The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane - Earl of Dundonald Thomas Barnes Cochrane (guided reading books TXT) 📗

pretended, of the Greek deputies in London, were vain. The completion of the steam-vessels was retarded on all sorts of pretexts, and when each little portion of the work was said to be done, it was found to be so badly executed that it had to be cancelled and the whole thing done afresh. In this way all the residue of the loan of 1825 was exhausted, and all for worse than nothing.

Lord Cochrane would never have been able to proceed to Greece at all, had the Greek deputies, Orlando and Luriottis, who had contracted for his employment, been his only supporters. Fortunately, however, he had other and worthier coadjutors. The Greek Committee in Paris did much on his behalf, and yet more was done by the Philhellenes of Switzerland, with Chevalier Eynard at their head, of whom one zealous member, Dr. L.A. Gosse, of Geneva, "well-informed, very zealous, full of genuine enthusiasm for the cause of humanity, and an excellent physician," as M. Eynard described him, was about to go in person to Greece, as administrator of the funds collected by the Swiss Committee. Lord Cochrane's disconsolate arrival at Marseilles, and the miserable failure of the plans for his enterprise, had not been known to M. Eynard and his friends a week, before they set themselves to remedy the mischief as far as lay in their power. As a first and chief movement they proposed to buy a French corvette, then lying in Marseilles Harbour, and fit her out as a stout auxiliary to Lord Cochrane's little force expected from London and New York. Lord Cochrane, being consulted on the scheme, eagerly acceded to it in a letter written on the 25th of October. "As I have yet no certainty," he said, "that the person employed to fit the machinery of the steam-vessels will now perform his task better than he has heretofore done, I recommend purchasing the corvette, provided that she can be purchased for the sum of 200,000 francs, and, if funds are wanting, I personally am willing to advance enough to provision the corvette, and am ready to proceed in that or any fit vessel. But I am quite resolved, without a moral certainty of something following me, not to ruin and disgrace the cause by presenting myself in Greece in a schooner of two carronades of the smallest calibre."

The corvette was bought and equipped; but in this several weeks were employed. In the interval, for a week or two after the 8th of December, Lord Cochrane went to Geneva, there to be the guest of Chevalier Eynard, to be introduced to Dr. Gosse, and to become personally acquainted with many other Philhellenes.

Neither Lord Cochrane nor his friends could quite abandon hope of the ultimate completion of the London steam-vessels. They felt, too, that with nothing but the new vessel, the American frigate, and the Perseverance, Lord Cochrane would have very poor provision for his undertaking. "I have this moment received a letter from his lordship," wrote M. Eynard to Mr. Hobhouse on the 12th of January, 1827, "wherein he appears rather disappointed with respect to the scantiness of the forces and the means placed at his disposal. He informs me that he has no officers, few sailors; and that, in case the steamers should not arrive, he will not feel qualified to encounter the Turkish and Egyptian naval forces, as well as the Algerines, who of all are the best manned. 'I therefore shall not be able to undertake anything of moment,' continues his lordship. 'Thus to stake my character and existence would be a mere Quixotic act. I will put to sea, however, but still with a heavy heart; yet not until I have with me all requisites, and my stores and ammunition be embarked likewise.' Discouragement appears throughout his lordship's letter."

The discouragement is not to be wondered at. It is hardly necessary, however, to give further illustration of it, or of the troubles incident to this long waiting-time. Enough has been said to show Lord Cochrane's position in relation to this deplorable state of affairs, and to exonerate him from all blame in the matter. That he should have been blamed at all is only part of the wanton injustice that attended him nearly all through his life. He had consented, in the autumn of 1825, to enter the service of the Greeks, on the distinct understanding that six English-built steamships should be placed at his disposal, and to facilitate the arrangements he did and bore far more than could have been expected of him. For the delays and disasters that befel those arrangements he was in no way responsible: he was only thereby a very great sufferer. But his sufferings would have been greater, and he would have been really at fault, had he consented to go to Greece without any sort of provision, as a few rash friends and many eager enemies desired him to do, and afterwards blamed him for not doing.

As it was, he greatly increased his difficulties by at last proceeding to Greece with the miserable equipment provided for him. In his little schooner, the Unicorn, he left Marseilles on the 14th of February, 1827, and proceeded to St. Tropezy, where the French corvette, the Sauveur, was being fitted out under the direction of Captain Thomas, a brave and energetic officer. Thence he set sail, with the two vessels, on the 23rd of February. He reached Poros, and entered upon his service in Greek waters, on the 19th of March. "He had been wandering about the Mediterranean in a fine English yacht, purchased for him out of the proceeds of the loan, in order to accelerate his arrival in Greece, ever since the month of June, 1826," says the ablest historian of the Greek Revolution.[A] The preceding paragraphs will show how much truth is contained in that sarcastic sentence.

[Footnote A: Finlay, vol. ii., p. 137.]

CHAPTER XVI. THE PROGRESS OF AFFAIRS IN GREECE.—THE SIEGE OF MISSOLONGHI.—ITS FALL.—THE BAD GOVERNMENT AND MISMANAGEMENT OF THE GREEKS.—GENERAL PONSONBY'S ACCOUNT OF THEM.—THE EFFECT OF LORD COCHRANE'S PROMISED ASSISTANCE.—THE FEARS OF THE TURKS, AS SHOWN IN THEIR CORRESPONDENCE WITH MR. CANNING.—THE ARRIVAL OF CAPTAIN HASTINGS IN GREECE, WITH THE "KARTERIA."—HIS OPINION OF GREEK CAPTAINS AND SAILORS.—THE FRIGATE "HELLAS."—LETTERS TO LORD COCHRANE FROM ADMIRAL MIAOULIS AND THE GOVERNING COMMISSION OF GREECE.

