Embark on a thrilling journey through the life of Lord Cochrane, a legendary Napoleonic-era sea captain. This volume brings to life his daring exploits as he aids the Chilean navy in defeating Spain and takes command of Brazils fleet. Cochranes extraordinary journey doesnt end there - he sails to Greece, joining the fight for their liberation from the Ottoman Empire. This is not just a biography, its an unfinished autobiography completed by his son and a renowned naval historian.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter thirteen of the Life of Thomas Lord Cochrane, tenth
Earl of dun Donald, completing the Autobiography of a Seaman,
Volume one. This is LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are
in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Timothy Ferguson eighteen
twenty to eighteen twenty five, while Lord Cochrane was rendering
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efficient service to the cause of freedom in South America,
another war of independence was being waged in Europe, and
he had hardly been at home a week before solicitations
pressed upon him from all quarters that he should lend
his great name and great abilities to this war. Also,
as he consented to do so, and almost from the
moment of his arrival, was intimately connected with the Greek Revolution.
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The previous stages of this memorable episode, the incidents that
occurred during his absence in Chile and Brazil, need to
be here reviewed and recapitulated. The Greek Revolution began openly
in eighteen twenty one, but there had been long previous
forebodings of it. The dwellers in the land, once peopled
by the noble race, which planned and perfected the arts
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and graces, the true refinements, and the solid virtues that
are the basis of our modern civilization, had been for
four centuries and more the slaves of the Turks. They
were hardly Greeks, if by that name is implied descent
from the inhabitants of classical Greece with the old stock,
had been blended from generation to generation so many foreign
elements that nearly all trace of the original blood had disappeared.
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In the modern Greeks had nothing but their residence and
their language to justify them in maintaining the old title.
But their slavery was only too real, oppressed by the
Ottomans on account of their race and religion. The oppression
was none the less in that it induced many of
them to cast off the last shreds of freedom and
deck themselves in the coarser but to slavish minds, the
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pleasanter bondage of trickery and meanness. During the eighteenth century,
many Greeks rose to eminence in the Turkish service and
proved harder task masters to their rethen than the Turks themselves.
Generally were the hope of further aggrandizement, however, led them
to scheme the overthrow of their Ottoman employers, and their
projects were greatly aided by the truer, albeit short sighted,
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patriotism that animated the greater number of their kinsmen. They
groaned at Turkish thraldom and yearned to be freed from
it in the temper so well described and so worthily
denounced by Lord Byron in eighteen eleven quote. And many
dream withal the hour is nigh that gives them back
their father's heritage. For foreign arms and aid, they loudly sigh,
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nor solely dare encounter hostile rage hereditary Bondsmen know, ye not,
who would free themselves must strike the blow by their
right arm. The conquest must be wrought. Will gall or
Muscovite redress, Ye? No, true, they may lay your proud
deests spoilers low, but not for you will Freedom's altars
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flame the Greeks. All but a few genuine patriots thought otherwise.
They sought deliverance at the hands of Gauls and Muscovites,
And as the Muscovites had good reason for desiring the
overthrow of Turkey, they listened to their prayers and other
ties than that of community and religion, bound the persecuted
Greeks to Russia. The Philiki Hatara or Friendly Society, chief
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representative of a very general movement, was founded at Odessa
in eighteen fourteen. It was a secret society which speedily
had ramifications among the Greek Christians in every part of Turkey,
encouraging them to prepare for insurrection as soon as the
Tsar Alexander the First deemed it expedient to aid them
by open invasion of Turkey, or as soon as they
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themselves could take the initiative trusting to Russia to complete
the work of the revolution. The Friendly Society increased its
influence and multiplied its visionary schemes during many years previous
to eighteen twenty one. Its strength was augmented by the
political condition of Turkey at the time. The Sultan Muhmud,
a true type of the Ottoman sovereign at his worst,
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had attempted to perfect his power by a long train
of cruelties, of which murder was the lightest. Defeating his
own purpose. Thereby, he aroused the opposition of Mahammetan as
well as Christian subjects, and induced the rebellious schemes of
Ali Pasha of Joannina, the boldest of his vessals in Albania.
Ali ruled with a cruelty that was hardly inferior to Marmoud's.
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Byron tells us how his quote dread command in lawless land,
For with a bloody hand he sways a nation turbulent
and bold. The cruelty could be tolerated, but not opposition
to Mahmoud's will. Long and growing jealousy existed between the
sultan and his tributary. At length. In eighteen twenty there
was an open rupture. Ali was denounced as a traitor
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and ordered to surrender his pashalik. Instead of doing so,
he organized his army for prompt rebellion, trusting for success
partly to the support of the Greeks. Most of the
Greeks held aloof but the Soliets, a race of Christian marauders,
the fierce of the fierce community of Albanians, sided with him,
and for more than a year rendered him valuable aid
by reason of their hereditary skill in lawless warfare. Not
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till January eighteen twenty two was Ali forced to surrender,
and then only perhaps through the defection of the Soliates.
The Soliets, dissatisfied with Ali's recompense for their services, had
gone over to the Greeks, who, not caring to serve
under Ali in his rebellion, had welcomed that rebellion as
a heaven sent opportunity for realizing their long cherished hopes.
The Turkish garrisons in Greece being half unmanned in order
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that the strongest possible force might be used in subduing Ali,
and the Turkish government in the Peninsula being at a standstill,
the Greeks found themselves in an excellent position for asserting
their freedom. Had they been less degraded than they were
by their long centuries of slavery, or had there been
some better organization than that which the purposes and the
methods of the Friendly Society afforded for developing the latent
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patriotism which was honest and widespread, they might have achieved
triumph worthy of the classic name they bore and the
heroic ancestry that they claimed. Unfortunately, the Friendly Society, already
degenerated from the unworthy aim with which it started, now
an elaborate machinery of personal ambition, private greed and local spite.
The willing tool of Russia was master of the situation.
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The mystery, however, was by no means thorough. The society
had dispossessed all other organizations, but had no organization of
its own adequate to the working out of a successful rebellion.
Its machinery was tolerably perfect, but efficient, motive power was wanting.
Its exchequer was empty, Its councils were divided. Above all
that had alienated the sympathies of the worthiest patriots of Greece.
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Finding itself suddenly in the way of triumph, it was
incapable of rightly progressing in that way. Obstacles of its
own raising, and obstacles raised by others, stood in the path,
and only a very wise man had the chance of
successfully removing them. The wise man did not exist, or
was not to be obtained. Perhaps the wisest, though, as
latter history prove, who not very wise was Count John Cabadistrius,
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a native of Corfu born in seventeen seventy seven. He
had gone to Italy to study and practice medicine there also,
he studied afterwards to put in practice the defeat machiavellianism
than in vogue. In eighteen o three, he entered political
life as secretary to the lately founded Republic of the
Ionian Islands. Napoleon's annexation of the Ionian Islands in eighteen
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o seven drove him into the service of Russia, and
as Russian agent he advocated at the Vienna Conference of
eighteen fifteen the reconstruction of the Ionian Republic. The partial
concession of Great Britain towards that project, by which the
Ionian Islands were established as a sort of commonwealth dependent
upon England enabled him to live and work in Corfu,
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awaiting the realization of his own patriotic schemes and watching
the patriotic movements in Greece. Italian in his education and
Russian in his sympathies, he was still an honest Greek,
worthier and abler than most other influential Greeks. He had
many virtues and great abilities, says a competent critic. His
conduct was firm and disinterested, as manner simple and dignified.
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His personal feelings were warm, and as a consequence of
this virtue, they were sometimes so strong as to warp
his judgment he wanted the equanimity and impartiality of mind,
and the elevation of soul necessary to make a great man.
In spite of his defects, he might have done good
service to the Greek Revolution had he accepted the offer
of its leadership shrewdly tended to him by the Friendly Society.
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But this he declined, having no liking for the society
and no trust in its methods and designs. The Friendly
Society then sought and found a leader far inferior to
Count Capadistrius, in Prince Alexander Hypsilantes, the son of a
hospital of Wallachia, who had been deposed in eighteen o six.
Hypsilantes had been educated in Russia and had there risen
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to some rank high enough at any rate to quicken
his ambition and vanity. Both as a soldier and as
a courtier. He was not without virtues, but he was
utterly unfit for the duties imposed upon him as leader
of the Greek Revolution. Not a Greek himself, his purpose
in accepting the office seems to have been to make
Greece an appendage of the despotic monarchy, which, by means
of the political crisis he hoped to establish in Wallachia
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under Russian protection. With that in view, in March eighteen
twenty one, he led the first crude army of Greek
and other Christian rebels into Moldavia. There and in Wallachia,
he stirred up a brief revolt, attended by military blunders
and lawless atrocities, which soon brought vengeance upon himself and
made a false beginning of the revolutionary work. Moldavia and
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Wallachia were quickly restored to Turkish rule, and Hypsilantes had
in June to fly for safety into Austria. But the
bad example that he set in the evil influence that
he and his promoters and followers in the Friendly Society exerted,
initiated a false policy and encouraged a pernicious course of
action by which the cause of the Greeks was injured
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for years. The real Greek revolution began in Maria. There
the Friendly Society did good work in showing the people
that the hour for action had come, but its direction
of that action was for the most part mischievous. The
worst Greeks were the leaders, and under their guidance the
play of evil passions inevitable. In all efforts of the
oppressed to overturn their oppressors was developed to a grievous extent.
