which were in their power. But the radical fault of the Hellenes was
that they compromised the question by the introduction of the
question of annexation, and forced it into the field of international
interests, disguising the real causes and justification of the
movement, and making it impossible for England consistently with her
declared policy to entertain the complaints of the Cretans without
also admitting the pretensions of the Hellenes. If the latter had not
intruded their interests into the discussion, the former might have
been heard; but from the moment in which annexation to Greece became
the alternative of the reconquest of Crete, the English government
could clearly not interfere against the Porte without upsetting its
own work; and, if in some minor respects, especially the question of
the principality, it had been more kind to Crete, no one could have
found fault with a policy which was in its general tendency obligatory
on it."

This opinion, formed and expressed while all my sympathies were with
the Greek government, and in complete knowledge of all that it was
doing for the Cretans, remains as the mildest criticism I can make on
the policy of Athens. At this time, looking over the events of the
thirty years which have lapsed since the end of that unhappy affair, I
can see more clearly the matter as a whole, and that the miseries of
Crete especially, and of the Greeks in the Levant in general, have
been mainly due to the want of commonsense in the race, and the
incapacity of individuals to subordinate their personal views and
interests to the general good. The Italians have a proverb, "Six
Greeks, seven captains," which in a pithy way expresses the reason
why the Greeks have never been able to succeed in any national
movement--the necessary subordination and self-effacement needed for
civic or military solidity are, and always have been absolutely out