158 ANSWER OF THE SULIOTS. the fine territory which you promise to bestow upon us. You labour therefore in vain. Liberty is not to be bought by all the treasures of the earth. We will fight till there exists not a Suliot to defend his country." After the failure of these public proposals, Ali turned all his thoughts to excite individual treachery within this brave republic. Accordingly he dispatched a letter secretly to the valiant Captain Dimo Zerva, promising him 800 purses, with all the honours he could desire, if he would betray the republic. Zerva immediately convened the chiefs, read the letter in their presence, and returned the following answer on the spot. "I thank you, vizir, for the kind regard you express towards me, but I beseech you not to send the purses, for I should not know how to count them; and if I did, believe me that one single pebble belonging to my country, much less that country itself, would in my eyes appear too great a return for them. Equally vain are the honours you offer to bestow upon me. The honours of a Suliot lie in his arms. With these I hope to immortalize my name and preserve my country." Ali, fertile in expedients, now tried the effect of hierarchical interposition, and a long correspondence took place between the Archbishop of Ioannina and the Bishop of Paramithia, in whose diocese Suli is situated. This was carried on by means of an infamous monk, called, ASSISTANCE SENT TO THEM BY THE FRENCH. 159 for his wicked character, Kako-Joseph (Kanoïwrap): but the good bishop, who deservedly bore the appellation of Chrysanthes, steadily rebutted all attempts to corrupt his principles: he was afterwards obliged, through fear of his life, to escape and fly to Parga. Ali's troops now began to desert: he had lost, it is said, near 4000 in the last nine months of the war, whilst only twenty-five Suliots had perished*. These latter however became greatly distressed for want of provisions, being closely blockaded by the besieging army and deprived of all their external dependencies: yet never at any period did the flame of liberty burn more brightly in their bosoms, nor did they ever make greater sacrifices for the love of their country. Contriving to send off their useless mouths to Parga and the Ionian islands, they distributed their provisions to the different captains of the republic in proportion to their number of followers. About this time they received a quantity of arms and other stores from Bonaparte, by the French brig of war, the Arab, which landed them at Porto Fanari, from whence they were secretly conveyed to Suli. This circumstance however proved rather a misfortune than a benefit, since it produced a jealousy of their cause in the minds both of the Russians and the English, who might otherwise have assisted them in their desperate emergency. After a year's siege their condition became so lamentable that they were obliged to live upon acorns, herbs, and roots, and to grind and mix up the bark of trees with a very scanty proportion of meal; yet under all these calamities their enemies could gain no advantage over them when they came to engage in conflict. In their extreme distress * I take some of these relations from the work of a Parghiote, published in Venice A. D. 1815, upon the wars of Suli. I have altered many from more accurate information: indeed the writer, though he gives the chief events of the war, seems very ignorant of motives and political causes; and I cannot help suspecting that in many other instances besides the one referred to in the text, he errs greatly in the number of Suliots who fell in different encounters with the pasha's troops. In spite of all advantages of situation or superiority of courage, the difference could not be so great. 160 SUPPLIES GAINED BY A DESPERATE EFFORT. the following is one of the manœuvres which they executed to obtain supplies. Four hundred of their bravest palikars, with 170 female heroines, headed by Mosco, sallied out by night, escaped under cover of the darkness through the defile of Glyky, and arrived in safety at Parga. There they were joyfully received by the compassionate inhabitants, fed for the space of four days, and on the fifth dismissed with as much provision as they could carry for their famished countrymen. One hundred of this troop, with lighter burdens, marched as an advanced guard, to protect the convoy; next came the women in the centre, and then the rest of the men, each carrying as much as he could possibly support. The Albanians, to the number of more than a thousand, endeavoured to intercept their return, but either through fear of the men, or from that respect towards the women which is carried in this country to such an excess that the soldiers sometimes fire from behind them without fear of a return, they refrained from attacking the party; its arrival was most welcome to the Suliots, reduced as they were almost to skeletons, through famine: yet even in this extremity their constant cry was liberty or death. In the mean time the vizir was constantly at head quarters