The Cavaliers of Fortune; Or, British Heroes in Foreign Wars. James Grant
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the blazing ship. Many a shot was fired after him, but he escaped, and was saved with difficulty by the boats of Greig.
The fireships blew up with the most admirable effect, and the result was, beyond Greig's utmost expectations, decisive and disastrous, for in five hours the whole Turkish fleet was burned to the water-edge and totally destroyed—all, save one ship, Giafar Bey's, of seventy guns, four row-galleys, and some gilt barges of twenty-four oars. The morning sun, as he shone upon the Isle of Scio and Anadolian shore, saw a scene of unexampled devastation—every Turkish mast had vanished from the bay, and pieces of charred and floating wreck alone remained! The following were the ships destroyed by Greig:——
| Capitan Alebi, 84 guns. | Achmet, 86 guns. |
| Bashaw, 90 guns. | Hamisi, 60 guns. |
| Patrona Ayckrece, 80 guns. | Ali Randioto, 60 guns. |
| Reala Mustapha, 96 guns. | Melehin, 80 guns. |
| Mulensi Achmet, 84 guns. | Rapislan Bashaw, 64 guns. |
| Emir Mustapha, 84 guns. | Zefirbe, 84 guns. |
La Barbarocine, 64 guns, was towed out of the harbour by his boats. Two other large ships (names unknown) were burned, with four frigates, eight 40-gun ships, eight galleys, and several row-boats. He rescued 400 Christian slaves, hauled close in shore, bombarded the town, blew up the castle, and reduced the whole place to a heap of rubbish before nine o'clock in the morning, by which time more than 6000 Turks had been shot, burned, or drowned.
For this brilliant service Greig was at once made a rear-admiral by Count Orloff, while Lieutenants Drysdale and Mackenzie received the rank of captain, all of which appointments the Empress was pleased to confirm. Though the unfortunate Capitan Pacha, who commanded, was severely wounded, the Sultan ordered his head to be struck off, and appointed Giafar Bey admiral in his place. As rear-admiral Greig's pay amounted to 2160 roubles per annum. Immediately after this victory Admiral Elphinstone sailed with his squadron for the Isle of Tenedos, to block up the Dardanelles, where he captured forty vessels destined for Constantinople, forced most of the Isles of the Archipelago to declare for Russia, and levied contributions everywhere, taxing Mitylene in 150,000 piastres. Greig accompanied Count Orloff to the liege of the Castle of Lemnos, which proceeded slowly, the only troops they had being revolted Greeks, who were afterwards cut to pieces by Hassan Bey, and then the Russians bent all their efforts to force the passage of the Dardanelles; but so strongly was it fortified by the Chevalier Tott, and other Frenchmen, that every attempt proved futile.
In the winter of 1770 Greig's commission was further confirmed by a letter from the Empress, and in his ship, the Three Primates, he brought the nominal commander-in-chief, Count Orloff, to Leghorn on the 7th of December, as the fleet was leaving the Archipelago for want of men, and the batteries of the Dardanelles were daily becoming stronger under the skilful eye of Tott, to whom the grateful Sultan paid 100 scudi daily, as the saviour of his capital.
At Leghorn the Sieur Rutherford, Commissary of the Russian Court, sold all the prizes taken by the fleet. Having secret views of his own concerning the unfortunate Princess Tarakanoff, the Count Orloff, who is styled minister plenipotentiary, general of the Russian troops, and admiral-general, proposed to spend the winter partly at Pisa, and partly at Leghorn, "in order to take care of the Russian squadron," as peace was expected. Greig is said to have demurred; Admiral Elphinstone expressed dissatisfaction, and when ordered to sail on "a secret expedition" he bluntly declined. An altercation ensued between him and the count. He was put under arrest, and reported to the Empress, who recalled him, and he retired from her service in disgust. On his presentation to Catherine he appeared in the blue uniform of the British navy, on which she turned coldly away, saying to one of her favourites, "It is high time this Scot was out of my service, when he has laid aside my uniform!"
