the movement was so general at Athens during the affair, that on the night of the 14th of September, while the troops were marching into the square before the king's palace, the British minister was said to have sent his secretary of legation to the ministry of finance, which is opposite his residence, in order to inquire the cause of the tumult in the city. The sergeant of the guard is said to have turned round very coolly and replied, "You ask me what's the matter! Well; now that is what I call diplomacy; as if you did not know at the British mission what is going on this night in Athens a great deal better than I do."

peo

The project of dethroning King Otho, whether entertained by the French, the English, or the Russians, (for they accused one another,) failed completely. The Greeks had begun to be disgusted with the constant interference of foreign diplomatic agents in their affairs, and neither the army nor the ple could be induced to adopt the cry for an abdication. In vain the corps diplomatique was prevented from obtaining an audience of the king; in vain a decree compelling his majesty to confer a decoration on those who had taken up arms against him, was submitted to him for signature. King Otho had tact enough to perceive that though the people were for the constitution, they were not against him, and he was easily persuaded by the members of the council of state who communicated with him to accept all the propositions made to him, and, by keeping possession of the throne, save Greece from anarchy.

It may here be necessary to point out the other causes which prevented the success of his enemies. In such cases, foreign agents naturally pay more attention to guard against the possibility of being personally compromised in case of failure, than to arrange the details of each step in the proceedings necessary to conduct the conspiracy to success. It therefore happened that the English and Russian parties were unprepared with the precise proposals necessary to bring about their ultimate object, and while they were balancing in doubt and indecision, the people adopted the determination to make Otho a constitu tional monarch. Great Britain was the first to perceive that the moment for guiding the movement had passed away, and by prudently joining the popular cause and affecting to become a partisan of King Otho's constitutional power, she acquired a predominant influence during the formation of the constitution. Russia, on the other hand, satisfied that the incongruous political position of Greece will yet require another "convention"

for its settlement, has not taken any prominent part in Greek affairs since the revolution of 1843, but has abandoned the field to the rivalry of England and France.

The constitution of Greece, completed in 1844, is not without some serious defects. It was framed by a coalition of the constitutional French and English parties, and is an imitation of European monarchical constitutions, rather than a political system, adapted to the peculiarities of Greece. In imitation of the House of Peers, a senate, consisting of members for life, has been appointed. The selection of these senators is left to the king, but his choice is restricted by numerous regulations, and the consequence is, that the Senate consists of a number of secondary characters, without influence or knowledge, and is utterly useless as a legislative chamber. Indeed, it cannot be denied, even by the warmest friends of Greece, that the national assembly, irritated by foreign domination and diplomatic intrigue, displayed a spirit of political jealousy and official cupidity, which has proved very injurious to the cause of liberty. Every Greek not born within the territory of the microscopic kingdom, or who had not taken up arms during the revolution, was excluded from all appointments under government. In consequence of this national decree, many of the ablest public servants were dismissed from employments they had discharged with honor for many years. Two parties were thus created among the Greeks themselves,-the autochthones, [citizens by birth,] and the strangers. The ingratitude of the autochthones in passing this disgraceful law, merits the severest reprobation; but the error of Mavrocordato and the English party, in countenancing the proceeding, was an act of pitiful weakness or blundering ambition. Their misconduct soon produced bitter fruit. From the hour the decree passed, the popularity of the English party began to decline among the enlightened portion of the nation; it was evident that the advancement of Greece was a secondary object to men who could so basely abandon liberal principles to serve their party views; and henceforth their actions were scrutinized with suspicious and searching

eyes.

Immediately after the termination of the national assembly, in 1844, Mavrocordato formed a ministry under the open and avowed protection of Great Britain. With the exception of Mavrocordato himself, this ministry did not contain a single member suitable to the place he occupied. Tricoupis, who

was named minister of foreign affairs, though a man of the most honorable private character, had been unfortunately involved in political differences with Sir Edmund Lyons, which had prevented their holding any intercourse during the meeting of the national assembly; the British minister having publicly proclaimed Tricoupis as a renegade from the cause of the constitution. One consequence of the bad composition of this ministry was the immediate secession of a numerous body of constitutionalists from the English party.

The administration of Mavrocordato lasted only four months, -from the 13th of April to the 16th of August, 1844,and in that short space of time, the English party contrived to squander away the last relics of their political reputation. The favorable state of public opinion, when Mavrocordato commenced forming his cabinet, is stated by Sir Edmund Lyons, in a despatch to the Earl of Aberdeen, in the following words: "Thus, my lord, the great political change which commenced on the 15th of September, has been consummated, almost without bloodshed, (for the gendarme who lost his life, fell by accident,) and entirely without interruption of commerce or communication by sea or land: not a vessel or a port has been stopped; the taxes have been collected and paid into the treasury, and the tribunals have pursued their ordinary course.' Such was the state of Greece in the month of April; before the month of August the country was involved in civil war,- Grivas was in arms against Mavrocordato, and the capital was on the eve of insurrection.

