Let us, however, think and speak and act differently, remembering fearfully, how often the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. Is it, indeed, consistent with even mere worldly wisdom, on the ground of an assumption with regard to inhabited planets, to reject a belief founded on direct and positive proofs, such as is the belief in the truths of Natural and Revealed Religion?
“Newton,” says Dr Chalmers, in his discourse on the Modesty of True Science, “knew the boundary which hemmed him. He knew that he had not thrown one particle of light on the moral or religious history of these planetary regions. He had not ascertained what visits of communication they received from the God who upholds them. But he knew that the fact of a Real Visit to this Planet had such evidence to rest upon that it was not to be disposted by any aerial imagination.” Let this noble and devout spirit be in us: both Faith and Reason assuring us, that we stand, in Scriptural Truth, safe and immovable, like a wise man, which built his house upon a rock.[[132]]
KING OTHO AND HIS CLASSIC KINGDOM.
The actual condition of Greece is a disgrace to the political civilisation of Europe. There is hope for the Othoman Empire, for the Turks are sensible that they have much to learn; but for the kingdom of Greece there is no hope, unless the modern Hellenes lay aside the self-conceit which induces them to boast of their superior orthodoxy when the question relates to their practical ignorance. Englishmen and Russians, despots and demagogues, princes and people, Europeans and Americans, all agree in pronouncing King Otho’s kingdom a satire on monarchical institutions, constitutional legislation, and central administration. The valour and patriotism displayed by the Albanians of Suli and Hydra, and by the Greeks of Messolonghi and Psara, were the theme of well-merited praise, and were rewarded by liberal gifts of money and other supplies from the friends of Greece in Germany, Switzerland, France, England, and the United States of America. Greece has great obligations to the people of Western Europe, whom she now stigmatises as hostile Latins. It was the voice of the people that moved the Cabinet of London to take the initiative in the negotiations which caused the battle of Navarino, and conferred on Greece the rank of an independent kingdom by the treaty of 1832.
No political experiment during the present century—fruitful as the period has been in producing new States—excited higher expectations or warmer wishes for its success. Twenty-two years have now elapsed since Greece became a kingdom under the sceptre of Prince Otho of Bavaria. He was then a minor, and he was selected to fill the new throne more for his father’s merits than from any promise of superior talent in his own person. King Louis of Bavaria loved art, and his want of political capacity and military power removed any feelings of jealousy on the part of the greater powers in Europe to the addition thus made to the dignity of the house of Wittelsbach. King Otho was known to be a youth of very moderate attainments; but his natural deficiencies being fortunately united to an amiable disposition, it was expected that he would prove a docile monarch, and listen to good counsellors. It has proved otherwise. His limited capacity has not been more remarkable than his obstinacy and perverseness in following a line of policy which has inflicted serious injury on Greece. Notwithstanding a natural love of justice, and a good moral character, his misgovernment has degenerated into corruption, though it has not assumed a character of systematic tyranny. On the whole, his incapacity to perform the duties of his station, and his silly eagerness to assume the appearance of being a despotic sovereign, while he was unable to make any use of the greater part of the prerogatives willingly conceded to him by his subjects, have made him a very apt regal type of the anarchical and rapacious nation he rules. The result is, that the hopes of ardent Philhellenes, the expectations of enthusiastic scholars, and the wishes of cautious statesmen, have all been utterly disappointed by the government of King Otho. More than this, while the King of Greece has shown himself a bad monarch, the Greeks have displayed extreme ignorance in all their attempts to supply his deficiencies. Instead of suggesting better principles for his guidance, they have become the steady supporters of his system whenever he condescended to purchase their support by places and pensions. It seems as if the Bavarian monarchy had infused a morbid lethargy into Romaic society, so rapidly has the central administration of Athens quenched the fervour of patriotism throughout liberated Greece. The Albanian population has lost its valour and perseverance; the Greek has sunk back into that normal condition of rapacious imbecility which has characterised the Hellenic race ever since the time of Mummius.
The revolution which freed Greece from the Turkish yoke broke out early in the year 1821, so that the inhabitants of the kingdom have now enjoyed the advantages of political independence for thirty-three years. A generation has grown up to manhood in possession of a greater degree of freedom than is possessed by most of the continental nations of Europe. Municipal institutions existed, to some extent, under the Turks, and they acquired considerable importance during the revolutionary war. The fullest exercise of the liberty of the press has prevailed ever since the first year of the revolution. Nor has this liberty been greatly abused, though it has often been misused—a circumstance not to be wondered at in a country so torn by faction as Greece has been ever since she commenced her struggle for independence. This fact must be weighed against the many vices and corruptions of the Greeks which it will be our task to notice, for it affords decisive evidence that there still exists among the mass of the population a sound basis of public opinion.
The establishment of free and orthodox Greece as an independent State, under the protection of Great Britain, France, and Russia, was a conception of George Canning’s genius, and it received the sanction of the Duke of Wellington. After Canning’s death, his enemies made it a subject of reproach. It is said that, when his statue was erected in Palace Yard, a royal duke, walking beside it with the late Lord Eldon, began to pour out a diatribe of harmless accusations against the honoured dead, which he summed up, saying, “He caused the battle of Navarin, Eldon, and he was not nearly so big as that statue;” to which the great Lord Chancellor, whose patience had been long tried, expanded his bushy eyebrows, and exclaimed, “No, truly—nor so green:” the statue being then, as some of our readers may remember, more remarkable for the verdant colour of its patent verdigris than for its size. Whether the battle of Navarin was absolutely necessary to save Greece from Ibrahim Pasha and his Arabs, may still admit of dispute; but unquestionably it was the battle of Navarin which did save Greece. When, however, the business of selecting a king, and of organising the institutions of a central administration on monarchical principles came to be performed, the genius of Canning was represented by the torpor of Aberdeen, and the sagacity of Wellington by the belligerent amenity of Palmerston.
