The Sun.
London, England, 1822-07-12 00:00:00

FOR THE SUN.

• MR. EDITOR=I have lately read in several•
newspapers, an intimation that the class of Chris-
tians called THE SOCIETY or Faterins,. or
QUAKERS, are about to set forward a charitable
subscription for the relief of the suffering Greeks
of the isle of Scio. There is something in this
timely succour of the wretched which calls to
mind the parable of the good Samaritan. The
rich, the brave, the powerful, seem to pass on
one side, from these their Christiatt brethren,
" trodden under foot of the infidels," robbed,
outraged, and left for dead ; while those plain
people of peace, who start from a sword, and re,
coil at every species of violence, stop as it were
on the bloody field, to bind up the wounded, to
raise the bereaved widow from the body of her
murdered husband, to rescue helpless infants of
both sexes from circumstances of captivity worse
than even •the crdellest deaths ! In this light,
all who read and believe the horrible details from
the Ottoman Empire, must regard the present con-
duct of THE FiLIENDS; the friends indeed of huma-
nity, the true disciples, in charity, of Christ. Some
persons, however, turn from these representations
with the observation," that they are Etxagge-
rated ;" or, that " we are too poor to interfere ;
in short, that we have no business with a quarrel be-
tween the Turks and the Greeks ; and that the
latter deserve the worst they can receive from
the former, the cruelties they retort beink not a
whit less than those so reprobated in their Maho-
medan masters !"

May not these objectors meet some such an-
swers as these?

That the representations of Turkish oppres-
sion; extortion, and wanton murders of men,
women and children, perpetrated on the Greeks,
are no exaggerations, daily, hourly information
will prove, if carefully investigated. That we
are too poor to interfere in a great scale, may
be true ; but that it is no business of ours, or
of any other nation, to put some stay in the way
of a merciless extermination of another Christian
people, all humane hearts must be prepared to
deny ; and that the Greeks deserve all the cruel-
ties their Mussulman masters have wreaked upon
them, because exasperated nature has been
wrought upon to retaliate, every candid mind
cannot but be as ready to confute. The first
mover in aggressions hitherto has ever been
deemed the most punishable; therefore, he
whose attacks and savage outrages compel -the
oppressed to stand on the defensive, and, by
rousing resentment has stimulated human passions
to revenge, is certainly the object to %horn in-
dignation should be first directed; as a man, in
tenderness of blood shedding would rather shoot
the wolf that warries the sheep, than the dogs,
which rising up in protection of the fold, neces-
sarily hang on the ravening creature, goring its
sides.

That the oppressed may defend themselves
without the horrors of retaliation, is certain ;
such is the law of christianity ; and such, were
the moderating spirit of a just and brave ally to
step in to the assistance of the Greeks, would
doubtless be the case now. But it being the
infirmity of human passions for cruelty to pro-
duce its like, and particularly when the out-
raged party is rendered desperate by conscious
comparative weakness, and a conviction that. no
mercy dwells with its foe, the duty seems. more
manifestly ours to check so dreadful a progress
of crime and misery, by delaying no longer to
put an effectual shield at least between our poor
brethren in the East, and their extirpating ene-
mies. It has been said that national policy %rill
not allow of such interference : but is it policy
to shew an insolent Mahornedan Power that the
greatest of the European Nations fear it ?
And what else wilt be understood at the
Porte, by our standing quietly by, witnessing
unheard-of horrors wreaked on a ChriPian
people, and we only preaching the justice
we might compel ? Is it policy to teach the
nations at large, that any thing is more estimable
in the eyes of a great people than justice and
humanity—than succouring the oppressed—than,
in fact, paying a long-standing debt of grati-
tude ? Paying it to the enslaved and suffering
posterity of the noble arid polished people to
whom we owe our learning, our arts, and our
sciences, and indeed almost all the refinements of
the human Mind ; the classic country of inspirit-
ing examples ; of SOCRATES, and of LEONIDAS ;
the sacred soil where PAUL preached, and whence
Sr. JOHN dictated his prophecies!
That mere negociation, to compass the protec-
tion of the Greeks, will always be to no purpose,
is proved, by pledges to that effect having been
given one moment to the Russian and British
Delinisters at the Porte, while in the next such
scenes are perpetrated as those which have so
recently laid the Isle of Scio in blood. The only
argument to be used with barbarians who know
no law but their own will, is awe of punishment
from a superior force; and hence the Tyrant of
Constantinople must be made to see that a
penalty may hang over his breach of word.—
Were Russia to have au army on one ,side of his
dominions, or Great Britain a fleet on the other,
fear would constrain what Le has. neither huma-
nity nor honour to perform ; and Christendom be
released from the future odium of having aban-
doned a brave and suffering people of its own
faith to the swords, the chains, and the fires of
an implacable and infidel enemy. - P.

',• We are indebted for the foregoing letter to a Lady who
is an ornament to literature and to her aex. Her works,
through the medium of amusing narrations, convey the most
impressive lessons of morality ; and, her life affords a pattern
well calculated to exemplify the virtues which she inculcates,
and to realise the purest creations of her genius and her taste.

PARLI AMENT.

nousE OF LORDS, THURSDAY, JULY 11.
The We,tmorelaxid and Middlesex County Rates' Bills
were read a third time and passed.
WALES.

The LORD CHANCELLOR said that he had received a
notg from the Marquis of Lansdowne, informing him --hat he
wai indisposed, and requesting that he would postpone for
hins the second reading of the Bill for regulating the levying
of King's Silver Fines in Wales until Wednesday next. He
therefore should now move that the Order of the Day be dis-
charged, and be fixed for Wednesday next.—Agreed to.
The Cnarge of Pensions Bill, the Consolidated Fund Grow-
ing Produce, and the Loan Bills, were read a second time.
The Scotch Register Offices' Bill went through a Committee.