into proper order. If the surveyor is, on the contrary, an unwilling officer, or if the attention to his own affairs prevents him giving his time to the duties of the office, he avoids the fine by accepting the charge, pays the bills and wages without much knowledge of their nature and accuracy, and one of the labourers becomes in fact the road-surveyor; but in every case of annual nomination there is this evil, that, as soon as the surveyor has, by a year's apprenticeship, begun to know something of the nature of the business, his place is filled by another, who comes in for the same time to take lessons at the expense of the parish.'-Evidence, p. 51.

The surveyor is not unfrequently a man who makes his sense of public duty subordinate to private advantage, or to feelings of good neighbourhood. Consequently when the weather is too wet to allow of the ordinary operations of husbandry, the farmer's teams are sent to ruin the roads under pretence of repairing them; much of the time is wasted, and not unfrequently some portion of the stones dug and carted at the expense of the parish is shot down in the gateways-perhaps in the farm-yard-of the reluctant performer of statute-duty. The surveyor now and then complains: but, if the culprit is his friend, his courtesy prevents him from remedying the abuse; and if a village rival, he will not do it lest he should appear to be actuated by vindictive motives. For the redress of grievances arising from the remissness of parish surveyors, the public look to the rural guardians of the laws. These gentlemen perhaps expostulate and threaten; but their expostulations and threats are received with civility and promises of amendment, and then treated with neglect. Perhaps the justice is fond of the sports of the field, and fears that any strictness of regime on the subject of roads might tend to the destruction of foxes, or to the diminution of his stock of hares and pheasants; animals against which the farmer has no light cause of quarrel on other scores. Or he is a quiet and peaceable man, who cannot bring himself to incur, however undeservedly, the imputation of being an agitator; a disturber of the stagnant tranquillity of the neighbourhood. For these and similar reasons, we anxiously wish to see all the parish highways placed under the superintendence of a district surveyor of skill and integrity, free from the influence of local interests and local feelings.*

In the event of any new highway legislation, we would humbly suggest that some protection ought to be given to footways in parish

It might be desirable to empower any petty sessions, acting for a division consisting of two or three hundreds, in case of the roads being much neglected, to appoint a surveyor for such district; remunerating him by proportional payments from the several parishes included in it, and giving him either the sole management of the roads, or merely a controlling power over the parish surveyors. An act to this effect was, we believe, all but passed in 1816. We trust that the promoters of the measure will not be discouraged.

roads.

roads. Many such have been recently formed either by the public spirit of individuals, or by parishes at a loss for employment for their poor; but they are out of the protection of the law, and at the mercy of every mischievous wight who thinks proper, in the insolence of his. heart, to drive or ride upon them. Those by the side of turnpike roads are protected by pecuniary penalties; and we know not why a similar protection is not also extended to the parish footways.

ART. V.-1. Proceedings in Parga, and the Ionian Islands, with a Series of Correspondence and other justificatory Documents.By Lieut. Colonel C. P. de Bosset. 1819.

2. Exposé des Faits qui ont précedé et suivi la Cession de Parga; Ouvrage écrit originairement en Grec par un Parganiote, et traduit en Français par un de ses Compatriotes; publié par Amaury Duval, Membre de l'Institut Royal de France.Paris. 1820.

OF

F all the people on earth the English feel most sensibly any act of outrage or injustice committed, or supposed to be committed, by the government or its agents; and no other nation has so many facilities of giving scope to those feelings, and of making its indignation heard in every corner of the globe. The speeches in Parliament, the reports of them (not always correct) in the daily newspapers, and the comments of their editors, heightening or palliating the subjects, as may suit their own party-views, or the state of the public mind, rarely permit any act of the government to pass unnoticed. This is as it should be in a free state, and what a generous and highminded people have a right to expect; but it is not as it should be, to abuse the public feeling by garbled and incorrect statements, by misrepresenting facts, ascribing false motives, and, above all, by letting out part only of the truth, and suppressing the

rest.

Few questions of minor importance have been more generally misrepresented and more completely misunderstood than that which relates to the measures adopted by the British government, in regard to the restoration of Parga to the Sublime Porte. That there should prevail on the part of our countrymen a strong feeling of regret at the necessity of a measure, which made the inhabitants of a little state abandon for ever their native place, is no more than might be looked for from them, in favour of the weak and unfortunate, without any knowledge of the particular merits of the case but this amiable bias, however laudable in itself, has in the present instance been most grossly abused by a strange perversion of circumstances, from sheer malevolence on the one hand, (at least

we

we can devise no other motives,) and political hostility on the other. The effect has been precisely that which was intended; and that conduct, which really was, and ought to have been viewed as a striking instance of the extent of British liberality, humanity and consideration for the unfortunate, has, with a singular degree of mischievous industry, both at home and abroad, been tortured into a breach of national faith, a dereliction of the true and established maxims of policy, and a wanton or thoughtless sacrifice of an innocent and meritorious people, to whom we were bound by every tie of justice and humanity.

A plain statement of the proceedings respecting Parga, collected from those officers on the spot, on whose honour and character we can fully rely, and from such official documents as have been made public, will, we are confident, convince every unprejudiced mind, that a feeling of kindness for the inhabitants of Parga influenced every measure of the British government; and that the same principle invariably guided the conduct of Sir Thomas Maitland, on whom devolved the difficult and delicate task of carrying these measures into execution.

When Sir Charles Monck opened that furious battery in the House of Commons, which had been charged and pointed for him by a foreigner resident in London,* or, as it is more delicately expressed below, by a person who was not a British subject,' the name of Parga vibrated for the first time perhaps on the ears of the greater part of the members of that august assembly.—In vain did they consult their Guthries and their Pinkertons-these geographers were profoundly silent on the subject of this barren rock, which had swollen at once into such importance.-But we must hasten to our subject: To bring the facts of the case under a clear and ample view, we shall first state the nature and origin of our connexion with Parga.

