in their
cause. The chief of these was the English poet, Lord Byron; but he, as
well as most of the others, found it was much easier to admire the Greeks
when at a distance, for a war like this almost always makes men little
better than treacherous savage robbers in their ways; and they were all
so jealous of one another that there was no obedience to any kind of
government, nor any discipline in their armies. Byron soon said he was a
fool to have come to Greece, and before he could do anything he died at
Missolonghi, in the year 1824. But though the Greeks fought in strange
ways of their own, they at least won respect and interest by their
untamableness, and though Missolonghi was taken, it was only after a most
glorious resistance. When the defenders could hold out no longer, they
resolved to cut their way through the Turks. One division of them were
deceived by a false alarm, and returned to the town, where, when the
enemy entered the powder magazine, they set fire to it, and blew
themselves up, together with the Turks; the others escaped.

Athens was taken again by the Turks, all but the Acropolis; but the
nations of Europe had begun to believe in the Greeks enough to advance
them a large sum of money, which was called the Greek Loan; and the
English admiral, Lord Cochrane, and an English soldier, General Church,
did them much good by making up the quarrels among their own princes, for
actually, in the midst of this desperate war with the Turks, there were
seven little civil wars going on among different tribes of the Greeks
themselves. General Church collected them all, and fought a great battle
in the plain of Athens with the Turkish commander, Ibrahim Pasha, but was
beaten again; the Acropolis was taken, and nothing remained to the Greek
patriots but the citadel of Corinth and Naupliae.

However, France, Russia, and England had now resolved to interfere on
behalf of the Greeks, and when the Sultan refused to attend to them, a
fleet, consisting of ships belonging to the three nations, was sent into
the Mediterranean. They meant to treat with the Turks, but the Turks and
Greeks thought they meant to fight, and in the bay of Navarino a battle
began, which ended in the utter destruction of the Turkish fleet. Out of
120 ships, only 20 or 30 were left, and 6000 men were slain. This was on
the 20th of October, 1827, and the terrible loss convinced Ibrahim Pasha
that no further attempt to keep the Morea was of a