The Sun.
London, England, 1867-02-02 00:00:00

FRANCE.

PARIS, Feb. 2.

M. Marino PapadopouloVreto, a Greek publicist,
has been nominated Chevalier of the Legion of

Honour.

THE INSURRECTION IN CRETE

(From the Correspondent of the Tinzes)

ATHENS, Jan. 24.
On Sunday night the Salamander, a French gun-
boat, accompanied by an Ottoman frigate and cor-
vette, arrived in the Piraeus, bringing back 440
Greek volunteers from Crete. Arrangements were
made for landing them next day, and the Greek
Government informed the French Minister that
their arms were to be delivered to the municipal
authoritios. Nothing happened to induce either
the Demarch or the military commandant to suppose
that the landing of these volunteers would be at-
tended with any extraordinary difficulty. But the
opinion of the democracy of Athens had not been
heard. One of our own great philosophers, who
had no fondness fat statesmen and rather a weak-
ness for cobblers, observed that there are few things
more difficult than to persuade cobblers and politi-
cians of their class that they do not understand
government better than Prime Ministers. This class
at Athens took counsel during the night on the ques-
tion how the degenerate volunteers from Athens,
who declined to suffer death by starvation for the
glory of Greece, were to be treated in order to Ate
the honour of the country. The question seems to
have been put fairly, though it was not answered
wisely. Before morning the mind of democracy
was worked up into one of those strange fits of
national insanity to which mankind is liable.
At an early hour on Monday democracy set off
to walk from Athens to the Piraeus, which occupied
a good hour. A few of the volunteers on board the
French ship, who were informed that their families
were ready to receive them, landed early and
walked home quietly. But when the general dis-
embarcation commenced the populace of Athens
and the Piraeus was alreadyasserabled on the quay,
and the Volunteers were received when they trod
the soil of their native land with what a Greek news-
,
paper calls a:hailstorm of paving stones and a shower
of cudgels. Some jumped into boats, others were
knocked into the sea; but the French ships were at
hand and they were all saved. A few, however, fell
wounded on shore, and they would have been mur-
dered on the spot if the police had not saved them.
For some hours the rabble had the upper hand,
and a Ministerial paper describes what it
calls the " magnanimity of the Greek people."
It says that incessant shouts were raised
of "Death to the traitors ; strike down
the deserters ; throw the blasphemers of
Hellenic glory into the sea ; murder the wretches
who have saved their lives on board Turkish ships."
The bells of the churches were kept ringing, the
drums of the National Guard were beating, and the
citizens were firmly resolved to murder every man
who bad returned from Crete. This statement is
confirmed by eye-witnesses, both Greeks and
foreigners. The newspaper which contains the
above notice declares that two or three were mur-
dered, in spite of all the endeavours of the police to
save them. Several wounded men were carried to
the Custom-house, and one at least was not expected
to live. This plan of encouraging volunteers to go
to Crete by murdering volunteers who return will,
if it prove a successful mode of recruiting, supply
undeniable evidence of the power of Hellenic
patriotism.

The men whom the populace sought to murder
were enrolled by the Cretan committees as chosen
soldiers, and furnished with arms and one month's
pay. They have fought like heroes for at least two
months, according to the testimony which the com-
mittees and the press published up to last Saturday.
We were told last week that these very men had
repulsed three attacks which the Ottoman forces
made on Aghia Rumeli, and for weeks it has been
reported that every volunteer killed habitually seven
Turks or Egyptians weekly. Now the same men
are called brigands and sheepstealers. When the
committees in Greece left them without pay, and
the General Assembly of the Cretans left them
without rations, it is very likely that they helped
themselves to any food that fell in their way. Sir
Charles Napier, whose grim sayings are not easily
forgotten, usel to say when he was Governor of
Cephalonia, that he knew a very pious Greek
bishop who had once lived by sheepstealing, which at a
later period he called his " pastoral" life. It would,
therefore, be unjust to examine the pastoral habits
of the volunteers in Crete with close scrutiny.
Many of those who have returned are sick ; some
are wounded, and all risked their lives many times
from Turkish bullets before the encountered Greek
paving-stones. Their appearance is sufficient evi-
dence that they have encountered severe hardships.
Yet those who remained comfortably at Athens
while they were marching and starving on the
snow mountains of Crete endeavoured to murder
them in cold blood as a sacrifice to Greek vanity.
The Government has been weak enough to
humour this assumption of executive power by de-
mocracy, and has flattered the popular frenzy in-
stead of calming it. The volunteers were landed on
a desert islet in the Bay of Salamis, on which there
is a small chapel of St. George. It is to be hoped
that they were supplied with tents and rations.
Thus Greece rewards those who fight in her cause.
The flank movement of Mustapha Pasha, which
turned the Greek camp at Zurba, and enabled him
to occupy the whole province of Selinos without
losing a man, compelled the Volunteers to retreat
to the cold and elevated plains of Omalos, where only
a part could procure food. The rest escaped into
the district of Sphakia, descending into the valley of
Samaria or Aghia Rumeli, or else wandering east-
ward to the plain of Anapolis and Loutro. About
1,000 collected iu these places. The Sphakiots
who had made their submission to Mustapha
Pasha advised them to send a deputation to the
Imperial Commissioner, asking for permission to
return to Greece in foreign vessels ; and they en-
forced their advice by refusing to furnish food to
the enemies of the Sultan. When the proposal
obtained the consent of Mustapha Pasha the only
foreign man-of-war in Crete which was immediately
ready to put to sea was the Salamander. On his
arrival at Loutro Captain Lejeune found about 600
volunteers waiting to embark ; but as his own gun-
boat could not transport more than 100, he per-
suaded 340 to embark in a Turkish frigate and cor-
vette, which formed part of the Ottoman squadron
on the southern coast of Crete now co-operating
with the movements of the army. About 150
volunteers are said to have declined embarking in
the Ottoman frigate from fear they should be carried
as prisoners of war to Constantinople.
It is reported that other volunteers are desirous of
quitting Crete, and two officers of rank in the Greek
sevice who received leave of absence to go to the
island are said to have sent a demand to Mustapha
Pasha to be allowed to return to Greece in foreign
vessels. The Imperial Commissioner has granted
their demand, but requires them to furnish him with
lists of the officers and men who are to be embarked
with them, as he will not allow any native Cretan
to depart as a volunteer.

