When the numerous Greek sailors who had served under the orders of Hastings heard of his death, many of them happened to be at Egina. They immediately collected a sum of money among themselves, and engaged the clergy at Egina to celebrate the funeral service in the principal church, with all the pomp and ceremony possible in those troubled times. Never probably was a braver man more sincerely mourned by a veteran band of strangers, who, in a foreign land, grieved more deeply for his untimely loss.
It may appear surprising to many of our readers that we should give to the name of Hastings so very prominent a position in the history of the latter days of the Greek Revolution, when that name is comparatively unknown at home. To make this apparent, we shall endeavour to explain the manner in which the Greeks carried on their warfare with the Turks; and it will then appear that European officers were not generally likely to form either a correct or a favourable opinion of the military affairs of the country. It is not, therefore, surprising that false ideas of the state of Greece have prevailed, or indeed that they still continue to prevail, even among the foreigners long resident in the new Greek kingdom. The military operations of the Greeks, both at sea and on shore, were remarkable, not only for a total want of all scientific knowledge, but also for the absence of every shadow of discipline, and the first elements of order and subordination. The troops consisted of a number of separate corps, each under its own captain, who regulated the movements, and provided for the supply of his men, from day to day. Every soldier joined his standard, and left it, when he thought fit, unless when it happened that he had received some pay in advance; in which case, he was bound in honour to remain in the camp for the term he was engaged. With such an army, any systematic plan of campaign, and all strategetical combinations, were clearly impossible; and when they have been attempted by the different European officers who have commanded the Greeks, they have invariably ended in the most complete defeats the Greeks have ever sustained. So entirely were the operations of the war an affair of chance, that the mountain skirmishes, in which the Greek troops excelled, were usually brought on by accident.
In such an army, it is evident that the services of many an able officer would be useless. A Greek general could only acquire and maintain a due influence over his troops by taking a rifle in his hand, and bounding over the rocks in advance of his soldiers. The best general, therefore, in the estimation of the soldiers, was the officer who could run fastest, see furthest, and fire with truest aim from behind the smallest possible projection of a rock. In cases where it became absolutely necessary to enforce obedience to an order, the captain required to be both able and willing to knock down the first man who dared to show any signs of dissatisfaction with the butt of his pistol. Many excellent European generals were not competent to emulate the fame to be gained in such a service.
Matters were very little better in the fleet. The sailors were always paid in advance, or they refused to embark; if on a cruise, when the term for which they had been paid expired, they always returned home, unless prevented by an additional payment. While at sea, they frequently held councils to discuss the movements of their ships, and repeatedly compelled their captains to alter the plans adopted by the admiral; and sometimes they have been known to carry their ships home in defiance of their officers. Even the brilliant exploits of the fire-ships which destroyed the Turkish three-deckers, were entirely performed by volunteers, and are rather due to the daring courage of Kanaris, and a few other individuals, than to the naval skill of the Greek fleet. In the latter years of the war, when the Turks and Egyptians had, by the exertions of Sultan Mahmoud and Mohammed Ali, made some small progress in naval affairs, the fire-ships of the Greeks failed to produce any important results.
Captain Hastings, observing the total difference between Greek and European warfare, avoided the error into which foreigners generally fell, of allowing their authority to be mixed up with that of others, over whose actions they could not exercise any efficient control. Instead of seeking a command, the imposing title of which might flatter his vanity, and impose on the rest of Europe, Hastings steadily refused to accept any rank, or place himself in any command, where he would have been unable to enforce obedience to his orders. By this means, and by the sacrifice of very large sums of money from his private fortune, in paying not only the men, but even all the officers who bore commissions on board the Karteria, he was enabled to maintain some order and discipline in that vessel. Though he was at the head of the smallest detached force commanded by a foreigner in Greece, there can be no doubt that, of all the foreigners who have visited Greece, he rendered the greatest service to the cause of her independence. At the same time, it is not wonderful that all other foreigners have felt but little inclined to give the due meed of praise to a line of conduct which they have never had strength of mind to imitate.
