16 TURKEY IN ASIA, 



merit soon swelled into a little army, and the Turkswere every where 

 attacked or intercepted. In the mean time, the Greeks gave the 

 utmost loose to their revenge, and every where slaughtered the Turks 

 without mercy ; and the rage and fury with which the inhabitants of 

 the continent were seized extended itself to the islands, where also 

 the Turks were massacred in great numbers. They were, indeed, 

 unable to make head against the Russians and Greeks in the field ; 

 their only protection was found within the fortresses. The malcon- 

 tents had so much increased since the first debarkation of the Rus- 

 sians, that they invested Napoli di Romania, Corinth, and the castle 

 of Patras, with several other places of less note. But whilst they 

 were employed in these enterprises, an army of thirty thousand men* 

 composed chiefly of Albanians and Epirotes, entered the Morea, com- 

 manded by the seraskier, pacha of Bosnia. This Turkish general 

 recovered all the northern part of the peninsula as soon as he appear- 

 ed in it ; and all the Greeks that were found in arms, or out of their 

 villages, were instantly put to death. The Russians were now driven 

 back to their ships ; but about the same time, another Russian squa- 

 dron, commanded by admiral Elphinstone, arrived from England to 

 re-inforce count Orlow's armament. The Turkish fleet also ap- 

 peared, and an obstinate engagement was fought in the channel of 

 Scio, which divides that island from Natolia, or the Lesser Asia, 

 The Turkish fleet was considerably superior in force, consisting of 

 fifteen ships of the line, from sixty to ninety guns, besides a number 

 of chebeques and galleys, amounting in the whole to near thirty sail ; 

 the Russians had only ten ships of the line, and five frigates. Some 

 of the ships engaged with great resolution, while others on both sides 

 found various causes for not approaching sufficiently near. ButSpiri- 

 tof, a Russian admiral, encountered the captain pacha, in the Sultana, 

 of ninety guns, yard-arm and yard-arm ; they fought with the greatest 

 fury, and at length ran so close, that they locked themselves together, 

 'with grappling-irons, and other tackling. In this situation, the Rus- 

 sians, by throwing hand-grenades from the tops, set the Turkish ship 

 on fire ; and as they could not now be disentangled, both ships were 

 in a little time equally in flames. Thus dreadfully circumstanced, 

 without a possibility of succour, they both at length blew up with a 

 most terrible explosion. The commanders and principal officers on 

 both sides were mostly saved ; but the crews were almost totally lost. 

 The dreadful fate of those ships, as well as the danger to those that 

 were near them, produced a kind of pause on both sides ; after which 

 the action was renewed, and continued till night without any material 

 advantage on either side. When it became dark, the Turkish fleet 

 cut their cables, and ran into a bay on the coast of Natolia ; the Rus- 

 sians surrounded them thus closely pent up, and in the night some 

 fire-ships were successfully conveyed among the Turkish fleet, by 

 the intrepid behaviour of lieutenant Dugdale, an Englishman in the 

 Russian service, who, though abandoned by his crew, himself direct- 

 ed the operations of the fire-ships. The fire took place so effectually, 

 that in five hours the whole fleet, except one man of war and a few 

 galleys, that were towed off by the Russians, was totally destroyed ; 

 after which they entered the harbour, and bombarded and cannonad- 

 ed the town, and a castle that protected it, with such success, that a 

 shot having blown up the powder magazine in the lattei>both were 

 reduced to a heap of rubbish. Thus was there scarcely a vestige 