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Turkish blood was first shed on the twenty fifth of
March eighteen twenty one, and within a week the whole
of Maria was in a ferment of rebellion. On the
twenty second of April, which was Easter Sunday, it was
reckoned that from ten to fifteen thousand Mohametans had been
slaughtered in cold blood and about three thousand Turkish homes destroyed.
The promoters of all that wanton atrocity were the directors
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of the Friendly Society, among whom the Arkhamandrate Grigoryus de
Chaos nicknamed Papa Falsias and Petros Mavro Micheles or Petro
Bay were the most conspicuous. Its principal agents were the
clepp or brigand chieftains, best represented by Theodore Colocotrones, born
about seventeen seventy of a family devoted to the use
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of arms in predatory ways, Colocotrones had led a lawless
life until eighteen o six, when the Greek peasantry called
in the assistance of their Turkish rulers in hunting down
their persecutors of their own race, and when several of
his family being slain, he himself had to seek refuge
in Zanti. There he maintained himself partly by piracy, partly
by cattle dealing. In eighteen ten, the English annexation of
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the Ionian Islands led to his employment, first as captain
and afterwards as major in the Greek contingent of the
British Army. He had amassed much wealth and was in
the prime of life when in January eighteen twenty one
he returned to his early home to revive his old
brigand life under the name of legitimate warfare. His thorough
knowledge of the country, its passes, and its strongholds, and
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his familiarity with the modes of fighting proper to them.
His handsome person and agreeable deportment, his shrewd wit and
persuasive oratory made him one of the most influential agents
of the revolution at its commencement, and his inflomuans grew
during the ensuing years. The flame of rebellion, having spread
through the Maria during the early weeks of April, extended
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rapidly over the adjoining districts of the mainland. By the
end of June, the insurgents were masters of nearly all
the country now possessed by modern Greece. Their cause was
heartily espoused by the solutes of Albania and other fellow
Christians in various Turkish provinces, and their kinsmen of the
outlying islands were eager to join in the work of
national regeneration, and to contribute largely to the conclusion of
that work by their naval prowess. It was naval prowess,
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as our later pages will abundantly show, of a very
barbarous and undeveloped sort. Besides the two principal seaports on
the mainland, to Cherry on Mount Pelian and Galaxidi on
the Gulf of Corinth, there were famous colonies of Greek
seamen in the islands of Sarah and Kasos, and similar
colonies of Albanians in Hydra and Spetzas. These and the
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other islands had long practiced irregular commerce and protected that
commerce by irregular fighting with the Turks. At the first
sound of revolution, they threw in their lot with the
insurgents of the mainland, and thus a nondescript navy of
some four hundred brigs and schooners of from sixty to
four hundred tons burthen and manned by about twelve thousand sailors,
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Adepts alike in trade and piracy, but very unskilled in
orderly warfare and very feebly inspired by anything like disinterested patriotism,
was ready to use and abuse its powers during the
issuing seven years fight for Greek independence. During the summer
of eighteen twenty one, while the continental Greeks were rushing
to arms, murdering the Turkish residents among them by thousands,
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and thus bringing down upon themselves or upon those of
their own race, who as peasants and burghers, took no
important share in actual fighting, the murderous vengeance of the
Turkish troops sent to attempt the suppression of the revolt,
These sailors were pursuing an easier and more profitable game.
The Turkish ports were not warlike, and the Turkish trading
ships were not prepared for fighting. In May, for middle
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crowded vessels left the islands on a cruise, from which
they soon returned with an immense store of booty. Early
and during the best Turkish fleet that could be brought
together consisting of two line of battleships, three frigates and
three slips. When out to harass, if not destroy, the
army of smaller enemies, Jacomaki Tombazes, with thirty seven of
these smaller enemies, set off to meet them, and falling
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in with one of the ships, gave her chase till
in the roads of Arepos. She was attacked on the
eighth of June, and, with the help of a fire ship, destroyed,
with a loss of nearly four hundred men. That victory
caused the flight of the other Turkish vessels and was
the beginning of much cruel work at sea, and with
ships which not often daring to meet in open fight,
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wrought terrible mischief to unprotected ports and islands. The mischief
wrought upon the land was yet more terrible. A seething
tide of Greek and Muslin blood heaved to and fro
as during the second half of eighteen twenty one. Each
party in turn gained temporary ascendency in one district after another.
Greeks murdert Turks and texmder Greek with equal ferocity, or
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perhaps the ferocity of the Greeks stirred by bad leaders
to revenge themselves for all their previous sufferings, even surpassed
that of the Turks of their cruelty. A glaring instance
occurred in their capture of Navarino. The Turkish inhabitants, having
held out as long as a mouthful of food was
left in the town, were forced to capitulate on the
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nineteenth of August. It was promised that upon their surrendering,
the Greek vessels were to convey them their wearing apparel
and their household furniture, either to Egypt or to Tunis.
No sooner were the gates opened than a wholesale plunder
and slaughter ensued. A Greek ecclesiastic described the scene. Women
wounded with musket balls and saber cuts, rushed to the
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sea seeking to escape, and were deliberately shot. Mothers, robbed
of their clothes, with infants in their arms, plunged into
the water to conceal themselves from shame, and they were
made a mark for inhuman riflemen. Greeks seized infants from
their mother breasts and dashed them against the rocks. Children
three and four years old were hurled living into the
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sea and left to drown When the mascer was ended,
the dead bodies washed ashore or piled on the beach
threatened to cause a pestilence. At the sack of Tripolitza
on the eighth of October, about eight thousand Moslems were murdered,
the last two thousand, chiefly women and children, being taken
into a neighboring ravine, there to be slaughtered at leisure.
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Two years later, a ghastly heap of bones attested the
inhuman deed. In ways like these, the first stage of
the Greek Revolution was achieved. Before the close of eighteen
twenty one, it appeared to the Greeks themselves, to their
Moslem enemies, and to their many friends in England, France
and other countries, that the triumph was complete. Unfortunately, the
same bad motives and the same bad methods that had
so grievously polluted the torrent of patriotism continued to poison
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and disturb the stream, which might otherwise have been henceforth clear, steady,
and health giving. Greece was free, but unless another and
much harder of vere could be effected in the temper
and conduct of its own people, unfit to put its
freedom to good use or even to maintain it. The
rapid success of the Greeks during the first few weeks
of the revolution, says their Ablest his historian, through the
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management of much civil and financial business into the hands
of the proesti and the demajerans in office. The primates,
who already exercised great official authority, instantly appropriated that which
had been hitherto exercised by murdered voivodes and bays. Every
primate strove to make himself a little independent potentate, and
every captain of a district assumed the powers of a
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commander in chief. The revolution, before six months had passed,
seemed to have people Greece with a host of little
ali pashas. When the Primate and the captain acted in concert,
they collected the public revenues, administered the Turkish property which
was declared national, enrolled, paid and provisioned as many troops
as circumstances required or as they thought fit. Named officers,
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formed a local guard for the Primate of the best
soldiers in the place, who were thus often withdrawn from
the public service, and organized a local police and a
local treasury. This system of local self government constituted in
a very self willed manner, and relieved from almost all responsibility.
Was soon established as a natural result of the revolutional
over all Greece. The Sultan's authority having ceased, every primate
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assumed the prerogatives of the sultan for a few weeks.
This state of things was unavoidable, and to an able
and honest chief of government it would have facilitated the
establishment of a strong central authority. But by the vices
of Greek society, it was perpetuated into an organized anarchy.
No improvement was made in financial arrangements or in the
system of taxation. No measures were adopted for rendering property
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more secure. No attempt was made to create an equitable
administration of justice. No courts of law were established, and
no financial accounts were published. Governments were formed, constitutions were
drawn up, national assemblies met orators debated, and laws were
passed according to the political fashion patronized by the liberals
of the day. But no effort was made to prevent
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the government being virtually absolute, unless it was by rendering
it absolutely powerless. The constitutions were framed to remain a
dead letter. The national assemblies were nothing but conferences of parties,
and the law's past were intended to fascinate Western Europe,
not operate with effect. In Greece. The supreme government of
Greece had been assumed in June by Prince Demetrius Hypsilantes,
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a worthier man than his brother Alexander, but by no
means equal to the task he took in hand. At first,
the brigandchiefs and local potentates, not willing to surrender any
of the power they had acquired, were disposed to render
to him nominal submission, believing that his nim and Russian
influence would be serviceable to the cause of Greece. But
Hypsilanti showed himself utterly incompetent, and it was soon apparent
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that his sympathies were wholly alien to those both of
the Greek people and of their military and civil leaders. Therefore,
another master had to be chosen. Colocotrones might have succeeded
to the dignity, and he certainly had vigor enough of disposition,
and enough honesty and dishonesty combined to make the position
one of power as well as of dignity. For that
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very reason, however, his comrades and rivals were unwilling to
place him in it. They desired a president skillful enough
to hold the reins of government with a very loose hand,
yet so as to keep them from getting hopelessly entangled,
one who should be a smart secretary and adviser without
assuming the functions of a director. Such a man they
found in Prince Alexander Mavrocordatos, then about thirty two years old.
