppression of which histoiy lias preserved any record ;—and that because what was then done in pretended implement of the treaty of lhOO, was no implement of tJiat treaty, but a mere sanction to the Porte to violate it in all that gave it a colour of justice, as it had already shown its determination to violate it. That treaty, no doubt, after stipulating as its main object lor the independence of the Seven Islands, did also provide that the political dominion or patronage of the ex-Venetian towns on the coast •should be given up to the Porte;—but then it was an integral part and express condition of this stipulation, 'that no Ma * hemedan should acquire property or settle in any of those * towns—nor build mosques within their territory—nor change * their laws or internal polity, no • levy taxes or duties beyond f those that were payable of e!d by the Venetians;— and that the f powers anil functions of the bey or officer who was to attend * to the interest'of the Ottoman in the place, should be detcr.* mined to the entire satisfaction of the republic of the Seven 'Islands.'—These were the stipulations of the treaty of 1800;— but when we thought fit to. revive that treaty in IB 15, and to pleat! the necessity of adhering to it, as a reason lor disavowing the compact by which, and by which alone, we had got possession of the place in question, we did not think Jit to renew any one >ericusly desirous to increase the power of a subject already so formidable—and that the whole history of Ali had shown, both that concessions increased his insolence, and that he could never be a good neighbour to those of whom he did not stand in awe. It is true that, like other savages, he hates those whom he is compelled to fear; but it is not less true, that fear is the only feeling by which his ferocity can be controlled. The Russian commanders always treated him with insult, and were always flattered and courted in return. One of them struck one of his Beys in his presence, upon which the tyrant quietly withdrew, and propitiated the offender with presents. In the same way, after murdering General Roze, who had treated him with uniform kindness, he submitted to the daily checks and menaces of Poutjueville, by whom he was replaced. The instances of his abusing the good nature of the English are innumerable. Having been permitted by Sir Hudson Lowe to repair two customhouses on a point opposite to our island of Santa Moro, he instantly changed them into two strong forts, with batteries commanding the island, and capable any day of reducing it. On another occasion, be seized on a citizen of Prevesa, who was brother to the contractor who supplied our troops in Santa Moro with bread, and threatened to roast him alive if the contractor would not give up his son to serve as an eunuch in his seraglio. This brutality was notorious in our quarters; but it was not thought fit to interfere—and the poor man was obliged to sacrifice his child to save the life of his brother. One of our own officers was afterwards fired at, and grievously wounded, by three of his soldiers—and we were satisfied with having the assassins delivered up at Parga,—to be immediately returned to their master, who continued them in his service, and employed them on the same frontier which diey had polluted by so base a crime. This strange forbearance of the English—the resort of travellers of our nation to his court—the formal visits paid him by his majesty's commissioners, and not returned, gave an unfortunate plausibility to the false reports which he industriously circulated as to the entire devotion of .our government to his views, and the bribery by which he had secured the good offices of all our commanders on the spot. He had even the audacity to print in his gazettes, that Sir Thomas Maitland had been invested with the order of the Crescent, entirely through his influence, and on account of his attachment to him and to the interests of the Porte. When it was first rumoured, therefore, at Parga, that they were to be delivered up to their ancient enemy, the most dreadful apprehensions were entertained,—and an earnest supplication addressed to the British commander in the garrison, who answered, in March 1817, by orders of Sir Thomas Maitland, that as he had not yet received the regular instructions of his government, he could give them no definitive answer; but that they might depend on his doing all in hi» power for their advantage, provided they did not forfeit their claim to his protection by any violence or bloodshed on their own part. The substance of the arrangement was now generally known; and as nobody doubted, or affected to doubt, of the manner in which Ali was to treat the place when made over to him, the humanity and honour of our commissioners could suggest nothing farther than to offer an asylum in the islands to such of the citizens as might not be disposed to remain, and to stipulate that Ali, on behalf of the Turkish government, should pay a fair price for the lands, buildings and plantations that might be thus deserted by their owners;—and Sir Thomas Maitland accordingly authorized the British commander to exhibit a letter, in which 'he pledged himself that the place should not be yielded up 'till the property of those who might chuse to emigrate should 'be paid for, and they themselves transported to the Ionian Is* lands;' and a proclamation was afterwards published at Parga, in which the same obligations are expressly undertaken in name of the British government. Ali did not venture openly to oppose a measure of justice, thus powerfully supported and enforced;and appointed Hamed Bey to act as his