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MASSAORE OF SCI0.

69

fions, they could do no more. The pretence, however, was
seized upon by the Government of Constantinople, and the Zr. 33.
island was doomed to a visit from the Turkish Admiral, and.
& body of ruffianly troops who were promised a free licence
of blood and plunder.
“The riches of the island, the beauty and accomplishments
of the females, were held out as inducements to draw all the
ruffians of the capital to join in the expedition of rapine and
murder. The situation of the island, too, afforded the
opportunity of passing from the mainland across a narrow
strait of about seven miles, and thousands of the miscreanta
from all the towns of the cosst of Asia Minor, including
Smyrna, flocked to the scene of woe. Now only picture
bo yourselves such a scene as the Isle of Wight, supposing
it to be one third more populous and larger in circumference,
and then imagine that its inhabitants in the midst of unsuspecting
 security were suddenly burst upon by 20,000 of
the butchers, porters, thieves, and desperadoes of London,
Portsmouth, etcetera. Imagine these for three days in
unbridled possession of the persons and property of every
soul in that happy island ; conceive all the churches filled
with mangled corpses, the rich proprietors hanging dead at
their own house doors, the ministers of religion cruelly
tortured—imagine all that could happen from the knives,
swords, and pistols of men who were inured to blood, and
suppose the captivity and sufferings of every young female
or male, who were without exception torn away and sold
into captivity ;—and yer will not then picture a quarter
part of the horrors wa, happened at the massacre of
Scio. Of nearly 100,05 =ersons on the island in the month
of May, not more than 700 were lef alive there at the end
of two months after, Upwards of 40,000 young persons of
both sexes were sold into infamous slavery throughout all
the Mahometan cities of Europe and Asis, snd not one

1837.