his latter days with all people striving for independence, whether in South America or Greece.  But his opinion was not shared by English statesmen of the Tory school, and he had the greatest difficulty in bringing his colleagues over to his views.  When he died, England again relapsed into neutrality and inaction, under the government of Wellington.  Charles X. in France had no natural liking for the Greek cause, and wanted only to be undisturbed in his schemes of despotism.  Russia, under Nicholas, determined to fight Turkey, unfettered by allies.  She sought but a pretext for a declaration of war.  Turkey furnished to Russia that pretext, right in the stress of her own military weakness, when she was exhausted by a war of seven years, and by the destruction of the Janizaries,—­which the Sultan had long meditated, and concealed in his own bosom with the craft which formed one of the peculiarities of this cruel yet able sovereign, but which he finally executed with characteristic savagery.  Concerning this Russian war we shall speak presently.

The battle of Navarino, although it made the restoration of the Turkish power impossible in Greece, still left Ibrahim master of the fortresses, and it was two years before the Turkish troops were finally expelled.  But independence was now assured, and the Greeks set about establishing their government with some permanency.  Before the end of that year Capo d’Istrias was elected president for seven years, and in January, 1828, he entered upon his office.  His ideas of government were arbitrary, for he had been the minister and favorite of Alexander.  He wished to rule like an absolute sovereign.  His short reign was a sort of dictatorship.  His council was composed entirely of his creatures, and he sought at once to destroy provincial and municipal authority.  He limited the freedom of the Press and violated the secrecy of the mails.  “In Plato’s home, Plato’s Gorgias could not be read because it spoke too strongly against tyrants.”

Capo d’Istrias found it hard to organize and govern amid the hostilities of rival chieftains and the general anarchy which prevailed.  Local self-government lay at the root of Greek nationality; but this he ignored, and set himself to organize an administrative system modelled after that of France during the reign of Napoleon.  Intellectually he stood at the head of the nation, and was a man of great integrity of character, as austere and upright as Guizot, having no toleration for freebooters and peculators.  He became unpopular among the sailors and merchants, who had been so effective in the warfare with the Turks.  “A dark shadow fell over his government” as it became more harsh and intolerant, and he was assassinated the 9th of October, 1831.