untries; whose
inhabitants, however divided in religion and manners, almost all agree
in oppression.

The English have at last compassionated their negroes, and under a less
bigoted government, may probably one day release their Catholic
brethren; but the interposition of foreigners alone can emancipate the
Greeks, who, otherwise, appear to have as small a chance of redemption
from the Turks, as the Jews have from mankind in general.

Of the ancient Greeks we know more than enough; at least the younger men
of Europe devote much of their time to the study of the Greek writers
and history, which would be more usefully spent in mastering their own.
Of the moderns, we are perhaps more neglectful than they deserve; and
while every man of any pretensions to learning is tiring out his youth,
and often his age, in the study of the language and of the harangues of
the Athenian demagogues in favour of freedom, the real or supposed
descendants of these sturdy republicans are left to the actual tyranny
of their masters, although a very slight effort is required to strike
off their chains.

To talk, as the Greeks themselves do, of their rising again to their
pristine superiority, would be ridiculous: as the rest of the world must
resume its barbarism, after reasserting the sovereignty of Greece: but
there seems to be no very great obstacle, except in the apathy of the
Franks, to their becoming an useful dependency, or even a free state,
with a proper guarantee;--under correction, however, be it spoken, for
many and well-informed men doubt the practicability even of this.

The Greeks have never lost their hope, though they are now more divided
in opinion on the subject of their probable deliverers. Religion
recommends the Russians; but they have twice been deceived and abandoned
by that power, and the dreadful lesson they received after the Muscovite
desertion in the Morea has never been forgotten. The French they
dislike; although the subjugation of the rest of Europe will, probably,
be attended by the deliverance of continental Greece. The islanders look
to the English for succour, as they have very lately possessed
themselves of the Ionian republic, Corfu excepted.[237] But whoever
appear with arms in their hands will be welcome; and when that day
arrives, Heaven have mercy on the Ottomans; they cannot expect it from
the Giaours.

But instead of considering what they have been, and speculating on what
they may be, let us loo