Henry Bourne - The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II

This, in spite of the difficulties thrown in his way, he set himself heartily to attempt. Two courses were now open to him. Reshid Pasha, having taken possession of the Acropolis, and thus completed the capture of Athens, had laid siege to Corinth; and Sir Richard Church, with a weak and vacillating body which went by the name of an army – the remnants of that which had proved so useless in the neighbourhood of the Piræus – was vainly trying to raise the siege. By him and by the Government Lord Cochrane was urged to muster as large a fleet as possible in the Bay of Corinth, and to co-operate with the land forces by blockading the besiegers, after the method that had failed at Athens. Experience convinced him that such action would be useless; whereas from modification of the plan which he had in the former instance been induced to abandon he hoped much. He knew that a large Egyptian force was being prepared at Alexandria, to be employed first in aiding the siege of Corinth, and afterwards in completing the conquest of all Greece. If only he could train the Greeks to act under his bold leadership, as he had trained the Chilians and Brazilians, he trusted that, by one daring movement, he could seize Alexandria as he had seized Valdivia and Maranham. And to this project he zealously addressed himself, deeming it sufficient to send a small force to blockade the gulfs of Patras and Corinth, and leaving Dr. Gosse as his agent in command of naval affairs at home, with special orders to visit the various islands, and, in accordance with authority received from the Government, to collect the revenues of each, in order that the necessary expenses of the fleet might be met.

He collected all the vessels he could muster in the neighbourhood of Cape Saint Angelo. His force consisted, besides the Hellas , of one corvette, the Sauveur , which he had brought from Marseilles, commanded by Captain Thomas, of fourteen Greek brigs and of eight brulôts or fireships. With these he started for Alexandria on the 11th of June, the Hellas having often to slacken speed in order that the slower Greek vessels might be kept in attendance. Candia was passed on the 13th, and Alexandria was sighted at five o'clock in the morning of the 15th. Lord Cochrane stood out to sea so that he might not be discovered, and spent the day in putting his fleet in order, preparing an explosion-vessel, and arranging for the work of the morrow. "Brave officers and seamen," he said, in an address to his followers, "one decisive blow, and Greece is free. The port of Alexandria, the centre of all the evil that has befallen you, now contains within its narrow bounds numerous ships of war and a multitude of vessels laden with provisions, stores, and troops, intended to effect your total ruin. The wind is fair for us, and our enterprise unsuspected. Brave brulotteers, resolve by one moment of active exertion to annihilate the power of the satrap. Then shall the siege of Athens be raised in Egypt; then shall the armies of Ibrahim and Reshid be deprived of subsistence, and their garrisons perish of hunger, whilst the brave inhabitants of continental Greece and the islanders, freed from impending danger, will fly to arms, and, by one simultaneous movement, throw off the barbarian yoke. Date the return of happy days and the liberty and security of Greece from your present exhibition of valour. The emancipation of Egypt and the downfall of the satrap are also inevitable consequences; for the war is concentrated in one point of action and of time."

That spirited address was ineffectual, and Lord Cochrane's bold plan for seizing Alexandria was prevented by the cowardice and disorganization of the Greeks whom he was labouring to serve. They could hardly be persuaded on the 16th to follow the Hellas and the Sauveur , all bearing Austrian colours, as far as the entrance to Alexandria, and when twenty large Egyptian vessels were found to be there lying at harbour, they lost heart altogether. Lord Cochrane knew from past experience that, with proper support from his subordinates, he could easily capture or disperse the enemy's shipping. He had made arrangements for attacking them with the fireships and his explosion-vessel. But nearly all the crews refused to serve. Kanaris alone among the Greeks was brave. Having command of the fireships, he induced the sailors of two of them to bear down upon the enemy, and at about eight o'clock in the evening one man-of-war was burnt. So great was the effect of this small success that the other ships of the enemy prepared to escape, and great numbers of the inhabitants of Alexandria hurried out of the town and sought a hiding in the adjoining villages. Seeing the Egyptian ships making ready for flight, however, the Greeks supposed that they were coming out to attack them, and themselves immediately turned sail, heedless alike of their own honour and of Lord Cochrane's assurances that a splendid victory was easy to them. All the night was vainly spent by the Hellas and the Sauveur in futile efforts to collect them, and on the morning of the 18th they were found to be dispersed far out at sea over an area of more than twenty miles.

In despite of his feeble allies, Lord Cochrane would have gone boldly into port and attacked the enemy. But his own Greek sailors were as timid as their comrades; and after a whole day spent in reconnoitring the enemy, whose force of twenty-five sail dared not offer battle, but had gained courage enough to abstain from actual flight, he was compelled, on the 19th, also to put out to sea and to spend two other days in signalling the brigs and fireships to join him. Not till the afternoon of the 20th, by which time he had pursued his allies to a distance eighty miles from Alexandria, was he able to bring them into any sort of order, and then the bitter conviction was forced upon him that further prosecution of his plan, for the present at any rate, was useless.