[1826-1827.]

During the one-and-twenty weary months that elapsed between Lord Cochrane's acceptance of service in the Greek War of Independence and his actual participation in the work, the Revolution passed through a new and disastrous stage. In the summer of 1825, when the invitation was sent to him, the disorganisation of the Greeks and the superior strength of the Turks, and yet more of their Egyptian and Arabian allies under Ibrahim Pasha, were threatening to undo all that had been achieved in the previous years. One bold stand had begun to be made, in which, throughout nearly a whole year, the Greeks fought with unsurpassed heroism, and then the whole struggle for liberty fell into the lawless and disordered condition which already had prevailed in many districts, and which was then to become universal and to offer obstacles too great even for Lord Cochrane's genius to overcome in his efforts to revive genuine patriotism and to render thoroughly successful the cause that he had espoused.

The last great stand was at Missolonghi. Built on the edge of a marshy plain, bounded on the north by the high hills of Zygos and protected on the south by shallow lagoons at the mouth of the Gulf of Lepanto, and chiefly tenanted by hardy fishermen, this town had been the first in Western Greece to take part in the Revolution. Here in June, 1821, nearly all the Moslem residents had been slaughtered, the wealthiest and most serviceable only being spared to become the slaves of their Christian masters. In the last two months of 1822 the Ottomans had made a desperate attempt to win back the stronghold; but its inhabitants, led by Mavrocordatos, who had lately come to join in the work of regeneration, had resolutely beaten off the invaders and taken revenge upon the few Turks still resident among them. "The wife of one of the Turkish inhabitants of Missolonghi," said an English visitor in 1824, "imploring my pity, begged me to allow her to remain under my roof, in order to shelter her from the brutality and cruelty of the Greeks. They had murdered all her relations. A little girl, nine years old, remained to be the only companion of her misery."[A] Missolonghi continued to be one of the chief strongholds of independence in continental Greece; and, the revolutionists being forced into it by the Turks, who scoured the districts north and east of it in 1824 and 1825, it became in the latter year the main object of attack and the scene of most desperate resistance. Here were concentrated the chief energies of the Greek warriors and of their Moslem antagonists, and here was exhibited the last and most heroic effort of the patriots, unaided by foreign champions of note, in their long and hard-fought battle for freedom.

[Footnote A: Millingen, "Memoirs on the Affairs of Greece," p. 99.]

Reshid Pasha, the ablest of the Turkish generals, having advanced into the neighbourhood of Missolonghi towards the end of April, began to besiege it in good earnest, at the head of an army of some seven or eight thousand picked followers, on the 7th of May. While he was forming his entrenchments and erecting his batteries, the townsmen, augmented by a number of fierce Suliots and others, were strengthening their defences. They increased their ramparts, and organised a garrison of four thousand soldiers and armed peasants, with a thousand citizens and boatmen as auxiliaries. At first the tide of fortune was with them. The Turks had to defend themselves as best they could from numerous sorties, well-planned and well-executed, in May and June; and fresh courage came to the Greeks with the intelligence that Admiral Miaoulis was on his way to the port, with as powerful a fleet as he could muster. While he was being expected, however, on the 10th of July, the Turkish Capitan Pasha of Greece arrived with fifty-five vessels. Miaoulis, with forty Greek sail, made his appearance on the 2nd of August. Thus the naval and military forces of both sides were brought into formidable opposition.

At first the Greeks triumphed on the sea. In the night of the 3rd of August, Miaoulis, finding that Missolonghi was being greatly troubled by the blockade established by the Turks, cleverly placed himself to windward of the enemy's line, and at daybreak on the 4th he dispersed the squadron nearest the shore. At noon the whole Turkish force came against him. He met them bravely, but being able to do no more than hold his own by the ordinary method of warfare, he sent three fireships against them in the afternoon. The Turks did not wait to be injured by them. They fled at once, going all the way to Alexandria in search of safety. Miaoulis then lost no time in seconding his first exploit by another. A detachment of the army of Eastern Greece, under the brave generals Karaïskakes and Zavellas, having been sent to harass Reshid Pasha's operations, the admiral assisted them in a successful piece of strategy. The Turks were, on the 6th of August, attacked simultaneously by the ships and by the outlying battalion of Greeks, while fifteen hundred of the garrison rushed out upon the invaders. Four Turkish batteries were seized, and a great number of their defenders were killed and captured; the remainder, after tough fighting during three hours and a half, being driven so far back that much of the besieging work had to be done over again.

Miaoulis then went in search of the Ottoman fleet, leaving the townsmen, who were enabled, by the raising of the blockade, to receive fresh supplies of food, ammunition, and men, to continue their defence with a good heart. Reshid Pasha vigorously restored his siege operations, but, attempting to force his way into the town on the 21st of September, was again seriously repulsed. The Turks were allowed, and even tempted, to advance to a point which had been skilfully undermined by the besieged. The mine was then fired, and a great number of Moslems were blown into the air, while their comrades, fleeing in disorder, were further injured by a storm of shot from the ramparts. A similar device was resorted to, with like success, on the 13th of October. Reshid had to retire to a safe distance and there build winter quarters for his diminished and starving army. Karaïskakes and Zavellas entered Missolonghi without hindrance, there to concert measures which, had they been promptly adopted, might have utterly destroyed the besieging force.

They delayed their plans too long. The Capitan Pasha having in August fled in a cowardly way to Alexandria, there effected a junction