Having passed two little forts, called the Navarins, at noon we anchored off Modon, Lat. 37°, Long. 15° 45′, distant from Gibraltar near fourteen hundred miles. And now, having brought the ship to an anchor, I shall proceed with the observations I introduced at the commencement of this letter.
Modon is a small Turkish town, on the south-west corner of the Morea, which you recollect is the Peloponnesus of the Ancients, and almost an island, being separated from the rest of Greece by the gulph of Lepanto, and only joined to it by the narrow isthmus of Corinth. After the Greek and Roman ages, it was conquered by the Turks, and afterwards by the Venetians, to whom the former ceded it by the Treaty of Carlowitz, but retook it in 1715, and have maintained it ever since, notwithstanding that, during their last war, Modon was taken by the Russians, who were immediately joined by the Greeks; but the Turks sending a large army thither, Count Orlow and his troops were obliged to abandon their associates to the fury of their enemies, who massacred fifteen thousand of them.
This is the Turkish method of terminating a rebellion, which they say is only to be done by destroying the seeds: but, to palliate their inhumanity, they allege, that, whenever the Greeks have gained any advantage, they have been still more barbarous; that they have spared neither age nor sex; but that, after being guilty of every other brutality to the women, so sacred among Mahometans, not satisfied with slaying them, they have even carried their revenge so far as to expose their naked corpses to be devoured by dogs and birds of prey.
Heaven forbid that such cruel barbarity should exist. But I cannot pretend to give you a just account of the manners and dispositions of these two people on so slight an acquaintance, especially as the light in which they represent each other, is very different from that in which they appear to us.
Nestor's kingdom was in this district. I have found no antiquities worthy notice; and time does not permit me to take a journey in search of Pylos.
A small castle projects into the sea off Modon; and the town has walls round it; but they are much out of repair. The Governor lives in a wretched hovel, which refuses admittance neither to the wind nor to the rain. He is civil enough, and all his people seem glad to see us.
The harbour is formed by a set of little islands, which lie off the town, at some miles distance; the most western is the famous Spactaria, the taking of which is one of the most noted events in the Peloponnesian war. It is now called the Isle of Wisdom; but for what reason I cannot guess, as it is totally uninhabited, and produces nothing but brushwood.
The passages between the different islands make this a charming port for cruizers, since they can be confined neither by wind nor by an enemy. Captain Moore, of the Fame privateer, often put in here during the war, and has impressed the people with very favorable ideas of the English.