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

14 THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE
The danger from Algerine pirates necessitated the
ships being armed;
fight as well as to navigate
and the crews were trained to
the vessel. Thus,
under
the eyes of the Ottoman Government, was gradually
built up that naval power which, during
the war of
liberation, was to win such signal successes for the
cause of Hellenic freedom.
On the mainland, as well as in the islands, the
Turks had permitted a considerable measure of local
self-government.
In the pashalik of the Morea, while
the taxes were usually farmed by the beys of the
twenty-three provinces into which it was divided, the
village communities were allowed to elect their own
officers,
the Demogeronts, or village elders, who, besides
collecting the taxes and managing the affairs of
their own villages, met in a district assembly, with
the representatives of the towns, to elect the Proestoi,
whose duty
it was to determine what share of the district
taxation each community should bear, and who,
in their turn, chose one Greek officer, called Primate,
and one Mohammedan, called Ayan, to represent the
province, and to take part in the council of the Pasha
of the Morea, who resided at Tripolitza.
but small service in preserving any liberty
Though of
for their
countrymen, and indeed themselves more often than
not the instruments of oppression, the Primates became