commanded, and this evil continued in the Venetian territory of Greece also. But in the Morea under the influence of the Catholic priests education now made some progress. Thus Venice was sowing the seeds of a better future. Russia also, under the influence of Peter the Great, was stepping into the arena of European politics and preparing for her role as the protectress of the Oriental Churches. But the tsar was disappointed in not being joined by a general rising of the Christians when in the year 1711 he advanced to an attack of the Ottoman Empire, and he was compelled to agree to peace on humiliating terms. Thus Russia's first serious act of interference only resulted in mischief. The Porte, having discovered its power, proceeded to use it by expelling the Venetians from Greece. In 1715 the Turks seized and pillaged Corinth, making slaves of the Greeks they captured there. This led the terror-stricken Greeks of the Morea to prostrate themselves before their old enemies, and to invite them to come and drive out the Venetians. They must have seen good reason to repent of their short-sighted cowardice when they were suffering from the ravages produced by the janissaries in the process of reconquest. The reversion of Morea and other Venetian acquisitions to Turkey was confirmed by the treaty of Passarovitz, which followed the victories of Prince Eugene, and was signed on the 21st of July 1718. But Venice still retained possessions in Dalmatia and other parts.
After this, by degrees, Russia again assumed the proud position of champion of Eastern Christianity. In 1783 Catherine ii. expelled the Mussulman power from the Crimea, where it had held its ground with more or less tenacity from the time of the Mongol invasion; and about the same time she extracted a treaty from the Porte granting the Greeks of the Archipelago the right to use the Russian flag.
Meanwhile the Greeks had been doing nothing for themselves. But a new day was now dawning. After more than three centuries of humiliation and oppression, once again Hellas was beginning to realise her national