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He was a kinsman of a hospital of Wallachia, by
whom he had, in his youth been employed in political matters.
After that he had resided in France, where he acquired
much fresh knowledge, and where his popularity helped quicken sympathy
on behalf of the Greek Revolution at its first outburst.
He had lately come to miss a Longe with a
shipload of ammunition, and on the material procured and bought
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at his own expense, and soon detained considerable influence. Always
courteous in his manners, only ungenerous in his actions where
the interests of others came into collision with his own.
Less strong willed and less ambitious than most of his associates,
those associates were hardly jealous of his popularity at home,
and wholly pleased with his popularity among foreigners, it was
a clear gain to their cause to have Shelley writing
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his Helias and dedicating the poem to mavro Cordatus as
a token of admiration, sympathy and friendship. Mavro Cordatus was
named President of Greece in the Constitution of Epidorus, chiefly
his own workmanship, which was proclaimed on the thirteenth of January,
New Year's Day. According to the Reckoning of the Greek
Church eighteen twenty two. It is not necessary here to
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detail his own acts or those of his real or
professing subordinates. All we have to do is furnish a
general accountant a few characteristic illustrations of the course of
events during the Greek Revolution, in explanation of the state
of parties and of politics at the time of Lord
Cochrane's advent, among them, these events were marked by continuance
of the same selfish policy, divided interests, class prejudice, and
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individual jealousy that have already been referred to. The mass
of the Greek people were, as they had been from
the first, zealous in their desire for freedom, and having
won it, they were not unwilling to use it honestly.
For their faults, their leaders are chiefly to be blamed,
and in apology for those leaders, it must be remembered
that they were an assemblage of soldiers who had been
schooled in Oriental brigandage of priests whose education had been
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in a corrupt form of Christianity, made more corrupt by
persecution of merchants who had found it hard to trade
without trickery, and of seamen who had been taught to
regard piracy as an honorable vocation. Perhaps we have less
cause to condemn them for the errors and vices that
they exhibited during their fight for freedom than to wonder
that those errors and vices were not more reprehensible in
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themselves and disastrous in their issues. For about six years,
the fight was maintained without foreign aid save that given
by private volunteers and generous champions in Western Europe, against
a state numerically nearly twenty times as strong as the
little community of revolutionists in it. Along with much wanton cruelty,
was displayed much excellent heroism, but the heroism was reckless
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and undisciplined, and therefore often worse than useless. Memorable instances,
both of recklessness and want of discipline appeared in the
attempts made to wrest Chios from the Turks in eighteen
twenty two. The Greek inhabitants of the island, on whom
the Turkish oppressed lightly, had refused to join in the
insurgent movement of their brethren on the mainland and in
the neighboring islands, but it was considered that a little
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coercion would induce them to share in the revolution and
convert their prosperous island into a Greek possession. Therefore, in March,
a small force of two thousand, five hundred men crossed
the archipelago, took possession of Katari, the principal town, and
proceeded to invest the Turkish citadel. The Chiots, though perhaps
not very willingly, took part in the enterprise, but the
invading party was quite unequal to the work it had undertaken.
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In April, a formidable Turkish squadron arrived and by a
Chios was easily recovered to become the scene of vindictive atrocities,
which brought all all the terrified inhabitants who were not
slaughtered or who could not escape, into abject submission. Thereupon,
on the tenth of mayor Greek fleet of fifty six
vessels was despatched by Mavrocordatos to attempt a more thorough
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capture of the island. Its commander was Andreas Mialis, a
Hydriot merchant who proved himself the best sea captain among
the Greeks. Had me Alaois been able as he wished
to start sooner and meet the Turkish squadron on its
way to Chios, a brilliant victory might have resulted instead
of one of the saddest catastrophes of the whole Greek War.
Being deterred therefrom by the vacillation of Mavrocodatos and the
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insuppordination of his captains and their crews, he was only
able to reach the island when it was again in
the hands of the enemy, and when all was ready
Forwithstanding him, there was useless fighting on the thirty first
of May and the two following days. On the eighteenth
of June, Milaous made another attack, but he was only
able to destroy the Turkish flagship and nearly all on
board by means of a fire vessel. His fleet was unmanageable,
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and he had to abandon the enterprise and to leave
the unfortunate Chiots to endure further punishment for offenses that
were not their own. This punishment was so terrible that
in six months the population of Chios was reduced from
one hundred thousand to thirty thousand. Twenty thousand managed to escape,
fifty thousand were either put to death or sold as
slaves in Asia Minor. But failure of the Greeks at Chios,
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rapidly followed by their defeat on land at Petta, greatly
disheartened the revolutionists. Mavroucodatus virtually resigned his presidentship and there
was anarchy in Greece until eighteen twenty eight. Athens, captured
from the Turks in June eighteen twenty two, became the
center of jealous rivalry and visionary scheming, mismanagement, and government
that was worse than no government at all. Odysseus, the
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vilist of the vile men whom the revolution brought to
the surface, was its master for some time, and when
he played traitor to the Turks, he was succeeded by
others highly better than himself. In spite of some heavy disasters, however,
the Greeks were so far successful during eighteen twenty two
that in eighteen twenty three they were were able to
hold their newly acquired territory and to arrest some more
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fortresses from their enemies. The real heroism that they had displayed, moreover,
the foul cruelties of which they were guilty, and the
selfish courses which they pursued, being hardly reported to their friends,
and when reported hardly believed, awakened keen sympathy on their behalf.
Shelley and Byron, and many others of less note, had
sung their virtues and their sufferings in noble verse, and
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enlarged upon them in eloquent prose, and in England and France.
In Switzerland, Germany and the United States, a strong party
of phil Hellenes was organized to collect money and to
send recruits for their assistance. The two phil Hellenes of
greatest note who served in Greece during the earlier years
of their revolution were Thomas Gordon and Frank Abney Hastings. Gordon,
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who attained the rank of general in the Army of Independence,
had the advantage of a long previous and thorough acquaintance
with character of both Turks and Greeks, and with the
languages that they spoke. He watched all the revolution movements
from the beginning, and took part in many of them.
In the History of the Greek Revolution, which he published
in eighteen thirty two, he gave such a vivid and
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in the main so accurate an account of them that
his narrative has formed the basis of the more ambitious
work of the native historian mister Trikoupis. Of the vices
and errors of the people on whose behalf he fought
and wrote, he spoke boldly. Quote whatever national or individual
wrong the Greeks may have endured, he said, in one place,
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it is impossible to justify the ferocity of their vengeance,
or to deny that a comparison instituted between them and
the Ottoman generals Mehmet Boulevard omer Veroni and the caher
Bay of Kurshid would give to the latter the palm
of humanity. Humanity, however, is quite a word out of
place when applied either to them or to their opponents.
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In another page, further denouncing the Greek leaders, he wrote,
quote Penorius was the worst of these local despots, whom
some writers have elevated into his heroes, he was in
fact an ignoble robber, hardened in evil. He enriched himself
with the spoils of the Mohammedans, yet he and his
retinue of brigands compelled the people to maintain them at
free quarters in idleness and luxury, exacting not only bread, meat, wine,
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and forage, but also sugar and coffee. Hence springs the
reflection that the Greeks had caused to repent their early
predilection for the Clefts, who were almost all, beginning with Calcatrones,
infamous for the sordid perversity of their dispositions. Gordon's disinterested
and brave efforts to bring about a better state of
things and to help on the cause of real patriotism
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in Greece were highly praiseworthy. But, as another historian has
truly said quote, he did not possess the activity and
decision of character necessary to obtain commanding influence in council
or to initiate daring measures in the field. Frank Abney
Hastings was enable a man born in seventeen ninety four.
He was started in the naval profession when only a
(29:00):
eleven years old, six months after the commencement of his
midshipman's life, he was present on board the Neptune at
the Battle of Trafalgar, and during the ensuing fourteen years
he had served in nearly every quart of the globe.
His independent spirit, however, something akin to Lord Cochrane's brought
him into disfavor, and in eighteen nineteen, for challenging a
superior officer who had insulted him, he was dismissed from
(29:22):
the British Navy. Disheartened and disgusted, he resided in France
for about three years. At length, he resolved to go
and fight for the Greeks, partly out of sympathy for
their cause, partly as a relief from the misery forced idleness,
partly with the view of developing a plan which he
had been devising for extending the use of steamships in
naval warfare, to which last excellent improvement he greatly contributed.
(29:44):
He arrived at Hydra in April eighteen twenty two, just
in time to take part in the fighting of Chios.
