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

32 THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE
called), he might have received a different welcome;
and even a Roumanian national rising against foreign
tyranny might have had some prospect
of success. But
the Hospodar was his active ally, having made over to
him all the fiscal and military machinery of the province,
and with him he could not afford to quarrel; and
a Greek rising on Roumanian soil was from the first
doomed to failure. To the mass of the people he appeared
merely as the leader of a band of mercenaries,
plotting to transfer the sovereignty of the Principalities
from the Sultan to the Czar; and they received his
advances with a sullen indifference which, as his difficulties
increased, was changed into active hostility.
The history of Hypsilanti's enterprise is
a record
of incredible folly, of sordid intrigues, and revolting
crimes; the sombre picture being only here and there
lighted up by gleams of heroic fortitude or self-devotion.
On the night before the Prince crossed the border,
a deed of blood was perpetrated which was the first
of many that cast indelible disgrace on the Greek
cause. Galatz is the principal port of Moldavia.
Several Ottoman trading-vessels lay at anchor in the
harbour, and some Turkish merchants resided in the
town, where also a small guard of Turkish troops was
maintained, in accordance with the laws of the Ottoman
Empire, to act as police to insure the obedience of