CAPTIVITY WITH GREEK BRIGANDS.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume IX, Issue 454, 18 February 1867, Page 3

CAPTIVITY WITH GREEK BRIGANDS.

[Bell’s Weekly messenger.] Mb. Soteeopoulous, late Minister of Finance at Ath.-us, has written the following account of his detention by Greek bnesads. The candid simplicity with which ft reveals the moral fochngs of the writer nud the political views of the brigands renders all comment superfluous. It is dated October 25, 1866: — “Since Greece became independent I am the first person in this or the neighboarii*" departments who has been earned by brigands. I hope I may be the last. 1 was taken sitting at the door of mj

country house, and detained captive thirty sis days. Boring law time I passed the nights in the open air, with no other covering than a woollen cloak to protect me from the cold and rain ; and I remained frequently all day in irrigated fields of maize, exposed to tho fierce rays of the sun, deprived of necessary nourishment, uiid. often of T?st6? to &il®j my thirst. X was not released until the brigands received 60,000 drachmas in gold, as my ransom, and after I had expended 10,000 drachms more in consequence of the high price of ' gold, the necessity of sending several messengers on foot and on horseback to different places, and the payment of 5000 dracmas of which I was plundered by men

without conscience, while my relations were running here and there with my ran som, pursued at times by the Government authorities, and at times by bands of criminals who followed them to murder them and get possession of the ransom money, my relations being unable to come in contact with the men charged to receive my ransom, on account of the measures adopted by the Government authorities. “ In the obscurity of the night on which I was taken prisoner I was unable to observe the number of the brigands who entered my property. But at the first halt we made about 20 minutes from Kypariala, before the building of the Panegyristria, 1 observed that I was escorted by five brigands, two of whom, disgusting from the tilth of their clothes, did not conceal themselves, telling me (and I tkink they did not deceive me) that they belonged to the band of Lingos, that they bad separated from it, and proposed to join the band of Kitzos, in Attica, that the name of one was Mitzos Laphasanos and of the other Evthemios. This last appeared from his accent to belong to the class of shepherdvlaoks. The other three, who always concealed themcelves from me during the day, were, as far as 1 could judge from their dress, men of Alonistena, or else Tzakonians. I have no doubt that my captivity was planned and arranged by persons who desired to ruin me, and who, in order to succeed in their scheme, had represented falsely to the brigands that I possessed a colossal fortune, in order to make them demand an enormous ransom, which I should be unable to pay, and thus the brigands would be led to murder mo. “ During the first night my companions said :

“ We are positively informed that you have 200,000 drachmas in the bank, and that your landed property is worth 200,000 more. We intend, therefore, to demand a ransom of 300,009 drachmas, for we thought the remaining 100,000 drachmas would suffice for you to live, particularly as you have no children. But on reflection we thought it would be a crime in the eyes of God to deprive a political man of the means of preserving his influence in order to servo the purposes of his enemies. We have therefore restricted our demand to the letter we have sent to Madame Soteropoulous to only 80,000 drachmas. We might have seized somebody of no political importance belonging to the chiss called proprietors, and have obtained more mo ney, for such people do not require that we should allow them to retain anything. But we preferred taking a gentleman like you, partly in order to give a lesson to Ministers of B'tate, national representatives, deputies, and in general all political men, who, alter they have made a revolution and incited others to commit crimes, neglect to restore tranquillity by a general amnesty ; but, on the contrary, every day cut off the heads of brave men on the scaffold, —partly also because we desired to make a capture that would make a sensation.’

“My captivity would only have lasted fourteen days if the imprudent measures of the Government had not prolonged it by the addition of twenty-two more. The brigands think it as most dishonourable in a professional light to allow a prisoner to be recaptured alive, and accordingly, if a band suffered such a disgraceful violation of their laws of honour, it would forfeit all kind of respect among its fellows, and would be unable to exercise its profession. Consequently there is no example of a prisoner having been saved by the pursuit of the Government authorities, for the brigands, keeping their prisoner close to them and even bound, have always time enough t* kill him when they find that they can carry him no farther. Whenever anybody has bee* taken, their relations have always urgently entreated the Government to stop all pursuit, and nearly always there have been found functionaries, superior or subordinate, who, having a just way of appreciating the circumstances, or else moved by philanthropy, have stopped every movement tending to put the life of the captured man in danger, or to throw obstacles in the way of paying the ransom. The British Minister himself, during the month of December last! when three if nglisb travellers were taken in Arcanania, asked nothing but that the pursuit of the brigands should stop, for he knew that if the pursuit continued his relations would be murdered.

“ Burins r.v castivitr tk» . 5 “V 1 "“V —" pursuit not cease, but, on me contrary, it was carried on with unusual activity, and the offices of the mayors are filled with re iterated orders of the Government to continue the pursuit in order to find and capture the brigands. Some of these orders make no mention of the safety of the prisoner, and others speak of it as a secondary object, and one which can only he taken into consideration in so far as it is reconcilable with the extermination of brigand* age. Indeed, I have seen an order, of 1 know not Wii®t prefect or which, contradicting the report which it says was spread by my relations, that the Government had ordered the pursuit to be stopped, commands it to bo actively cou-,

tinned. without interruption, under penalty shall neglect their duty. But that which particularly filled me with horror is a semi* official order, signed, I believe, by the secretary of the sub-prefecture of Olympia, and which I saw in the hands of the demarch of Heroes, the commune in which I was rslsassci bj tbs Ttiln nmHr says:—

“ ‘ 80,000 drachmas are to be paid to the brigands by the relations of Soteropoulos, and 50,000 drachmas are offered as a reward to those who arrest or kill these bandits. This makes a total of 130,000 drachmas, which wiU belong to those who can slay the brigands at the moment that tuoj rcCcifo tlie ratibuiii* “This order to excite the zeal of the officers in pursuit of the brigands has this of immoral about it, that, not counting either my life or the lives of my relations for anything, it exposed them to imminent danger by an attack at the moment of paying the ransom, and that it proposed to make my own money, which I had paid to obtain my liberty, a recompense for the destruction of the brigands. “ Although measures of this severity and so contrary to the laws of humanity were taken in my case for the first time, I do not complain, because the agents of the Government did not consider that they were under an obligatiod to do for a deputy belonging to the Opposition that which has always been done for a simple peasant. But Ido complain that the Government authorities watched and tracked my relations who were charged with the ransom, and by so doing retarded the payment, which ought to have been made on the 23rd August, until the 14th September, and thus retarded my captivity, and often exposed my life to danger, besides indicting on me an additional expenditure of 6000 drachmas."