cruising about the coasts of the Peloponnesus to prevent the ravages of
the Turkish fleet on the islands and mainland, and selected a winter
anchorage at Navarino, where the Turkish and Egyptian fleets lay. The
Turks thinking they were menaced opened fire upon the combined fleets,
and were annihilated in the engagement which followed. In the following
year the Greeks had the aid of the French, who cleared the Morea of
Turkish troops, and by the end of the year Greece was practically
independent. Some anarchy followed the assassination of the President
Capodostrias in 1831, but at length Otho of Bavaria was crowned king,
and in 1832 a convention was signed by which the protecting Powers of
Europe recognised the new kingdom and assigned its limits; and Greece
attained an independence which she has since maintained.

Among the results of this long period of anarchy and insurrection was an
outbreak of piracy among both Greeks and Turks. Individual chieftains
called their followers together, established their head-quarters in out-
of-the-way creeks, and preyed upon the commerce of the Levant without
any interference from their Government. As in the case of the Barbary
Powers, the depredations of these pirates became at length so
intolerable that the Governments of Europe were obliged to interfere for
the protection of their subjects.

Commander Yorke's part as representing his country in the mission he
undertook, to put down this state of things, appears fully in the
letters written to his father at intervals, which follow, and we there
see the important position he had to fill. He was, as he says, in those
eastern waters in the double capacity of warrior and diplomatist, or in
other words to command a neutral armed vessel, act impartially between
Greek and Turk, and protect trade from the piracies of both nations.
This was no easy task, and it appears that though his sympathies were