ral commissariat for the field was poor and inadequate, and they
were sadly wanting in drill and organization. Splendid feats of
bravery were displayed on land and on sea, but it seemed only too
certain that if the Greeks were left to their own resources, or even if
they were not sustained by the open support of some great foreign
State, the Ottoman Power must triumph before long.

The best part of the war on the side of Turkey was carried on by
Ibrahim Pasha, the adopted son of Mehemet Ali, who ruled over Egypt as
a vassal sovereign to the Sultan of Turkey. Ibrahim Pasha had great
military capacity; he was full of energy, resource, and perseverance,
and the Turkish Sultan could not have had a better man to undertake the
task of conducting the campaign. The sympathies of Russia went
strongly with the Greeks, or perhaps it might be more correct to say
that the policy of Russia was directed against the Turks. At that
time, as in later days, the public opinion of Western Europe was not
always certain whether the movements of Russian statesmanship were
governed more by the desire to strengthen Greece or by the desire to
weaken Turkey. Canning had always been a sympathizer with the cause of
Greece. In his early days his sympathy had taken poetic form, and now
at last it had an opportunity of assuming a more practical shape. He
would have wished well to any effort made by Russia for the
emancipation of Greece, but he feared that if the effort were to be
left to Russia alone the result might be a great European war, and his
policy was above all things a policy of peace. His idea was to form an
alliance which should exercise so commanding an influence as to render
any prolonged resistance impossible. He succeeded in impressing his
ideas and his arguments so effectively upon the Governments of France
and Russia as to induce them to enter into a treaty with England for
the avowed purpose of watching events in Eastern Europe, endeavoring to
keep the conduct of the war within the limits of humanity, and bringing
it to as early a close as possible.

{50}

[Sidenote: 1824--Death of Lord Byron]

The combined fleets of the three Powers were sent into the
Mediterranean for the purpose of watching the movements of the Turkish
and Egyptian fleets, which were threatening the shores of Greece. Sir
Edward Codrington, the British Admiral, was in command of the
expedition, and his instructions enjoined on him, in the usual offici