One of his ingenious suggestions made to Andreas Meelis, and
its reception had been described by himself. I proposed to
direct a fireship and three other vessels upon the frigate, and,
when near the enemy, to set fire to certain combustibles,
which should throw out a great flame. The enemy would
(30:08):
naturally conclude they were all fire ships. The vessels were
then to attach themselves to the frigate, fire broadsides double
shot it, throwing on board the enemy at the same
time combustible balls, which gave a great smoke without flame.
This would doubtless induce him to believe he was on
fire and give a most favorable opportunity for boarding him. However,
(30:30):
the Admiral returned my plan saying only kyo, without asking
a single question or wishing me to explain its details,
and I observed a kind of insolent contempt in his manner.
This interview with the Admiral disgusted me. They place you
in a position in which it is impossible to render
any service, and then they boast of their own superiority
(30:51):
and of the uselessness of the Franks, as they call
us in Turkish warfare. Mealis, however, soon gained wisdom and
made good use Captain Hastings, who spent more than seven
thousand pounds all his patrimony in serving the Greeks. He
was almost the only officer in their employee who, during
the earlier years of the revolution succeeded in establishing any
(31:11):
sort of discipline or good management. Lord Byron, the most
illustrious of the early Philhellenes, used to say shortly before
his death that with Napier at the head of the
army and Hastings in command of a fleet, the triumph
of Greece might be insured. Byron was then at miss
a Longe, whither he had gone in January eighteen twenty
four to die in April. Long before, while stirring up
(31:33):
sympathy for all the lovers of liberty for the cause
of regeneration in Greece, he had shown that that regeneration
could be, by no means a short or easy work.
And now he had begun to report that the real
work was hardly yet begun, Nay, that it seemed almost
further off than ever. Quote of the Greeks, he wrote,
I can't say much good hitherto, and I do not
(31:54):
like to speak ill of them, though they do of
one another. It was chiefly at Byron's instigation that the
first Greek loan was contracted in London early in eighteen
twenty four, its proceeds three hundred thousand pounds were spent,
partly in unprofitable outlay upon ship's ammunition and the like
(32:15):
of which the people were in no position to make
good use, but mostly in civil war, and in pandering
to the greed and vanity of members of the government
and their subordinate officials, fanariots and their doctors in medicine.
Says an eyewitness, who in the month of April eighteen
twenty four were clad in ragged coats and who lived
on scanty rations, threw off that patriotic chrysalis before the
(32:37):
summer was passed, and emerged in all the splendor of
brigand life, fluttering about in rich Albanian habiliments, refulgent with
brilliant and unused arms, and followed by diminutive pipe bearers
and tall henchmen. Even the scanty allowance made by the
Greek government out of its newly acquired wealth for fighting
purposes was for the most part squandered, almost as frivolously.
(33:00):
One general who drew pay and rations for seven hundred
soldiers went to fight and die in Stacteria at the
head of seventeen armed peasants. And this is only a
glaring instance of peculations that were all but universal, that
being the degradation to which the leaders of the Greek
Revolution had sunk. It is not strange that its gains
in previous years should have begun in eighteen twenty four,
(33:21):
to be followed by heavy losses the Greek people. The
peasants and burghers were still patriots, though ill trained and misdirected.
They could defend their own homesteads with unsurpassed heroism and
hold their own mountains and valleys with fierce persistency. But
they were unfit for distant fighting, even when their chiefs
consented to employ them in it. Sultan Mahmoud, therefore, who
(33:42):
had been profiting by the hard experience of former years,
and whose strength had been steadily growing while the power
of the insurgents had been rapidly weakening, entered on a
new and successful policy. He left the Greeks to waste
their energies in their own possessions, and resolved to recapture,
one after another, the outposts and ill protected islands. For
(34:04):
this he took a special care in augmenting his navy,
and besides developing his own resources induced his powerful and
turbulent vassal Muhammadali, the Pasha of Egypt, tulkipa formidable fleet
and intrusted to his son Ibrahim, on whom he conferred
the title of Vizier of the Maria. Even without the
aid my Mood was able to do much in furtherance
(34:25):
of his purpose. The island of Kakos was easily recovered
and full vengeance was wreaked on its Greek inhabitants on
the twentieth of June. Soon afterwards, Sarah was seized and
punished yet more hardly. On the nineteenth of July, Ibrahim
left Alexandria with a naval force which swept the southern
seas of Greek pirates or privateers. On the first of
(34:47):
September he effected a junction with the Turkish fleet at Badran. There,
united strength comprised forty six ships, frigates and corvettes, and
about three hundred transports. Large and small. The Greek fleets
between Si tventy and eighty sail would have been strong
enough to withstand it under any sort of good management,
but good management was wanting, and the crews were quite
(35:08):
beyond the control of their masters. The result was that
in a series of small battles during the autumn of
eighteen twenty four, the Mahometans were generally successful, and their
enemies found themselves at the close of the year terribly discomfited.
The little organization previously existing was destroyed, and the revolutionists
felt that they had no prospect of advantageously carrying on
(35:30):
their strife at sea without assistance and guidance that could
not be looked for among themselves. Their troubles were increased
in the following year. In February and March eighteen twenty five,
Ibrahim landed a formidable army in the Maria and began
a course of operations in which the land forces and
the fleet combined to dispossess the Greeks of the chief
strongholds the strongly foot fight island as Facteria. The portal
(35:54):
of Navarino in Silos was taken on the eighth of May.
Silos capitulated on the eleventh, and Navarino on the twenty five.
Most of the same month, other citadels, one after another,
was surrendered, and Ibrahim and his army spent the summer
in scouring the Maria and punishing its inhabitants with the
utmost severity for the lawless brigandige and the devoted patriotism
(36:14):
of which they had been guilty during the past four years.
The result was altogether disheartening to the Greeks. They saw
that their condition was indeed desperate. George Conduriottes, a Hydriot merchant,
an Albanian who could not speak Greek and who was
alike unable to govern himself or others, had in June
eighteen twenty four, been named President of the Republic, and
since then the rival interests of the primates, the priests
(36:36):
and the military leaders had been steadily causing the decay
of all that was left of patriotism, an increase of
the selfishness that had so long been rampant. There was
one consequence of this degradation, however, which promised to be
very beneficial, Seeing that their cause was being rapidly weakened,
and the hard fought battle for liberty was in dangerous,
speedy and ignominious reversal by their own divisions, by the
(36:58):
stealthy encroachment of the Ottomans in the north, and by
the more energetic advances of the Egyptians. In the south.
The Greeks resolved to abandon some of their jealousies and greeds,
to look for a savior from without, and on his coming,
to try and submit themselves honestly and hartly to his leadership.
The issue of that resolution was the following letter written
by Mavroco Datos, then Secretary of the National Assembly.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Milord Ton Diquevo rartalon Ete consacri a procuri le bonard'm
pelli separre parenes pas imns de la grece celsine voye
pas sons admiracion Saint san Terre, saintones paste jalousis secret
meme lesuxxebrion quillan tu jour cournevo nobles cepphort erndu a
(37:44):
la nipondance and epubos de pluriche peis du monde votre
roturon a gretaire I excited a pre vive jois donla
coeur de citoyen greg ed si representin palles bois flatreur
quill commons a contevoike Saluski says he noble moon didier
a procure le bonner d nacion nerfuse rappad on feroutpovi
(38:06):
notre kill vi of the pason carrier moreond a mod
deluis a person no historic a perce maler passe a
passes a four A duel poor conquersal liberty is sonnd
dependence le merqui repell de victoire de temistocles said Timo
Nassan pasane trandi ferrand puluiki their pressly granson he and
(38:30):
the premis amro do not reciecle nevera caavec pressier quilletapele
arneuvele les bourgeour de salami eed michal a la tetemauli
de sachauri a de canary seta vegla plegrand satisfaction me
lord cousume of wascherges the faire or nondu gouvernment a
votres seignori la proposition the command mon general de first
(38:53):
naval de la grece see what tre seignori a disposal
accepte messieurle deputy the governor more greg alondre muntut lotsassion.
It is a striction sere pour combine a regel surlemoyer
and madras a disposition I frand you tilize le pluto
possible vertrenoble decision, the acceleri le re momont cola gress reconnaissance,
(39:15):
enthusiasme uvera combatre p la cos the saliberte, the profit said,
docacion poo prie votre signori the vua bienna gre la
surance de morespe is la preux ote esteem aveg lacelle
gelloneordetre milord de vautress signuri le tresamble a tresobis son
serviteur ah mavre cordatos. Secretary General Ditta Naples do Romani
(39:42):
leventute premier September miluisson vanceang assa seignori le tresono rabel
lord Cochrane Alandre.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
End of chapter thirteen. Recording by Timothy Ferguson, Gold Coast, Australia,
Chapter thirteen of the Life of Thomas Lord Cochrane, tenth
Earl of dun Donald, completing the Autobiography of a Seaman,
Volume one. This is LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are
in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Timothy Ferguson eighteen
twenty to eighteen twenty five, while Lord Cochrane was rendering
(00:24):
efficient service to the cause of freedom in South America,
another war of independence was being waged in Europe, and
he had hardly been at home a week before solicitations
pressed upon him from all quarters that he should lend
his great name and great abilities to this war. Also,
as he consented to do so, and almost from the
moment of his arrival, was intimately connected with the Greek Revolution.
