LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
GREEK CRUELTY.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPEOTATOR.1 Sin,—Your excellent article on atrocities, published in your issue of the 31st ult., but which, being absent from town, 1 have only just read, concludes with the following sentence .—" In the War of Independence, the Greeks committed atrocities more heinous in kind and in degree than those imputed to the Bul- garians. Yet under Greek rule, the Mussulman is now in the full enjoyment of freedom and justice."
I pray you will allow me to point out that there is some injus- tice in this comparison. The W ar of Independence, which occurred half-a-century ago, lasted for seven years, became a War of extermi- nation ,and was waged between us and the Turks. No great European Power entered the country, with a stupendous force, to assume and carry on the war in our name. The Turks committed, as usual, un- told horrors, and the Greeks naturally retaliated. No doubt great cruelties took place, but they were committed in hot blood, by irregular insurgents, and during the struggle itself. No one ever pretended, not even our bitter critic Mr. Finlay himself, that atrocities were perpetrated after the country was virtually rid of the Turks. It is this that is brought to the charge of the Bul- garians,—justly or unjustly, it is not now my object to examine. It appears to me also that there is nothing to show—in fact, it is impossible—that the cruelties perpetrated by the Greeks were " more heinous in kind and degree" than those of the Bulgarians. But certain it is that the Bulgarians have had their liberty fought and won for them, and as far as the Greek element in Bulgaria and Eastern Roumelia is concerned, we know, to our cost, that the Bulgarians have, so far, made the most unjust, tyrannical, and iniquitous use of their newly-gotten freedom, endeavouring, as they are, to persecute the Greeks out of those provinces, or for- cibly to assimilate them. We can never hope that our people will there enjoy anything approaching to the freedom, justice, and equality which both Albanians and Turks obtain, not as a favour, but as a matter of course and of right, in free Greece.—
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