Page:Christian Greece and Living Greek.djvu/211

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THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 1 89 curbs them, restrains them, and chastises them." The powers never dreamed of doing anything when they heard of the massacre of Chios and of Constantinople, of Cydonia. It was only when Greece, broken down by the struggle, fell a prey to anarchy, when the men of the fleet took to plundering the seas of the archipelagos that Europe found it necessary to put an end to the war, when Prince Metternich wrote that in the near future there might be no more Greeks left to be delivered. When the powers thus were obliged to put an end to the war they wanted to do it without cutting Greece clear of Turkey. In their treaty of July 6th, 1827, each of the powers tried to turn events to its own advantage or to prevent their turning to the advantage of some one else. There was only one point upon which they were all agreed — and this was, to prevent the formation of any Greek state strong enough to be really independent. Emperor Nicholas, in an interview which he held with the Austrian ambassador, assured him that he de- tested the Greeks, because he regarded them as subjects in rebellion against their lawful sover- eign; that he did not wish that they should be- come free; that they did not deserve freedom, and that if they were to succeed in obtaining it,