The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster: With an Essay on Daniel Webster as a Master of English StyleWebster, Daniel
History
The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster: With an Essay on Daniel Webster as a Master of English Style
Webster, Daniel
Speeches, addresses, etc., American; United States -- Politics and government -- 1815-1861; Webster, Daniel, 1782-1852
barbarians.
It was about this time, that is to say, at the commencement of 1821,
that the revolution burst out in various parts of Greece and the isles.
Circumstances, certainly, were not unfavorable to the movement, as one
portion of the Turkish army was employed in the war against Ali Pacha in
Albania, and another part in the provinces north of the Danube. The
Greeks soon possessed themselves of the open country of the Morea, and
drove their enemy into the fortresses. Of these, that of Tripolitza,
with the city, fell into their hands, in the course of the summer.
Having after these first movements obtained time to breathe, it became,
of course, an early object to establish a government. For this purpose
delegates of the people assembled, under that name which describes the
assembly in which we ourselves sit, that name which "freed the
Atlantic," a _Congress_. A writer, who undertakes to render to the
civilized world that service which was once performed by Edmund Burke, I
mean the compiler of the English Annual Register, asks, by what
authority this assembly could call itself a Congress. Simply, Sir, by
the same authority by which the people of the United States have given
the same name to their own legislature. We, at least, should be
naturally inclined to think, not only as far as names, but things also,
are concerned, that the Greeks could hardly have begun their revolution
under better auspices; since they have endeavored to render applicable
to themselves the general principles of our form of government, as well
as its name. This constitution went into operation at the commencement
of the next year. In the mean time, the war with Ali Pacha was ended, he
having surrendered, and being afterwards assassinated, by an instance of
treachery and perfidy, which, if it had happened elsewhere than under
the government of the Turks, would have deserved notice. The negotiation
with Russia, too, took a turn unfavorable to the Greeks. The great point
upon which Russia insisted, beside the abandonment of the measure of
searching vessels bound to the Black Sea, was, that the Porte should
withdraw its armies from the neighborhood of the Russian frontiers; and
the immediate consequence of this, when effected, was to add so much
more to the disposable force ready to be employed against the Greeks.
These events seemed to have left the whole force of the Ottoman empire,
at the commencement of 1822, in a condition to be employed against the
Greek rebellion; and, accordingly, very many anticipated the immediate
destruction of the cause. The event, however, was ordered otherwise.
Where the greatest effort was made, it was met and defeated. Entering
the Morea with an army which seemed capable of bearing down all
resistance, the Turks were nevertheless defeated and driven back, and
pursued beyond the isthmus, within which, as far as it appears, from
that time to the present, they have not been able to set their foot.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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