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

28 THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE
hammedan poets composed Greek odes in celebration
of his unspeakable cruelties! *
The ambitious views of Ali were notorious,
the Hetairists had from the first
and
reckoned upon the
Pasha of Janina as a possible ally against the Porte.
STor did he scruple to enter into relations with the
Hellenic leaders. 2 It had indeed been his policy
throughout to conciliate and betray every interest in
turn; and it was, in the end, to the advantage of the
Greek cause that Ali was in no sense its protector. Before
the outbreak of the Hellenic revolt, an attempt of
Ali to compass the murder of his enemy Pacho Bey,
chamberlain to the Sultan, at last moved the Porte, long
since alarmed at the growth of his power,
overthrow.
Ali embarked on the struggle without misgiving;
to effect his
but he was soon to learn the hollowness of that
Machiavellian maxim which he had adopted as his own
'
That it is better for a prince to be feared than loved ;
for, at the first opportunity, his own sons deserted him,
1 Religious intolerance could not be reckoned among his
faults. When he wished to conciliate the Greeks, he would
hold out hopes of his conversion, and drink to the health of
the Mother of God!
2 The Greek Paparigopulos went to Russia, shortly before
Ali's breach with the Porte, as the representative at
once of the Pasha and of the Hetairia, to try and induce
the Czar's Government to declare war against Turkey. See
Mendelssohn, i. 122.
'