not themselves abandon it, but sustain my efforts."

The election of Sir Richard Church as Generalissimo of the Land Forces was, in like manner, completed on the 15th of April.

The essential business for which Lord Cochrane had desired that the united National Assembly should meet at Troezene being now accomplished, he hoped that it would speedily adjourn, in order that the military leaders should be enabled to proceed at once to the work pressing urgently upon them. "The critical moment," said Lord Cochrane, in a letter addressed to them on the 16th of April, "has arrived in which you are called upon to decide whether the population of Greece shall be annihilated or enslaved, your country peopled with barbarous hordes, and the name of Greece blotted out from the list of independent nations." The National Assembly, however, spent more than another month in idle discussions, and in disputing upon matters the settlement of which ought to have been postponed to a less perilous time. Again and again Lord Cochrane had to impress upon them the necessity, in war as in council, of prompt and united action; but with very poor result.

"Once more I address you by letter," he wrote a few days later, "in the hope that you may be persuaded instantly to take measures to save your country from the ruin which protracted deliberations must at the present moment entail—ay, with as much certainty as a continuance of those dissensions which have hitherto so unhappily prevailed; and I follow this course the more readily in order that, as I have ever advocated liberal forms of government, my advice, that your Assembly shall bring its labours to a close, shall not be misrepresented to Greece and to the world. First, then, the agitated state of the country, by reason of the presence of the enemy, precludes the hope of obedience in ordinary course of law, which is as essential to the existence even of a shadow of republican forms as the practice of virtue and forbearance are to their reality—which, in states that would be free, ever must be accompanied by universal conviction in the public mind that power and wealth are not essential to the enjoyment of personal security, and are desirable or useful only as they promote the common welfare or administer to the wants or comforts of individuals themselves. The Grecian people, however good, naturally cannot be expected instantly to practise virtues which are the offspring of long-established freedom. Greece requires not, at the present moment, sage deliberations regarding permanent forms of government, nor permanent rulers; but she requires energetic authority, that she may be free at least from her foreign oppressors. If, without delay, the military officers take the field, if your labours be brought to a close and every citizen in his respective capacity exert himself to the utmost for the defence of his country, Athens perhaps may yet be saved, although that object assuredly is rendered far more doubtful by the unfortunate delay that has already occurred."

In entering upon his own share of the work no time was wasted by Lord Cochrane. He had already made himself acquainted with the naval resources of Greece, and done much in devising measures for augmenting them. He had resolved upon the first enterprise to be entered upon; and, while rapidly completing his arrangements for it, he did everything in his power to quicken in the hearts of the Greeks a patriotism as pure and zealous as was his own philanthropy. "To arms! to arms!" he wrote in a proclamation issued at this time. "One simultaneous effort, and Greece is free. Discord, the deadly foe you have had most to fear, is conquered. The task that now remains is easy. The youth everywhere fly to arms. The fate of the Acropolis is no longer doubtful. The Turks surrounded, their supplies cut off, the passes occupied, and retreat impossible, you can ensure the freedom of the classic plains of Athens, again destined to become the seat of liberty, the sciences, and the arts. Rest not content with such limited success. Sheathe not the sword whilst the brutal Turk, the enemy of the progress of civilization and improvement of the human mind, shall occupy one foot of that classic ground which once was yours. Let the young seamen of the islands emulate the glory that awaits the military force. Let them hasten to join the national ships, and, if denied your independence and rights, blockade the Hellespont, thus carrying the war into the enemy's country. Then the fate of the cruel Sultan, the destroyer of his subjects, the tyrant taskmaster of a Christian people, shall be sealed by the hands of the executioners who yet obey his bloody commands. Then shall prophecy be fulfilled, and Moslem sway be overthrown by the corruptions itself has engendered. Then shall the sacred banner of the Cross once more wave on the dome of Saint Sophia. Then shall the Grecian people live secure under the protection of just laws. Then shall noble cities rise from their ruins, and the splendour of future times rival the days that are past."

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE SIEGE OF ATHENS.—THE DEFENDERS OF THE ACROPOLIS.—THE EFFORTS OF GORDON AND KARAÏSKAKES.—LORD COCHRANE'S PLAN FOR CUTTING OFF THE TURKISH SUPPLIES.—THE ARGUMENTS BY WHICH HE WAS INDUCED TO PROCEED INSTEAD TO THE PHALERUM.—HIS ARRIVAL THERE.— HIS OTHER ARRANGEMENTS FOR SERVING GREECE.—HIS FIRST MEETING WITH KARAÏSKAKES.—THE CONDITION OF THE GREEK CAMP.—LORD COCHRANE'S POSITION.—HIS EFFORTS TO GIVE IMMEDIATE RELIEF TO THE ACROPOLIS, AND THE OBSTACLES RAISED BY THE GREEKS.—KARAÏSKAKES'S DELAYS, AND GENERAL CHURCH'S DIFFICULTIES.—THE CONVENT OF SAINT SPIRIDION.—THE BATTLE OF PHALERUM.—THE CAPTURE OF SAINT SPIRIDION. —THE MASSACRE OF THE TURKS, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.—LORD COCHRANE'S RENEWED EFFORTS TO SAVE THE ACROPOLIS.—THE DEATH OF KARAÏSKAKES.—THE MARCH TO THE ACROPOLIS.—ITS FAILURE THROUGH THE PERVERSITY OF THE GREEKS.—THE BATTLE OF ATHENS.—THE FALL OF THE ACROPOLIS.

[1827.]

After the conquest of Missolonghi, by which all Western Greece was brought under Turkish dominion, Reshid Pasha lost no time in proceeding to drive the Greeks from Athens, their chief stronghold in the east. The siege of the town had been begun by Omar Pasha of Negropont, with a small Ottoman force, on the 21st of June, 1826. Reshid arrived on the 11th of July, and, after much previous fighting, stormed Athens so vigorously on the 14th of August, that the inhabitants were forced to abandon it. Many of them, however, took refuge in the Acropolis, where a strong garrison was established under the tyrannical rule of Goura, and in this fortress the defence was maintained for nearly two months. Goura died in October, and the rivalries of the officers whom he had held in awe, now allowed to have free exercise, threatened to make easy the further triumph of the besiegers. The citadel must have surrendered, but for the timely arrival of Karaïskakes and Fabvier, each with a strong body of troops, who diverted the enemy by formidable attacks in the rear. Karaïskakes and his force continued, with various success, to watch and harass the enemy from without. On the 12th of December Fabvier, by a brilliant exploit, forced his way into the Acropolis with about six hundred men. He had intended only to give it temporary relief, but many of the native chiefs, gladly taking advantage of the arrival of a body for which, conjointly with the garrison already established, there was not room in the fortress, hastily departed. Thus the leadership of the garrison, comprising about a thousand soldiers, with whom were four or five hundred women and children, and more than forty Philhellenes from France, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy, devolved upon Colonel Fabvier. The besiegers numbered about seven thousand picked soldiers, including a regiment of cavalry veterans and a good train of artillery. The Greek regulars and irregulars, including a corps of Philhellenes, commanded by Captain Inglesi, who attempted to raise the siege, varied, at different times, from