It may be observed here, that the naval operations of Captain Hastings possess considerable interest in connexion with the modern history of maritime warfare in Europe. The Karteria was the first steam-vessel armed with long sixty-eight pounders; she was the first vessel from which eight-inch shells and hot shot were used as ordinary projectiles. And this great change in the employment of destructive elements of warfare was introduced by Captain Hastings among a people where he had to teach the first principles of military discipline. Yet he overcame every difficulty; and with very little assistance, either from the Greek government, or the officers who were his superiors in the Greek navy, he succeeded in giving all the naval powers of Europe a valuable practical lesson in marine artillery. Great Britain is especially called upon to acknowledge her obligations to Captain Hastings. She has imitated the armament of the Greek steam-frigate Karteria in several vessels; and though the admiralty have doubtless added many improvements in our ships, we are only the more explicitly bound to recognise the debt of gratitude we owe. By rendering naval warfare not only more destructive, but at the same time making it more dependent on a combination of good gunnery and mechanical knowledge with profound naval skill, he has increased the naval power of Great Britain, where all these qualities are cultivated in the highest degree. At the same time, the civilized world is indebted to him for rendering battles so terrible as to be henceforth less frequent; and for putting an end to naval warfare as a means of amusing kings, and gratifying the ambition of princely admirals, or vain-glorious states.
In concluding this sketch of the biography of Hastings, we regret that we have to record the death of Colonel Hane of the Greek army, so long his companion during the war, and who is so often and so honourably mentioned in his despatches as Captain Hane of the artillery. His death is another blot on Greece, and on what is called the English party in Greece, by whom he was treated with the greatest neglect. Colonel Hane was removed from active employment in 1842, when King Otho placed many Philhellenes and Greeks on a trifling pittance of half-pay, in order to retain a number of Bavarian officers in his service, who were richly endowed with staff-appointments. As a Philhellene, a constitutionalist, and an Englishman, it was natural that Colonel Hane should be treated with the utmost severity by the court and the Bavarian administration.
The adoption of the constitution on the 15th September (3d O.S.) 1843, caused all the Bavarians to be dismissed from the Greek service; but there were so many Greeks more eager in their solicitations for appointments than Colonel Hane, and ministers are always so much more ready to listen to the claims of their party than their country, that the title of a stranger to the gratitude of Greece was easily forgotten. When Mr Alexander Maurocordatos, however, became prime-minister, his subserviency to English diplomacy was supposed by many to indicate a feeling of attachment to English views, and an esteem for the English character. Under this impression, Mr Bracebridge, Dr Howe, and Mr George Finlay, solicited Sir Edmund Lyons to exert his influence to prevent an Englishman, who, for twenty-three years, had served Greece with courage and fidelity, from dying of absolute want. Mr Maurocordatos gave Sir Edmund Lyons some promises, but those promises were never fulfilled; and Colonel Hane died of a broken heart at Athens, on the 18th of September 1844, leaving a young wife and three children in the most destitute condition.
It was well known to every body in Athens, from King Otho to the youngest soldiers in the army, that Colonel Hane had for some time suffered the severest privations of poverty, which he had vainly endeavoured to conceal. That his last hours were soothed by the possession of the necessaries of life, was owing to the delicacy with which Dr Howe and Mr Bracebridge contrived to make the assistance they supplied as soothing to his mind, as it was indispensable for the comfort of his declining health.
Frank Abney Hastings, the hero who commanded the Karteria, and John Hane, the gallant officer who fought by his side, now rest in peace. Two volunteers, their friends and companions in many a checkered scene of life, still survive to cherish the memory of the days spent together on board the Karteria. One has acquired a wide-extended reputation in America and Europe, by the intelligence, activity, and we may truly say genius, with which he has laboured to alleviate the sufferings of humanity. But for an account of Dr Howe's exertions to extend the blessings of education to the blind, the deaf, and the dumb, we must refer to Dickens' American Notes. The other still watches the slow progress of the Greeks towards that free and independent condition of which these friends of their cause once fancied they beheld the approaching dawn. We may, therefore, allow the names of Hastings, Hane, Howe, and Finlay, to stand united on our page—