The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II

At length, on the 5th of September, Lord Cochrane was able, though still with difficulty, to resign the irksome and extra-official duties of a tax-gatherer that had been forced upon him. "Since my return from Zante, and, indeed, since my return from Alexandria," he wrote on that day to the Government, now lodged at Egina, "I have been using my utmost endeavours to procure the equipment of a dozen brigs and as many fireships. The delays occasioned, however, by the want of pecuniary means have hitherto prevented the realization of my wishes, and the services of this frigate have been lost to the State during the fore-mentioned period, owing to the impossibility of procuring the necessary funds without my personal presence at Syra and elsewhere. The equipment of the brigs and part of the fireships is now completed, in spite of all difficulties, and I shall not delay one moment the endeavour to effect something useful to the interests of the State. I think it proper, however, to intimate to your excellencies that, everything being paid relative to the expense of the present expedition, I know of no means whereby a single vessel can be maintained during the ensuing month."

On the 7th of September, Lord Cochrane was able to start on another warlike cruise. His force comprised the Hellas, the Karteria, the Sauveur, and nineteen or twenty other vessels. The Spetziots and the Hydriots, at the last moment, refused to aid him; but he was attended by Miaoulis, Kanaris, and Saktoures, the three best of the native admirals. After a brief visit to Candia, where he encouraged the garrison of Grabusa to hold out against the enemy, he again passed round the Morea, in which direction he desired to attain two important objects. The first was to injure as much as possible the Turkish and Egyptian vessels collected near Navarino. The second was to co-operate with the wretched force that, under General Church, had for three months past been making a show of resistance to the enemy at Corinth, and with its help to try and stir up the natives of Albania and Western Greece.

These objects, partly prevented in other ways, were nearly averted by a barbarous plot for Lord Cochrane's assassination. While halting off the southern coast of the Morea, on or near the 10th of September, a short, thick-built Greek, with an ugly countenance and determined eye, came on board the Hellas and asked for employment as a sailor. He was examined and rejected, on the ground of previous misconduct. Instead of going on shore again, however, he contrived to hide himself among the crew, and was not detected by Lord Cochrane for several hours, and when the frigate was in full sail. In the interval Lord Cochrane had received authentic information that this man had been commissioned by Ibrahim Pasha to attempt his life. There would have been justification for his immediate arrest, and, after a court martial, for his summary execution. But Lord Cochrane pursued a more generous policy. Walking up to his secretary, Mr. George Cochrane, he said: "Observe that man who is at the gangway on the larboard side. I have just had information that he has been sent by Ibrahim Pasha to assassinate me. Go quietly below, put on your sword, and watch him while he is on board." Mr. Cochrane obeyed his instructions. "In less than five minutes," he says, "I was again on deck with my sword. I took a few turns on the quarter-deck with his lordship, and then placed myself in a convenient position, about a dozen yards from the man. I did not lose sight of him for a couple of hours, keeping my eye steadily upon him. He soon observed that I was watching him, and I could perceive that he did not feel very comfortable in his mind. He did not attempt to come aft. Had he done so, I should have drawn my sword. After the men had had their dinner, one or two boats were got ready to convey seamen on board another vessel; and this fellow, seeing that his intentions were discovered, took advantage of the opportunity and got into one of the boats. I looked over the side of the Hellas, and saw him depart." Thus Lord Cochrane's life was saved.

Navarino was passed on the 11th of September. Lord Cochrane made no halt, as he saw that a British squadron, under Sir Edward Codrington, was there watching the Ottoman fleet and forbidding its egress. He accordingly at once proceeded northwards, and entered the Gulf of Patras on the 17th of September. On that day, in anticipation of the visit which he proposed to pay them, he forwarded proclamations to the inhabitants of the western coast. "People of Albania!" he wrote in one of them, "although you have so long suffered under the Mussulman yoke; although your love of liberty has been so long kept down by a dark and cruel despotism, the hour of your deliverance is not distant, and if you will you can hasten it. Europe takes a lively interest in your destiny; your fellow-countrymen are hastening to aid you. But all depends on the energy which you yourselves display: the support which we offer you, to be efficacious, requires on your part redoubled zeal and patriotism in the actual and decisive moment. Brave Albanians! your happy future, the security of your families, and the honour of your religion, are in your hands; your bold and steady co-operation will ensure your own salvation and our success!"