It is difficult to seize the whole truth on the spur
of the moment. The first flush of cool, deliberate
falsehood and calculated misrepresentation bewilders
the unfortunate man who looks into the muddy tor-
rent of information through which he must wade.
Some of the enthusiastic patriots at Athens assert
that the departure of all the volunteers from Crete,
whom they have been pouring into the island with
so much energy for the last three mouths, will now

do no harm to the cause. It will, they say, only
have the effect of reducing the insurrectional move-
ment to what they term, with a touch of euphem-
ism, a guerilla warfare; but, as the so-called guerilla
warriors must live at the expense of the industrious
Christians, those who know Crete well say that the
insurrection can only be prolonged as a state of bri-
gandage. The general opinion among foreigners is
that spring will powerfully aid the operations of
Mustapha Pasha, and enable the Ottoman and Egyp-
tian troops to encamp in the high pasturages, thereby
turning and commanding all the principal passes
which now offer so many difficulties to their pro-

gress. The Greeks cannot expel the Turks from the
fortresses, the protecting Powers will not, for they

have more important business to attend to, and the
credit of Greece is such that no financial combina-

tion is possible with the present system of govern-

meat in the Hellenic kingdom.
Brigandage has been somewhat repressed in
Greece lately, but a daring attempt was Mealy

... ..-

made to levy contributions in Acarnania, which
has fortunately been partially unsuccessful. The
chiefs of three bands sent a summons to the
Demarch of Astakos to pay them 30,000 drachmas,
the price of a single English traveller, or Athenian
wine merchant, or they threatened to burn down
the magazines at Aghios Panteleeemonos, now full
of valonea. The brigands omitted to take the
advantages to be derived from telegraphs and
steamers into their calculation, and Government
was in time to send soldiers and gendarmes from
Patras to protect the Demarch and tha valonea.
But the brigands carried off two young women from
the huts of the nomade shepherds in the neighbour-
hood, and demanded a large ransom for their release.

,_
e/Ambr

HER MAJESTY, &c•

OSBORNE, Feb. 1.
The Queen drove out yesterday afternoon, accom-
panied by Princess Christian, and again this morn-
ing with her Royal Highness.
Princess Louise, Princess Beatrice, and Prince
Henry of Prussia walked on the grounds this morn-
ing, and Prine2 Leol,old drove out, attended by )Ir.
Legg.

Prince Arthur and Prince Christian, attended by
Major Elphinstoue, landed at Stokes Bay yesterday
morning and visited the new fortifications in- front
of Gosport and Portsmouth, round which they were
conducted by Colonel Jervois and the commanding
officers of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers.
Their Royal Highnesses afterwards honoured Lieut.
General Sir George and Lady Buller with their pre-
sence at luncheon, and in the afternoon visited the
barracks of the Royal Marine Artillery at 14:astneY
and the batteries of Southsea Castle, returning to
Osborne in the Royal yacht Alberta at 6 o'clock.
Sir John Cowell and Capt. von Schroetter had the
honour of accompanying their Royal Highnesses.
Dr. Robertson had the honour of dining with the
Queen and Royal family yesterday.