THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 1 73 taking up arms and proclaiming their rights, would have gained these rights in the course of time and events, by cabals and intrigues, per- haps peacefully. "But," says Bikelas, "to what depths of degradation would the Greek race have sunk had they refused the ancestral blood which filled their veins for the honored task of washing out the stains of slavery?** Besides, if the Greeks had not claimed and won these rights as they did, the Turks and the Greeks together would have been very likely to have fallen one common prey to another conqueror. Within the mighty empire of Russia the em- pire of Hellas would have run great risk of los- ing the very consciousness of her nationality, and would certainly not have regained inde- pendence. Napoleon Bonaparte's expedition into Egypt appeared in the eyes of the Greeks as a war of civilization against savagery, of the Christian against the Moslem. Rhigas called on the vic- torious French general to plead for the aid of France in the national movement for which Rhigas was laboring. The hope of the Greeks in this direction was not realized. They found that they could count on no help from Western Christendom, so they turned toward Russia.