The intended expedition was prevented. It had been arranged that Lord Cochrane should wait near Cape Papas for the arrival of General Church's army and convey it to Western Greece, in the hope of putting it to better service in that region. But the land force was long in coming, and before its arrival Lord Cochrane had to write to the Government, explaining his recent movement and the reasons which compelled him to abandon the project of fighting in Albania. "Having proceeded to the Gulf of Patras," he said, "in order to co-operate with General Church in his intended expedition to Western Greece, I thought it would be conducive to the public service to invest the fort of Vasiladi, until, by the arrival of the forces of the general, more important operations could be undertaken; and accordingly that island was immediately blockaded by the boats of the squadron, and now continues surrounded by the vessels belonging to the Missolonghites, who have undertaken to maintain the blockade until it shall surrender. The Karteria, the Sauveur, and two of the gunboats, were immediately detached with orders to take or destroy all the enemy's vessels within the Gulf of Lepanto, whilst the Hellas went to the anchorage of Kalamos, in order to ascertain from the officers in arms what prospect there was of general co-operation; and I regret to say that the want of union among the chiefs and the prospect of some kind of accommodation with the enemy seemed to paralyse all their energies. I therefore detached all the squadron under Admiral Miaoulis to Syra and Naxos, to aid the Candiots and Chiots, should they continue inclined to assert their independence. I have to add that I received an indirect communication from the British Admiral, intimating his desire that no new or further operations should be undertaken in that quarter; for which reason I am about to proceed elsewhere, under the impression that nothing should be left undone to stir up the population of Greece to a sense of their duty to themselves and to their country."

The communication referred to was conveyed by Lord Ingestre, commander of the Philomel, who hailed the Hellas on the 27th of September, to deliver a message from Sir Edward Codrington. "Whereas I am informed by Sir Frederick Adam," wrote the English Admiral, "that Lord Cochrane, with the Greek fleet, is about to embark the army of General Church in the neighbourhood of Cape Papas, for the purpose of conveying them to the coast of Albania, you are hereby directed to make known to the commander of that expedition that I consider it my duty, in the present state of affairs, to prevent such a measure being carried into execution, and that I shall shortly present myself in that neighbourhood for that purpose." Lord Cochrane knew that, if it would be personally very distasteful to him to be in collision with the naval force of his own country, it would, on public grounds and in the interests of Greek independence, be wholly inexcusable for him to act in violation of Sir Edward Codrington's message. Therefore he complied with it and went back to the Archipelago, there to do other work, while England was serving Greece in her own way.

The service was to be rendered at last. After spending a year in diplomatic formalities, Great Britain and Russia had, in the spring of 1827, openly renewed their arguments with the Porte in favour of Greek independence. These arguments having been rejected, the two Christian powers were in consultation as to the next course to be pursued, when France, partly urged thereto by her schemes for the acquisition of Algiers, then a Turkish dependency, offered to take part in the defence of Greece. The result was a treaty signed in London, on behalf of the three states, on the 6th of July, having for its object the enforcement of the St. Petersburg protocol of the 4th of April, 1826. It insisted that Greece should have internal freedom, though under vassalage to Turkey; and provided that, if the contending parties did not agree to an armistice within a month, there should be a forcible intervention.

The Greeks welcomed the proposals made to them in consequence of this treaty; but they were rejected by the Turkish Government, notwithstanding the appearance of English, French, and Russian warships in the eastern part of the Mediterranean. Reshid Pasha and Ibrahim continued their efforts to bring the whole insurgent district into thorough subjection, and accordingly the patriotic Greeks and their foreign supporters continued to act on the defensive. Lord Cochrane and a few others, indeed, were eager to secure action bolder than ever, considering that, when the settling-time arrived, the limits of independent Greece would be augmented if a larger area was then the scene of zealous opposition to the Turkish power. This it was that chiefly induced the efforts to quicken the revolt in Albania, and when Lord Cochrane was prevented by Sir Edward Codrington from persevering in his work in that quarter, he lost no time in sailing round to the eastern side of Greece, there to do his utmost towards rousing the people of Candia and other islands into an assertion of their independence, in order that they too might have a claim to be included in the liberation of the Greeks.

