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

20 THE WAB OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE
naturally to an empire united with them by the bonds
of the orthodox faith, and which seemed destined to
restore in the East the supremacy of the Cross. Catherine
II., pondering in her mind vast designs of aggression,
was nothing loth to encourage the hopes of the
Greeks. At war with the Porte, she did not scruple to
send a Russian fleet and Russian agents to rouse the
Greeks of the Moreaand Archipelago against the Turk,
only to abandon them, as soon as the immediate ends
of her policy were secured, to the frightful vengeance
of their oppressors. Even this terrible object lesson in
the methods of Russian state-craft could not destroy
the hopes which the Hellenes based on the great Orthodox
Power. The Treaty of Kainardji, indeed, distinctly
conceded to the Russians some shadowy protectorate
over the Christian subjects of the Porte, a
weapon which she was prepared to use or lay aside as
suited her policy. Yet, baseless as this trust in Russia's
disinterestedness really was, it was this more than anything
else which gave such tremendous weight to the
propaganda of the great secret society which, in the
early years of the present century, prepared the way
for, and gave the impulse to, the uprising of the
Greeks.
The ' Hetairia Philike ' was founded in 1814, at
Odessa, by three Greek merchants named Skuphas,