The Litchfield County post., 1827-01-12


 the language to form any impartial estimate of the national character, and they come in con- tact chiefly with those classes upon whom the long suhjectiun to the Turks has had the great est effect; such as persons in authority under the government, or otherwise in Turkish em- piOy-serVants interpreters, the EOwer order of traders, and generally the inhabitants of those towns in which the Turkish pOpu- latlon has great preponderence of num- bers'.'
 e It is obviously not in those situations, but ] in the more unfrequented islands, and on the continent of European Greece, where the Turks do not form tenth part of the pOpula- lation, that the inquiry ought to be made, whether any of the ancient talents and virtues of the Greeks have survived the centuries of Mussulman oppression which supervened up- on the dcbasement caused by Byzantine des- potisn. weakness and superstition. In such an inquiry it would be further necessary. to distinguish between the inhabitants of the plains and those of the mountains; for those two classes have been placed in very different circumstances since the establishment of the Ottoman powerin Greece"
 The Turkish oppression has been so direct ly the source of the chief defects in the char acter of the Greek. of our day, that in exact proportion as that fatal influence is enfeebled. so rises the national character. Its nature is elastic, and springs up even in every nomen- tary removal of the pressure but its true dis plays are to be found where the Turk dares not come. The most remarkable contrast to the inhabitants of the plains is to be found in those Islands of the Egcan, "where there are no Turkish inhabitants ;'' and in the mountain ous parts of Crete, ofLaconia, Arcadia, Eto- lia, Locris, Epirus, Thessaly, and Macedonia. Here the Greeks bear "the most striking re- scmbiance, in both their virtues and their yi- ces, to their lllustrlous ancestors" industri- ous, hardy, cnterprising, heroic; living on little, or lovers of wine and gaiety, as the oc- cason prompts; sanguine, quick, ingenious initiative" The picture has i:s dark side
 'Vain, inconstant, envious, treacherous. and turbulent" This picture is not from the hand of an enthusiast; the stains are too faithfully marked. But we must remember, that these defects would be the natural qualities of any people leading the distracted and uncertain life of the Greeks-even in his strongest place of security, pent up amid wild tracts of bar ren country, shut out from general communi- cation. condemned to the habits of the hunter and the marauder liable to annual nroads of d merciless enemy and from his cradle to his grave, either the spoil or the antagonists of the oppressor. Poverty, suspicion, loneliness -the incemency of the weather--a life of haZard-fiight or attack--what original con- stitution of virtue could have attained fits true stature ! There is not national character un- der heaven that would not have hardened and darkened under this perpetual rudeness of fortune. That the Greek retains any qualities emitting him to rank among men, is the phe- nomenon-the powerful evidence of what it. iustrious qualities he may yet show forth, when misery and shame shall cover him no more, and he shall be called to take his armed stand in the great field, where nations struggle for more than the glory of the sword.
 Providence has commanded that yarious climates shall bring forth various fruits out of that vast treasure of fertility and bounty which it has laid up for the enjoyment of man. It has commanded that among the races tjfman, there shall be variety of intellectual powers for the general good. Why should it not have followed up this palpable law of benif- cence as far as nations, and appointed those distinctions among the mightier masses of so- ciety. which have been found essential to the system of individual communities? Why shall not the nation and the land be made for each other--The dweller on the shore of the ocean be gifted with an innate spirit of adven- ture, with hardihood of frame, steady intre- pidity and the love of the storm-The dwell Ter m the bosom of great fertile continent l no e".eu "''l tiie sturuy strength of agrcul- ture, the sober diligence, the unambitious love of home-The dweller in the land, that was to he the first stepin the advance of the East crn colonies to fill the solitudes of the West. the splendid school from which the arts of Europe were to rise, be gifted with the rich peculiar faculties for his noble designa- tion!
 Why shall we doubt that that suitableness of means which in the lower creation awakes our homage and wonder, should be abandon ed in the great scale of society, ard that na- lions should be suffered to drop into their nla- ces upon the earth like seeds borne upon the VagraH wind! Montesquieu, with the short slghtedness of French philosophy, attributed all national character to climate. Others. not less shortsighted, have attributeditto to govern mcnt: But the Turk, under the sky of Greece. IS still the barbarian of the In1ails the Greek under the government of the Sultan, is stillthe man whose ancestors were the living flame that kIndled the mind of half the world. But for Greece' that mind might have flowed away liNe the vapor from the mineral, noxious or wasted till it was turnedsin into light. Every view that history or reason can give us of the purposes, the spirit, aad the capabilities of Greece and her people, impresses the conclu- sion that she was made the original and se- .G L k>AA