(00:46):
The previous stages of this memorable episode, the incidents that
occurred during his absence in Chile and Brazil, need to
be here reviewed and recapitulated. The Greek Revolution began openly
in eighteen twenty one, but there had been long previous
forebodings of it. The dwellers in the land, once peopled
by the noble race, which planned and perfected the arts
(01:07):
and graces, the true refinements, and the solid virtues that
are the basis of our modern civilization, had been for
four centuries and more the slaves of the Turks. They
were hardly Greeks, if by that name is implied descent
from the inhabitants of classical Greece with the old stock,
had been blended from generation to generation so many foreign
elements that nearly all trace of the original blood had disappeared.
(01:29):
In the modern Greeks had nothing but their residence and
their language to justify them in maintaining the old title.
But their slavery was only too real, oppressed by the
Ottomans on account of their race and religion. The oppression
was none the less in that it induced many of
them to cast off the last shreds of freedom and
deck themselves in the coarser but to slavish minds, the
(01:51):
pleasanter bondage of trickery and meanness. During the eighteenth century,
many Greeks rose to eminence in the Turkish service and
proved harder task masters to their rethen than the Turks themselves.
Generally were the hope of further aggrandizement, however, led them
to scheme the overthrow of their Ottoman employers, and their
projects were greatly aided by the truer, albeit short sighted,
(02:12):
patriotism that animated the greater number of their kinsmen. They
groaned at Turkish thraldom and yearned to be freed from
it in the temper so well described and so worthily
denounced by Lord Byron in eighteen eleven quote. And many
dream withal the hour is nigh that gives them back
their father's heritage. For foreign arms and aid, they loudly sigh,
(02:36):
nor solely dare encounter hostile rage hereditary Bondsmen know, ye not,
who would free themselves must strike the blow by their
right arm. The conquest must be wrought. Will gall or
Muscovite redress, Ye? No, true, they may lay your proud
deests spoilers low, but not for you will Freedom's altars
(02:57):
flame the Greeks. All but a few genuine patriots thought otherwise.
They sought deliverance at the hands of Gauls and Muscovites,
And as the Muscovites had good reason for desiring the
overthrow of Turkey, they listened to their prayers and other
ties than that of community and religion, bound the persecuted
Greeks to Russia. The Philiki Hatara or Friendly Society, chief
(03:21):
representative of a very general movement, was founded at Odessa
in eighteen fourteen. It was a secret society which speedily
had ramifications among the Greek Christians in every part of Turkey,
encouraging them to prepare for insurrection as soon as the
Tsar Alexander the First deemed it expedient to aid them
by open invasion of Turkey, or as soon as they
(03:41):
themselves could take the initiative trusting to Russia to complete
the work of the revolution. The Friendly Society increased its
influence and multiplied its visionary schemes during many years previous
to eighteen twenty one. Its strength was augmented by the
political condition of Turkey at the time. The Sultan Muhmud,
a true type of the Ottoman sovereign at his worst,
(04:02):
had attempted to perfect his power by a long train
of cruelties, of which murder was the lightest. Defeating his
own purpose. Thereby, he aroused the opposition of Mahammetan as
well as Christian subjects, and induced the rebellious schemes of
Ali Pasha of Joannina, the boldest of his vessals in Albania.
Ali ruled with a cruelty that was hardly inferior to Marmoud's.
(04:24):
Byron tells us how his quote dread command in lawless land,
For with a bloody hand he sways a nation turbulent
and bold. The cruelty could be tolerated, but not opposition
to Mahmoud's will. Long and growing jealousy existed between the
sultan and his tributary. At length. In eighteen twenty there
was an open rupture. Ali was denounced as a traitor
(04:46):
and ordered to surrender his pashalik. Instead of doing so,
he organized his army for prompt rebellion, trusting for success
partly to the support of the Greeks. Most of the
Greeks held aloof but the Soliets, a race of Christian marauders,
the fierce of the fierce community of Albanians, sided with him,
and for more than a year rendered him valuable aid
by reason of their hereditary skill in lawless warfare. Not
(05:09):
till January eighteen twenty two was Ali forced to surrender,
and then only perhaps through the defection of the Soliates.
The Soliets, dissatisfied with Ali's recompense for their services, had
gone over to the Greeks, who, not caring to serve
under Ali in his rebellion, had welcomed that rebellion as
a heaven sent opportunity for realizing their long cherished hopes.
The Turkish garrisons in Greece being half unmanned in order
(05:32):
that the strongest possible force might be used in subduing Ali,
and the Turkish government in the Peninsula being at a standstill,
the Greeks found themselves in an excellent position for asserting
their freedom. Had they been less degraded than they were
by their long centuries of slavery, or had there been
some better organization than that which the purposes and the
methods of the Friendly Society afforded for developing the latent
(05:54):
patriotism which was honest and widespread, they might have achieved
triumph worthy of the classic name they bore and the
heroic ancestry that they claimed. Unfortunately, the Friendly Society, already
degenerated from the unworthy aim with which it started, now
an elaborate machinery of personal ambition, private greed and local spite.
The willing tool of Russia was master of the situation.
(06:17):
The mystery, however, was by no means thorough. The society
had dispossessed all other organizations, but had no organization of
its own adequate to the working out of a successful rebellion.
Its machinery was tolerably perfect, but efficient, motive power was wanting.
Its exchequer was empty, Its councils were divided. Above all
that had alienated the sympathies of the worthiest patriots of Greece.
(06:39):
Finding itself suddenly in the way of triumph, it was
incapable of rightly progressing in that way. Obstacles of its
own raising, and obstacles raised by others, stood in the path,
and only a very wise man had the chance of
successfully removing them. The wise man did not exist, or
was not to be obtained. Perhaps the wisest, though, as
latter history prove, who not very wise was Count John Cabadistrius,
(07:03):
a native of Corfu born in seventeen seventy seven. He
had gone to Italy to study and practice medicine there also,
he studied afterwards to put in practice the defeat machiavellianism
than in vogue. In eighteen o three, he entered political
life as secretary to the lately founded Republic of the
Ionian Islands. Napoleon's annexation of the Ionian Islands in eighteen
(07:24):
o seven drove him into the service of Russia, and
as Russian agent he advocated at the Vienna Conference of
eighteen fifteen the reconstruction of the Ionian Republic. The partial
concession of Great Britain towards that project, by which the
Ionian Islands were established as a sort of commonwealth dependent
upon England enabled him to live and work in Corfu,
(07:44):
awaiting the realization of his own patriotic schemes and watching
the patriotic movements in Greece. Italian in his education and
Russian in his sympathies, he was still an honest Greek,
worthier and abler than most other influential Greeks. He had
many virtues and great abilities, says a competent critic. His
conduct was firm and disinterested, as manner simple and dignified.
(08:07):
His personal feelings were warm, and as a consequence of
this virtue, they were sometimes so strong as to warp
his judgment he wanted the equanimity and impartiality of mind,
and the elevation of soul necessary to make a great man.
In spite of his defects, he might have done good
service to the Greek Revolution had he accepted the offer
of its leadership shrewdly tended to him by the Friendly Society.
(08:30):
But this he declined, having no liking for the society
and no trust in its methods and designs. The Friendly
Society then sought and found a leader far inferior to
Count Capadistrius, in Prince Alexander Hypsilantes, the son of a
hospital of Wallachia, who had been deposed in eighteen o six.
Hypsilantes had been educated in Russia and had there risen
(08:52):
to some rank high enough at any rate to quicken
his ambition and vanity. Both as a soldier and as
a courtier. He was not without virtues, but he was
utterly unfit for the duties imposed upon him as leader
of the Greek Revolution. Not a Greek himself, his purpose
in accepting the office seems to have been to make
Greece an appendage of the despotic monarchy, which, by means
of the political crisis he hoped to establish in Wallachia
(09:15):
under Russian protection. With that in view, in March eighteen
twenty one, he led the first crude army of Greek
and other Christian rebels into Moldavia. There and in Wallachia,
he stirred up a brief revolt, attended by military blunders
and lawless atrocities, which soon brought vengeance upon himself and
made a false beginning of the revolutionary work. Moldavia and
(09:37):
Wallachia were quickly restored to Turkish rule, and Hypsilantes had
in June to fly for safety into Austria. But the
bad example that he set in the evil influence that
he and his promoters and followers in the Friendly Society exerted,
initiated a false policy and encouraged a pernicious course of
action by which the cause of the Greeks was injured
(09:58):
for years. The real Greek revolution began in Maria. There
the Friendly Society did good work in showing the people
that the hour for action had come, but its direction
of that action was for the most part mischievous. The
worst Greeks were the leaders, and under their guidance the
play of evil passions inevitable. In all efforts of the
oppressed to overturn their oppressors was developed to a grievous extent.
