at army even more effectually than by
the sword. The utmost promptitude, however, is necessary. One day's
delay may permit several weeks' provisions and stores to enter the
Negropont."

Promptitude was not easy, in spite of the favourable promises of the
primates. "Strange as it may appear to you," said Lord Cochrane, in a
letter to his friend, M. Eynard, "it is yet a fact that, out of the
thousands of seamen idle and starving at Hydra, Spetzas, and Egina, not
a man will enter the service of his country without being paid in
advance; nor will they engage to prolong their service beyond a month,
so that the labour of disciplining a crew is interminable. Were there
funds to increase the pay for each month, the sailors would remain, and
there might be some hope of getting a ship in order. At the present
moment there are no individuals in Greece who are instructed in their
duties as officers in ships of war." "I see no termination to the
obstacles," he wrote to Dr. Gosse on the 17th, "which present themselves
at every step I advance. Neither the Hydriots nor the Psarians, nor the
Spetziots, nor the Poriots, will embark in this frigate, which is thus
useless to Greece, if not prejudicial, because her maintenance is an
expense without benefit. I wish I could do a thousand things which I am
compelled to neglect, by reason of the difficulties and want of
assistance of all kinds. You, my good friend, are my only aid."

At Spetzas, and in its neighbourhood, Lord Cochrane remained four days,
directing the arrangements to be made in organizing a fleet strong
enough to go against the enemy's shipping, and, while waiting for that,
in appointing two minor expeditions upon services that were urgent. On
the 18th of May, he sent Admiral Saktoures with ten brigs and four
fireships to cruise about the Negropont and capture as much as he could
of the stores sent through that channel from Constantinople for the use
of the Turkish army in Attica. On the following day he went himself in
the _Hellas_, attended by the _Karteria_, under Captain Abney Hastings,
in the direction of Cape Clarenza, the north-westernmost point of the
Morea, opposite to Zante.[8]

[8] "The admiral," says Gordon, "weighed with the _Hellas_ and
_Karteria_ alone, leaving the rest of his squadron to draw pay and
rations at Porto Kheli" (vol. ii., p. 415). The fact was that all the
rest of his squadron that was fit for service was sent to the Negropont;
and Lor