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PART SECOND.

CONTAINING OBSERVATIONS UPON THE TERRITORY, POPULATION, AND GOVERNMENT OF GREECE; UPON THE STATE AND PROSPECTS OF EDUCATION; UPON THE GREEK CHURCH; AND UPON THE MEASURES TO BE PURSUED BY PROTESTANTS FOR THE BENEFIT

OF ORIENTAL CHURCHES.

CHAPTER I.

TERRITORY, POPULATION, AND GOVERNMENT OF GREECE.

Territory, according to the Protocol of Feb. 3, 1830-Population-Peloponnesus compared with the state of Massachusetts-Its ancient inhabitants never as many as might have been sustained by the products of the soil-A much greater number may be sustained now, than could have been in ancient times-Government-Manner of its first organization under the Presidency of Capo d'Istrias-Particular acts-Mode of collecting the tithes-Demogerontes and Extraordinary Commissioners-Judiciary-Proceedings in relation to the fourth national Congress-Contemplated revision of the Constitution.

THE northern boundary of Greece, as determined by the Protocol of Feb. 3, 1830, commences at the mouth of the river Aspropotamos, (the ancient Achelous,) and runs up the southeastern bank of that river as far as Angelo-Castron. From thence it passes through the middle of the lakes Sacarovista and Vrachori to mount Artoleria, thence to mount Axiros, and thence along the valley of Calouri, and the top of mount Eta, to the gulf of Zetoun. Acarnania, the greater part of Etolia, and Thessaly, are thus excluded, and a Turkish barrier is interposed between continental Greece and the Ionian. Islands. But Locris, Phocis, Boeotia, Attica, and the important island of Euboea, belong to the Grecian commonwealth. Marathon, Athens, and Mesolongi, are in

200

POPULATION OF GREECE.

Greece. The straits of Thermopyla are on the frontier. The Peloponnesus is, of course, a part of the nation; and so are the Western Sporades and the Cyclades. But the islands of Candia, Calymnos, Patmos, Icaria, Samos, Chios or Scio, Psarra, and some others less important in their neighborhood, are not assigned to Greece.

The Peloponnesus contains about 280,000 inhabitants, the islands about 175,000, and continental Greece, including Acarnania and Etolia, about 180,000;b -in all, 635,000 souls.

The territory of the Peloponnesus, according to Malte Brun, is not quite as large as that of the state of Massachusetts. Taking into view the different modes of living in the two countries, their respective products might support the same number of people-perhaps a million. There is, indeed, no good reason to believe, that the Peloponnesus ever contained that number of inhabitants, not in the most splendid periods of Grecian history-the extravagant statements of some ancient writers on this subject, having been disproved in modern

(a) Soutzo, the Greek historian, estimates the population of the Morea before the revolution, at 460,000, occupying 965 towns and villages. He reckons the Turkish population at 50,000. The Turks were represented to us, on respectable Greek authority, at 80,000. These of course have been destroyed, or driven from the country. Many Greeks have also perished by the sword, or by famine and disease. At any rate, the present number is not believed to be greater than is stated above.-M. Pouqueville says there were 1,422 villages. He must have counted every hamlet.

(b) This is the estimate made by Count Guilleminot after considerable inquiry. The President Capo d'Istrias, in his correspondence with Prince Leopold, states the Greek population of Acarnania and Etolia at 80,000 or 100,000. It is a pity that these two provinces should have been excluded from the benefits of the revolution, when two-thirds of the soldiers in the Greek army belong to them, and when their inhabitants contributed more than any other two provinces to the success of the struggle, and had been less completely subjected to the Turkish rule than those of the other parts of Greece-Mane perhaps excepted.

(c) The area of Massachusetts is about 7,500 square miles. That of the Peloponnesus, according to Malte Brun, is 7,227 square miles. The length and breadth of the peninsula, according to Strabo, are equal, and each about 160 miles. He compares its shape to the leaf of the plane tree. From its Italian name Morea, it would seem, in modern times, to have been likened to the leaf of the mulberry tree.

ANCIENT POPULATION.

201

times. The inhabitants of peninsular Greece may have been about as numerous in the ages of antiquity, as those of all the territory of modern Greece now are. The Peloponnesus had then scarcely any commerce. The people lived on the produce of their own soil; and neither their wars, nor their migrations, are believed to have been owing either to want of room, or of food. We are to consider, also, how imperfect and partially extended must have been the agriculture of those times. The Greeks thought the cultivation of the soil an employment unbecoming the dignity of freemen, and committed it almost entirely to their slaves. Xenophon said, that every man might be a farmer, as neither art, nor skill was necessary; but would he have thought so, if the agriculture of his times exhibited either? And when we consider the piracies, which harassed the shoresthe maraudings, which disturbed the interior-the invasions, which so often desolated whole districts-the severe, bloody, and destructive maxims, which regulated the wars recorded on almost every page of Grecian history-the frequent revolutions in several of the governments, which were followed by proscriptions, banishments, confiscations, and massacres —and the great uncertainty, which existed almost everywhere, whether he

