illegal action was cleared up.  By doing this I took the wind out of the sails of the authorities of Syra.  They of course were furious, and at once despatched a vessel to Athens for orders.  At the same time they made a semblance of meeting my demand by stating that the ‘Enossis’ should be tried by international law.  They also requested me to make my protest and to leave Syra, as the populace were in a state of excitement beyond their power of control.  In this request all the Foreign Consuls joined.

I positively declined to leave; had I consented I am convinced the ‘Enossis’ and her companions would have left for Crete as soon as I was out of sight.  In the meantime I sent a despatch boat to Smyrna with telegrams for Constantinople asking for assistance, stating my position.  I remained off Syra with two ships, one being a despatch boat, watching the movements of the three blockade-runners, to whom I notified that I would sink them if they attempted to leave the port.

I often wonder they didn’t make a rush for it on the first night of my arrival, when I was almost alone.  The Greeks never want pluck.  If they had done so, one vessel out of the three would certainly have escaped, taken food to the insurgents, and capsized all my calculations.

It merely corroborated my view of blockade-running peoples, namely, that they go for gain (some perhaps for love of enterprise); don’t fight unless very hard pressed, and not always then if they are wise; that is what it should be.  It is outrageous that adventurous persons not engaged in war should become belligerents, as well as carriers of arms and provisions to an enemy.

The first night I passed off Syra was one of great anxiety, as I had promised the Governor of Crete that no blockade-runner should go to the island.

In the morning a small steamer arrived from Athens with a Turkish official on board.  He came to me pale as a sheet, and told me that as he left the Piraeus a Greek frigate was on the point of leaving for Syra, whose captain, officers, and crew had sworn to bring back Hobart Pasha dead or alive.  Half an hour afterwards I got under weigh, and as I steamed about in the offing I saw the Greek frigate coming round the point.

It was a moment of intense excitement.  The tops of the houses at Syra were covered with people.  It looked like the old story of the ‘Chesapeake’ and ‘Shannon,’ where the people turned out to see the fine sport, and the band played, ‘Yankee doodle dandy, oh!’

However, I steamed towards my supposed enemy, went almost alongside of him, expecting momentarily to receive his broadside, when to my astonishment and I must say satisfaction he steamed into the anchorage, and let go three anchors.  This didn’t look like fighting.  I found afterwards that the Greek frigate had no powder on board.  It was a shame to put her captain in so false a position, as everyone knows what gallant stuff the Greeks are made of, and swagger is a mistake where real pluck exists.