1766.

costs of his mission, and the purchase of orna- A.D. ments for the churches, and presents for the leading men of the Greeks. This adventurer, in the mean time, had been actively employed amongst the Greek residents of Venice, Trieste, and the Adriatic; he had dispatched agents throughout the various districts of Greece, and at length, in 1766, had set out in person for the Morea.

1767.

It was at this juncture that a remarkable A.D. commotion, effected by the interference of Pappas Oglou, occurred amongst the Montenegrins, which tended for some time to attract the attention of the Porte from the affairs of Poland to the disturbances of her own frontiers, and served for a little to retard the declaration of hostilities against Russia.* In 1765, the Bishop of this warlike district had aroused the spirit of his people by proclaiming the advent of a deliverer, and the speedy approach of freedom from the Turks. Whilst their enthusiasm was still ardent, a young and singular adven

1

An interesting account of the proceedings of the Russians in Greece, in 1770, will be found in the XIth Book of Rulhiere's Histoire de l'Anarchie de Pologne, vol. iii. p. 285. Rizo, the native historian of the Modern Greeks, and the secretary and friend of Capo d'Istria, the late Russian minister, has cautiously passed over, with a few lines, this interesting event. P. II. c. ii. P. 82.

A.D. 1767.

turer appeared amongst them, a monk of one of their convents, who had added to his theological lore the study of medicine, and had gained during a short residence, by his talents and services, the affections of the mountaineers and

their priests. His influence over them was strengthened by an air of mystery in which he enveloped all his actions; his features were hidden by the shadow of a huge bonnet, which concealed his face, and a single whisper was sufficient to spread amongst the people the belief that Stephen, the caloyer, was no other than Peter III. the husband of Catharine, who had escaped from the hands of Orloff and his other assassins.* At length, in 1767, so powerful was his hold on the imaginations of the people, that at his summons the Vladikas, or chiefs of the tribe, assembled in one of their gloomy valleys, listened to his proposal of revolt against the Ottomans, entered into a league which was to continue for a year, and received at his hands an oath of fidelity and brotherhood. At a second convocation he proposed that the bond, instead of being annual, should be for ever; the first conjuration was dissolved, and the chiefs of the Montenegrins, under the conduct of Stephen, bound them• Villemain, p. 211.

1767.

selves by a solemn agreement to eternal hosti- D lity against their tyrants.

Favouring the report of his royal identity, Stephen now attracted around him all those who were known to be in correspondence with Russia. He exacted and received from them the most devoted homage; he walked abroad, attended by a numerous guard, levied from the people a tribute for his support, and pointing towards the direction of Constantinople, promised emancipation and freedom to his followers. He received, with imperial pomp, the abject salutations of the archbishop and the prelates; and in his proclamations to the Montenegrins, he assumed the singular title of

66

Stephen, little amongst the little, a Sinner among Sinners, and a Saint amongst Saints;" whence he derived the popular appellation, by which he is still distinguished, of Piccolo Stephano, or Stephen the Little. The mountaineers, anticipating his pretensions, believed him a direct agent of Heaven, and hasted to proclaim him Emperor of the Greeks; and the rival bishops of Sava and Pech contended for the honour of his coronation and recognizance.

Matters were, however, succeeding too rapidly with the new monarch, and he began to dread a premature explosion in the North ere

A.D. 1767.

Pappas Oglou should have sufficiently arranged his plans in the Morea. In order to let the excitement of his partisans cool a little, he selected a body of chosen guards, and issuing from the mountains in October 1767, he crossed over into the Venetian district of Cattaro, where he attempted the same system of agitation and revolt. The Pastrovick pirates, the people of Cattaro, who are chiefly the descendants of refugees from the Peloponnesus, the inhabitants of a town, called from its founders Maina, but occupied by a race who have forgotten their original language, and the natives of a few other districts, flocked at once to his standard, and hailed him with the same enthusiasm as the Montenegrins.

This measure was probably suggested in some degree by the hope of involving Venice in a rupture with the Porte; but the wary republic was not to be so easily entrapped. Her commandant at Cattaro sent to learn the pretensions of Stephano, if avowed; or to require his immediate departure, should he persist in his mysterious incognito. The Senate was in fact reduced to the necessity, either of quarrelling with Turkey, of disobliging Russia, or of declaring hostilities against the Montenegrins. Without doing either, it took such official precautions as satisfied all. It issued a

1767.

proclamation, affixing a price to the head of A.D. each of its lawful subjects, who espoused the cause of rebellion, and, without taking actual cognizance of existing facts, it rested content by avowing hostility against their future oc

currence.

Europe, in the mean time, expected with intense interest the measures of Catharine in this conjuncture. She had already been seriously annoyed by the proceedings of another impostor, at Woronetz, who had attempted to excite insurrection against her, by assuming the title of Peter III.; but, in this instance, the phantom was one of her own creation, and, to the surprise of Christendom, she regarded it with complacency; she even proceeded so far as to request the intervention of the Sultan in quelling this insolent pretender. One of the Pachas of Albania had already sent a body of troops, under the command of a capidji, to put down the malcontents; but Stephen terminated his expedition by burying him alive, and dispersing his detachment.* His troops then acquiring more audacity began to levy contributions on the loyal subjects of the Porte, stopped the caravans, and even intercepted the tributes destined for Constantinople. The flame thus kindled on the coast spread rapidly to the interior; * Rulhiere, v. iii. p. 304; Rabbe, p. 130.