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

66 THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE
Not even a Nelson, however, could have kept discipline
in a fleet of which each ship was a democratic
community in whose management every
common seaman had a voice. The Greek war vessels
were in fact little better than pirates; and the war
at sea became, in its want of plan and in its incidents
of horror, a counterpart of that on land. A single instance
may suffice. Two Hydriot brigs, commanded
by Sachtouris and Pinotzi, captured a Turkish ship
laden with a valuable cargo, and carrying a number
of passengers. Among these was a recently deposed
Sheik-ul-Islam, or patriarch of the Orthodox Mussulmans,
who was said to be going on pilgrimage to Mecca,
accompanied by all his family. He was known to have
belonged to the tolerant party in the Ottoman Government;
and, indeed, it was his efforts to prevent the
cruel reprisals which, at Constantinople, followed the
news of the massacres at Galatz, Yassy, and in the
Morea, which had brought him into disfavour, and
caused his exile.
families on board.
There were also several other Turkish
The Hydriots murdered all in cold
blood; helpless old men, ladies of rank, beautiful
slaves, and little children were butchered on deck like
cattle. The venerable old man, whose crime had been
an excess of zeal on behalf of the Greeks, was forced
to see his family outraged and murdered before his