Page:Decisive Battles Since Waterloo.djvu/75

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BATTLE OF NAVARINO.
45

in the mainmast. As before stated, her mizzen-mast was carried away. The fleet remained at Navarino until the 25th. As soon as the battle was over, the correspondence between the admirals was renewed, and it was agreed that there should be no further hostilities; indeed, there could hardly be any, as the Turkish fleet had been placed among the things of the past.

Ibrahim Pasha was absent on an excursion to Ryogos at the time of the battle, but he returned on the 21st, early enough to see the smoking ruins of his fleet. He had the good sense to see that the war was practically over, and that Turkey must cease to hope for the subjugation of Greece. In case it should set about the equipment of another fleet, the allied powers would follow their example, and bring a larger fleet, together with an army, that would make an end of the Ottoman empire with no great loss of time. He immediately applied himself to plans for the evacuation of Greece. By means of the transports which had been spared by Admiral Codrington he sent away his harem and five thousand sick and wounded soldiers, who arrived early in Alexandria after a speedy voyage.

It was feared that when the news of the event at Navarino reached Constantinople, the lives of all Europeans in that city, including the foreign ambassadors, would be in great danger, but happily there was no violence on the part of the Turks. The ambassadors pressed for an answer to their note of August 16th, and at length the Sultan replied: "My positive, absolute, definitive, unchangeable, eternal answer is, that the Sublime Porte does not accept any proposition regarding the Greeks, and will persist in its own will regarding them even to the last day of judgment." The Porte even demanded compensation for the destruction of the fleet, and satisfaction for the insult, and that the allies should abstain from all interference in the affairs of Greece. The reply of the ambassadors was to