(10:21):
Turkish blood was first shed on the twenty fifth of
March eighteen twenty one, and within a week the whole
of Maria was in a ferment of rebellion. On the
twenty second of April, which was Easter Sunday, it was
reckoned that from ten to fifteen thousand Mohametans had been
slaughtered in cold blood and about three thousand Turkish homes destroyed.
The promoters of all that wanton atrocity were the directors
(10:42):
of the Friendly Society, among whom the Arkhamandrate Grigoryus de
Chaos nicknamed Papa Falsias and Petros Mavro Micheles or Petro
Bay were the most conspicuous. Its principal agents were the
clepp or brigand chieftains, best represented by Theodore Colocotrones, born
about seventeen seventy of a family devoted to the use
(11:05):
of arms in predatory ways, Colocotrones had led a lawless
life until eighteen o six, when the Greek peasantry called
in the assistance of their Turkish rulers in hunting down
their persecutors of their own race, and when several of
his family being slain, he himself had to seek refuge
in Zanti. There he maintained himself partly by piracy, partly
by cattle dealing. In eighteen ten, the English annexation of
(11:27):
the Ionian Islands led to his employment, first as captain
and afterwards as major in the Greek contingent of the
British Army. He had amassed much wealth and was in
the prime of life when in January eighteen twenty one
he returned to his early home to revive his old
brigand life under the name of legitimate warfare. His thorough
knowledge of the country, its passes, and its strongholds, and
(11:48):
his familiarity with the modes of fighting proper to them.
His handsome person and agreeable deportment, his shrewd wit and
persuasive oratory made him one of the most influential agents
of the revolution at its commencement, and his inflomuans grew
during the ensuing years. The flame of rebellion, having spread
through the Maria during the early weeks of April, extended
(12:08):
rapidly over the adjoining districts of the mainland. By the
end of June, the insurgents were masters of nearly all
the country now possessed by modern Greece. Their cause was
heartily espoused by the solutes of Albania and other fellow
Christians in various Turkish provinces, and their kinsmen of the
outlying islands were eager to join in the work of
national regeneration, and to contribute largely to the conclusion of
that work by their naval prowess. It was naval prowess,
(12:32):
as our later pages will abundantly show, of a very
barbarous and undeveloped sort. Besides the two principal seaports on
the mainland, to Cherry on Mount Pelian and Galaxidi on
the Gulf of Corinth, there were famous colonies of Greek
seamen in the islands of Sarah and Kasos, and similar
colonies of Albanians in Hydra and Spetzas. These and the
(12:54):
other islands had long practiced irregular commerce and protected that
commerce by irregular fighting with the Turks. At the first
sound of revolution, they threw in their lot with the
insurgents of the mainland, and thus a nondescript navy of
some four hundred brigs and schooners of from sixty to
four hundred tons burthen and manned by about twelve thousand sailors,
(13:16):
Adepts alike in trade and piracy, but very unskilled in
orderly warfare and very feebly inspired by anything like disinterested patriotism,
was ready to use and abuse its powers during the
issuing seven years fight for Greek independence. During the summer
of eighteen twenty one, while the continental Greeks were rushing
to arms, murdering the Turkish residents among them by thousands,
(13:37):
and thus bringing down upon themselves or upon those of
their own race, who as peasants and burghers, took no
important share in actual fighting, the murderous vengeance of the
Turkish troops sent to attempt the suppression of the revolt,
These sailors were pursuing an easier and more profitable game.
The Turkish ports were not warlike, and the Turkish trading
ships were not prepared for fighting. In May, for middle
(14:00):
crowded vessels left the islands on a cruise, from which
they soon returned with an immense store of booty. Early
and during the best Turkish fleet that could be brought
together consisting of two line of battleships, three frigates and
three slips. When out to harass, if not destroy, the
army of smaller enemies, Jacomaki Tombazes, with thirty seven of
these smaller enemies, set off to meet them, and falling
(14:22):
in with one of the ships, gave her chase till
in the roads of Arepos. She was attacked on the
eighth of June, and, with the help of a fire ship, destroyed,
with a loss of nearly four hundred men. That victory
caused the flight of the other Turkish vessels and was
the beginning of much cruel work at sea, and with
ships which not often daring to meet in open fight,
(14:42):
wrought terrible mischief to unprotected ports and islands. The mischief
wrought upon the land was yet more terrible. A seething
tide of Greek and Muslin blood heaved to and fro
as during the second half of eighteen twenty one. Each
party in turn gained temporary ascendency in one district after another.
Greeks murdert Turks and texmder Greek with equal ferocity, or
(15:03):
perhaps the ferocity of the Greeks stirred by bad leaders
to revenge themselves for all their previous sufferings, even surpassed
that of the Turks of their cruelty. A glaring instance
occurred in their capture of Navarino. The Turkish inhabitants, having
held out as long as a mouthful of food was
left in the town, were forced to capitulate on the
(15:24):
nineteenth of August. It was promised that upon their surrendering,
the Greek vessels were to convey them their wearing apparel
and their household furniture, either to Egypt or to Tunis.
No sooner were the gates opened than a wholesale plunder
and slaughter ensued. A Greek ecclesiastic described the scene. Women
wounded with musket balls and saber cuts, rushed to the
(15:45):
sea seeking to escape, and were deliberately shot. Mothers, robbed
of their clothes, with infants in their arms, plunged into
the water to conceal themselves from shame, and they were
made a mark for inhuman riflemen. Greeks seized infants from
their mother breasts and dashed them against the rocks. Children
three and four years old were hurled living into the
(16:05):
sea and left to drown When the mascer was ended,
the dead bodies washed ashore or piled on the beach
threatened to cause a pestilence. At the sack of Tripolitza
on the eighth of October, about eight thousand Moslems were murdered,
the last two thousand, chiefly women and children, being taken
into a neighboring ravine, there to be slaughtered at leisure.
(16:27):
Two years later, a ghastly heap of bones attested the
inhuman deed. In ways like these, the first stage of
the Greek Revolution was achieved. Before the close of eighteen
twenty one, it appeared to the Greeks themselves, to their
Moslem enemies, and to their many friends in England, France
and other countries, that the triumph was complete. Unfortunately, the
same bad motives and the same bad methods that had
so grievously polluted the torrent of patriotism continued to poison
(16:51):
and disturb the stream, which might otherwise have been henceforth clear, steady,
and health giving. Greece was free, but unless another and
much harder of vere could be effected in the temper
and conduct of its own people, unfit to put its
freedom to good use or even to maintain it. The
rapid success of the Greeks during the first few weeks
of the revolution, says their Ablest his historian, through the
(17:14):
management of much civil and financial business into the hands
of the proesti and the demajerans in office. The primates,
who already exercised great official authority, instantly appropriated that which
had been hitherto exercised by murdered voivodes and bays. Every
primate strove to make himself a little independent potentate, and
every captain of a district assumed the powers of a
(17:36):
commander in chief. The revolution, before six months had passed,
seemed to have people Greece with a host of little
ali pashas. When the Primate and the captain acted in concert,
they collected the public revenues, administered the Turkish property which
was declared national, enrolled, paid and provisioned as many troops
as circumstances required or as they thought fit. Named officers,
(17:56):
formed a local guard for the Primate of the best
soldiers in the place, who were thus often withdrawn from
the public service, and organized a local police and a
local treasury. This system of local self government constituted in
a very self willed manner, and relieved from almost all responsibility.
Was soon established as a natural result of the revolutional
over all Greece. The Sultan's authority having ceased, every primate
(18:19):
assumed the prerogatives of the sultan for a few weeks.
This state of things was unavoidable, and to an able
and honest chief of government it would have facilitated the
establishment of a strong central authority. But by the vices
of Greek society, it was perpetuated into an organized anarchy.
No improvement was made in financial arrangements or in the
system of taxation. No measures were adopted for rendering property
(18:41):
more secure. No attempt was made to create an equitable
administration of justice. No courts of law were established, and
no financial accounts were published. Governments were formed, constitutions were
drawn up, national assemblies met orators debated, and laws were
passed according to the political fashion patronized by the liberals
of the day. But no effort was made to prevent
(19:01):
the government being virtually absolute, unless it was by rendering
it absolutely powerless. The constitutions were framed to remain a
dead letter. The national assemblies were nothing but conferences of parties,
and the law's past were intended to fascinate Western Europe,
not operate with effect. In Greece. The supreme government of
Greece had been assumed in June by Prince Demetrius Hypsilantes,
(19:25):
a worthier man than his brother Alexander, but by no
means equal to the task he took in hand. At first,
the brigandchiefs and local potentates, not willing to surrender any
of the power they had acquired, were disposed to render
to him nominal submission, believing that his nim and Russian
influence would be serviceable to the cause of Greece. But
Hypsilanti showed himself utterly incompetent, and it was soon apparent
(19:47):
that his sympathies were wholly alien to those both of
the Greek people and of their military and civil leaders. Therefore,
another master had to be chosen. Colocotrones might have succeeded
to the dignity, and he certainly had vigor enough of disposition,
and enough honesty and dishonesty combined to make the position
one of power as well as of dignity. For that
(20:08):
very reason, however, his comrades and rivals were unwilling to
place him in it. They desired a president skillful enough
to hold the reins of government with a very loose hand,
yet so as to keep them from getting hopelessly entangled,
one who should be a smart secretary and adviser without
assuming the functions of a director. Such a man they
found in Prince Alexander Mavrocordatos, then about thirty two years old.
