a
brigade of artillery which General Marmont, then commanding in the
Illyrian provinces, had for a time placed at Ali's disposal. The old
officer had acquired the esteem and friendship of the pacha, whose
leisure he had often amused by stories of his campaigns and various
adventures, and although it was now long since they had met, he still had
the reputation of being Ali's friend. Ali prepared his plans
accordingly. He wrote a letter to Colonel Nicole, apparently in
continuation of a regular correspondence between them, in which he
thanked the colonel for his continued affection, and besought him by
various powerful motives to surrender Parga, of which he promised him the
governorship during the rest of his life. He took good care to complete
his treason by allowing the letter to fall into the hands of the chief
ecclesiastics of Parga, who fell head-foremost into the trap. Seeing
that the tone of the letter was in perfect accordance with the former
friendly relations between their French governor and the pacha, they were
convinced of the former's treachery. But the result was not as Ali had
hoped: the Parganiotes resumed their former negotiations with the
English, preferring to place their freedom in the hands of a Christian
nation rather than to fall under the rule of a Mohammedan satrap.... The
English immediately sent a messenger to Colonel Nicole, offering
honourable conditions of capitulation. The colonel returned a decided
refusal, and threatened to blow up the place if the inhabitants, whose
intentions he guessed, made the slightest hostile movement. However, a
few days later, the citadel was taken at night, owing to the treachery of
a woman who admitted an English detachment; and the next day, to the
general astonishment, the British standard floated over the Acropolis of
Parga.

All Greece was then profoundly stirred by a faint gleam of the dawn of
liberty, and shaken by a suppressed agitation. The Bourbons again
reigned in France, and the Greeks built a thousand hopes on an event
which changed the basis of the whole European policy. Above all, they
reckoned on powerful assistance from Russia. But England had already
begun to dread anything which could increase either the possessions or
the influence of this formidable power. Above all, she was determined
that the Ottoman Empire should remain intact, and that the Greek navy,
beginning to be formidable, must be destroyed. With these objects in
vi