The scanty store of provisions that had been sent with the fleet, moreover, was nearly exhausted, and thus a new difficulty arose. Lord Cochrane sent the most useless of his vessels back to Poros for a fresh supply, and with an earnest entreaty that some efficient reinforcements might also be forwarded to him, announcing his intention of waiting in the neighbourhood in hopes of achieving some better success. "Your excellencies may rest assured," he said in his letter to the Government, "that our visit to Alexandria will have a powerful effect in paralysing the equipment of an expedition, and I have every reason to conclude that the example made before their eyes of the brig-of-war will deter any of the numerous neutral vessels from engaging as transports in the expedition equipping by the Pasha. The sensation created must indeed have been powerful as two neutral vessels of war made the signal for pilots before we weighed anchor on the morning of the 17th, under the impression, no doubt, that a more effectual attack would shortly be attempted. I am going to make a short tour, with a view, as far as I am enabled with the inadequate means at my disposal, to distract and paralyse the enemy."

In accordance with that purpose, being already near Cyprus, Lord Cochrane conducted his fleet a little further north, and anchored, on the 23rd of June, off Phineka, in Asia Minor, where, after a brief fight with the Turks, he effected a landing, and received some much-needed food and water. Thence he addressed letters, urging the prompt despatch of the necessary stores and vessels, to the Government, to the primates of Hydra, and to Dr. Gosse.

From this halting-place, also, he sent a noteworthy letter to Mahomet Ali, the Pasha of Egypt, a supplement to one which he had addressed to him nearly a year before, when he was on his way to enter the service of the Greeks.

"Your employing foreigners in your military and naval service," he had said in the former letter, which will be best quoted in this place, "the privilege which you claim and exercise of building and equipping ships-of-war in neutral states, and of purchasing steam-vessels and hiring transports under neutral flags, for hostile purposes, and to transport to slavery a people whom the Ottoman arms have never yet been able wholly to subdue, warrant a belief, whatever your sentiments may be, that the civilized, educated, and liberal portion of mankind will be gratified that succours similar to those which you, unfortunately, have hitherto obtained from these states are now about to be afforded to the brave, the oppressed, and suffering Greeks. Nor will the advantage derived be wholly theirs; for, until you shall cease or be forced to abandon your inhuman traffic in Christian slaves and the commission of cruelties which stain the character of man, your subjects must inevitably continue barbarians, – a state from which it would be a source of great gratification to contribute to release them. It is true that the Christian world has not of late contended in arms with those of your faith on points of religion. It has, however, not fallen into a state of apathy so great as to see unheeded the perpetration of those enormities which you are daily committing on Christians, – a sentiment with which no feeling of animosity towards you or towards your people is combined. On the contrary, it desires to render you every good service consistent with that duty paramount to all others, namely, to wipe out the stain from the civilized world of unfeelingly and inhumanly co-operating to exterminate, enslave, and transport to bondage a whole Christian people – and such a people – the descendants of those Greeks whose genius laid the chief foundation of literature, the sciences, and the arts; who reared those noble monuments and edifices which time and the more destructive barbarian hand have yet failed to destroy, and which, compared with the wretched hovels of your hordes, may better point out to you the elevation they attained, and the prostrate state in which your people are – owing, alas! to the baneful effects of bigotry and despotic sway. Surely, surely there is ample field for the exercise of your energies at home, in encouraging industry, the arts and sciences, in promoting the civilization of your people, and in enacting equitable laws for the security of persons and property – on which bases the national prosperity of all countries must rest. But should your ambition, not content with bestowing blessings like these on your native land, lead you to soar almost above mortal acts, distant oceans would unite, and the extremities of the globe approach at your command. 9 9 It is singular that at this early date Lord Cochrane should thus have advised and prognosticated the construction of the Suez Canal. Thus might your name be rendered immortal, and Egypt become again the emporium of commerce, and one of the richest and happiest nations upon earth. How infinitely great the glory from such acts! How despicable the fame of a tyrant conqueror, the ruler of slaves! It would be pleasing to support you as the author of great and good works, but it is shameful to permit your present proceedings, and dastardly to leave the unfeeling apostate sons of neutral and Christian nations unopposed, aiding to perpetuate barbarism for horrid gain, drawn from the price of Christians torn from their homes and sold as slaves in foreign lands. Against these atrocious men, my companions and myself, casting the gauntlet down, will contend, in the hope that they and you may perceive your true interests and your great error, and pursue a different course before it shall be too late. Quit the classic sacred soil of Greece, let the flayings, and burnings, and impalings of that people cease, and oh! shocking to humanity, the ripping up of pregnant women, and the hewing up of their infant babes, and other acts yet worse than these – too horrid to relate. Release the Christian slaves; pursue an honourable and enlightened path, and we become friends to aid you in your pursuits – but should the present course be continued, let the bands of cruel assassins in your employ count on our opposition; count, too, on our neutralizing the effects of every vessel procured or bought from Christian states. 'Hear the voice of the Lord, ye rulers,' in the prophecy now to be fulfilled. 'Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help and stay.' 'When the Lord shall stretch out his hand, both he that helpeth shall fall, and he that is holpen shall fall down, and they shall all fall together.' Instead of filling brim full the cup of bitterness, of which you yourself must ultimately drink, how admirably might you not employ your people, and your treasure – the waste whereof is rearing to you a barbarian successor to prolong the bondage of Egypt. The Christian prayer of those called to rescue their suffering brethren is that, conforming yourself to the dictates of reason and humanity, you may live long to benefit mankind; and as you are more enlightened than your predecessors, so may you become more humane and just."