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

8 THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE
for what it leaves undone than for what it does;
it is
intolerable rather for what it implies than for what it
is. The Christian subject of the Sultan, even before
modern capitulations, was free to exercise his religion,
to accumulate wealth, to educate himself as he pleased;
he could even rise to high office in Church or State,
become Dragoman to the Porte, or governor of a province.
The status of the peasantry under Ottoman rule
was, in the eighteenth century, far more tolerable than
in most parts of Europe. Serfdom,
still almost universal
throughout Christendom, had disappeared ;
in many parts of the Turkish dominions,
and,
the cultivators
of the soil enjoyed a prosperity unknown to the
peasantry
of some nations accounted more civilised.
It was the capricious and uncertain character of the
Ottoman Government, rather than any conscious oppression,
that provoked misery and discontent. The
custom of farming the taxes and of taking these in
kind, though in theory workable enough, became, in
fact, too often an engine of ruinous exactions; for,
where the crops could not be cut until the tax-assessor
had made his rounds, there were obviously endless
openings for bribery and extortion.
The evils of this
able des qu'on congoit I'id6e de s'y soustraire . . . le mnl
est devenu moindre, il est vrai, mais la sensibilite est plus
Vive.'