port of the fall of Coron. This intelligence A.D.

seemed to infuse some confidence into the minds of the Greeks. The inhabitants of Missolonghi, which contained but four Ottoman families, independently of the officers of the government, took up arms in the cause of liberty; they gave the Turks due notice of their intentions, and facilitated their escape from the town.* The primates then assembled the citizens, took every possible precaution for their defence, seized on Anatolico, a little fortified island in the lagunes before Missolonghi, and sent to Feodor to place themselves under his command, and entreat the protection of a single vessel, of which they offered to furnish the equipment. The inhabitants of Athens and Corinth wanted but the appearance of the Russian flag in the gulfs of Salamis or Corinth, to rise against their rulers, occupy the isthmus, and cut off all communication between the Morea and the Turks of Northern Greece. The Thessalians in like manner demanded eagerly the supply of arms, which was to have been dispatched for them to Volo; and the Cyclades, and Candia in particular, waited only for the command of the Russians, to make a general uprising in their favour. Above all, the inhabitants of Zante, Cephalonia, and the other Ionian islands, manifested the

* Annual Register, 1770, p. 29; Villemain, p. 222.

1770.

A.D. most enthusiastic ardour in the cause.

1770.

No pro

clamation, no force, of the Venetians, could restrain them; they assumed the uniform of the Empress, hoisted the standard of the Cross on their coasting craft, and landing on the Moreot shores, attacked the Turks with resistless fury. They attempted the reduction of Patras, and having occupied the town, drove the Turkish troops and inhabitants within the walls of the castle; and they took possession, without a contest, of Gastouni, a trading village opposite Zante, which they immediately sent to surrender to Feodor.

Two months had now been disgracefully consumed in the attempt to reduce the unimportant citadel of Coron; and so exclusively had it occupied the attention of Orloff, that he could answer the demands of the Greeks for supplies only by promises and bravado. He had in vain urged his soldiers to attempt a general assault; they were inadequate to the effort: he had endeavoured to gain an entrance by driving a mine under the walls; his design was discovered, and a sortie of the garrison dispersed his engineers, and thoroughly destroyed their works. The Greeks at last, disgusted with the delays and weakness of their liberators, reproached them openly with their in

* Annual Register, 1770, p. 31; Villemain, p. 223.

1770.

efficiency; mutual recriminations ensued: the A.D. Russians charged them with deceit in magnifying the resources of the country; the Greeks upbraided them with falsehood in exaggerating the vastness of their preparations. Mauro Michali at length told Feodor boldly, that he was only destroying the houses of the Greeks; that he was ignorant of the mode of attacking a Turkish stronghold; that he would follow no advice, and was merely ruining the Moreots, without injuring their oppressors. The Russian retorted with insult and invective. Mauro Michali replied, that had he under his command the whole hosts of the Czarina, he was still but the slave of a woman: "As for me," said he, I am the chieftain of a free people; and, were I the last descendant of my race, my life would be more valuable than thine.” * At this alarming crisis, the first division of the long-expected squadron of Alexis cast anchor in the bay of Vitylo, and for a little retarded the dispersion of the Mainote troops. Feodor, wearied with the protracted siege of Coron, resolved to attempt some new enterprise, and a portion of this seasonable reinforcement was dispatched to the attack of Navarino, under the command of General Hannibal, son to an African slave of Peter I. The Turks, on their * Rulhiere, v. iii. Ꮓ

VOL. II.

p.

398.

1770.

A.D. first approach, capitulated without opposition ; they were transported in an English vessel to Candia, and the Russians remained masters of the fortress and the most secure harbour in the Morea.*

Apr.23. On the 23d of April, Alexis Orloff cast anchor with his remaining detachment in the bay of Coron; and the united forces of the Russians then amounted to six vessels of sixty guns, four frigates of twenty, two armed transports, and about eight hundred soldiers. He resolved at once on abandoning the profitless blockade, and issued orders for the troops and fleet to move toward Navarino. The unfortunate Greeks of the place, on the first intimation of his departure, rushed in crowds to the shores of the gulf, and implored the Russians not to leave them unprotected to their fate. Alexis could only consent to receive a portion of them on board the fleet; the remainder, with their wives and little ones, followed on foot the track of the Russian army, and abandoned their dwellings to the fury of the Turks, who, immediately on their departure, completed the demolition and ruin of Coron. Alexis now resolved to alter the plan of the campaign, and overrun the interior, before attempting farther conquests on the coast; and Pappas Oglou and his * Villemain, p. 223.

1770.

emissaries were again dispatched to rouse the AD peasantry, and announce his approach. Psaros, who still remained inactive at Misitra, received orders to march with all his forces upon Tripolizza, where a communication had been already opened with the archbishop and primates of the Greeks; and in order to repair the disgrace incurred before Coron, Prince Dolgorouki was dispatched from Navarino with a thousand Russians, Montenegrins, Mainotes, and Messenians, to lay siege to the town of Modon ;* but the fortress was gallantly defended by eight hundred Janissaries, and its reduction promised to be as tedious and difficult an attempt as that which had been just abandoned.

The Turkish fleet, issuing from the Dardanelles, had in the mean time appeared upon the coasts of the Peloponnesus, and the Dulcigniots and Albanians were already advanced to the isthmus. A party of the former, in passing by the entrance to the Gulf of Lepanto, had witnessed the preparations of the Missolonghiots for flight. Their entreaties for assistance having been disregarded by Feodor, and the defences of the town being inadequate to their protection, they had resolved on abandoning their homes to the advancing Alba

* Pouqueville, Régénération, &c. v. i. c. ii. p. 44; Dufey, v. i. c. ii. p. 17.