(20:31):
He was a kinsman of a hospital of Wallachia, by
whom he had, in his youth been employed in political matters.
After that he had resided in France, where he acquired
much fresh knowledge, and where his popularity helped quicken sympathy
on behalf of the Greek Revolution at its first outburst.
He had lately come to miss a Longe with a
shipload of ammunition, and on the material procured and bought
(20:54):
at his own expense, and soon detained considerable influence. Always
courteous in his manners, only ungenerous in his actions where
the interests of others came into collision with his own.
Less strong willed and less ambitious than most of his associates,
those associates were hardly jealous of his popularity at home,
and wholly pleased with his popularity among foreigners, it was
a clear gain to their cause to have Shelley writing
(21:17):
his Helias and dedicating the poem to mavro Cordatus as
a token of admiration, sympathy and friendship. Mavro Cordatus was
named President of Greece in the Constitution of Epidorus, chiefly
his own workmanship, which was proclaimed on the thirteenth of January,
New Year's Day. According to the Reckoning of the Greek
Church eighteen twenty two. It is not necessary here to
(21:37):
detail his own acts or those of his real or
professing subordinates. All we have to do is furnish a
general accountant a few characteristic illustrations of the course of
events during the Greek Revolution, in explanation of the state
of parties and of politics at the time of Lord
Cochrane's advent, among them, these events were marked by continuance
of the same selfish policy, divided interests, class prejudice, and
(22:00):
individual jealousy that have already been referred to. The mass
of the Greek people were, as they had been from
the first, zealous in their desire for freedom, and having
won it, they were not unwilling to use it honestly.
For their faults, their leaders are chiefly to be blamed,
and in apology for those leaders, it must be remembered
that they were an assemblage of soldiers who had been
schooled in Oriental brigandage of priests whose education had been
(22:22):
in a corrupt form of Christianity, made more corrupt by
persecution of merchants who had found it hard to trade
without trickery, and of seamen who had been taught to
regard piracy as an honorable vocation. Perhaps we have less
cause to condemn them for the errors and vices that
they exhibited during their fight for freedom than to wonder
that those errors and vices were not more reprehensible in
(22:43):
themselves and disastrous in their issues. For about six years,
the fight was maintained without foreign aid save that given
by private volunteers and generous champions in Western Europe, against
a state numerically nearly twenty times as strong as the
little community of revolutionists in it. Along with much wanton cruelty,
was displayed much excellent heroism, but the heroism was reckless
(23:05):
and undisciplined, and therefore often worse than useless. Memorable instances,
both of recklessness and want of discipline appeared in the
attempts made to wrest Chios from the Turks in eighteen
twenty two. The Greek inhabitants of the island, on whom
the Turkish oppressed lightly, had refused to join in the
insurgent movement of their brethren on the mainland and in
the neighboring islands, but it was considered that a little
(23:27):
coercion would induce them to share in the revolution and
convert their prosperous island into a Greek possession. Therefore, in March,
a small force of two thousand, five hundred men crossed
the archipelago, took possession of Katari, the principal town, and
proceeded to invest the Turkish citadel. The Chiots, though perhaps
not very willingly, took part in the enterprise, but the
invading party was quite unequal to the work it had undertaken.
(23:51):
In April, a formidable Turkish squadron arrived and by a
Chios was easily recovered to become the scene of vindictive atrocities,
which brought all all the terrified inhabitants who were not
slaughtered or who could not escape, into abject submission. Thereupon,
on the tenth of mayor Greek fleet of fifty six
vessels was despatched by Mavrocordatos to attempt a more thorough
(24:12):
capture of the island. Its commander was Andreas Mialis, a
Hydriot merchant who proved himself the best sea captain among
the Greeks. Had me Alaois been able as he wished
to start sooner and meet the Turkish squadron on its
way to Chios, a brilliant victory might have resulted instead
of one of the saddest catastrophes of the whole Greek War.
Being deterred therefrom by the vacillation of Mavrocodatos and the
(24:35):
insuppordination of his captains and their crews, he was only
able to reach the island when it was again in
the hands of the enemy, and when all was ready
Forwithstanding him, there was useless fighting on the thirty first
of May and the two following days. On the eighteenth
of June, Milaous made another attack, but he was only
able to destroy the Turkish flagship and nearly all on
board by means of a fire vessel. His fleet was unmanageable,
(24:58):
and he had to abandon the enterprise and to leave
the unfortunate Chiots to endure further punishment for offenses that
were not their own. This punishment was so terrible that
in six months the population of Chios was reduced from
one hundred thousand to thirty thousand. Twenty thousand managed to escape,
fifty thousand were either put to death or sold as
slaves in Asia Minor. But failure of the Greeks at Chios,
(25:20):
rapidly followed by their defeat on land at Petta, greatly
disheartened the revolutionists. Mavroucodatus virtually resigned his presidentship and there
was anarchy in Greece until eighteen twenty eight. Athens, captured
from the Turks in June eighteen twenty two, became the
center of jealous rivalry and visionary scheming, mismanagement, and government
that was worse than no government at all. Odysseus, the
(25:42):
vilist of the vile men whom the revolution brought to
the surface, was its master for some time, and when
he played traitor to the Turks, he was succeeded by
others highly better than himself. In spite of some heavy disasters, however,
the Greeks were so far successful during eighteen twenty two
that in eighteen twenty three they were were able to
hold their newly acquired territory and to arrest some more
(26:03):
fortresses from their enemies. The real heroism that they had displayed, moreover,
the foul cruelties of which they were guilty, and the
selfish courses which they pursued, being hardly reported to their friends,
and when reported hardly believed, awakened keen sympathy on their behalf.
Shelley and Byron, and many others of less note, had
sung their virtues and their sufferings in noble verse, and
(26:26):
enlarged upon them in eloquent prose, and in England and France.
In Switzerland, Germany and the United States, a strong party
of phil Hellenes was organized to collect money and to
send recruits for their assistance. The two phil Hellenes of
greatest note who served in Greece during the earlier years
of their revolution were Thomas Gordon and Frank Abney Hastings. Gordon,
(26:48):
who attained the rank of general in the Army of Independence,
had the advantage of a long previous and thorough acquaintance
with character of both Turks and Greeks, and with the
languages that they spoke. He watched all the revolution movements
from the beginning, and took part in many of them.
In the History of the Greek Revolution, which he published
in eighteen thirty two, he gave such a vivid and
(27:08):
in the main so accurate an account of them that
his narrative has formed the basis of the more ambitious
work of the native historian mister Trikoupis. Of the vices
and errors of the people on whose behalf he fought
and wrote, he spoke boldly. Quote whatever national or individual
wrong the Greeks may have endured, he said, in one place,
(27:29):
it is impossible to justify the ferocity of their vengeance,
or to deny that a comparison instituted between them and
the Ottoman generals Mehmet Boulevard omer Veroni and the caher
Bay of Kurshid would give to the latter the palm
of humanity. Humanity, however, is quite a word out of
place when applied either to them or to their opponents.
(27:51):
In another page, further denouncing the Greek leaders, he wrote,
quote Penorius was the worst of these local despots, whom
some writers have elevated into his heroes, he was in
fact an ignoble robber, hardened in evil. He enriched himself
with the spoils of the Mohammedans, yet he and his
retinue of brigands compelled the people to maintain them at
free quarters in idleness and luxury, exacting not only bread, meat, wine,
(28:16):
and forage, but also sugar and coffee. Hence springs the
reflection that the Greeks had caused to repent their early
predilection for the Clefts, who were almost all, beginning with Calcatrones,
infamous for the sordid perversity of their dispositions. Gordon's disinterested
and brave efforts to bring about a better state of
things and to help on the cause of real patriotism
(28:38):
in Greece were highly praiseworthy. But, as another historian has
truly said quote, he did not possess the activity and
decision of character necessary to obtain commanding influence in council
or to initiate daring measures in the field. Frank Abney
Hastings was enable a man born in seventeen ninety four.
He was started in the naval profession when only a
(29:00):
eleven years old, six months after the commencement of his
midshipman's life, he was present on board the Neptune at
the Battle of Trafalgar, and during the ensuing fourteen years
he had served in nearly every quart of the globe.
His independent spirit, however, something akin to Lord Cochrane's brought
him into disfavor, and in eighteen nineteen, for challenging a
superior officer who had insulted him, he was dismissed from
(29:22):
the British Navy. Disheartened and disgusted, he resided in France
for about three years. At length, he resolved to go
and fight for the Greeks, partly out of sympathy for
their cause, partly as a relief from the misery forced idleness,
partly with the view of developing a plan which he
had been devising for extending the use of steamships in
naval warfare, to which last excellent improvement he greatly contributed.