The message from Sir Edward Codrington to Lord Cochrane, which has been quoted, was dated the 25th of September. It was written immediately after an interview of the English commander and Admiral de Rigny, who was in charge of the French squadron, with Ibrahim Pasha. To him they had formally announced that they were instructed to insist upon a cessation of hostilities, and that they should promptly act upon their instructions. Ibrahim answered that he had orders from the Sultan to continue the war, but he promised to communicate with his sovereign, and pledged himself to abstain from hostilities until the answer arrived and was reported to the allied fleets. Before that answer came a fortunate series of accidents, arising out of Lord Cochrane's expedition to the Albanian coast, turned the current of diplomacy and secured for Greece more freedom than had been anticipated.

Lord Cochrane, attended by his Greek vessels, had left the neighbourhood of Cape Papas on the 27th of September. But, though deeming himself bound in honour to that course, he was willing to allow a part of his force to remain in the neighbourhood and watch the progress of events, especially as that part was at the time separated from him and lying in the Gulf of Lepanto. It consisted of the Karteria, under Captain Abney Hastings, the Sauveur, under Captain Thomas, and two gunboats, each mounting a 32-pounder. For a week this little squadron, ignorant of the arrangement between the allied admirals and Ibrahim Pasha, watched a Turkish force that was moored in the Scala of Salona, and comprised one large Algerine schooner carrying twenty brass guns, a brig of fourteen guns, six smaller brigs and schooners, two gunboats, and two armed transports. These vessels were protected by batteries on the level shore and other batteries on overhanging rocks. On the 30th of September, Captains Hastings and Thomas proceeded to attack them, and did so with excellent effect. The solid shot of the Sauveur and the gunboats soon silenced the batteries; the red-hot shells of the Karteria made havoc of the enemy's vessels, four being defeated within half-an-hour. Soon the Sauveur and the gunboats joined in the attack on the shipping, and, in the end, seven vessels were destroyed and three captured.

The news of that victory, as soon as it was conveyed to Navarino, where nearly all the naval force of the Turks was lying, roused the anger of Ibrahim Pasha, who complained that the allied powers, while binding him to inaction, allowed the Greeks to carry on the war. On the 1st of October, he sent out thirty war-ships with orders to enter the Gulf of Lepanto and punish Hastings and Thomas for their recent exploits. Sir Edward Codrington, however, pursued them, and drove them back to Navarino. Ibrahim Pasha, not easily to be baffled, himself left Navarino, on the evening of the 3rd, with fourteen of his stoutest vessels. Again Sir Edward Codrington gave chase, and this second squadron also was compelled by him to return to port. Ibrahim Pasha, however, was not to be robbed of his revenge. He dared not leave Navarino by sea, but he sent thence a land force, which marched up to the northern side of the Morea, and did serious mischief to the wornout fragment of an army which General Church was slowly conducting from Corinth to Papas, there to be embarked for Albania. Only by the unlooked-for valour of young Kolokotrones and his section was the rout of the whole army averted. Nor was Ibrahim satisfied with this act of retaliation. His troops scoured all the adjoining country, burning villages and laying waste the olive-groves and fig-gardens which were the only source of subsistence to the luckless natives.

Thereby Sir Edward Codrington and his allies were in turn incensed. They decided that the time had come for direct interference in the struggle, and for the expulsion of the Ottoman forces from the Morea. In the afternoon of the 20th of October, five and twenty line-of-battle ships, frigates, and sloops entered the Bay of Navarino. Ten of them were English, seven were French, and eight were Russian, and they carried in all 1172 guns. Twenty thousand Ottoman troops watched them from the fortresses of Navarino and Sphakteria, and, as they entered the harbour, they saw some eighty Turkish and Egyptian vessels, mounting about 2000 guns, drawn up in the shape of a horseshoe to receive them. They had come only to threaten; but accident, or design on the part of the enemy, brought about a most momentous battle.

A volley from the Ottomans began the fight, which was continued for four hours with stolid energy on both sides. The English and French vessels, being foremost, carried on the chief contest with the enemy's shipping; the Russians had to silence the batteries before they could enter the harbour, but then their Admiral, Count Heyden, did his full share of the deadly work. The fighting lasted till sunset; but by that time many of the enemy's hulks were in flames, and all through the night these flames spread from one vessel to another till nearly all were destroyed. At daybreak, only twenty-nine out of the eighty were afloat, and six thousand or more Moslems had been slain, burnt, or drowned. Many of the vessels of the allies were seriously damaged, and of their crews a hundred and seventy-five men were killed, and four hundred and fifty wounded.

