Mr. MacVeagh to Mr. Fish.
Sir: The dispatch of Mr. Tuckerman, our esteemed and accomplished representative at Athens, to the Department of State, dated May 11, 1870, and recently published in the “Diplomatic Correspondence for 1870,” on the subject of brigandage in Greece, has attracted considerable attention in the East. The Greek journals have published it quite extensively, and the report that it had given great pleasure to the King increased the general desire to see it. It has accordingly been republished in this capital, where, as you know, there is a large resident Greek population; and it has doubtless thus fallen under the notice of the government of the Sultan. Of course the distinguished statesman who presides over the department of foreign affairs here has not mentioned the subject to me, nor would I have suffered myself to listen to any discussion of the subject; but it is quite generally felt here, outside of the Greek colony, that Mr. Tuckerman was wholly mistaken in declaring that “Greek brigandage was born of Turkish oppression,” and in calling the thieves who followed it for profit, alike before and after the independence of Greece, “restless men who fled to the mountains for independence,” as well as in his assumption that the work of freeing Athens from brigands must be commenced at Constantinople. The assertions [Page 904] are, indeed, so old, and so commonly received in the West, that it is not astonishing Mr. Tuckerman should have accepted and repeated them; but unfortunately their ill effect is not confined to the gross injustice which is thereby done this government.
It happened, indeed, curiously enough, that between the writing and the publication of Mr. Tuckerman’s dispatch it became the duty of the Grand Vizier to refute the same injurious allegations proceeding from other quarters; and, in his dispatch of January 5, 1871, and of which a copy I suppose was handed you by the Turkish chargé d’affaires at Washington, he effectually disposed of the assertion that Turkey had shown any lukewarmness in the suppression of Greek brigandage. He showed also that not only had the freest permission been accorded the Greek troops to cross the Turkish frontier in pursuit of brigands, after the massacre at Marathon, in April, 1870, but that the Turkish troops had in nine months thereafter captured nineteen brigands and killed thirty-four others, who had sought a hiding place on this side of the frontier. Indeed, while this government has many and grave defects, I am convinced that no competent and impartial observer would venture to charge it with any disposition to tolerate such a crime as brigandage; and no better answer can be given to such accusation than the fact that our missionaries live and travel in all parts of the empire in almost entire security, while travel is virtually unobstructed in every part of it. Acts of lawlessness undoubtedly occur here as elsewhere, and the moldering intolerance of rival religious sects may occasionally blaze out with terrible fury; but the general security of life and property compares very favorably with most civilized countries.
In Greece, on the contrary, security is unknown, and the inhabitants of Athens dare hardly step beyond the city limits. Brigandage is there part of the structure of society, and a recognized weapon of political warfare, heretofore always tolerated, often patronized, and occasionally elevated into patriotism, when engaged in irregular warfare to enlarge the limits of Hellos. The root of the trouble really is, that the average moral intelligence of Greece is to-day incapable of seeing that the Greek brigand is a common thief, and therefore to be extirpated as the enemy of society. And it is natural, therefore, that when some atrocious murder raises the indignation of the world, its public men should endeavor to cast the blame elsewhere rather than endeavor to root out the evil.
Your obedient servant,