THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE 1821 TO 1833 BY W.ALISON PHILLIPS 1897

148 THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE
into civil war:
Again Greece was about to be plunged
a war, this time, of the Moreots against the islanders.
By the autumn, the whole of the Morea was in
flames; but the conflagration, this time, did not last
long. Kolettes, the only member of the Government
who possessed either firmness or ability, had hitherto
let the folly and incompetence of Konduriottes have
full play, because he desired to undermine his authority;
but, now that serious danger threatened, he took
the reins of government into his own hands. The
possession of the English gold, and, still more, the
prospect of the speedy arrival of a second and larger
instalment of the loan, was a tower of strength to the
Administration. Kolettes, with promises of plentiful
reward, induced the Rumeliots to come to the aid of
the Government; and 3,000 men, under Gouras and
Karaiskakis, crossed the Isthmus into the Morea.
Against this host the scattered forces of the Moreots
could do nothing; and in less than fourteen days the
rebellion was at an end. The Rumeliot bands harried
and wasted the country as though they were fighting
the Turk and not their own countrymen.
The country
houses of Londos and the other primates were burnt,
1
and they themselves forced to fly. The death of his
son Panos, in a skirmish before Tripolitza, broke the
i Prokesch, i. 297.