d Cochrane left directions that the other vessels, as soon as
there were men to be rationed and funds for paying them, should follow
him to Clarenza. But they only came to run away.

Castle Tornese, there situated, was being besieged by the Turks, and
Lord Cochrane hoped to be in time to avert its capture. In this he
failed. Arriving on the 22nd of May, he found that the castle had
capitulated a few hours before. All he could do was to chase two Turkish
frigates which he found on the coast. "We fired into them," he said,
"but our guns were ill-directed, and the noise and confusion on board
this ship was excessive, which prevented my choosing to attack them
again, though they did us not the slightest injury, because I am
desirous that the _Hellas_ shall be in somewhat better order before I
voluntarily attack an enemy who may take advantage of the impossibility
of causing my orders to be obeyed, and so leave the fate of the ship to
the conduct of a rabble."

One capture, however, the _Hellas_ was able to make on the following
day. She fell in with a vessel, manned by Turks and Ionian Islanders,
bearing the British flag, loaded with captives, chiefly women and
children, just taken in the Castle Tornese. Lord Cochrane seized her,
and sent her, with a reasonably indignant letter, to the Lord High
Commissioner at Corfu. "If I do not attempt to express my feelings in
addressing you," he said, "it is because I am aware that the terms I
should employ would fall far short of the sensations that will arise in
the breast of every honourable man throughout the civilized world, and
the degradation which every Englishman will experience, on learning that
the flag of England, first prostituted by supplying the traffickers in
Christian slaves with all the necessaries for their horrid purposes, is
now further debased by a traffic in the slaves themselves. I send you an
Ionian vessel, full of women violated in their persons, and who, with
their children, had been reduced to slavery, in order that the British
public and the world may ascertain whether these unfortunate people will
be protected by the decision of an Ionian tribunal. If there were any
hope that the people in the Ionian Islands would abandon their infamous
dealings otherwise than by force, I should ask your excellency to issue
an order upon the subject. I beg, however, to signify that I am ready to
co-operate with the admiral and officers of the British naval service in