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."