While in Wallachia, the voice of liberty was sti fled in its birth, it sounded a louder note along the shores and islands of the Łgean sea, and was re echoed from Sparta to Macedonia. The Morea, however, was the principal theatre of action, and a general congress was formed at Calamata for the purposes of union and subordination. The small islands of Hydra, Spezzia, and lspara were also forward in the cause, and supplied a marine of more than a hundred armed vessels, manned by the best and bravest seamen in the empire.
The news of the Greek insurrection fell like a thunderbolt upon the populace of Constantinople, and they could not at first believe that the slaves of Greece would so boldly court destruction from the strong arm of their Ottoman masters. When convinced, however, of the reality, their astonish ment was turned into fury, which they proceeded to gratify by a general massacre of the Greek popu lation of the Fanar, accompanied with circum stances of aggravated cruelty and insult. The venerable patriarch of Constantinople, with four of his archbishops, were on Easter Sunday hanged before the doors of their respective churches; and their bodies, after remaining supended for three days, were delivered to the Jews, who treated them with every species of ignominy, and then threw them into the canal. Similar scenes were acted at Adri anople and many other parts of the empire. But these atrocities served only to fire the Greeks with more deadly enmity against their tyrants; and it is to be lamented that they were led to imitate those savage acts of outrage and cruelty at which human ity recoils.
The first great effort of the Peloponnesians, un der Mauro Michale and Colocotroni, was directed against Tripolitza, the capital of the province; which, after a terrible resistance, was taken by as sault, when 8000 of the inhabitants are reported to have perished in the sack of the city. Very consi derable treasures and military stores fell into the hands of the victors, and furnished a seasonable supply to the half armed peasantry which corn posed their armies. This was followed by the cap ture of Corinth, to which city the general congress was removed; and, soon after, the plan of a general constitution was matured and promulgated amid the acclamations of the deputies and people. By this constitution, the legislative power was vested in a senate chosen by annual election from the dif ferent districts of Greece; and the executive go vernment was lodged in a council of five, to whom were committed the disposal of the forces by sea and land, and who had also a negative upon all laws passed by the senate. Their naval successes
were equally brilliant. Their flotilla captured a Turkish seventy-four in the Gulf of Adramytti, which so alarmed the rest of the fleet, that the Turkish admiral fled for shelter under the cannon of the Dardanelles.
The successes of the Greeks determined the Porte to pour such a force into the Morea as would defy all opposition, and crush at once this dreaded insurrection. Chourschid Pacha assembled 50,000 troops in the plains of Thessaly; and a fleet was equipped to co-operate with this army, and to land additional forces in the Gulf of Lepanto. This fleet, however, was ordered to commence the cam paign by a descent upon Scio, which, by the as sistance of the Samians, had just thrown off the Turkish yoke, and declared its independence. A horde of Asiatic barbarians was transported from the opposite coast, whose numbers and fury soon overpowered the unwarlike Sciotes, and left the whole island at their mercy. The splendid city and flourishing villages of this beautiful island were sacked and burned, and their population butchered without regard to age or sex. Of its 100,000 in habitants, not a fifth part remained to occupy its smoking ruins. Fifteen thousand are supposed to have escaped to the neighbouring islands; 25,000 perished in the massacre; and 41,000 were sold into slavery. While this terrible tragedy, which filled Europe with horror and indignation, was per petrating at Scio, Chourschid Pacha passed the straits of Thermopylx without resistance. Corinth and Argos surrendered at his approach, and the Greeks were compelled to retire from before Na poli de Romania, which they had long blockaded and had reduced to the last extremity. Chourschid, however, had advanced without magazines and sup plies; and when he endeavoured to retrace his steps, the Greeks, who being unable to cope with their invaders in the plains, had seized all the passes and defiles, by a succession of encounters so harass ed and obstructed his retreat that lie reached Co rinth with the loss of nearly 25,000 men. The fall of Napoli de Romania was the consequence of this disastrous retreat. In western Greece, the Turks under Omer Vrione succeeded in taking the capital of the Suliotes; but failed in their attack upon Mis solonghi. The following campaign was equally discreditable to the Ottoman arms; and the reco very of Corinth by the Greeks shut them out from the i\Iorea.