The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II. Bourne Henry Richard Fox

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      Lord Cochrane returned to Poros on the 10th of May, after an absence of just three weeks. He lost no time in rendering to the Government, then located in that island, a personal account of his recent proceedings, and in doing his utmost to persuade the Greeks to aid him in the new exploits on which he hoped to enter with better prospect of success. An address to the Psarians, dated the 11th of May, will serve as a specimen of many documents of the same nature. "It was my intention yesterday," he said, "to have paid my respects to you, in order personally to have made known to you the circumstances in which the naval service is placed and the state and preparations of the enemy, and to have called on you to show an example to the other islanders, on whose exertions now depend the liberties and fate of their country. The abandonment of the schooner, in which I have hitherto been embarked by all her seamen, prevented me from fulfilling my intention, and the certain intelligence received this morning that the Turkish fleet from Constantinople passed Syra the day before yesterday, to join the Egyptian fleet, compels me now to recommend you by writing, instead of by word of mouth, to save your country and yourselves by prompt and energetic exertions. The money I brought here with me, being the proceeds of subscriptions made throughout Europe for your cause, has unfortunately been nearly consumed in fruitless endeavours to save the capital of Greece by means of an irregular and unmanageable body of men, who will neither receive instruction nor listen to advice. I hope that the brave seamen who understand their duty will listen to my recommendation through you that they should at once step forward to save their families from oppression and slavery, and the name of their country from being struck out of the list of independent nations. By one glorious effort Greece may be free; but if she remain in her present state of apathy all hope must be abandoned. I call upon you now to stand forward in defence of your religion and all that is valuable to man. I send you a thousand dollars, which is all that I can spare. Those who will equip their ships may depend on repayment out of the first money that shall be remitted to me for the public service of Greece."

      As that letter implies, Lord Cochrane had to begin his reconstruction of the Greek navy – now the only remaining resource of the nation in its hope of working out and assuring its independence by effort of its own – almost without funds. The small sum of 8000l. which he had brought with him, as well as the money collected by the European committees and transmitted to the Philhellenic Committee in Greece, composed of Colonel Heydeck, Dr. Bailli, and Dr. Gosse, was nearly exhausted, and the bankrupt Government was unable to provide him with any adequate resources for carrying on his work. It had authorized him to buy ships and stores and to employ labourers and seamen, and expected him to do all without stint, but gave him no money for the purpose. In lieu it authorized him to borrow upon the security of all the future revenue to be derived from the islands; and every effort to utilize this mortgage was made by his agent Dr. Gosse, but with very poor success. The credit of the Greek Government was so low that the prospects of any considerable revenue in the depressed state of commerce – likely to be yet more depressed by the steady advances made by the Turks in regaining their dominion over the insurgents – deterred capitalists from staking their money thereupon. Lord Cochrane, as we shall see, had to apply half his energies in performing the work of a financier, never anticipated by him, and certainly not proper to his functions as First Admiral; and, the result of all being feeble, his legitimate duties were grievously crippled.

      Money being absolutely needed, however, he did his best to procure it, and with this view, as well as in order to make personal acquaintance with the principal ports, and the ships and sailors contained in them, he left Poros, three days after returning to it, on a tour among the other important islands.

      Starting on Sunday, the 13th of May, he reached Hydra on the following morning. There, in the house of the brothers Konduriottes, its richest and most influential inhabitants, he met several other leading primates, and prevailed on them to take upon themselves the outfit of several brigs and brulottes, the cost of which he had at present no means of paying. Having, on the 15th, passed on to Spetzas, Lord Cochrane had a similar interview with its chief residents. "I have been highly gratified," he wrote on the 16th to the elder Konduriottes, "by the spirit here manifested in following the noble example which you have set, and I have no doubt but a sufficient force will be immediately equipped to cut off all the resources by which the army of Reshid Pasha is maintained, and so destroy that army even more effectually than by the sword. The utmost promptitude, however, is necessary. One day's delay may permit several weeks' provisions and stores to enter the Negropont."

      Promptitude was not easy, in spite of the favourable promises of the primates. "Strange as it may appear to you," said Lord Cochrane, in a letter to his friend, M. Eynard, "it is yet a fact that, out of the thousands of seamen idle and starving at Hydra, Spetzas, and Egina, not a man will enter the service of his country without being paid in advance; nor will they engage to prolong their service beyond a month, so that the labour of disciplining a crew is interminable. Were there funds to increase the pay for each month, the sailors would remain, and there might be some hope of getting a ship in order. At the present moment there are no individuals in Greece who are instructed in their duties as officers in ships of war." "I see no termination to the obstacles," he wrote to Dr. Gosse on the 17th, "which present themselves at every step I advance. Neither the Hydriots nor the Psarians, nor the Spetziots, nor the Poriots, will embark in this frigate, which is thus useless to Greece, if not prejudicial, because her maintenance is an expense without benefit. I wish I could do a thousand things which I am compelled to neglect, by reason of the difficulties and want of assistance of all kinds. You, my good friend, are my only aid."

      At Spetzas, and in its neighbourhood, Lord Cochrane remained four days, directing the arrangements to be made in organizing a fleet strong enough to go against the enemy's shipping, and, while waiting for that, in appointing two minor expeditions upon services that were urgent. On the 18th of May, he sent Admiral Saktoures with ten brigs and four fireships to cruise about the Negropont and capture as much as he could of the stores sent through that channel from Constantinople for the use of the Turkish army in Attica. On the following day he went himself in the Hellas, attended by the Karteria, under Captain Abney Hastings, in the direction of Cape Clarenza, the north-westernmost point of the Morea, opposite to Zante.8

      Castle Tornese, there situated, was being besieged by the Turks, and Lord Cochrane hoped to be in time to avert its capture. In this he failed. Arriving on the 22nd of May, he found that the castle had capitulated a few hours before. All he could do was to chase two Turkish frigates which he found on the coast. "We fired into them," he said, "but our guns were ill-directed, and the noise and confusion on board this ship was excessive, which prevented my choosing to attack them again, though they did us not the slightest injury, because I am desirous that the Hellas shall be in somewhat better order before I voluntarily attack an enemy who may take advantage of the impossibility of causing my orders to be obeyed, and so leave the fate of the ship to the conduct of a rabble."

      One capture, however, the Hellas was able to make on the following day. She fell in with a vessel, manned by Turks and Ionian Islanders, bearing the British flag, loaded with captives, chiefly women and children, just taken in the Castle Tornese. Lord Cochrane seized her, and sent her, with a reasonably indignant letter, to the Lord High Commissioner at Corfu. "If I do not attempt to express my feelings in addressing you," he said, "it is because I am aware that the terms I should employ would fall far short of the sensations that will arise in the breast of every honourable man throughout the civilized world, and the degradation which every Englishman will experience, on learning that the flag of England, first prostituted by supplying the traffickers in Christian slaves with all the necessaries for their horrid purposes, is now further debased by a traffic in the slaves themselves. I send you an Ionian vessel, full of women violated in their persons, and who, with their children, had been reduced to slavery, in order that the British public and the world may ascertain whether these unfortunate people will be protected by the decision of an Ionian tribunal. If there were any hope that the people in the Ionian Islands would abandon their infamous dealings otherwise than by force, I should ask your excellency to issue an order upon the subject. I beg, however, to signify that I am ready to co-operate СКАЧАТЬ