Consequently, scarcely five years passed away after the fall of Napoleon before Europe was again disturbed by revolutionary passions.  There were no international wars.  On the whole, England, France, Russia, Prussia, and Austria put aside ambitious designs of further aggrandizement, and were disposed to keep peace with one another; and this desire lasted for a whole generation.  But there were other countries in which the flames of insurrection broke out.  The Spanish colonies of South America were impatient of the yoke of the mother country, and sought national independence, which they gained after a severe struggle.  The disaffection in view of royal despotism reached Spain itself, and a revolution in that country dethroned the Bourbon king, and was suppressed only by the aid of France.  All Italy was convulsed by revolutionary ideas and passions growing out of the cruel despotism exercised by the various potentates who ruled that fair but unhappy country.  Insurrections were violent in Naples, in Piedmont, and in the papal territories, and were put down not by Italian princes, but by Austrian bayonets.  As it is my design to present these in another lecture, I simply allude to them in this connection.

But the most important revolution which occurred at this period, taking into view its ultimate consequences and its various complications, was that of Greece.  It was different from those of Spain and Italy in this respect, that it was a struggle not to gain political rights from oppressive rulers, but to secure national independence.  As such, it is invested with great interest.  Moreover, it was glorious, since it was ultimately successful, after a dreadful contest with Turkey for seven years, during which half of the population was swept away.  Greece probably would have succumbed to a powerful empire but for the aid tardily rendered her by foreign Powers,—­united in this instance, not to suppress rebellion, but to rescue a noble and gallant people from a cruel despotism.

Had the armed intervention of Russia, England, and France taken place at an earlier period, much suffering and bloodshed might have been averted.  But Russia was fettered by the Holy Alliance to suppress all insurrection and attempts at constitutional liberty wherever they might take place, and could not, consistently with the promises given to Austria and Prussia, join in an armed intervention, even in a matter dear to the heart of Alexander, whose religion was that of Greece.  The Czar was placed in an awkward position.  If he gave assistance to the Greeks, whose religious faith was the same as his own and whose foe was also the traditionary enemy of Russia, he would violate his promises, which he always held sacred, and give umbrage to Austria.  The intolerant hatred of Alexander for all insurrections whatever induced him to stand aloof from a contest which jeoparded the stability of thrones, and with which in a political view, as an absolute sovereign, he had no sympathy.