The Sun.
London, England, 1826-05-16 00:00:00

= bodies of Arabs. - This circumstance, the author
thinks,is likely to opeu the eyes of the Greeks to the
necessity of paying attention to military organization;
, but he fears their national pride is the greatest obstacle
r to their receiving instruction
.they feel themselves the
descendants of heroes, and look down with contempt
on all the rest of the world : they will hardly con-
, descend to accept the most necessary supplies : they
evince great bravery in -a skirmishing desultory sort of
warfare, but have no notion of order : they are excel-
lent marksmen, and their usual practice. s to sfculk
,behind any object which shelters them, and thence fire
• repeatedly with great rapidity and effect but they
• never quit their retreat until compelled to do so.
One of the many remarkable features in the mili-
tary character of the Turks is their strange neglect of
the means they have in their hands, and their Mere-
dible apathy to the success of their own measures. In
this light Mr. Swan represents (2, 37.)- the state of
the Paella's frigate, and his conduct in the naval 'corn-
mand. The vessel itself-is described as large, beauti-
. fidly modelled, and fitted out with every requisite, but
the ammunition lies scattered over every part of the
ship. Most of the. men were asleep, and the rest
hardly awake, with pipes in their mouths ; upwards
of 90 had no other office than to attend upon the
Pacha, there were about 800 on board ! The Pacha
heard with the utmost unconcern of • the loss of four
corvettes, he was. perfectly ignorant and indifferent as
to what had become of them ;—in an action of seven
' hours, his frigate fired only one broadside and himself
three guns ! He saw one of • hiavessels dismasted,
and rendered incapable of any other alternative than
that of firing his own magazine before his eyes, with-
out thinking of rendering the smallest assistance !
Not less surprising is their unaccountable Mode of
conducting military movements on land, for a de-
scription of which we refer our readerS•to vol. 2. p. 93.
At p. 212, we have the remark of a Greek, as to
the military disposition of his countrymen. He dis-
approved extremely of the interference of French offi-
cers, who, it seems, are the most numerous of all the
various European adventurers. The Greeks, he ob-
served, would- not be led by them, but the English
they would follow to the death. The author observes,
that he has heard this last sentiment uttered on various
other occasions ; and a soldier once eagerly inquired
of him, when it might be expected that the English
army would arrive to co-operate with them
In the short sketch we haVe given, we have confined
our attention chiefly to those parts of the volumes
before us which bear an especial reference to the
Greeks. And in this point of view we think the work
likely to assist materially. in throwing a light on the
present state of that unfortunate people, as well as on
some of the recent transactions in their history, of
which the accounts have all, at times, been involved
in . much uncertainty and ambiguity. But, in viewing
the work more particularly in this light, we would
by no means wish our readers to suppose that it is at
all confined to political discussion; on the contrary,
the author is peculiarly entertaining in his descriptions
of the variety of scenery and character which he meets
with, in various other parts of his excursions ; and
there runs through the whole a' vein of good sense
and good nature, not unmixed with acuteobservation,
and an occasional display of much humour, in the de-
tail of ludicrous scenes and situations in 'which the
author sometimes found himself.