That was the battle of Navarino. "I have the honour to inform you," wrote Sir Edward Codrington to the Greek Government, "that, according to the decision of my colleagues, Count Heyden and Rear-Admiral de Rigny, and myself, the combined fleet entered this port at two o'clock on the 20th, that some of the ships of the Turko-Egyptian fleet first began a fire of musketry, and then fired cannon-shot, which led very shortly to a general battle, which lasted till dark, and that the consequence of this has been the destruction of the whole of the Turkish fleet, except a few corvettes and brigs. Most of the ships of the allied fleets have received so much injury that they must go into port; but if the Greek vessels of war are employed against their enemy instead of destroying the commerce of the allies, they may henceforth easily obstruct the movements of any Turkish force by sea."

CHAPTER XXI

THE FIRST CONSEQUENCES OF THE INTERFERENCE OF THE ALLIED POWERS AND THE BATTLE OF NAVARINO. – LORD COCHRANE'S INTENDED SHARE IN FABVIER'S EXPEDITION TO CHIOS. – ITS ABANDONMENT. – HIS CRUISE AMONG THE ISLANDS AND ABOUT NAVARINO. – HIS EFFORTS TO REPRESS PIRACY. – HIS RETURN TO THE ARCHIPELAGO. – THE MISCONDUCT OF THE GOVERNMENT. – LORD COCHRANE'S COMPLAINTS. – HIS LETTERS TO THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ALLIED POWERS, ACQUITTING HIMSELF OF COMPLICITY IN GREEK PIRACY. – HIS FURTHER COMPLAINTS TO THE GOVERNMENT. – HIS RESOLUTION TO VISIT ENGLAND. – HIS LETTER TO COUNT CAPODISTRIAS EXPLAINING AND JUSTIFYING THAT RESOLUTION. – HIS DEPARTURE FROM GREECE, AND ARRIVAL AT PORTSMOUTH. – HIS LETTER TO M. EYNARD.

[1827-1828.]

Heartily rejoicing at the benefit conferred on Greece by the battle of Navarino, Lord Cochrane could not but be troubled to think that the overthrow of the Turkish and Egyptian fleet, which he had laboured so zealously to effect, and which, had he received any adequate support from the Government or the people, would have been a work as easy for him as the enterprises in which he had been so notably successful in former times and other countries, had to be done by the officers and ships of foreign nations instead of by him and the native fleet of which, by name, he was commander-in-chief. The battle being won, however, he tried, with no flagging of his energy, to complete the triumph that had been thus begun, and, if anything was easy to a people so wanting in patriotism, made easier.

He was at Poros at the time of the battle. On his way thither he had fallen in with the Enterprise, the first of the steamers built in England, and which, with others that never were completed at all, ought to have been completed nearly two years before. The Enterprise had been so badly constructed, that now that she arrived, she was of very little use. Lord Cochrane was now trying to improve her sailing powers, and at the same time attempting to collect a really manageable crew for the Hellas, and to bring together other vessels fit for naval work. In these labours there was no less difficulty than had befallen him on former occasions. The Hellas was in want of water; but the inhabitants of Poros refused to supply it, on the plea that they had no more than was needed for their lemon-gardens. Some carpentering was urgently needed by the Enterprise; but, as it had to be done on Sunday, the workmen declined to touch a hammer, notwithstanding the exhortations of a priest who promised them absolution, and even threatened to excommunicate them if they failed in their duty to the country in this pressing time of its necessity. Of those sorts were the obstacles that occurred each day, and rendered futile all the efforts of Lord Cochrane and his officers.

