Page:The European Concert in the Eastern Question.djvu/88

Powers to advise submission, and was suppressed only by the appearance of the Turkish fleet off Vathy. The Organic Law.In December, 1834, the Porte issued a Firman in accordance with the terms of the note of 10th December, 1832^[1], and the three Powers announced that, should it not be accepted within three months, their mediation would be withdrawn, Samos would lose its right to a separate flag, and its inhabitants would be exposed to ‘the disastrous consequences of a rash resistance to the commands of the Grand Signor^[2].

Disturbances again occurred in the autumn of 1835, but resistance soon ceased, and the island has since lived under the constitution which had been secured to it by the intervention of the Powers.

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Crete.

Crete under Mehemet Ali.At the time when it was decided by the Powers that Crete should remain a part of the Ottoman Empire, the insurrection was still in progress, and its suppression was by no means an easy task. The Sultan was therefore not sorry to hand over the business to Mehemet Ali, the Pasha of Egypt, who was accordingly invested with the governorship of the island, partly by way of reward for his services in the matter of Greece, partly in consideration of a present to his suzerain of 20,000,000 Turkish piastres. In October, 1830, an Egyptian army landed in Crete, and by the spring of the following year had reduced it to subjection. It has since remained a discontented Turkish province, breaking out into revolt in 1833, in 1840, after the forced resignation of Mehemet Ali, in 1859, and notably in 1866–8. On the last mentioned occasion the

1. q. V. infra, Texts, No. II. A Regulation was issued at the same time with reference to the Samian flag.
2. Recueil des traités de la Porte Ottomane depuis 1536 jusqu'à nos jours, ii. p. 399. The privileges of a Christian governor and of a separate flag had been granted in 1830. Cf. Rosen, Geschichte der Türkei, p. 129; Herzberg, Geschichte Griechenlands, iv. p. 664.