commissioner in making the necessary surveys and valuations along with Mr Cartwright, who was named on behalf of our Government. But he had recourse to every resource of intimidation and chicane to prevent it from being brought to a conclusion. Mr Cartwright applied to the British commander in the citadel, to give him a general idea of the total value of the possessions that might be left; and was answered, that, on the supposition that the whole people were to emigrate, it would probably amount to between 400,000 and li00,000/. Sterling. The commander afterwards directed a particular survey and valuation to be made of the lands, houses, and plantations, and found that the total considerably exceeded the largest of the sums which we have mentioned. These valuations, however, were objected to, as having been made without proper authority; and something less than a third part was ultimately awarded. In the mean time, Ali surrounded the city with his troops—insisted on his commissioner being received with fifty horsemen—and not only did all he could to seduce some of the lower citizens to rise upon the English garrison, and admit hirn unconditionally into the town; but proposed to them to poison our water aiid provisions; and reports tA to every one, that he never would pay one farthing, but' would shortly make good his entry by force, and that the Divan had agreed with Sir Robert Liston to give our generals 60,000Z. to put a stop to the plan of emigration; and this produced such a panic and alarm in the settlement, that scarcely any one would proceed with the cultivation of his fields: And a great proportion sold their neglected lots at an undervalue to greedy adventurers. The commissioners, however, at last met in June 1S16, and soon after published each of them a proclamation,—ours repeating so fur the assurances of a safe-conduct and fair compensation for the property of those who might chuse to emigrate, but leaving the qaestion of emigration to their own free and unbiassed determination-^-and that of Hamed urffinsrthe citizens to remain in their native town, and declaring that they should enjoy all liberty, security, and comfort;—although, when urged by our officers, as well as the Pargiots, to put his name and seal to this declaration, he positively refused to do so,' and would give no further explanation. After these proclamations had been circulated for some days, all the citizens of Par-' ga were brought, one by one, before the two commissioners, and called upon, with much solemnity, to declare their final resolution,—when they eve/y one answered, 'that they were resolv * ed to abandon their country, rather than stay in it with disho'nour; and that they would each disinter and carry along with' * them the bones of their forefathers.' The commissioners then proceeded to their surveys and valuations; but they soon differed with each other, and with the Governor, and were respectively superseded. A conference then took place between Ali and General Maitland in October, which resulted in a suspension of all proceedings till May 1818, when a new commissioner was appointed on our part, before whom, and the agent of Ali, the whole citizens again repeated their fixed determination to leave their country, in- the same terms as in the preceding year; and new disputes arose about the mode of valuing the churches, public buildings, and property belonging to incorporations. The Pargiots, who were now reduced to the greatest distress, sent over a statement of their case, with the necessary documents, to be laid before the British Parliament; but having addressed them to a person whor was not a British subject, he did not think himself entitled to make any formal application in their name, though we have reason to believe, that the notice which has been taken of their case in Parliament originated in this communication.- In the mean time, the proceedings went tardily on; and at last, in June lsly, General Maitland, in consequence of the depreciation of property by the neglect and despair of its owners, finally declared the compensation, to be paid by Ali for the Turkish government to be J \2,\'25l. Sterling; and, shortly after, intimated to the citizens, that he was ready to provide for their transportation to the islands. As soon as this notice was sjiven, every family marched solemnly out of its dwelling, without tears or lamentation; and the men, preceded by their priests, and followed by their sons, proceeded to the sepulchres of their fathers, and silently unearthed and collected their remains,—which they placed upon a liuge pile of wood which they had previously erected before one of their churches. They then took their arms in their hands, and, setting fire to the pile, stood motionless and silent around it, till the whole was consumed. During this melancholy ceremony, some of All's troops, impatient tor possession, approached the gnte> of the town; upon which a deputation of the citizens was sent to inform our Governor, that if a single Infidel was admitted before the remains of their ancestors were secured from profanation, and they themselves, with their families, fairly embarked, they would all instantly put to death their wives and children,—and die with their arms in their hands,—and not without a bloody revenge on those who had bought and sold their country. Such a remonstrance, at such a moment, was felt and respected, as it ought by th;>se to whom it was addressed. General Adam succeeded in stopping the march of the Mussulmans. The pile burnt out—and the people embarked in silence;—and Free and Christian Parga is now a stronghold of ruffians, renegadoes, and slaves!