THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE 1821 TO 1833 BY W.ALISON PHILLIPS 1897

256 THE WAK OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE
nicate with Suda and Patras.
The admirals now believed
that Ibrahim would yield,
and that a demonstration
in force would be sufficient to induce the
Egyptian fleet to withdraw to Alexandria, without the
need of having recourse to more violent measures. A
couple of guard-ships were left to watch the entrance
to the bay, and the allied fleet withdrew, de Rigny
sailing to Elaphonesos, and Codrington, after dispatching
a few of his ships to Malta, going northward to
watch the proceedings of Cochrane, who was now cruising
off the coast of Epirus.
The situation was now in the highest degree peculiar
and strained. The Greeks, having accepted the
armistice which the Ottomans had refused, now had
the allies on their side;
and, while Ibrahim's fleet was
detained in forced inactivity in the harbour of Xavarino,
they were straining every
nerve to make the
best of the favourable conditions which the Sultan's
obstinacy
had created for them. The Turks complained
bitterly that, while the armistice was enforced
upon them, the Greeks were allowed a perfectly free
hand, and that the allies, while affecting impartiality,
were, in fact, actively engaged on the side of Greece.
This, indeed, to all intents and purposes, was actually
the case. Yet, Greece having willingly accepted the
armistice, it would have been absurd to have insisted