Memorials and Other Papers — Volume 1De Quincey, Thomas
General
Memorials and Other Papers — Volume 1
De Quincey, Thomas
English essays
manifested its disastrous tendency in the new circumstances which
succeeding years brought forward. In 1797 the French made a lodgment in
Corfu; and, agreeably to their general spirit of intrigue, they had made
advances to Ali Pacha, and to all other independent powers in or about
Epirus. Amongst other states, in an evil hour for that ill-fated
city, they wormed themselves into an alliance with Prevesa; and in the
following year their own quarrel with Ali Pacha gave that crafty robber
a pretence, which he had long courted in vain, for attacking the place
with his overwhelming cavalry, before they could agree upon the mode of
defence, and long before _any_ mode could have been tolerably matured.
The result was one universal massacre, which raged for three days, and
involved every living Prevesan, excepting some few who had wisely
made their escape in time, and excepting those who were reserved to be
tortured for Ali's special gratification, or to be sold for slaves in
the shambles. This dreadful catastrophe, which in a few hours rooted
from the earth an old and flourishing community, was due in about equal
degrees to the fatal intriguing of the interloping French, and to the
rankest treachery in a quarter where it could least have been held
possible; namely, in a Suliote, and a very distinguished Suliote,
Captain George Botzari; but the miserable man yielded up his honor and
his patriotism to Ali's bribe of one hundred purses (perhaps at that
time equal to twenty-five hundred pounds sterling). The way in which
this catastrophe operated upon Ali's final views was obvious to
everybody in that neighborhood. Parga, on the sea-coast, was an
indispensable ally to Suli; now, Prevesa stood in the same relation
to Parga, as an almost indispensable ally, that Parga occupied towards
Suli.
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