(d) See Hume's Essay on the Populousness of Ancient Nations. The other authorities for the statements here made respecting peninsular Greece of ancient times, are Mitford's History of Greece, and the Law of Population, by M. T. Sadler, vol. i. Some of the facts are these.--Mantinea contained but 3,000 citizens, and yet Mantinea was as large as Megalopolis, or any other city of Arcadia. Pausanias says, that all the men in Achaia able to bear arms, did not amount to 15,000. Thucydides says, that the parts adjoining Pylos (Navarino) were desert and uncultivated. Thebes humbled Sparta; yet Thebes contained, in Alexander's time, only 24,000 citizens and 12,000 strangers and slaves. Aristotle says, that the Spartan territory did not contain, in his day, a twentieth part of the inhab itants it was capable of supplying with subsistence. Hume reckons the free Greeks of all ages and sexes, in the reign of Philip of Macedon, (excepting the Lacedemonians,) at 860,000, and the slaves at 430,000; in all 1,290,000. Perhaps half of these inhabited the Peloponnesus.

(e) Both Plato and Aristotle so declare it.

(f) Xenophon wrote most of his works while residing in the Pelopon

nesus.

(g) When Alexander ordered all the exiles to be restored through the cities of Greece, it was found that the number amounted to 20,000.

202 PRESENT RESOURCES OF THE COUNTRY.

who sowed would be permitted to reap; we see, that the ancient inhabitants of the Peloponnesus would be likely to plant and provide just so far as their necessities demanded, and no farther. We may, therefore, conclude, that peninsular Greece could have supported many more inhabitants in ancient times, than it actually did. -Nor have we any reason to suppose, that its natural productiveness has since materially diminished. We find the same rivers, valleys, plains, and mountains, that were described in ancient times. Their prominent features, so far as comparison is possible, are the same. Man and his works have perished, but nature is substantially unchanged. And now, the country is to be viewed in connection with those advances, which human society has made during the lapse of two thousand years. Great have been the improvements both in the theory and practice of civil governments, so that it is scarcely V possible that Greece should fail to have a wiser and better government, (whatever may be its form,) than were most of those possessed by the ancient Moreover the country is no longer divided into petty and hostile communities; and though this may be less conducive to the formation of statesmen, and heroes, and to that mental excitement which operated so powerfully on the genius of the ancient Greeks, than if there were five or six rival states; still its influence on agriculture, the useful arts, and commerce, must be great and salutary. We are to consider, too, that the present cultivators of the soil are not slaves, as they were in ancient times, but are freemen; and that they may enrich their agriculture, if they please, with all the improvements of modern days, and that they have already enriched it by those two prolific and farinacious plants, the maize and the potato, the gift of the western to the eastern world. And may not the Greeks become a manufacturing and a commercial people? The Peloponnesus

states.

(h) The potato is not yet much cultivated in Greece, but a writer in the government Gazette anticipates great advantages from its culture to all the inhabitants, and especially to the poorer classes.

GREEK GOVERNMENT.

203

contains a vast amount of water-power, and the same simple process, which irrigates the fields,' may convert the wool of the Arcadian flocks into cloths. The silk and the cotton are both products of its soil. Nor is the Grecian mariner any longer alarmed by the waves of the Sunium and Malaic promontories. He spreads the sails of his beautiful barque to every wind, and wants only a little more education and practice to venture every sea. Hydra and Psarra shew, that the Greek needs only commercial inducement and opportunity. He possesses excellent harbors, and the geographical position of his country is unrivalled; and now that he has escaped from the chains of Turkish despotism, his active genius may be expected to lead him very far into the great system of commercial enterprise.

It would seem, then, not only that a greater number of people may now be sustained in the Peloponnesus, and in Greece at large, than could have been sustained in ancient times; but that the bounds cannot well be set to the rise of that people on the scale of numbers, of wealth, and of power. Grant to the Greek people a wise and paternal government, a sound and universal education, an enlightened, pious, and laborious Christian ministry, a scriptural worship, and correct morals pervading the community; and they will be sure to command the respect of mankind.

It enters within the design of this work to give some account of the existing government of Greece. I shall confine myself chiefly to a statement of facts, as they appear in official documents for the years 1828 and 1829.

J. A. Capo d'Istrias, on assuming the Presidency in Jan. 1828, found the government administered by an executive committee and a council. The former ceased by law, on his arrival. Finding it impossible to convoke

(i) See p. 99.

(j) Two centuries have not elapsed, since England purchased nearly all her woollens from Belgium, and scarcely one, since she obtained her cotton goods from Germany.-Say's Political Economy.

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