rect party to the treaty of 1800, had no such right of interference; she might endeavour to prevail on the Porte to grant them, without being considered as bound by any obligation to watch over their fulfilment :-and this step she appears to have taken. Having succeeded Russia in the character of protector of the Ionian Islands, and the immediate countenance of a Russian force being thus lost to the Parganotes, His Majesty's minister at the Congress, instead of being ignorant of the state of Parga, or forgetful of the Parganotes, as has been with equal ignorance and impertinence insinuated,* appears to have taken the deepest interest in the security of this little community: this is fully proved by the instructions given to the ambassador at Constantinople, to employ his good offices, in concert with the Russian minister, if necessary, to secure to those who might remain all the privileges to which they were solemnly entitled by the treaty in question. But let us examine a little closer what would have been our situation with regard to the Ottoman Porte, and what the result, had we insisted on keeping possession of Parga as an appendage of the Ionian Islands, or taken upon us the Russian guarantee for the fulfilment of the conditions in favour, not of Parga alone, but of Previsa, Butrinto and Vonitza, every one of which had an equal claim on our protection in that character. We could have no right to separate the one from the other; for we are at a loss to discover on what principle we are left at liberty to fulfil only such parts of a treaty as may suit our purpose, and reject or violate the rest. In the first case, we should have held it in direct breach of a solemn treaty concluded with the allied sovereigns of Europe; and contrary to every principle of justice towards its real sovereign; and as far as the political advantage of such a proceeding was concerned, all that was thus unjustly withheld would have amounted to a barren rock on the Ottoman territory,-without the means of resistance, without funds to create such means,-without the possibility of its ever being of the smallest utility to us,—and with the certainty of generating a spirit of hostility and disgust on the part of our ally, the Porte. That we might have been able to hold Parga against a Turkish force, is not meant to be denied; but we could have held it only as a military place, as we hold Gibraltar. It must have been strongly fortified and garrisoned-it must have been held at the enormous expense of £60,000 or £80,000 a-year, besides an immediate outlay of double or triple that sum, to put it into a state of defence ;— and even then, we could not have maintained a foot of ground * Edinburgh Review, No. LXIV. beyond beyond the walls; for there is no natural boundary to the territory of Parga, which lies open on all sides for the entry of the Turk whenever he pleases. The fort is commanded on three sides by hills higher than itself, the nearest not more than 800 yards, and the farthest 1600 yards from it. Within the fort two small tanks of bad water afford a scanty supply for the garrison and about half of the population. The springs are all on the outside—the principal one a mile from the town-and might at any time be completely cut off by the Turks. What then becomes of the vapouring about the brave Parganotes defending themselves'!—eight hundred undisciplined men, with a few honey-combed guns mounted on rotten carriages, and without a single article of provisions but what must be received from the enemy's territory, or by sea, and without the means of purchasing any!-And yet we are told, with that ignorant confidence which ceases to surprize by frequent repetition, that to surrender it was most impolitic and injurious to our own interests, as possessors of the Ionian Islands; because Parga was almost the only remaining channel through which they could be supplied with provisions.* Supplied'! from a territory which scarcely affords four months' provisions even to its own inhabitants! Had our garrison depended on the Parganotes for provisions, it must very soon have been starved out. Every necessary of life was in fact received from the territories of Ali Pasha; and even the straw for the soldiers' paliasses was sent from Santa Maura. But there is another view of the subject which ought not to be lost sight of. We have taken upon ourselves, at the express desire of the Allied Sovereigns, the office of Protectors of the Ionian Republic. Now, though the occupation of Parga could have no political bearing on those islands, it must have had an intimate connexion with the British forces employed in the protection of them; and looking at it in this point of view, the occupation of Parga would not only have been not desirable, but attended with evils of the greatest magnitude-evils which would materially have interfered with the observance of the duties devolved on us as protectors of the lonian people. We shall mention only the universal quarantine under which those islands have suffered most heavily, principally in consequence of communication with that useless ap * We think it by no means unlikely that the noble lord (Castlereagh) 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' (the Pargiots!) 'for the victualling of the Islands which we were to retain.'-Edin. Rev. No. LXIV. p. 286. The Northern Seers have for once opined rightly-the noble lord was equally ignorant of any such compact,' and of the victualling resources' of Parga. pendage. pendage. To relieve 200,000 Ionians from this penalty, is one of the most desirable circumstances that could possibly take place. The circumstances of the case would be very little different, except in point of expense, had Great Britain adopted the alternative of taking upon herself the guarantee given by Russia in her treaty of 1800 with the Turks. Considering the temper and disposition of the two parties, scenes of irritation, if not of bloodshed, would perpetually have occurred; and, instead of being the friend and ally of the Porte, as it is our interest to be, we should have been transformed at once into its natural and dreaded enemy. In such a state of things, can any one, who reflects on the fate of Previsa, doubt for a moment what would have been that of Parga? and what the disgrace, which, by such a catastrophe, its nominal protectors would have incurred ? In either case, had our negociators been carried away by the romantic feelings of some, or the morbid humanity of others, Great Britain would have been placed, in respect to the Mahommedan government of Turkey, pretty much in the situation in which we formerly stood in regard to the Mahommedan powers in India; and one in which we could scarcely hope, with all imaginable caution and moderation, not to put to hazard the preservation of peace on the continent of Europe, a peace which it is certainly neither our interest nor our policy to disturb. And for whom were these sacrifices to be made?