Memorials and Other Papers — CompleteDe Quincey, Thomas
General
Memorials and Other Papers — Complete
De Quincey, Thomas
English essays
Greece, a soil united by such tender memorials with yourself; confident
that you, preferring glorious poverty and the hard living of Greece to
the luxury and indolence of an obscure seclusion, will hasten your
return to Greece, agreeably to your native character, restoring to us
our valued English connection. Farewell!
"The Vice-president of the Executive,
"ATHANASIUS KANAKARES.
"The Chief-Secretary, Minister of Foreign Relations, NEGENZZ."
Since then, having in 1817 connected himself in marriage with a
beautiful young lady of Armenian Greek extraction, and having purchased
land and built a house in Argos, Mr. Gordon may be considered in some
sense as a Grecian citizen. Services in the field having now for some
years been no longer called for, he has exchanged his patriotic sword
for a patriotic pen--judging rightly that in no way so effectually can
Greece be served at this time with Western Europe, as by recording
faithfully the course of her revolution, tracing the difficulties which
lay or which arose in her path, the heroism with which she surmounted
them, and the multiplied errors by which she raised up others to
herself. Mr. Gordon, of forty authors who have partially treated this
theme, is the first who can be considered either impartial or
comprehensive; and upon his authority, not seldom using his words, we
shall now present to our readers the first continuous abstract of this
most interesting and romantic war:
GREECE, in the largest extent of that term, having once belonged to the
Byzantine empire, is included, by the misconception of hasty readers,
in the great wreck of 1453. They take it for granted that, concurrently
with Constantinople, and the districts adjacent, these provinces passed
at that disastrous era into the hands of the Turkish conqueror; but
this is an error. Parts of Greece, previously to that era, had been
dismembered from the Eastern empire;--other parts did not, until long
_after_ it, share a common fate with the metropolis. Venice had a
deep interest in the Morea; _in_ that, and _for_ that, she fought with
various success for generations; and it was not until the year 1717,
nearly three centuries from the establishment of the crescent in
Europe, that "the banner of St. Mark, driven finally from the Morea and
the Archipelago," was henceforth exiled (as respected Greece) to the
Ionian Islands.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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