The Russian sympathies of Capodistrias succeeded in delaying the final settlement of the Greek question, with the hope of placing Greece in a state of vassalage to the Czar. Lord Aberdeen combated the policy of the Corfiote feebly and unsuccessfully. He barely succeeded in preventing the execution of the Russian schemes, when the dagger of Mavromichalis opened the way for making Greece an independent kingdom by the assassination of Capodistrias.
The only candidate worthy of the throne of Greece was Leopold of Saxe-Cobourg, the present King of Belgium. He was compelled to resign his pretensions on account of the mutilated form of the territory offered to him by Lord Aberdeen and the Duke of Wellington. Lord Palmerston improved the territorial position of Greece by giving it a better frontier than Lord Aberdeen, but it remained still a very bad one, as Colonel Leake pointed out at the time. In 1832, moreover, Lord Palmerston administered his antidote to an improved frontier, in the shape of a Bavarian prince, whom, for some years, he supported with his usual vigour and contempt of consequences. King Otho being a minor, a regency accompanied him from Bavaria to Greece in 1833, to govern in his name. This regency consisted of three statesmen of purblind views—men of the limited political intelligence which distinguishes the artistic city of Munich. Yet Lord Palmerston, in concert with the other protecting powers, consented to strangle the Greek Chambers, in order to vest unlimited power in the hands of these Bavarian regents. Count Armansperg was chosen to do the honours, M. Maurer was intrusted with the duty of organising the civil administration, and General Heideck was allowed to sketch uniforms for the Greek army, and instructed to paint pictures for the cabinet of King Louis. These three statesmen soon quarrelled among themselves, and, with Teutonic bonhomie, called in the Greeks as spectators of their contests. The foreign policy of the regency was quite as ill-judged as their domestic behaviour. M. Maurer, who got the upper hand for a year, was ultra-Gallican; Count Armansperg, who at last succeeded in getting him shipped off to Bavaria, was ultra-Anglican. The follies of the regency, however, did not prevent the three protecting powers from heaping benefits on the Greek nation. A large loan, amounting to two million four hundred thousand pounds, was placed at the disposal of the Royal government. The object which the protectors of Greece had in view, was to remove any difficulties which the finances of Greece might have offered to a reform in the general system of taxation, and at the same time to afford facilities for immediately commencing the construction of roads, and other necessary improvements. The Greek treasury was rendered completely independent of the receipts of the annual revenues for the period necessary to effect a thorough reorganisation of every branch of the public service, civil, military, naval, and judicial. Greece had everything done for her which her friends could desire. But the Greeks, instead of employing their energies, and making use of the liberty of the press to restrain the Bavarians from wasting the loan, aided them to dissipate it in every way by which they could profit. The whole force of public opinion, it is true, was employed in driving the Bavarians from profitable employments; but when success attended the clamours of the Greeks, instead of abolishing the offices which they had previously declared to be useless, they installed themselves in the vacant places, and employed the influence thus acquired to diminish even the scanty sum devoted to national improvements by the Bavarians. Accordingly, we find that the Bavarians did as much for improving Greece during their short period of power, as the Greeks during their long subsequent administration. Yet every traveller hears the Greeks constantly declaring that all the evils in the country are caused by foreign interference. The only truth in their observation is, that they were and are utterly unfit to be trusted with the administration of any money beyond what they levy on themselves in the way of taxation. Nothing, indeed, shows the moral obliquity of the Greeks more than the ingratitude with which they receive every public and private gift.
We consider that ingratitude a sufficient excuse for recapitulating some of the favours which the British Government has conferred on them since Otho the beloved ascended the Hellenic throne. Nothing but the blindest self-conceit, or the blackest ingratitude, can prevent their acknowledging that the English Cabinet has done infinitely more for advancing the commercial prosperity and extending the agricultural industry of Greece, than King Otho’s ministers or the Greek Chambers. The personal interest which several members of our Government took in the success of the kingdom they had contributed to found, induced them to conclude a reciprocity treaty with the King’s government at an early period. To the same feeling we may ascribe the early repeal of the duty on currants imported into the British dominions from the Greek kingdom. This change of duty, by placing the currants, a most important product of the Morea, on the same footing as those of Zante, was a direct boon to the currant-growers of Achaia, a bounty on the cultivation of fruit in the Greek kingdom, a premium to commerce at Patras, and a considerable gift to King Otho’s treasury. Lord Palmerston was Foreign Secretary during these changes, and we therefore request the public writers at Athens, when they think fit to reproach him for quarrelling with their beloved monarch, whom they believe is ever ready to sacrifice his throne for their orthodoxy, to bear in mind that these measures have done more for the agricultural and commercial prosperity of Greece, than any which King Otho or the Greek Chambers have adopted since they freed themselves from foreign domination.