long flourished in the principal Turkish marts: that competition having been greatly favoured, against the interests of the Frank merchants, by their own diplomatic agents, who largely exercised the privilege of granting protections to the Christian subjects of Turkey, in virtue of which they enjoyed the same commercial privileges as the merchants of the protecting state.

The French revolution had a further effect in promoting the commerce of the Greeks, and with it the extension of education and knowledge throughout the nation, by placing in their hands the greater part of the carrying trade of the Black Sea and Mediterranean, which had formerly been enjoyed by the South of France and the Adriatic.

For several years before the present insurrection broke out, there were between four and five hundred Greek ships employed in the commerce of the Black Sea; at the same time that colleges with professorships in various branches of instruction were established at Kydoniés, Smyrna, Chios, Ioannina, besides the smaller establishments at Patmos, Thessalonica, Ambelákia, Zagorá (in Pelion), Athens, Dimitzána (in Arcadia), some of which, although of old date, had been renewed or increased of late years. It is not surprising,

under these circumstances, that the mental improvement of the Greeks, and the superiority which it gave them over their unimproveable masters, had rendered the latter more and more dependent upon them in the transaction of business of every kind.

And here the reflection may be made, that if Greece should achieve her liberation, she will be indebted for the return of civilization and independence to the same peculiarities of geographical position and structure, to the same indelible features of nature, which raised her to greatness in ancient times. While her extensive sea coast and numerous islands and harbours rendered her the country of maritime commerce, and were the original cause of the opulence which led to perfection in the enjoyments and arts of civilized life, the mountainous structure of the interior generated that free and martial spirit, which, however cruelly suppressed, has never been completely destroyed.

We shall now offer a few remarks on that which we have already indicated as having had a powerful effect in retarding any movements of the Greeks for the assertion of their independence

we mean the increase of the religion of Mohammed in Albania.

Although it cannot be doubted that many Greeks have abandoned the cross for the crescent, since the Turkish conquest, and that there is a considerable proportion of Greek blood in the present race of Ottomans, as well from the male as from the female side, it is nevertheless certain that the Greeks have in general shewn an attachment to their church, very remarkable in their oppressed state, and highly honourable to the nation. In return, their church has been a great consolation to them in their servitude, has maintained union and nationality among them, and, by preserving the use of the Hellenic in the church service, has saved their language from the utter corruption to which it would otherwise have been exposed from the absence of all Greek literary education, and from the mixture of the Turkish, Albanian, and Bulgarian tongues.

The Albanians on the other hand, who are the remains of the ancient Illyrians, a race in all times very inferior to the Greeks in the scale of humanity and civilization, and among whom Christianity had probably never taken a very deep root,

have shewn a much slighter regard for their religion since the period of the Ottoman invasion, although they have not had that degreee of excuse for their apostacy, which the complete subjugation of some parts of Greece may be thought to have afforded to the Greeks. Half the Albanian nation has relinquished the Christian faith for that of Mohammed. The poverty of the soil prompting a large portion of the people to seek a subsistence abroad, and the military habits acquired in their domestic wars leading the greater part of them to prefer the profession of arms, their reputation as soldiers has increased as the Osmanlys have degenerated, until they have become the only effective infantry in the Turkish dominions, and are to be found in the service of almost every Turkish chieftain in Europe, Asia, and Africa.

This enterprizing, poor, and mercenary people was not slow in perceiving the advantages attached to a conformity with the governing religion; that it opened to them a road to all the distinctions which the Ottoman government affords, or at least that it facilitated the acquisition of a fortune, with which they might retire to their native mountains. Some of the chieftains, supported by their followers, obtained possession of small dis

tricts in Northern Greece, and even in the Moréa; while others endeavoured to increase their power and possessions in Albania, where these acquisitions being generally made at the expense of their Christian neighbours, numerous families of the latter were forced to emigrate into Greece and other parts of Turkey in pursuit of subsistence by trade or agriculture; while others, sometimes by whole districts at a time, converted their churches into mosques, made peace with their Moslem neighbours, retained their possessions, and became partakers of the advantages enjoyed by the profession of the Islam.

The apostacy of Albania having advanced in an increasing ratio, its effects have been most felt in the last half century, or at the same time that the moral and political changes, which we have already described in the Greeks, have been most remarkable. When it is considered therefore that, in this period, insurrections encouraged by an enemy of the Porte, have twice been quelled chiefly by the Musulman Albanians, and that the military strength of the Turkish government in Greece has of late years been derived almost entirely from them, it seems evident, that it is to the conversion of so large a proportion of the Alba