In the year 1831, the assassination of Count Capodistrias converted disorder into anarchy. Insurrection spread over the whole country, and the authority of the existing government was confined to the walls of Nauplia. Civil war laid waste the rest of Greece. Each military leader endeavoured to collect round him a band of followers strong enough to retain possession of a province capable of nourishing his troops. The dispossessed united to attack the successful. The sufferings of the agricultural population amidst this scene of anarchy, were dreadful; for the poor peasantry, cheered by the comparative tranquillity of Capodistrias's administration, had recommenced cultivating the soil; and they now saw the relics of their property, after escaping the Turks and Egyptians, destroyed by their own countrymen. While the irregular troops were engaged in destroying the resources of the Greek state, the three protecting powers were searching in all the royal nurseries of Europe to find a king for the Greeks.

It cannot be supposed that the fate of the Greek people was really a matter of indifference to the governments of France, Great Britain, and Russia, but still, we may doubt whether three statesmen more indifferent than Prince Talleyrand, Lord Palmerston, and Prince Lieven, to the sufferings of a rude peasantry, ever assembled to decide on the fate of nations. At all events, it is quite certain that they took no direct steps to prevent the civil war in Greece from thinning the popula tion and diminishing the resources of the monarchy they were engaged in founding; though nothing could have been easier.

On the 7th of May, 1832, a convention between the three powers and the king of Bavaria was signed, appointing his second son, Prince Otho, king of Greece. This treaty is a singular document. It gives the king of Bavaria power to nominate a regency of foreigners, to send a corps of foreign troops and a host of foreign officials to Greece. Yet it was notorious that Greece possessed statesmen fit enough for regents, though not for legislators or organizers: Colletti, Mavrocordato, and Metaxas were just as well known then, as now; and that there were far too many armed men and hungry officials in the country, was attested by the unceasing civil war and incessant intrigues. Every body exclaimed that Greece wanted nothing but order, and the three powers deliberately set to work augmenting the causes of disorder. To guard against the evil effects of the failure of their speculation recoiling upon themselves, France, Great Britain, and Russia

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imposed on the Greek people, by the twelfth article of this treaty, (to which it is to be observed that Greece was not directly a party,) a debt of sixty millions of francs, which was to be disposed of by the parties to the convention; and they created in their own favor an hypothecation of the revenues of the new kingdom for the payment of the interest to fall due on this debt. The whole transaction was utterly illegal, according to every principle of public or common law; and it is strange to find the ministers of France and England, in the very act of founding a new monarchy, trampling under foot the most indispensable characteristic of free states; namely, that no financial burdens shall be imposed on the people without their express consent. To increase the illegality of the imposition, the expenditure of these millions was placed at the disposal of Bavarians ignorant both of the wants and resources of Greece; and the Greeks were excluded from any knowledge of the manner in which it was proposed to employ it. We must further observe, that in this treaty founding the Greek kingdom, not one word is said concerning the lives and property of the Greeks, their civil institutions, or political constitution. Greece and the Greeks were placed at the absolute disposal of a despotic regency.

As it was suspected by the protecting powers that the Greek people would make a vigorous protest against this disposal of their lives and fortunes without their consent, instructions were transmitted to the representatives of the allies in Greece, ordering these gentlemen to obtain a ratification of the treaty as quickly as possible from some body of men having the usual characteristics of a government de facto. In order to show our readers into what a labyrinth of diplomatic tergiversation the illegal provisions of the convention involved the allies, we must transcribe one article of these instructions verbatim. The residents of France, Great Britain, and Russia, are ordered "to declare that the choice of Prince Otho was made by the three courts in virtue of a formal and unlimited authorization on the part of the Greek nation; that consequently, the three courts had a right to make that choice, and are all strictly obliged and firmly resolved to maintain it.' The fact, how

*The instructions will be found in Protocols of Conferences held in London, relative to the affairs of Greece, presented to both houses of Parliament by command of His Majesty. 1832. Annex A to the protocol (51) on the conference of the 25th of July, 1832, p. 178.

ever, is, that no such formal and unlimited authorization ever existed; if it had, the three courts would have been eager to quote it, in authentic form, in the convention. The necessity of the case was their real warrant for interfering in Greek affairs, and the idea of converting the Greek republic into a German kingdom originated in their own political sagacity. It would, on the whole, have been wiser and more statesmanlike to have told the plain truth in the official papers, instead of seeking to veil their folly in diplomatic fables.

When the Greeks heard that their country had been transformed into a kingdom, they formed a national assembly, which met at Pronia, the suburb of Nauplia, in July, 1832. The deputies displayed so much respect for the constitutional liberties of their country, that the representatives of the three pow ers were alarmed at their proceedings. These gentlemen consequently addressed a collective note to the secretary of state for foreign affairs in the de facto government, which is preserved in the archives of Greece as a proof of the contempt of France and Great Britain for constitutional liberty. The activity of Mr. Dawkins, the English minister, and the desertion of their country's cause by the great statesmen of the English party, enabled the members of the provisional government to dissolve the national assembly of Pronia by military violence. When it was found that a majority of the members were determined to defend the liberty of their country with firmness, a band of irregular troops was excited to enter the assembly and eject the deputies. Even after this act of military violence, sixty-two deputies had sufficient courage to assemble in another place and publish a protest against the conduct of the provisional government. This protest represents with great force the danger Greece incurred from the continuance of anarchy, and pointed out with justice that the intrigues of the residents of the allied powers were as much the cause of the existing disorders as the lawless violence of the irregular soldiery. The deputies had been allowed time to ratify the election of King Otho, but they had neither ratified nor approved of the other articles of the convention.