This change is to be attributed to the injudicious manner in which Mavrocordato and his colleagues selected their officials, and to his open subserviency to foreign influence. The ministry very soon drove both the country and the court into the opposition, and Mavrocordato himself became an object. of suspicion to the people, and of aversion to the king. The imprudence of naming a man who had served in the Turkish armies as governor of Missolonghi, and of appointing" a bold but profligate captain," who had been both a rebel and a Turkish partisan, commandant of a district, admits neither of explanation nor apology. At Athens, the general officer com

*This document will be found in the Parliamentary Papers - Correspondence relating to the recent events in Greece; 1843, 1844. p. 91.

† Sir Edmund Lyons gives the favorite officer of Mavrocordato this charac ter.-Papers relating to the third instalment of the Greek loan; 1835, 1836. p. 18.

manding the garrison of the capital was put forward as the ministerial candidate for the house of representatives, in direct violation of an article of the constitution just completed, and at the imminent risk of producing a bloody collision between a disorderly populace and an undisciplined soldiery. At Pa tras, the minister of justice endeavoured to force the inhabitants to elect him as their deputy, by means of the gendar merie. A letter of his, ordering the officers to make use of military violence to secure his election, fell into the hands of the opposition, and was laid before the king and communicated to the press. The peal of indignation it created sounded the knell of Mavrocordato's ministry.

From the moment of its formation, this cabinet had been an object of aversion to King Otho, on account of its intimate connection with Sir Edmund Lyons. It was from a knowledge of this insuperable aversion, as well as from an opinion. of its utter incapacity, that Colletti refused to take office with such colleagues. In vain M. Piscatory, the French minister, employed his influence to support Mavrocordato, and preserve the appearance of union between the French and English parties. The attempt was impracticable, and the moment Colletti perceived that the English party had shipwrecked its reputation, he stepped forward as its opponent, at the head of a large majority of the constitutionalists, supported by the court, by the strangers dismissed from office by Mavrocordato, and by the autochthones, or citizens by birth.

It is not our intention to review the administration of Colletti: it belongs to the domain of party politics, not to history, and the truth is still concealed in the most contradictory statements. That his ministry has been, on the whole, popular in Greece, cannot be reasonably doubted; but, in our opinion, it has carried on the government too much on the cajoling and jobbing principles of Count Armansperg, to receive from us any testimony in its favor. When the British press, however, asserts that Colletti governs Greece entirely by force and corruption, common-sense demonstrates that the thing is impossible. The whole population of Greece is armed; universal suffrage and the vote by ballot exist. Now, Colletti must be a wonderful man, if, with an army of five thousand men, he can intimidate the dispersed and disorderly population of the Greek kingdom; and if, with a net revenue of little more than ten millions of drachmas, he can bribe a majority of the population. If Colletti can really intimidate the Greeks with their

own troops, and bribe them with their own money, he is evidently the very man the protecting powers want, to save them trouble; and they ought to make much of him. The fact is, his administration has derived some popularity from the reductions made in the amount of taxation by the late house of representatives, though really without any merit on his part, for, like most ministers, he would have prevented the reduction had it been in his power.

The unusually long duration of Colletti's ministry has given a victory to French diplomacy, which has excited the bile of Lord Palmerston to such a degree, that he has commenced hostile operations against the Greek state, for submitting to a state of things so anti-Britannic. Taking advantage of the separate guarantee, given by each of the allies, for a third of the loan imposed on Greece by the treaty founding the monarchy, the British Foreign Secretary has compelled Greece to pay the interest due to Great Britain on the third guaranteed by her. In vain have France and Russia declined adopting a step of such severity, and pointed out, that if the measure should be adopted simultaneously by all the three protecting powers, it would cause the dissolution of the monarchy, and compel them to enter into new arrangements for the settlement of Greece. The English government, turning a deaf ear to these arguments, has adopted the resolution of acting independently; and Greece has already commenced paying to Great Britain the interest of a sum of money, of which the British government directed or authorized the expenditure of a larger portion than the government of Greece. The measure appears to us to be not only severe, but absolutely unjust.

We have already mentioned, that this loan was not sought for by the Greeks, but was imposed on them by the allies, for the purpose of tranquillizing the affairs of the East of Europe. The Greeks were not a contracting party to the convention of the 7th of May, 1832, (by the twelfth article of which the loan was created;) and the three protecting powers were as great gainers as Greece by the actual expenditure of the money. The Turkish question, which alarmed both France and England, was arranged with this fund. The Greeks, moreover, were left in complete ignorance of the manner in which the protecting powers had disposed of the loan, until the meeting of the national assembly, in 1843, long after it had been expended.

As Great Britain is now receiving from the Greeks her