Jim’s Reviews > Greek War of Independence: The Struggle for Freedom from Ottoman Oppression > Status Update

Byron's financial contribution to the Greeks was thus very great, and amazingly open-handed. All the same, though, there was something reckless about it, as of a man who gave no thought for the morrow because he felt he would not reach a tomorrow, and that all he had should be thrown into one last magnificent venture.

In the name of the Holy and Invisible Trinity: the Greek nation, under the fearful domination of the Ottomans, unable to bear the heavy and unexampled yoke of tyranny and having with great sacrifices thrown it off, declares today, through its lawful representatives gathered in National Assembly, before God and man, its political existence and independence.

Ali Pasha 'is 60 years old, very fat and not tall, but with a fine face, light blue eyes & a white beard, his manner is very kind & at the same time he possesses that dignity which I find universal among the Turks. -- He has the appearance of any thing but his real character, for he is a remorseless tyrant, guilty of the most horrible cruelties....

What is the point, asked the patriarch, of the young learning about 'numbers, and algebra, and cubes and cube roots ... and atoms and vacuums and whirlpools ... and optical and acoustical matters and a myriad of the same kind and other monstrous things ... if as a consequence they are ... ignorant of the things of religion?