been separated from the Turkish squadron near Lesbus, was stranded in endeavouring to escape from the Greeks at Eressus, on the western side of that island, and was there burnt by a fire-ship of Ydra.

If the events of 1820 had proved that the power of Aly Pasha rested on a basis of sand, those of 1821 shewed that the authority of the Porte in Greece was equally unstable. Soon after midsummer, not only in the Peloponnesus, but throughout a great part of Northern Greece, as far as Thessalonica, the Turks had retired into the large towns and fortified places, and all the mountains and open country were either in the hands of the Greeks or exposed to their incursions. Agents had been sent to Europe for the purchase of arms and ammunition; many volunteers, as well Greeks as natives of civilized Europe, had arrived in the Moréa; and some generous contributions in money and the materials of war had been received from strangers, or from the opulent Greeks settled in some of the chief sea-ports of Europe.

The native Greeks who took the lead in the Peloponnesus were Peter Mavromikháli, who had been Bey of Mani under the Turks, and Constan- \ tine Kolokotróni, who, like his father, had long

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been a chief of rebellious Peloponnesian Armatolí, and who had held military rank in the Russian and in the English services.

Of the other Greeks who joined the insurrection, the two of greatest note were Demetrius Ypsilanti, who, like his brother Alexander, was an officer in the Russian army, and Alexander Mavrokordáto, member of another of those Greek families of Constantinople upon whom the Porte was accustomed to confer the four great offices of state, held by Christians.* Ypsilanti at first appeared as the agent and deputy of his brother; but the latter, having totally failed in his attempt in the North, Demetrius was soon obliged to give up the high pretensions which he had connected with that character, and as both Hetærists and Russians have since gradually lost their credit in Greece, his influence has declined in proportion. Mavrokordato was destined to act a more conspicuous and a more useful part.

The capture of Monemvasia and Neó-kastro or Navarin by the insurgents in the beginning of August, 1821, was followed by the investment of Tripolitza, of which operation Ypsilanti, by virtue

*Those of governor of Moldavia and of Wallachia, and those of interpreter to the Porte and to the fleet.

of his rank in the Russian service, assumed the management as far as that was possible among such a rabble, disobedient even to their native leaders, and still less likely to submit to a young man of whom those leaders were jealous.

Tripolitza, situated at the foot of Mount Mænalus on the edge of the plain which contained the ancient cities of Tegea, Pallantium, and Mantineia, was surrounded with a slight wall, flanked by towers at long intervals. At the south-western end a small citadel occupies a height, which is connected with the last falls of the mountain. In the towers and citadel were about fifty pieces of cannon, served by a company of artillerymen from Constantinople. Besides its own population of about 25,000, the town contained the Turkish refugees of Londári with their families, and almost the entire population of Bardunia, a part of Mount Taygetum, which, like Lalla near Olympia, had been colonized by Mohammedan Albanians. In addition to the armed men of these several people, were three or four thousand in the service of Khurshid Pasha, governor of the Moréa, about half of whom were Albanians. The command, if command it could be called, was in the hands of the kihaya or lieutenant of Khurshid, the pasha

himself having, by order of the Porte, joined the army before Ioannina, leaving his family at Tripolitza.

The Greeks at first were very inferior in numbers to their opponents; they had no cavalry ; many of them were scarcely armed, and their besieging artillery consisted only of five or six cannon and two mortars, wretchedly deficient in their appurtenances, and managed by a few European adventurers. Under such circumstances, it is obvious that the best hopes of the Greeks were founded on cutting off the supplies of the town. But their opponents had a formidable cavalry, and few of the Greeks were yet superior to that innate dread of their late masters, which had made them, on some late occasions, fly from about onetenth of their number of the Turkish horsemen. At first, collected in irregular bodies under their several chieftains, they occupied the slopes of Mount Mænalus. By degrees they approached nearer to the walls, took advantage of the cover afforded by the heights near the citadel, placed their ordnance in battery on the most commanding parts of the hills, and at length, as their numbers and confidence increased, they effected a lodgment in some ruined villages in the plain to the eastward

of the city; and having thus prevented the Turkish cavalry from foraging at a distance from the walls, the distress both of the garrison and inhabitants soon became excessive.

In the middle of September, the besieged were encouraged in their resistance by the intelligence of the arrival of the Turkish fleet, which, after making an unsuccessful attempt upon Kalamáta, and, after throwing supplies into Mothóni and Koróni, had been joined at Patræ by some Algerine ships, as well as by the Kapitána Bay or Commodore, who had been employed on the coast of Epirus against Aly, and who brought a body of Albanians to Patræ. The besieged soon discovered, however, that little hope of succour was to be derived from that quarter, for Ypsilanti having proceeded to occupy the Arcadian passes towards Patræ, no attempt was made from thence to relieve Tripolitza, and its investment was never interrupted. One cause of this inactivity on the part of the Turkish commander was the failure of the attempt, which had been made in the early part of the month by their army in Thessaly, to penetrate into Boeotia. They had been met by the insurgents at Fondána in the pass of Mount Cnemis, leading from the head of the Maliac gulf