half built in America, acknowledged to be of so little value that no
purchaser could be found for them. "Our only desire." they said,
"is to rescue the millions of souls that are praying with a thousand
supplications that they may not fall victims to the despair which is
only averted by the hope of your lordship's arrival."

To that preposterous request Lord Cochrane made a very temperate
answer. "I have perused your letter of the 18th," he wrote on the 28th
of February, "with the utmost attention, and have since considered its
contents with the most anxious desire to promote the objects you have
in view in all ways in my power. But I have not been able to convince
myself that, under existing circumstances, there is any means by which
Greece can be so readily saved as by steady perseverance in equipping
the steam-vessels, which are so admirably calculated to cut off the
enemies' communication with Alexandria and Constantinople, and for
towing fire-vessels and explosion-vessels by night into ports and
places where the hostile squadrons anchor on the shores of Greece.
With steam-vessels constructed for such purposes, and a few gunboats
carrying heavy cannon, I have no doubt but that the Morea might in a
few weeks be cleared of the enemy's naval force. I wish I could give
you, without writing a volume, a clear view of the numerous reasons,
derived from thirty-five years' experience, which induce me to prefer
a force that can move in all directions in the obscurity of night
through narrow channels, in shoal water, and with silence and
celerity, over a naval armament of the usual kind, though of far
superior force. You would then perceive with what efficacy the counsel
of Demosthenes to your countrymen might be carried into effect by
desultory attacks on the enemy; and, in fact, you would perceive that
steam-vessels, whenever they shall be brought into war for hostile
purposes, will prove the most formidable means that ever has been