n he met with
from a government consisting in part of shipowners, eager to obtain a
share of the loan as hire for their ships. These ships were in some
danger of rotting in harbour, in case a national navy should be
formed. The loan, however, appeared inexhaustible; and in the autumn
of 1824, Hastings returned to England, with a promise that the Greek
government would lose no time in instructing their deputies in London
to procure a steam-vessel to be armed under his inspection, and of
which he was promised the command. This promise was soon forgotten; a
number of favourable accidents deluded the members of the Greek
government into the belief that their deliverance from the Turkish
yoke was already achieved, and they began to neglect the dictates of
common prudence. The Greek committee in London emulated the example of
the Greek government at Nauplia; and in place of acting according to
the suggestions of common sense and common honesty, that body engaged
in a number of tortuous transactions, ending in the concoction of a
dish called "the Greek pie." Ibrahim Pasha awakened the heroes at
Nauplia from their dreams, and Cobbett disturbed the reveries of the
sages in London.

The success which attended Ibrahim Pasha on his landing in the
Peloponnesus in 1825, and the improvement displayed by the Turks in
their naval operations, seriously alarmed the Greeks. The advice of
Hastings occurred to their remembrance; but, even then, it required
the active exertions of two judicious friends of Greece in London to
induce the Greek deputies to take the necessary measures for fitting
out a steamer. Hastings, in a letter addressed to the Greeks, which he
wrote on his return to Greece, declared distinctly that the gratitude
of the Greek nation was due to the Right Honourable Edward Ellice and
to Sir John Hobhouse, and not to the Greek deputies in London, if the
steam-vessel he commanded proved of any service to the cause.

Greece was then in a desperate condition. Navarin was taken by Ibrahim
Pasha, the Romeliat army was completely defeated, and the Egyptians
encamped in the centre of the Peloponnesus, after routing every body
of troops which attempted to arrest their progress. The Turkish and
Egyptian fleets kept the sea in spite of the gallant attacks of
Miaoulis; and the partial successes of the Greeks were more honourable
to their courage than injurious to the real strength of their enemies.
In the mean time, the Greek government