—for the Parganotes, it will be answered,- for the independent and virtuous Parganotes, whose men are all brave, and whose women are all chaste and unwatched.' The inhabitants of Parga, like those of the other Venetian colonies, were a mixture of Greeks, Albanians, and Italians, and, like them too, once possessed, in an eminent degree, all the rude virtues and all the gross vices of these several people. The love of independence, courage, and hospitality, might then be reckoned among the best qualities of a horde of depredators, subject to no regular government: a restless and intriguing disposition, a proneness to quarrel and revenge, a spirit of lawless enterprize and plunder were among their bad ones; and these the Parganotes possessed in common with the rest of the Epirotes, whose character seems to have been justly estimated by Pyrrhus of old, when he bequeathed them to that son of his who wore the sharpest sword.' It is true, the system of plunder and robbery, so common among most of the Grecian states, and which by some has been softened down under the name of petty warfare, was not considered in any part of Greece in that criminal light in which it is viewed in the more established governments of Europe; but the Epirotes were proverbially ferocious. Though we are not altogether prepared to assert with Mr. Hobhouse, that the character of the Parganotes is amongst amongst the worst of the Albanians,' we see no reason to conclude that it was at all better, at least while the country behind it remained unsettled for some years past, indeed, the tranquil state of the neighbouring territory has necessarily kept them at home. The character of a people is long preserved in their national songs. All that were sung by those Albanians of the coast, who accompanied Lord Byron and Mr. Hobhouse,' were relations of some robbing exploits;' and 'one of them,' says Mr. Hobhouse, began thus:" When we set out from Parga, there were sixty of us," and the burden was Κλεφτεις ποτε Παργα, Much stress has been laid on these people being Christians; as if all the Albanian robbers were not Christians, and had not their papas, as well as the Parganotes and the rest of the Greeks ;-these are said to be not more strict in their conduct than enlightened in their understandings. In most of the crimes committed,' says an intelligent traveller, during my stay at Athens, a papas was discovered as an accessary; and a gang of robbers, or a boat of pirates, is seldom without its chaplain.* The papas of the Parganotes are of the very lowest kind. With respect to the Christianity of either priests or people, it consists merely of a few external ceremonies more senseless than those of the Roman Catholics, and the observance of superstitions more childish and absurd. The boasted independence and magnanimity of the Parganotes may be estimated from the single circumstance of Parga being held as a Venetian colony and garrisoned with Venetian troops for several centuries. It never defended nor even attempted to defend itself, after the fall of that power; but was always ready to supplicate support from every nation in succession whom it thought the strongest, and to place its feeble fortress in their hands. To the Venetians it merely served as a link in the chain of their continental possessions, now swallowed up in the territory of the Ottoman Porte; in other respects, so conscious were they of its imbecility, and so satisfied of its total want of importance, either in a military or commercial point of view, that they endeavoured from time to time to keep down the population, by withdrawing its inhabitants from the place, and encouraging them to settle in Corfu. With regard to the superior virtues of the Parganotes, none of our officers, who, from long residence, ought to know them best, discovered any of them except Lieut. Colonel de Bosset. Insulated * Douglas's Essay on the Ancient and Modern Greeks. indeed, indeed, as they were, they could not be expected to display either virtues or vices to any remarkable extent; in whatever degree of either they might once have excelled, their scope during the existing generation has been extremely limited. The priests seemed to possess not only the same degree of influence over them that the Romish priests exercise over the peasantry of Ireland, but they were generally (as we have seen) at the bottom of every intrigue. About thirty families of the primates had acquired nearly all the property of the place, by taking advantage of the distresses of the rest, and lending them money at an exorbitant interest. The greatest proportion of the people were wretchedly poor, and obtained their subsistence by labouring in the vineyards and olive groves, in boatbuilding, and in fishing, at which they were notoriously inexpert. The most respectable part of the population of the town were petty shopkeepers; but the very best of these did not scruple to cheat a soldier out of a penny whenever an opportunity occurred. Money is the soul of a Parganote; and matters of the most trifling amount are the objects of vexatious and clamorous disputes:-their petty courts were thronged with perpetual litigants; and to obtain a dollar a Parganote pleader would harangue through half the day. For acuteness, low cunning and intrigue, they are quite as notorious as the Turks of Negropont, the Jews of Salonica, and the Greeks of Athens;'-in a word, like the Græculus esuriens of the satirist, they are A flattering, cringing, treacherous, artful race, 6 But this and more, say the advocates of the Parganotes, is redeemed by the bravery of the men and the chastity of the women.' All robbers must be brave; but since there has been little to do on the road, and less in the way of piracy on the water, the only instances which we have been able to discover of the bravery of the Parganotes are the two exploits already noticed. We are not disposed to bear hard on the frailties of the fair sex, and are willing to admit that the women of Parga may be chaste, when they have few opportunities, though unwatched,' of being otherwise we think too that the awkward custom, mentioned by Colonel de Bosset, of their being lent out on trial before marriage, is an impeachment rather of their parents' delicacy than of their own. Had M. de Bosset, however, been disposed to tell the whole truth, he might have related, from his own knowledge, that any young Parganote girl was to be purchased for time; and he might also have informed his readers, that the daughter of one of the first families in Parga, so beautiful as to be known by the name of the Queen of Parga,' |