On the 27th of October, Lord Cochrane again set sail from Poros in the Hellas, accompanied by the Sauveur, and the corvette which he had lately taken from the Turks, to which the name of Hydra was now given, and proceeded to Chios. That island, the scene of previous disasters, had since 1822 been left in the hands of the Turks. Colonel Fabvier was now attempting to recover it for Greece, and Lord Cochrane entered heartily into the work. He arrived on the 30th, and spent two days in vigorous co-operation with the land force that had reached the island a day before. His share in this enterprise, however, was brief. He was visited on the 2nd of November first by Captain Le Blanc, bearing a message from Admiral de Rigny, and afterwards by Captain Hamilton, who produced a copy of a letter addressed on the 24th of October to the Legislative Assembly by the Admirals of the three allied powers. "We will not suffer Greece," they there said, "to send any expedition to cruise or blockade, except between Lepanto and Volo, comprehending Salamis, Egina, Hydra, and Spetzas. We will not suffer the Greeks to carry insurrection into either Chios or Albania, and, by so doing, to expose the inhabitants to the cruel reprisals of the Turks. We regard as null and void all letters of marque given to cruisers found beyond the above limits; and the ships-of-war of the allied powers will everywhere have orders to detain them. There remains no longer any pretence for them. The maritime armistice is, in fact, observed on the side of the Turks, since their fleet no longer exists. Take care of yours, for we will destroy it also, if the case requires it, to put an end to a system of maritime pillage which will end by putting you out of the protection of the law of nations."

By that letter, Lord Cochrane was constrained to abandon his intended work at Chios. He could excuse the angry terms in which it was couched, since the anger was only directed against the same unpatriotic conduct which he had all along been denouncing. He was painfully aware that, with the exception of his own flag-ship and the few vessels commanded by English officers, his fleet was chiefly composed of pirates, who only took temporary service under the national flag in order to fill up their idle time, or to make their public service an occasion for further clandestine pursuit of their lawless avocations. From the first he had persistently and fiercely denounced this piracy, and from the day on which he had heard of the victory at Navarino he had resolved to make it a special business to do all in his power to root out the evil. "The destruction of the Ottoman fleet by that of the allied powers," he had said in a proclamation dated the 29th of October, "having delivered the Greek fleet from the cares which had necessarily occupied its attention, and the commander of the maritime forces of Greece having the right to take due measures for the extinction of piracy, to preserve the honour of the State, and to protect the people and property of friendly nations, it is now made known that ships of less than a hundred tons' burden are not to have arms on board, unless they are first provided with express commissions, so registered, and numbered in such a manner that the number shall be conspicuously noted on the ship. All other vessels of the size defined which shall be found at sea with arms will be considered as pirates, and the crews shall be brought to trial, and, if found guilty, be executed."

For the brief remainder of his service in Greece, indeed, Lord Cochrane made it his principal duty to do all in his power towards the suppression of piracy. The admirals of the allies having insisted that the Greek vessels should do nothing but watch their own coasts within a distance of twelve miles from the shore, he proceeded to the southern part of the Morea, making only a short tour, in order to meet the primates of Samos, Naxia, Paros, Candia, and other islands, and ascertain from them the condition of the people and their power of resistance to the Turks and to their piratical enemies of their own race. The information gained by him was not satisfactory. He found that here, as in the mainland and the nearer islands, patriotism was weak and misrule oppressive. Everywhere the people were the victims of their own want of patriotism and of the tyranny of foes, both Moslem and Christian.

He was off Cerigo on the 15th of November. There, having heard that the residue of the Turkish and Egyptian fleet was preparing to put to sea with all the available force, apparently to carry on the war in Candia, he at once sailed on to the south-eastern promontory of the Morea, and, during a fortnight, maintained the blockade on both sides of Navarino, between Coron and Prodana. There also he was able to carry on his war against pirates. "The Hellas being off the island of Prodana, a few miles to the north of Navarino," he reported to the Government, describing an important adventure of the 21st of November, "I sent two boats for the purpose of procuring wood from the island. The boats, being fired upon from persons near to some vessels in a cove, returned with a report that there were Turks upon the island. In consequence of this report, the corvette Hydra was directed to enter by the northern passage, whilst the Hellas entered to the southward of the island, and both vessels anchored opposite to the place where the supposed Turkish vessels were at anchor. It was immediately perceived, however, that the vessels were not Turkish, and, on examination, one proved to be a schooner under the Greek flag. It was soon discovered that a Dutch vessel at anchor in the same port had been seized, without the slightest pretence, by the schooner and plundered of almost everything that could be removed, and, moreover, that the captain and crew had been most barbarously flogged, for the purpose of ascertaining where the proceeds of the outward cargo were deposited."