8. The civil government was organized, and royal governors appointed in all the provinces, who maintain a direct correspondence with the minister of the interior.
9. A very respectable judicial administration was formed, and codes of civil and criminal procedure published.
10. The Greek Church was organized on a footing which rendered it independent of the patriarch at Constantinople without causing a schism. This is unquestionably the ablest act of Mr Maurer's administration, and it drew on him the whole hatred of Russia.
11. The communal and municipal system of Greece, the seat of the vitality of the Greek nation, was adopted as the foundation of the social edifice in the monarchy. It is true some injudicious Bavarian modifications were made; but time will soon consign to oblivion these delusions of Teutonic intellect.
12. The liberty of the press was admitted to be an inherent right of Greek citizens.
The five last-mentioned measures are entirely due to the liberal spirit and sound legal knowledge of Mr Maurer, who, if he had been restrained from meddling with diplomacy, and quarreling with the English and Russian ministers at Nauplia, would have been universally regarded as a most useful minister. But all the practical good Greece has derived from the Bavarians, is confined to a few of his acts.
The accession of Count Armansperg to power, opened a new scene. A certain number of Greeks were then admitted to high and lucrative employments, on condition that they would support the Bavarian system, and declare that their country was not yet fit for the enjoyment of constitutional liberty. The partizans of Mr Maurer were dismissed and sent back to Bavaria: a few good bribes were given to newspaper editors and noisy democrats; but the Bavarians were kept in the possession of the richest part of the spoil. Accordingly, the cry of the Greeks against Bavarian influence and Bavarian rapacity never ceased. Rudhart's government was a continuation of that of Armansperg, only with the difference that he leaned on a different foreign power for support. Neither Armansperg nor Rudhart conferred any benefit on Greece. They formed a phalanx or corps of veterans; but as they laid down no invariable rules for admission, but kept the door open as a means of creating a party among the military, this institution has become a scene of jobbing and abuse.
A law conferring a portion of land on every Greek family was passed; but as it was intended to serve political purposes, it was never put into general execution. A number of sales of national lands has been made under it, in direct violation of every principle of law and justice; and as detached pieces of the richest plains in Greece have been alienated in this way, the resources of the country will be found to have been very seriously diminished by this singular species of wholesale corruption.
Rudhart was compelled from his weakness to make one or two steps in the national path. He assembled the council of state, and called the provincial councils and the university into activity.
We have now arrived at the period when King Otho assumed the reins of government. From the year 1838 to the present day, he has been his own irresponsible prime minister; for the apparent ministers Zographos, Païkos, Maurocordatos and Rizos, have never enjoyed his unlimited confidence, nor have they been viewed with much favour by the people. Indeed, with the exception of Maurocordatos, they are men of inferior ability, and of no character or standing in the country. Any one who will take the trouble to read those portions of their diplomatic correspondence with the ministers of the allied powers at Athens, which have been published, will be convinced of their utter unfitness for the offices they have held. Let the reader contrast these precious specimens of inaccuracy and rigmarole, with the come-to-the-truth style of our own minister, or the sarcastic, let-us-go-quietly-over-your-reasoning style, in which the Russian minister answers them.