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

284 THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE
the great Powers, served for the time to put
to the civil strife; and, at his command,
chieftains willingly surrendered their fortresses,
an end
the rival
submitted
to be reconciled, and placed their forces at
his disposal. Arrived at ^Egina, however, he received
from the ministers a report of the condition of
the Government and of the country which might
well have made him repent the task he had undertaken.
In the Morea and in continental Greece the misery
of the population and the devastations of the soldiery
had made all organised government impossible; and
in the islands anarchy reigned supreme.
While the
Government was compelled to wander from Poros to
Nauplia, and from Nauplia to u3gina, to escape from
the violence of the warring factions, every private individual
who could gather round him a band of hired
ruffians was at liberty to play the tyrant in his own
district.
There was neither cultivation, nor commerce,
nor industry remaining. The peasants no longer
sowed, for the harvest would be reaped by the lawless
soldiery; merchants would not venture to sea, for
and workmen
robbery and death awaited them there;
would no longer labour, because they could not count
on being paid. The Government itself was a government
in little more than name, and could scarce com-