Meanwhile the fleet was not inactive, for Mackenzie, Brodie, and other officers, who served under Spiritoff, were very zealous. Thus, by the 20th January, 1771, they had destroyed nineteen Dulcignotte tartans, and exacted from the Isles of the Archipelago the same tribute which they yearly paid the Sultan. At the same time the Russian troops had taken the city of Sinope, on the Black Sea, the fortress of Giurgievo, and other places in the Turkish provinces. A squadron, commanded by the Knights of Malta, joined Orloff's flag; Scio was again ravaged by the Russians, a large dulcignotte destroyed, and the fighting among the fertile and beautiful isles of Greece was incessant; Greig was constantly employed, and daily added to his reputation as a brave and skilful officer.
He had assisted in the destruction of all the magazines which had been formed to supply the Turkish capital; at the bombardment of Negropont, the capital of the ancient Eubœa, where the troops were landed to destroy the stores of corn and flour; he had cruised along the shore of Macedonia; been at the bombardment of Cavalla in Romelia, and the destruction of the storehouses at Salonica; and in the Gulf of Kassanderah, while Count Theodore, the brother of Count Alexis Orloff, scoured all the shores of Anadoli, and cannonaded Rhodez. The united Russian fleet, under the three admirals, Orloff, Spiritoff, and Greig, made sixty-six sail in all on the 1st of November.
While the Russian army by land was making daily successful attacks on the Turks, and had crossed the Danube under General Romanzow, and twice besieged Silistria, pushing the war round the shores of the Black Sea, and into the Crimea, the naval squadrons had many desperate encounters in the Archipelago, and one very sharp action off the Isle of Scio, when seven Russian ships of the line and two frigates engaged ten Turkish ships and six large galleys, on the 10th of October, 1773, and after fighting from ten in the morning until long past mid-day, entirely defeated them, taking five sail, sinking two, and putting the rest to flight. In one of these encounters a ball struck Admiral Greig, and bent one of the points of his cross of St. George, carrying away a piece of the enamel. Every captain of the Russian navy then wore the military order of St. George, the badge of which is a knight and dragon, attached to a black ribbon.
A descent was made upon the Isle of Cyprus; another on Candia, and elsewhere; but the Russians were repulsed, and four sacks filled with their scalps were sent from Stanchio as a proof of the reception they had met with in that island.
In the end of 1773 Greig returned to St. Petersburg, and, with Admiral Sir Charles Knowles, made every exertion to have a better and more efficient squadron dispatched to the Dardanelles. With this under his command he sailed again from Cronstadt, and after touching at Portsmouth, bore on for the Mediterranean on the 17th of February, 1774. With his flag flying as vice-admiral, he reached Leghorn, where, for purposes of his own, Alexis Orloff was again loitering. On this expedition Greig was accompanied by his wife, for whom every accommodation had been made in his ship, the Issidorum; but being of course unwilling that she should risk the dangers of the Turkish war, he landed her at Leghorn, where the house of the Russian consul was assigned to her as a residence. The ships composing his fleet were—
| The Issidorum, | 74 guns Captain Surminoff. |
| The Mironfitz, | 74 guns Captain Mouskin Pouskin. |
| St. Alexander Newski, | 64 guns Captain Voronari. |
| Demetrius Douski, | 64 guns Captain Pajaskoff. |
| St. Paulus, | 30 guns Captain Palovski. |
During Greig's brief sojourn at Leghorn there occurred one of those atrocities which so frequently blackened the reign of Catherine II.
Alexis Count Orloff, a man of the most inhuman character and brutal propensities, had conceived a passion for the young and beautiful Princess Tarakanoff, daughter of the late Empress Elizabeth, by her clandestine marriage with the Grand Veneur. This princess had been conveyed to Rome by the artful Prince Radzivil, beyond the reach of Catherine's intrigues and tyranny. But Orloff had been ordered to decoy her back to