with the army, except when his presence was required in his capital; nor did he omit any of those allurements and seductive arts which he so well knows how to apply, for bringing over some of the Suliot captains to his interests. Among these, two only were found capable of listening to his promises and of preferring the favour and money of a tyrant to a sense of honour and patriotic devotion. These two, viz. Cuzzonica and Diamante Zerva, held frequent interviews with the common enemy, and carried messages and proposals from him to the council of the republic: these were all indignantly repelled by the strenuous exertions of Foto Tzavella and Dimo Draco, or by the patriotic exhortations of Samuel the caloyer, to whom the Suliots paid the highest reverence. These brave captains took a solemn oath, in which they STRATAGEM OF STRIVINIOTI. 161 invited many of the citizens to join, that they would war with the tyrant till victory or death should release them—they dared all dangers in defence of their country-they animated the brave-they encouraged the timid-and by their experience, sagacity, and courage, fully justified the implicit confidence reposed in them by their countrymen. In the mean time Diamante Zerva repented of his conduct, and broke off all connexion with the enemy: he endeavoured to persuade the Suliots that his motives for engaging in it, were to gain money for the public service, and to procure the release of their hostages from Ioannina. Notwithstanding this he was never able to regain the confidence or good opinion of his fellow-citizens. The worst horrors of famine now began to appear again at Suli: but the misery of the people made them ingenious, and many stratagems were executed for procuring food even from their besiegers. Amongst these, the contrivance of one Gianni Strivinioti is particularly recorded. This man having received intelligence that the Turks had lately procured a large supply of cattle from the neighbouring pastures, dressed himself in his white capote and camise, and concealing himself till the shades of evening had descended, walked out on all fours from his lurking place, and mingling with the herds, entered together with them into the stalls when they were shut up. In the dead of night he arose silently, opened the doors, unloosed the oxen, and drove them towards a party of his friends, who were in waiting to receive them. The Albanians heard the noise, but were so alarmed by suspicion of an ambuscade, that they lay still, and preferred the loss of their cattle to the danger of their lives. At another time some troops of the vizir took an ass belonging to the Suliots, which had strayed near their camp. At the earnest request of the latter by a flag of truce, it was restored under promise of an equivalent, when one of their Mahometan prisoners of the highest rank was in consequence released, with an intimation, that if the exchange were 162 CONFEDERACY OF THE BEYS AGAINST ALI. not thought equal, the Suliots were ready to make more ample compensation. When the vizir, enraged at their obstinate defence, offered, by proclamation, a reward of fifty piastres for every head of a Suliot, they in return, by a counter proclamation, made light of this reward, and proposed ten charges of gunpowder to every citizen who should bring in the skull of an enemy. About this time a bright speck appeared in the midst of that political gloom which hung over the crags of Suli. The ambitious and exterminating designs of Ali became apparent to many other states, and they hastened to form an alliance, offensive and defensive, with this intrepid republic. Amongst these new allies were numbered Ibrahim Pasha of Berat, Mustafà of Delvino, Pronio Agà of Paramithia, Mahmout an independent bey of Tzamouria, and Daliani Agà of Konispoli; and thus the whole coast, from Avlona to Suli, was now engaged in arms against the tyrant. Against this torrent he opposed the invincible force of gold: by vast largesses, distributed among the independent beys, he soon excited a civil war in the states of Ibrahim, and drew him into his own dominions: by opening a secret communication with its governor, he introduced a large body of troops into the fortress of Delvino, carried off some Suliot hostages from thence, and obliged Mustafà to make a separate peace. The other allies however continued true to their engagements. The Suliots, in order that the zeal of these might not have time to cool, planned an immediate attack, in concert, upon the Albanian outposts in the execution of this they partially succeeded, taking a 'considerable number of prisoners, whom they disarmed and released, telling them to go home, provide fresh weapons, and then return, for that the Suliots still wanted arms. Soon after this attack Ali sent a large force against Paramithia, which would probably have succeeded, had not Tzavella and Dimo Draco poured down with their troops like a mountain torrent upon the invading enemy, whom they totally de'feated, and liberated their ally from his dangerous situation. Ali, in |