Aegean Sea, Chesme victory, Athens, Corinth and Mycenae

What was the outcome? The Greek deputies were, for the most part, intriguers, rogues, seeking fortune by all means. Many of them had no commissions from anyone, and those who were actually sent based all their hopes on empty words, on stories, on the boasting of their compatriots. Of course, they were believed carelessly; but even great geniuses make mistakes, especially in that which flatters a long-cherished, favorite thought in their imagination. Kateryna knew the Greeks only from History: the Alexanders, Pericleses, Epaminondases were memorable and close to her, and by them she judged their present-day descendants. On the contrary, it would have been necessary to send reliable people who knew the Modern Greek language, in order to ascertain on the spot what could be expected from this people, and how to arrange the actions. Then they would have seen that not a thousand Russian soldiers should have been sent to Greece; that it was absolutely necessary to have a landing corps of some thirty thousand, and to wage an offensive war. Our fleet, after the Chesma victory, had no need of reinforcement; but it was necessary to repair it and supply it with everything. Instead, they concluded peace with the Turks, and although the treaty spoke of a general pardon for the Morean Greeks and the oblivion of the past, upon the departure of the Russian Fleet, this article of the treaty could not be substantially supported by anything, and the Turks deflected responsibility by the fact that they did not send troops to the Morea, but, as is known, allowed the Albanians to enter the Peloponnese, to slaughter and plunder all the Greeks without mercy. These, after the departure of the Russians, completely lost heart, and instead of defending, no longer their freedom, as they had boasted before, but their lives, their children, wives, and their property, while the Empress could have interceded for the non-fulfillment of the treaty — they stretched their throats under the knives of some five thousand barbarians, armed worse than them, and not a single Greek even attempted to defend himself against a handful of robbers! When the Russian ambassador to Constantinople began to complain about this act, the Divan assured him that it would immediately send an army to pacify and punish the robbers. Indeed, they sent Hassan Pasha; and this Pasha, under the pretext of pacifying the rebellion, slaughtered and finished robbing the rest! True, he also drove out the Albanians; but the Morea could no longer recover since then. I know that from all sides arose reproaches and rebukes against Kateryna the Great, against her military commander Orlov, and in general against all Russians. The French shouted the most, wrote all sorts of nonsense, assured that we had deceived and ruined the Greeks, and that they should never rely on our alliance. I agree that the Morean expedition did not have the success expected of it; but impartial people will agree that if we are to blame, then of course only in that we believed the Greeks, and, relying on the words of their deputies, allowed, even encouraged the uprising, which, under the circumstances of that time, apart from the ruin of the Greeks, could bring us no benefit whatsoever. More than fifty years have passed since these disastrous events. Since then everything has changed. On the one hand, the Turks overfilled the cup of sorrows and calamities of the Greeks, especially by taking away their children and forcibly converting them to Mohammedanism. The example of the French Revolution, the frequent uprisings in Italy, the rebellion of Ali Pasha, where they too took part in some way; the conquest of Egypt by Napoleon, all this gave the Greeks more courage and, as it were, familiarized them with the thought that it was still possible to fight the Turks. They became more enlightened, and in the last insurrection they were already much more courageous and braver than before. But even here they would have inevitably perished, if the Battle of Navarino — one might say — unexpectedly and accidentally given in their favor, had not removed the Egyptians from the Morea, and had not forced the European powers, as if involuntarily, to intercede for them. But even now the power-lust of the Greeks, their restless and quarrelsome disposition, their inclination to intrigue, and various political relations, will long be an obstacle to the establishment of order among them. Such are the present-day Greeks; at least that is how they appeared to me. My opinion, I confess, is not in their favor; but I assure you that truth alone guided me, and I consider this the duty of every impartial writer.