Nations must, no
doubt, undergo these trials in their progress to the establishment of
free institutions. The very trials benefit them, and render them more
capable both of obtaining and of enjoying the object which they seek.
I shall not detain the committee, Sir, by laying before it any
statistical, geographical, or commercial account of Greece. I have no
knowledge on these subjects which is not common to all. It is
universally admitted, that, within the last thirty or forty years, the
condition of Greece has been greatly improved. Her marine is at present
respectable, containing the best sailors in the Mediterranean, better
even, in that sea, than our own, as more accustomed to the long
quarantines and other regulations which prevail in its ports. The number
of her seamen has been estimated as high as 50,000, but I suppose that
estimate must be much too large. She has, probably, 150,000 tons of
shipping. It is not easy to ascertain the amount of the Greek
population. The Turkish government does not trouble itself with any of
the calculations of political economy, and there has never been such a
thing as an accurate census, probably, in any part of the Turkish
empire. In the absence of all official information, private opinions
widely differ. By the tables which have been communicated, it would seem
that there are 2,400,000 Greeks in Greece proper and the islands; an
amount, as I am inclined to think, somewhat overrated. There are,
probably, in the whole of European Turkey, 5,000,000 Greeks, and
2,000,000 more in the Asiatic dominions of that power.
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