The present town of Parga had no existence before the irruption of the Mahommedans into Greece, which happened about the end of the fourteenth century, though it is pretended that its name was taken from some former town called Hypargos, on account of its dependance on Argos. According to Miletius, Paleo-Parga, or old Parga, contained a greater number of inhabitants than any other in the Thesprotian division of Epirus; but of this-etiam

* ‹ The Pargiots, who were now reduced to the greatest distress, sent over a statement of their case, with the necessary documents, to be laid before the British Parliament; but having addressed them to a person who was not a British subject, he did not think himself entitled to make any formal application in their name, though we have reason to believe, that the notice which has been taken of their case in Parliament originated in this communication.'-Edinburgh Review.

periere

periere ruina. The history of the present Parganotes, however, can be traced only to the period of the invasion of Greece by Mahomet II., when the inhabitants of this part of the coast and the neighbouring villages fortified themselves, in the strongest position which their country afforded, against the Turks; and after the immediate danger had passed away, built the town on the rock where the fort now stands, and surrounded it with a wall. This rock juts into the Ionian sea, opposite the southern end of Corfu, or the northern extremity of Paxo, and is about 240 feet in height; on its summit stands a building which is usually called the citadel. The town consists of one street, and a few narrow lanes; the houses are extremely poor, but have a pretty appearance, from being perched on the sloping side of a hill.

The extent of the territory of Parga is about six miles along the coast, and generally about two in depth; the landscape is beautiful, and affords every where the most picturesque scenery. With the exception of the rock it may almost be said to consist of one continued olive grove, interspersed, however, with gardens, orchards of orange and lime-trees, and little cottages, which, with here and there a tall cypress towering above the rest, give a lively variety and a pleasing animation to the picture. The sides of the hills are planted with vineyards, and the open spaces produce a little wheat and Indian corn, sufficient for about four months consumption of the population; the remainder of their grain being partly purchased with the little returns of their oil, oranges, &c. from the Adriatic, and partly from the territories of Ali Pasha.

At the time above mentioned, the Lion of St. Mark defended the coast and islands of the Adriatic and Archipelago; and the Parganotes, to ensure their escape from the bondage of the Turks, placed themselves, in 1401, under the protection of the Venetians, by whose powerful aid they were enabled by degrees to extend their territory to its present boundary. This tract was, at that time, and till very lately, surrounded by hordes of marauders, held under no rule but that of adventitious circumstances, though nominally subject to Turkey. They were generally joined by parties from Parga, and, when closely pursued, found protection within its walls. This disturbed state of the district of Epirus, along the shores of the Ionian sea, suited the policy of the Venetian government. In fact, it could not possibly have held Parga and its other three principal stations, Butrinto, Vonitza, and Previsa, on the same coast, under any established government; it therefore cherished a system which placed a barrier between its continental possessions and the regular forces of the Turkish dominions. On the fall of that power, however, these rival sons of rapine, who infested every part of Albania, were gradually

VOL. XXIII. NO. XLV.

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gradually extirpated, or reduced to a state of obedience, by the ruling Pasha of that country.

In 1797, the French, after breaking up the Venetian republic, took possession of the Ionian Islands, and, at the same time, of the four positions above-mentioned; but in the following year, when a coalition was formed against France by England, Russia, and the Ottoman Porte, the Ionian Islands surrendered to the allied fleets of Russia and Turkey, under the command of Admirals Oksakoff and Katu Bey; and Butrinto, Vonitza and Previsa fell into the hands of Ali Pasha, who is said to have committed dreadful slaughter on the French, and on those Greeks and Albanians who had taken up arms, and joined the enemies of the Porte. Parga, however, supported from without by the Sulliote robbers, and within by a French garrison, held out against the Pasha, until the inhabitants found an opportunity of throwing themselves into the power of the Russians, who sent a garrison for their protection.

In 1800 a treaty was concluded at Constantinople between Russia and the Sublime Porte, by which the Seven Islands were erected into an independent republic, under the sovereign protection of Russia; and Butrinto, Parga, Previsa and Vonitza, ceded to the Porte in sovereignty for ever, on certain conditions favourable to these four places, and guaranteed to them by Russia. In consequence of this treaty Abdullah Bey was sent from Constantinople to govern them, and Previsa was immediately evacuated by Ali Pasha. The Parganotes, however, stubbornly refused submission to the Ottoman power, until the end of 1800, when, by the persuasion of the Russian ambassador at the Ionian Islands, they consented to receive the Bey, and continued, in quiet possession of all their privileges, under the Turkish dominion, for nearly six years.

In 1806 the war broke out between Russia and the Porte, and Veli Pasha, the son of Ali, seized upon Previsa, Vonitza and Butrinto by express orders from the Porte; confiscated the possessions of the Russians; planted there several Ottoman families; and drove the Christian inhabitants into the interior. The Parganotes complain that this was contrary to the stipulation of the treaty-and so indeed it was; but they choose to forget that the people of Previsa had, on a former occasion, joined their arms to the French, with

* If the details of cruelties, whether true or false, were not always disgusting, it would be curious to compare the accounts given on this occasion by Hobhouse, Pouqueville, Duval, and the Edinburgh Review; all so different in their nature and degree, as to raise considerable doubts of the truth of any one of them: those stated by Dr. Holland are entitled to credit.

These were principally the free exercise of the laws, religion and usages of the country; the inhabitants were to be governed by a Mahommedan Bey, who alone should reside in the territory; and to be subject only to moderate taxes, such as they were accustomed to pay to the ex-Venetian republic.

whom