(29:44):
He arrived at Hydra in April eighteen twenty two, just
in time to take part in the fighting of Chios.
One of his ingenious suggestions made to Andreas Meelis, and
its reception had been described by himself. I proposed to
direct a fireship and three other vessels upon the frigate, and,
when near the enemy, to set fire to certain combustibles,
which should throw out a great flame. The enemy would
(30:08):
naturally conclude they were all fire ships. The vessels were
then to attach themselves to the frigate, fire broadsides double
shot it, throwing on board the enemy at the same
time combustible balls, which gave a great smoke without flame.
This would doubtless induce him to believe he was on
fire and give a most favorable opportunity for boarding him. However,
(30:30):
the Admiral returned my plan saying only kyo, without asking
a single question or wishing me to explain its details,
and I observed a kind of insolent contempt in his manner.
This interview with the Admiral disgusted me. They place you
in a position in which it is impossible to render
any service, and then they boast of their own superiority
(30:51):
and of the uselessness of the Franks, as they call
us in Turkish warfare. Mealis, however, soon gained wisdom and
made good use Captain Hastings, who spent more than seven
thousand pounds all his patrimony in serving the Greeks. He
was almost the only officer in their employee who, during
the earlier years of the revolution succeeded in establishing any
(31:11):
sort of discipline or good management. Lord Byron, the most
illustrious of the early Philhellenes, used to say shortly before
his death that with Napier at the head of the
army and Hastings in command of a fleet, the triumph
of Greece might be insured. Byron was then at miss
a Longe, whither he had gone in January eighteen twenty
four to die in April. Long before, while stirring up
(31:33):
sympathy for all the lovers of liberty for the cause
of regeneration in Greece, he had shown that that regeneration
could be, by no means a short or easy work.
And now he had begun to report that the real
work was hardly yet begun, Nay, that it seemed almost
further off than ever. Quote of the Greeks, he wrote,
I can't say much good hitherto, and I do not
(31:54):
like to speak ill of them, though they do of
one another. It was chiefly at Byron's instigation that the
first Greek loan was contracted in London early in eighteen
twenty four, its proceeds three hundred thousand pounds were spent,
partly in unprofitable outlay upon ship's ammunition and the like
(32:15):
of which the people were in no position to make
good use, but mostly in civil war, and in pandering
to the greed and vanity of members of the government
and their subordinate officials, fanariots and their doctors in medicine.
Says an eyewitness, who in the month of April eighteen
twenty four were clad in ragged coats and who lived
on scanty rations, threw off that patriotic chrysalis before the
(32:37):
summer was passed, and emerged in all the splendor of
brigand life, fluttering about in rich Albanian habiliments, refulgent with
brilliant and unused arms, and followed by diminutive pipe bearers
and tall henchmen. Even the scanty allowance made by the
Greek government out of its newly acquired wealth for fighting
purposes was for the most part squandered, almost as frivolously.
(33:00):
One general who drew pay and rations for seven hundred
soldiers went to fight and die in Stacteria at the
head of seventeen armed peasants. And this is only a
glaring instance of peculations that were all but universal, that
being the degradation to which the leaders of the Greek
Revolution had sunk. It is not strange that its gains
in previous years should have begun in eighteen twenty four,
(33:21):
to be followed by heavy losses the Greek people. The
peasants and burghers were still patriots, though ill trained and misdirected.
They could defend their own homesteads with unsurpassed heroism and
hold their own mountains and valleys with fierce persistency. But
they were unfit for distant fighting, even when their chiefs
consented to employ them in it. Sultan Mahmoud, therefore, who
(33:42):
had been profiting by the hard experience of former years,
and whose strength had been steadily growing while the power
of the insurgents had been rapidly weakening, entered on a
new and successful policy. He left the Greeks to waste
their energies in their own possessions, and resolved to recapture,
one after another, the outposts and ill protected islands. For
(34:04):
this he took a special care in augmenting his navy,
and besides developing his own resources induced his powerful and
turbulent vassal Muhammadali, the Pasha of Egypt, tulkipa formidable fleet
and intrusted to his son Ibrahim, on whom he conferred
the title of Vizier of the Maria. Even without the
aid my Mood was able to do much in furtherance
(34:25):
of his purpose. The island of Kakos was easily recovered
and full vengeance was wreaked on its Greek inhabitants on
the twentieth of June. Soon afterwards, Sarah was seized and
punished yet more hardly. On the nineteenth of July, Ibrahim
left Alexandria with a naval force which swept the southern
seas of Greek pirates or privateers. On the first of
(34:47):
September he effected a junction with the Turkish fleet at Badran. There,
united strength comprised forty six ships, frigates and corvettes, and
about three hundred transports. Large and small. The Greek fleets
between Si tventy and eighty sail would have been strong
enough to withstand it under any sort of good management,
but good management was wanting, and the crews were quite
(35:08):
beyond the control of their masters. The result was that
in a series of small battles during the autumn of
eighteen twenty four, the Mahometans were generally successful, and their
enemies found themselves at the close of the year terribly discomfited.
The little organization previously existing was destroyed, and the revolutionists
felt that they had no prospect of advantageously carrying on
(35:30):
their strife at sea without assistance and guidance that could
not be looked for among themselves. Their troubles were increased
in the following year. In February and March eighteen twenty five,
Ibrahim landed a formidable army in the Maria and began
a course of operations in which the land forces and
the fleet combined to dispossess the Greeks of the chief
strongholds the strongly foot fight island as Facteria. The portal
(35:54):
of Navarino in Silos was taken on the eighth of May.
Silos capitulated on the eleventh, and Navarino on the twenty five.
Most of the same month, other citadels, one after another,
was surrendered, and Ibrahim and his army spent the summer
in scouring the Maria and punishing its inhabitants with the
utmost severity for the lawless brigandige and the devoted patriotism
(36:14):
of which they had been guilty during the past four years.
The result was altogether disheartening to the Greeks. They saw
that their condition was indeed desperate. George Conduriottes, a Hydriot merchant,
an Albanian who could not speak Greek and who was
alike unable to govern himself or others, had in June
eighteen twenty four, been named President of the Republic, and
since then the rival interests of the primates, the priests
(36:36):
and the military leaders had been steadily causing the decay
of all that was left of patriotism, an increase of
the selfishness that had so long been rampant. There was
one consequence of this degradation, however, which promised to be
very beneficial, Seeing that their cause was being rapidly weakened,
and the hard fought battle for liberty was in dangerous,
speedy and ignominious reversal by their own divisions, by the
(36:58):
stealthy encroachment of the Ottomans in the north, and by
the more energetic advances of the Egyptians. In the south.
The Greeks resolved to abandon some of their jealousies and greeds,
to look for a savior from without, and on his coming,
to try and submit themselves honestly and hartly to his leadership.
The issue of that resolution was the following letter written
by Mavroco Datos, then Secretary of the National Assembly.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Milord Ton Diquevo rartalon Ete consacri a procuri le bonard'm
pelli separre parenes pas imns de la grece celsine voye
pas sons admiracion Saint san Terre, saintones paste jalousis secret
meme lesuxxebrion quillan tu jour cournevo nobles cepphort erndu a
(37:44):
la nipondance and epubos de pluriche peis du monde votre
roturon a gretaire I excited a pre vive jois donla
coeur de citoyen greg ed si representin palles bois flatreur
quill commons a contevoike Saluski says he noble moon didier
a procure le bonner d nacion nerfuse rappad on feroutpovi
(38:06):
notre kill vi of the pason carrier moreond a mod
deluis a person no historic a perce maler passe a
passes a four A duel poor conquersal liberty is sonnd
dependence le merqui repell de victoire de temistocles said Timo
Nassan pasane trandi ferrand puluiki their pressly granson he and
(38:30):
the premis amro do not reciecle nevera caavec pressier quilletapele
arneuvele les bourgeour de salami eed michal a la tetemauli
de sachauri a de canary seta vegla plegrand satisfaction me
lord cousume of wascherges the faire or nondu gouvernment a
votres seignori la proposition the command mon general de first
(38:53):
naval de la grece see what tre seignori a disposal
accepte messieurle deputy the governor more greg alondre muntut lotsassion.
It is a striction sere pour combine a regel surlemoyer
and madras a disposition I frand you tilize le pluto
possible vertrenoble decision, the acceleri le re momont cola gress reconnaissance,
(39:15):
enthusiasme uvera combatre p la cos the saliberte, the profit said,
docacion poo prie votre signori the vua bienna gre la
surance de morespe is la preux ote esteem aveg lacelle
gelloneordetre milord de vautress signuri le tresamble a tresobis son
serviteur ah mavre cordatos. Secretary General Ditta Naples do Romani
(39:42):
leventute premier September miluisson vanceang assa seignori le tresono rabel
lord Cochrane Alandre.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
End of chapter thirteen. Recording by Timothy Ferguson, Gold Coast, Australia,
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