The National Register.
London, England, 1822-07-01 00:00:00

No. 1,376 —VoL. XV.]

MASSACRE OF THE GREEKS AT CONSTANTI-
NOPLE AND SCIO:
The following affecting appeal from the Greeks at
Constantinople to their brethren and countrymen
here, was received by the last mail from Turkey.
" Constantinople, May 25, 1822.
‘. Dear and beloved Brethren and Countrymen,—We doubt
not that the news contained herein must have already reached
you, and fallen like a thunder-bolt on your hearts. What more
dreadful than the knowledge that our illustrious and innocent
countrymen—ten of them in prison here, and those in the castle
of Scio, 9th in all—universally esteemed and respected, chosen
and held as hostages for more than a year past, have at last,
without a single motive, without even the shadow of &personal
accusation against them, been barbarously executed ? We at
first t.eeply lamented the unmerited restraint put upon the per-
sons of those now no more ; their death, ignominious and cruel,
in the first burst of grief nearly paralysed our faculties ; but
these we look upon now as enjoying eternal and immutable
felicity ; our pity is no longer their due, but it Bows for those
unfortunates who have survived, and who henceforth are doomed
to tyranny unexampled in history, and privations of every kind.
Who can, without shuddering, read of the total ruin, the uni-
versal desolation of our farmed and once happy isle (Scio) ; the
destruction of all its inhabit/ its, nearly one hundred thousand,
who, except a very few who almost miraculously escaped from
those ill-fated shores, have fatten victims to the sword, to fire,
to hunger, and slavery—the worst of all evils ? Who can,
without feelings of indignation, without execrating the perpe-
trators of' these horrid acts, behold a whole city lately so
flourishing, now one heap of ruins ; whole villages, innumera-
ble country seats, a prey to the flames, our celebrated school,
library, hospital for the sick, hundreds of churches richly
adorned—all, all one confused mass of smeakiug rubbish !
Our island lately so much frequented by Enropeans, and more
especially by English families of the first rank, will now have
only her ashes to show the passing stranger. Nor is this so
dreadful in itself, the most dire of our calamities. The slavery
of so many respectable women, young people, and children of
bath sexes, stet elf to dillereut parts or Asia—the inarlirts of
this city and Smyrna filled with women and young people of the
first rank, and who have received the best education ! What
can be more dreadful than this! Happy, thrice happy those
whom the steel of the assassin has snatched from scenes so
harrowing to the feelings; how miserable those still sulfered
to exist, who see the surfeiting., hear the cries, and piteous
accents of their wives, children, and relatives, and ma wit
nesses to the barbarous treatment this devoted and innocent
people receive from the wretches who have them in their power.
1% hat moo be Lid to tour charge? We pour &iota, who, froom
the beginning, have remained faithful, are rewarded with death
and slavery. It is nal known, as soon as the Porte heard of
thy iusurrection in the Morea, and sundry islands of the Archi-
-4 pelage, it sent here a Paella having v. ith him about a three
theusand troops ; the whole of the expenses of this garrison
• was defrayed by our island, aliklt, in the course of about 11
mouths, paid more than 2,700,0ted piasters, each according to
his mesas. Besides that, the Sultan ordered a choice to he
made o. sixty of the most censiderahle and respectable from
our countrymen, beo:itining by our Archbishop Plato, the elder,
and other principal inhabitanta. When the news of the iuva-
*ion of the imprudent Samiotes first spread in Scio, the princi-
pal inhabittuots waived 011 the Pacha to apprise him of it. What
was his answer ?—to send into the castle, us hostages, some
more of these nouocent men, and to transport all the provisions
out of the city into the citadel, not leaving soy whatever for
the pour inhabitants of the city, aho were so numerous. A
month afterwards, when the Samiotes landed, the Pacha seat
SOW. of the hostages, with severe' 1 urks, to prevail on the Su-
mimes to evacuate the island ; but t 11.4 imprudently resolved
to advance, sad told these ministers of lovace *lout they would
botillor put them to death lima du an The Paclia then shut
barnacle up iu the castle with all tire military, taking with him
all the hostages. It was imolerstonal that a great number of the
peasantry had joined the S.eutiotes ; they were io a wanner
forced to it, being apprehensive of tin: Samiotes themselves,
sad they were only erased with sticks and stat es. Elev ea days
after, the Turkish fleet arrived at the island, soul lauded I,doll
soldiers, who joined by the 3,000 in the castle, being unable to
attack and defeat the 3,000 &mimes, used their weapons
vgainst the innocent and disarmed inhabitants, and turned Iheir
fury against women and (!loihlren, kiliisg, burning, end taking
in slavery all the inhabitants of the place ; the men they cruelly
slaughtered, the *mama and children they brutally treated and
huddled together in one of the large sopoares, which contained
several hundred of the most resokoduole families ; they have
not left a *tome upon a atone—all destroyed, all ruined ! It
would hill YOllllllOOl ill record the (Efferent scenes of honor that
the ruffians were guilty of—humanity shudders at it. But this
universal desolation had not yet satisfied the blood-thirsty fol-
lowers of itlahaulined ; they bad heaped woe their treaibliiig
and tender victims all the bitterness of their fanaticism—tea
tavi, the first oh their nation, both as to character and property
—men who hail always followed the paths of rectitude in their
commercial dealings —whose relations were established in
almost every known commercial city in the known world—
men innocent of any machinations against the Turkish govern-
ment, and who could not, if even they would, have been par-
tieipators bi the rising of the island, since they had been 1.1
months under the grasp of the Turkish satrap. Ten of three
were at Cuustantiutiple, the remainder at Seio. Lord Strang'
ford made strenuous elfin ts to save them—neglected no re-
sulonst rueces laced the greatest ardour iu the cause of suf-
fering ionoucence, and thought Inc had succeeded in slielieriug
then' from Coeir,inapendiii4 fate,loaving obtained a promise from
the Porte that no harts' should be dune them, when if soooldeicy
gave orders for their cannons. The ten in Cuuatentieupie