Alexandria Gazette & Advertiser

FOREIGN.
London. Aug 26.
MASSACRE OF THE GREEKS AT CONSTANTINOPLE AND SCIO.
The following affecting appeal from the Greeks at Constantinople to their brethren and countrymen here, was received by the last mail from Turkey. We publish it without comment, leaving the statement, as it will do most eloquently, to speak for itself:
Constantinople, May 25, 1822.
"Dear and beloved Brethren and Countrymen.- We doubt not that the news contained herein must have already reached you, and fallen like a thunder-bolt on your hearts. What more dreadful than the knowledge that our illustrious and innocent countrymen-ten of them in prison here, and those in the castle of Scio, 95 In all--universally esteemed and respected, chosen and held as hostages for more than a year past, have at last, without a single motive, without even the shadow of a personal accusation against them; been barbarously executed? We at first deeply lamented the unmerited restraint put upon the persons of those now no more: their death, ignominious and cruel, in the first burst of grief nearly paralysed our faculties, Who can, without shuddering, read of the total ruin, the universal desolation of our famed and once happy isle (Scio); the destruction of all its inhabitants, nearly one hundred thousand, who, except a very few who almost miraculously escaped from those ill-fated shores have fallen victims to the sword, to fire, hunger, and slavery--that worst of all evils? Who can, without feelings of indignation, without execrating the perpetrators of those horrid acts behold a whole city lately so flourishing. now one heap of ruins; whole villages, innumerable country seats, a prey to the flames; our celebrated school, library, hospital for the sick, hundreds of churches richly adorned-all, all one confused mass of smoking rubbish! Our island lately so much frequented by Europeans, and more especially by English families of the first rank, will now have only her ashes to show the passing stranger. Nor is this so dreadful in itself, the most dire of our calamities. The slavery of so many respectable women, young people, and children of both sexes, sent off to different parts of Asia--the markets of this city and Smyrna filled with women and young people of the first rank, and who have received the best education! What can be more dreadful than this? Happy, thrice happy those whom the steel of the assassin has snatched from scenes so harrowing to the feelings; how miserable those still suffered to exist, who see the sufferings, bear the cries and piteous accents of their wives, children, and relatives, and are witnesses to the barbarous treatment this devoted and innocent people receive from the wretches who have them in their power! What can be laid to our charge? We poor Sciots, who, from the beginning have remained faithful, are rewarded with death and slavery. It is well known, as soon as the Porte heard of the insurrection in the Morea, and sundry islands of the Archipelago, it sent here a Pacha, having with him about three thousand troops;the whole of the expenses of this garrison was defrayed by our island, which, in the course of about fourteen months, paid more than 2,700,000 piasters, each according to his means.- Besides that, the Sultan ordered a choice to be made of sixty of the most considerable and respectable from our countrymen, beginning by our Archbishop Plato, the elder, and other principal inhabitants,-- When the news of the invasion of the imprudent Samiotes first spread in Scio, the principal inhabitants waited on the Pacha to apprise him of it. What was his answer? to send into the castle, as hostages some more of these innocent men, and to transport all the provisions out of the city into the citadel, not leaving any whatever for the poor inhabitants of the city, who were so numerous. A month after, when the Samiotes landed, the Pacha sent some of the hostages, with several Turks, to prevail on the Samiotes to evacuate the island; but they imprudently resolved to advance, and told these ministers of peace that they would sooner put them to death than do so. The Pacha then shut himself up in the castle with all the military taking with him all the hostages. It was understood that a number of the peasantry had joined the Samiotes; they were in a manner forced to it, being apprehensive of the Samiotes themselves, and. they were only armed with sticks and staves. Eleven days after the Turkish Fleet arrived at the island, and landed 15,000 soldiers, who, joined by 3,000 in the castle, being unable to attack and defeat the 3,000 Samiotes, used their weapons against the innocent and disarmed inhabitants, and turned their fury against women and children killing, burning, and taking in slavery all the inhabitants of the place, the men they slaughtered. the women and children they brutally treated & huddled together in one of the large squares. which contained several hundred of the most respectable families: they have not left a stone upon a stone--all destroyed all ruined! It would fill volumes to record the different scenes of horrors which the ruffians were guilty of humanity shudders at it. But this universal desolation had not satisfied the blood-thirsty followers of Mohammed; they had heaped upon their trembling and tender victims all the bitterness of their fanaticism--65 men, the first of the nation, both as to character and property, men who had always followed the paths of rectitude in their commercial transactions--whose relations were established in almost every known commercial city in the known world--men innocent of any machination against the Turkish government, and who could not, if even they would, have been participators in the rising of the island, since they had been 14 months under the grasp of the Turkish satrap. Ten of these were at Constantinople, the remainder at Scio. Lord Strangford made strenuous efforts to save them--neglected no remonstrances--evinced the greatest ardour in the cause of suffering innocence. and thought he had succeeded in sheltering them from their impending fate, having obtained a promise from the Porte that no harm should be done them, when it suddenly gave orders for their execution. The ten in Constantinople were beheaded, and the 85 in Scio were hung outside of the Castle, in that very square where so many of the slaves were placed, in sight of the Turkish fleet,who had their decks covered with Greek slaves. Oh! how the heart sickens at such refinement of cruelty, and turns with horror from the malice that could take delight in deriding the mental agony of the innocent sufferers in this tragic scene! What a number of wives were forced to be spectators of the cruel death of the husbands of their affections, to see at the same time their suckling babes, torn from their breasts, thus bereft at once of their support and hopes! Many driven to despair by this barbarous usage threw themselves into the sea, others stabbed themselves to prevent the loss of honor, to them worse than death, to which they were every moment exposed from the barbarians. But, alas! let us draw a veil upon those who have thus sunk untimely into the grave; let us not harrow up our souls with the recital of their atrocities; their sufferings are over, and their felicity, let us hope, begun! It is now time to turn your sympathy towards the unfortunate survivors of the general wreck--to call, dear countrymen, your attention to the miserable naked state of thousands of our Sciots, with which the markets here, at Smyrna, and Scio, are glutted. Picture to yourselves children of the tenderest age, till now nursed with the most delicate attention, driven about with only a piece of cloth round their infant limbs, without shoes or any covering, having nothing to live upon but a piece of bread thrown to them by their inhuman keepers--ill treated by them-sold from one to the other, and all in this deplorable situation, exposed to be brought up in the Mahometan religion, and lose sight of the precepts of our holy religion. We see all this; yet, alas! what can we do here, reduced to 3 or 4, who, if found out, would also be exterminated without mercy? What we could do, we have done; but how little among so many claimants to our charity. You, brothers, friends, and countrymen, are in the capital of England, the centre of philanthropy, you live amongst a people always famed for their generous feelings towards the unfortunate, for their dislike to tyranny, and their support of the oppressed. Beg, pray, entreat, appeal to their feelings, call upon them as Britons, as men, as fellow beings: it is in the cause of humanity and of religion: they cannot, will not, be deaf to your prayers. They will afford us, as far as lies in their power, the means of redeeming the captive, of aiding those families that are in a state of nudity and starvation. who will soon arrive in almost every port of the Mediterranean, when they have been enabled to fly from a yoke worse than death. We rely upon your endeavors, and still more upon the high character of the nation among whom you inhabit: thousands of hands are raised towards you to claim your interference in behalf of your oppressed countrymen; thousands of hearts will feel grateful for your assistance. Brethren & countrymen, exert yourselves in behalf of humanity
"With tearful eye we cordially salute you, and beg you will pray to God for our safety.
YOUR BROTHERS AND COUNTRYMEN."