GREEK PIRACY. 1823-1826


Charles Yorke, having attained the rank of commander in May of 1822, was
in August of the same year appointed to the command of the sloop
_Alacrity_, and in her sailed to the Mediterranean in the autumn,
anchoring at Gibraltar on November 29. He was dispatched to that station
to take up some important duties in the Greek Archipelago, which arose
out of the Greek War of Independence, then in full progress.

Until the year 1821, the Greeks, though often ready to rebel against the
Turkish government at the instigation of the agents of foreign Powers
like Russia or France, had shown little capacity for any really national
movement. But the gradual spread of liberal ideas which followed the
French Revolution; the bravery which distinguished the resistance of
certain sections of the Hellenic peoples, such as the Suliotes, and
Spakiots of Crete; the aspirations of Ali Pacha, who conceived the idea
of severing his connection with the Sultan and assuming the independent
government of Albania; the impunity with which the Klephts or pirates
pursued their calling in the Levant, all combined to demonstrate the
real weakness of the Turkish rule, and at last brought about a national
rising.

This is not the place to enter into any detailed account of the War of
Independence which followed, but its main events must be mentioned in
order to make clear the letters which my father wrote from the scenes of
the disturbance. The insurrection was begun in 1821 by Prince Alexander
Hypsilantes, who crossed the Pruth in March of that year, but his
efforts failed and he fled to Austria three months later; and other