The letter of the residents is printed in the excellent work of Professor Thiersch, of Munich,- De l'état actuel de la Grèce, et des moyens d'arriver à sa restauration. Leipsig. 1838. 2 vols. 8vo.- See Vol. I., p. 407.

†This document, which is of some length, will be found translated in Thiersch, Vol. I., p. 421.

From this moment a struggle for constitutional liberty was commenced by the Greek nation, against the united power of the allied courts and the king of Bavaria. The first act of this great national contest was the desertion of liberal principles by the partisans of British influence, under the guidance of Mr. Dawkins. This party had obtained possession of the principal ministerial offices in the provisional government, and in their eagerness to retain power, its members sacrificed the interests of the Greek people to the intrigues of foreign diplomacy. Their apostasy is boldly announced in an official report signed by Mavrocordato, Tricoupis, Zographos, and Clonares, in which they make their responsibility to a foreign king paramount to their duty to the constitution of their country." From this period, the faction in Greece called the English party, though consisting of many respectable men, has always been regarded by the constitutionalists with considerable distrust, and indeed, the frequent desertion of their principles for place has prevented them from recovering the reputation they then forfeited. In their defence it has been sometimes urged, that the majority of the national assembly of Pronia consulted private interests in the line of conduct it pursued; this may or may not be true, but it is certain that the partisans of English diplomacy consulted their interests both more openly and more profitably. The real secret of the hostility of Great Britain to constitutional liberty in Greece, at this time, lay, perhaps, less in any decided aversion to liberty, or any very strong attachment to King Otho, than in a pitiful fear that a free election of deputies would give a majority to the Capodistrian party.

In consequence of the intrigues of the allied powers, and the incapacity of the provisional government, Greece remained in a state of anarchy, until the arrival of King Otho and the Bavarian regency, in 1833. Unfortunately for Greece, there was only one member of the regency who was sincerely attached to constitutional liberty; but, fortunately for her, he was the only one who possessed any legislative talents. This man was George Lewis Maurer, and he is now a member of the liberal cabinet lately formed by the king of Bavaria. Almost all the good Greece has derived from the creation of the monarchy, is to be attributed to the legislative and ad

* The document is printed by Thiersch, Vol. I., p. 412.

ministrative labors of Mr. Maurer. An excellent organization of the courts of justice and an admirable code of civil procedure still attest his merit. The heads of his colleagues were filled with very different ideas. The grand executive act by which Count Armansperg, the president of the regency, announced his arrival in Greece,the first stroke of his policy, was to issue a royal ordonnance declaring that two Bavarian lions crowned and rampant, probably on account of the loan, were to be the supporters of the arms of the Greek kingdom. The introduction of the paraphernalia of monarchy followed, and, in a short time, the Greeks had exchanged their dirty kilts, or fustinellos, for uniforms, embroidered jackets, lace, ribbons, crosses, and stars. Many absurdities were daily committed, but no absurdity committed in Greece, not even in the expenditure of the loan, was equal to the absurdity of Talleyrand, Palmerston, and Lieven, who put the money at the disposal of the regency before its members were acquainted with the wants of Greece. Mr. Maurer was unable to keep himself free from party connections, and he attached himself, perhaps, too closely to the French party. His enemies availed themselves ably of all his errors, and the king of Bavaria was induced to recall him. He ceased to be a member of the regency on the 31st of July, 1834.

From August, 1834, to the 14th of February, 1837, Greece was governed by Count Armansperg, an amiable and accomplished diplomatist, who imposed on the Greeks by assuming the air of a grand seigneur. His policy, however, was rather directed to maintaining himself in place, by securing a predominant influence to British diplomacy, than either to advancing or retarding the social and political improvement of Greece. It was by this very indifference to principle, that during his administration, the abuses of the Bavarian system

* Mr. Maurer, after his return to Germany, published a work on the state of Greece, which, besides a defence of his administration, contains much valuable information: Das Griechische Volk in öffentlicher, kirchlicher, und privatrechtlicher Beziehung vor und nach dem Freiheits-Kampfe. Heidelberg. 1835. 3 vols. 8vo. There is also an English work which throws much light on this period, but it labors under the disadvantage of presenting every thing distorted by a violent fit of Russophobia: "The Diplomatic History of the Monarchy of Greece, from the year 1830, by H. H. Parish, Esq., late Secretary of Legation to Greece." London. 1838. 8vo. An account of the state of Greece under Count Armansperg's administration will also be found in a pamphlet, entitled, The Hellenic Kingdom, and the Greek Nation, by George Finlay, Author of "Greece under the Romans." London. 1836.