satrap.... The English immediately sent a messenger to Colonel Nicole,
offering honourable conditions of capitulation. The colonel returned a
decided refusal, and threatened to blow up the place if the inhabitants,
whose intentions he guessed, made the slightest hostile movement.
However, a few days later, the citadel was taken at night, owing to the
treachery of a woman who admitted an English detachment; and the next
day, to the general astonishment, the British standard floated over the
Acropolis of Parga.

All Greece was then profoundly stirred by a faint gleam of the dawn
of liberty, and shaken by a suppressed agitation. The Bourbons again
reigned in France, and the Greeks built a thousand hopes on an event
which changed the basis of the whole European policy. Above all, they
reckoned on powerful assistance from Russia. But England had already
begun to dread anything which could increase either the possessions or
the influence of this formidable power. Above all, she was determined
that the Ottoman Empire should remain intact, and that the Greek navy,
beginning to be formidable, must be destroyed. With these objects in
view, negotiations with Ali Pacha were resumed. The latter was still
smarting under his recent disappointment, and to all overtures answered
only, "Parga! I must have Parga."--And the English were compelled to
yield it!

Trusting to the word of General Campbell, who had formally promised, on
its surrender, that Parga should be classed along with the seven Ionian
Isles; its grateful inhabitants were enjoying a delicious rest after
the storm, when a letter from the Lord High Commissioner, addressed to
Lieutenant-Colonel de Bosset, undeceived them, and gave warning of the
evils which were to burst on the unhappy town.