as captain of the Greek steam-frigate
Karteria, extracted in part from his own official reports and private
letters, and drawn in part from the testimony of eyewitnesses of all
his actions.

In February 1827, Captain Hastings was ordered by the Greek government
to co-operate with the troops under General Gordon, destined to
relieve Athens. Captain Hastings, sailing from Egina, passed round the
island of Salamis, and entering the western strait between it and
Megara, arrived, unobserved by the Turks, in the bay where the battle
of Salamis was fought--now called the port of Ambelaki. This was the
first time the passage had ever been attempted by a modern man-of-war.
During the presidency of Count Capo-d'Istrias, Sir Edmund Lyons
carried H.M.S. Blonde through the same passage.

The troops under General Gordon were landed in the night, and they
occupied and fortified the hill of Munychia without any loss of time.
It was then resolved to drive the Turks from a monastery at the
Piraeus, in which they kept a garrison to command the port. The troops
were ordered to attack the building on the land side, and Hastings
entered the Piraeus to bombard it from the sea. A practicable breach
was soon made; but the Greek troops, though supported by the fire of a
couple of field-pieces, were completely defeated in their feeble
attempts to storm this monastery. The Turks, on the other hand,
displayed the greatest activity; and the Seraskier Kutayhi Pasha, who
commanded the army besieging Athens, soon arrived with a powerful
escort of cavalry, and bringing with him two long five-inch howitzers
with shells, boasting that with these he would sink the Karteria. As
the object of the Greek attack had completely failed, and the troops
had retired, the Karteria quitted the port just as the Turks opened
their fire on her.

A few days after this, the Turks, having defeated a division of the
Greek army destined to make a diversion from the plain of Eleusis,
attempted to carry the camp of General Gordon by storm. Captain
Hastings now entered the Piraeus again, even at the risk of exposing
the Karteria to the Turkish shells; as he saw that by his powerful
fire of grape he could prevent the Turks from forming in any force to
attack the most vulnerable part of the camp. The fire of the Karteria
soon produced its effect; but it drew all the attention of the Pasha
to the vessel, as he perceived it was vain to persist in attacking the
troops until he c