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

320 THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE
presentation of the protocols,
and the international
relations of Greece, made it necessary for him at last
to carry out his promise, and summon a meeting of
the representatives of the nation. He had indeed
no fear as to the result.
The old communal liberties
had been destroyed; the votes of the electors, for
all
purposes, were directed by the prefects appointed
by the central Government;
and,
to make assurance
doubly sure, he now caused the Panhellenium to pass
a law placing the electoral colleges absolutely under
the heel of the administration.
Not content with this,
lie undertook, in the month of March, an extended tour
through the country, to influence the electors by his
personal presence. The peasantry were just beginning
to feel the return of prosperity after the exhaustion
of the war, and e Pappa Johannes ' was greeted everywhere
with the greatest enthusiasm.
The result was
the return of an assembly blindly devoted to his interests.
On the 23rd of July, Capodistrias,
in a Russian
uniform and his breast covered with orders, opened the
new Congress, which met in the ruins of the ancient
theatre of Argos.
Signs of opposition were, indeed, not wanting;
in the Congress
policy could make itself heard. Kolokotrones,
but
itself no criticism of the President's
ever a