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

358 THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE
semblv for the 13th of September, and at once began
to move heaven and earth to secure a pliant majority.
The Congress of Argos had, as a matter of fact, been
merely prorogued but the President feared
;
a possible
change in the opinions of the representatives who had
before been so amenable to his will; and to guard
against this, he now announced that the electoral colleges
might either choose the same deputies as before,
or proceed to the election of new ones. At the same
time he took care that all the machinery of corruption
and intimidation was in good working order;
while,
with the idea of stirring up public feeling against
the Opposition, he flooded the country with pamphlets
denouncing the action of the Hydriots in destroying
the national fleet. The representatives of Hydra, and
of those districts
which acknowledged the Constitutional
Commission, were to be excluded from the new
Congress.
The Commission replied by summoning on
their own account a National Assembly to
meet at
Hydra; and the Hydriot vessels sailed from island to
island, and along the coast, to invite representatives
to attend. To this activity the Russian admiral, at the
request of Capodistrias, endeavoured to put a stop.
Three Hydriot brigs which, in the course of canvassing
for the assembly, had entered the Gulf of Coron,
were attacked by the Russians; and their crews, see-