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1750.

minds of the people; and the efforts of the AD Sultans, after their final triumph over the Venetians, to destroy the power of the Armatolics,* so far from being adequate to such an object, tended only to arouse every vigorous feeling of indignant independence. The spirit of free`dom and of knowledge sprang up simultaneously amongst them: every valley sent forth its own Tyrtæus, and the inspiring lyrics which still inflame the enthusiasm of the Greeks, resounded at once from Pindus to Hymettus.t

Whilst this spirit was thus springing up in Greece, a new power was quickly rising into importance in Europe, which seemed destined to encourage and protect it. From the tenth century, when the faith of the Oriental church was established by Vladimir, as the national religion of Russia, there had been a constant intercourse, more or less intimate, between that nation and the Greeks. The barbarism and feebleness of the former had, however, prevented them from rendering any assistance to their

* See vol. i. of this History, c. xi. p. 425.

Villemain, p. 179; Rizo, Cours, &c. p. 154. M. Fauriel, in his introduction to his Chants Populaires de la Grèce Moderne, states that the earliest date he can assign with certainty to the greater portion of his collection, is about 130 years back, or the beginning of the last century. Introd. p. xcviii. † A.D. 980.

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A.D. coreligionists; and it was only when their power began, towards the close of the seventeenth and the commencement of the eighteenth century, to rise into importance, that the Greeks were induced to look towards them as patrons and future protectors. Alexis Michaelowitz, who ascended the throne of Russia in 1645, had endeavoured, towards the close of his reign, to unite the states of Christendom in a crusade to check the advances of the Turks, who were then harassing the territory of Poland, and, if possible, drive them back into Asia :* but Clement X. and the other potentates of Europe, met the proposal only with politeness and promises, nor were any steps ever taken for its execution. The subsequent advances of Russia under Peter the Great, excited the expectations of the Greeks to the highest degree; but their hopes were at once overthrown by the disastrous affair of the Pruth in 1711.† / Nor does it seem at all probable, although it has been so asserted, that the designs of the Czar against Turkey proceeded at any time to the same extent with

* Mod. Univ. Hist. vol. xxxv. p. 352; Dufey, Hist. de la Régéneration de la Grèce, vol. i. c. i. p. 6; Voltaire, Histoire de Russie sous Pierre le Grand, vol. i. p. 87.

+ See vol. ii. of this History, c. xii. p. 26; Cantemir, P. ii. p. 452; Mod. Univ. Hist. v. xxxv. p. 452; Voltaire, Hist. de Russie, vol. ii. p. 1: Id. Hist. de Charles XII. l. v. vol. ii. p. 37.

those of Alexis, or comprehended the restoration of the Greek empire. In his first war with the Sultan, although acting in conjunction with Poland, Germany, and Venice, his conquests were confined to the capture of Azoff,* an inconsiderable town at the extremity of a gulf in the Black Sea, which in his second unfortunate rupture with the Porte he was forced to surrender, and finally, towards the close of his reign, he was even in alliance with the Sultan against the Persians.

No direct overtures had as yet, in fact, been made to the Greeks by the agents of Russia; and their expectation of future co-operation was grounded solely on a natural hope of assistance from the only nation possessing the same faith with themselves, which was not subjected to a foreign enslaver, as well as on a reliance on some absurd prophecies which had been circulated even in the days of the Lower Empire, that the emancipation of Greece, at a late period, would be achieved by a fair-haired nation of the North. This idea was likewise strengthened by their intercourse with the Sclavonic tribes, who had inhabited the rude district

#

A.D. 1696. Voltaire, Hist. de Russie, &c. vol. i. p. 138. + Voltaire, Hist. de Russie, vol. ii. pp. 35. 46.

Dufey, vol. i. p. 13. Some of those prophecies are mentioned in Dr. Walshe's Journey from Constantinople to Eng

A.D.

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A.D.

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of Northern Greece, from the period of the first barbaric invasion, and who claimed the same origin, spoke the same dialect, and professed the same creed, with the Russians. These, and especially the Montenegrins, learning with delight that a people of their own race had become powerful amongst the states of Europe, had early sent deputies to offer their alliance to Peter the Great, and had ever after preserved an intercourse with the North. At a later period, the hardy soldiers and enterprising merchants of the Greeks had likewise found service and security in the dominions of the Czar, and an interchange of kindnesses had always subsisted between the patriarchs and prelates of Constantinople and Moscow.*

It was not till the reign of the Princess Anne, that the extraordinary progress of the Greeks, and their ardent thirst for freedom, suggested

land, p. 50. 290; and one absurd one, forged most probably
in the time of the Empress Anne, is printed in his Appendix
No. IV. with an interpretation and translation. It purports
to be an inscription found in the tomb of Constantine the
Great; the original is given only in consonants, and these
have been decyphered, as tradition says, by Gennadius Scho-
larius, and transmitted to posterity. It foretells with a pre-
cision truly remarkable in a prophecy, the overthrow of the
Palæologi, the conquests of the Turks, and their approach-
ing destruction by the Earov yevós, or "yellow-haired race."
ξανθον
* Villemain, p. 208.

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to her general, Munich, the idea of rousing the A.D. Christian subjects of the Porte in arms against the Sultan. He was the first who proposed a scheme for this purpose during the war between the Czarina and Mohamed V.; and emissaries were even dispatched into Epirus and Thessaly to prepare the inhabitants for revolt; but the progress of the campaign assuming a new aspect, and peace being concluded almost immediately afterwards, the idea was abandoned.* Again, in the reign of Elizabeth, when a rupture was apprehended with the Porte, in consequence of the intrigues of the Count de Broglie, the suggestion of Munich, who was at the moment an exile in Siberia, was acted upon by the Russian minister Biren; his agents rapidly traversed the provinces of Greece, in order to sound the disposition of the people, but as the alarm subsided, and a prospect of tranquillity was restored, the enterprise was again postponed.†

It was destined for Catharine II. to take the first efficient steps towards the completion of the "Oriental project" of Munich, who is said, on his recall from Siberia, to have himself disclosed to her his plans of operation. Grego

* Histoire de l'Anarchie de Pologne, par C. Rulhiere, v. i. p. 164. v. iii. p. 296. Castera, v. ii. p. 67.

+ Rulhiere, v. iii. p. 289.

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