tempt to act in defiance of the treaty would bring on instant attack by the allied fleet. Ibrahim replied that he was a soldier, and must obey orders, and his orders were to carry on the war, and this he would do at all costs. Finally, however, he pledged his word of honour to observe the armistice till he received fresh instructions from Constantinople. He broke his word. The smoke of burning villages told of the ravages of his troops. His fleet twice attempted to leave the harbour, and only retired before the grim menace of Codrington's open portholes. To maintain a winter blockade outside Navarino, however, was impossible, and on October 19, Codrington determined to run in to the harbour and anchor his fleet, ship by ship, alongside the Turkish and Egyptian ships.

Never had a sailor a more difficult task than Codrington. He commanded a mixed fleet-he is the only British admiral, indeed, in history who had a French squadron and a Russian squadron in his line-of-battle. Only eleven years before, it must be remembered, Russian troops had occupied Paris; the retreat from Moscow was still a recent memory. And one of Codrington's anxieties was lest his French and Russian allies should turn their guns against each other! Scandal, indeed, has it that, in the battle which followed, the French ships actually fired into the Russian squadrons to "avenge Moscow"! It is certain that Codrington, in his plan of battle, anxiously interposed the English ships betwixt the Russians and the French, so as to lessen the risk of his allies turning their guns on each other. Navarino, too, was a battle fought without war being declared. Codrington, in a word, had to enforce peace by the argu

ment of cannon-shot. He sailed into Navarino as into an ostensibly friendly port. He was cleared for action it is true, but his lower-deck ports were not hauled flat against the ship's sides, but kept square, as at sea in fine weather, as a visible symbol that he did not mean battle. And as the great column of line-of-battle ships-the Asia, Codrington's flag-ship, leading-glided into the harbour before a gentle breeze, nobody knew whether the batteries on either side would open on them or not.

Never, however, was a sailor better fitted for this difficult task than Codrington. He was not merely a gallant sailor of Nelson's school, a seaman of the utmost skill, familiar with ships and battles since he began his career as a middy of thirteen, more than forty years before Navarino. He was a gentleman to his fingertips, of crystalline simplicity, and integrity of character; and, to a degree rare even amongst British soldiers or sailors, he combined the faculty for swift decision with the quality of unshakable composure.

Codrington underwent his "baptism of fire" in Howe's great victory of June 1. He was lieutenant on the Queen Charlotte, Howe's flag-ship, and had charge of seven guns on the lower deck. The Queen Charlotte, it will be remembered, broke the French line by suddenly tacking and passing betwixt the stern of the French flag-ship and the next ship following. He commanded the Orion, the fourth ship in Collingwood's column at Trafalgar, and was, perhaps, the coolest and hardest fighter of all Nelson's captains. In that battle of giants he strictly ordered his men to reserve their fire till he could put the ship in the position he desired.

The ships not merely before him, but behind him, were girdled with the thunder of broadsides; but the Orion kept grimly silent. Codrington, indeed, had to hail a British ship near him not to fire into the Orion! "Passing down as the Orion did," he wrote afterwards, "through the whole group of those ships whose fortune it was to be placed foremost in the attack, and who then were all engaged with their various opponents, without firing a single gun to impede my view, although the ship next astern, as well as all those ahead of us, were firing broadside after broadside, I had an opportunity of seeing more of what was doing than perhaps any other captain in the whole fleet. I suppose no man ever before saw such a sight as I did, or, rather, as we did; for I called all my lieutenants up to see it. So grand, so awful, so tremendous was the scene before me that the impression will ever be fresh in my mind." The coolness which made Codrington reserve his fire so long in such a scene, was linked to a skill which made his fire, when he did deliver it, effective in the highest degree. He chose as his antagonist the Swiftsure, a ship bigger than his own, rounded under her stern, and poured in one blast of darting flame and tempest of flying shot, a broadside so overwhelming that it carried away the three masts of the Frenchman, and made the unfortunate ship strike without waiting for a second discharge! A sailor of this quality was, plainly, admirably qualified for leading the allied fleet into the bay of Navarino.

The Turkish and Egyptian fleets had spent some three days, under the direction of a French naval officer of great skill in the Turkish service, in preparing for Codrington's approach. The fleet formed, in brief, a

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huge crescent, the lighter ships filling up the gaps in the first line occupied by the heavier ships. A cluster of fire-ships formed either tip of the crescent. Navarino is only a tiny bay, about three miles long by two broad, and as the tips of the crescent almost touched the batteries on either headland of the entrance, the allied

fleet, entering the harbour in a long and straggling column, would be met by the converging fire of the 2000 and odd guns of the Turkish and Egyptian fleets, to say nothing of the headland batteries. Ibrahim Pasha, however, allowed Codrington to enter without firing a shot. He calculated that the allied fleet would anchor betwixt the horns, so to speak, of the crescent;

then, when night fell, the fire-ships from either tip of the crescent would be launched on the allied fleet, the whole crescent would break into a tremendous converging fire, and the allied fleet, he did not doubt, would be destroyed.

This ingenious plan was spoiled by Codrington's adroitness. With a quick, sure glance he read Ibrahim's purpose directly he saw the crescent-shaped formation of his fleet. The Asia was a noble example of the wooden three-decker now extinct, a stately ship of about 3500 tons burden, quick and weatherly, and making, with her triple pyramids of sails, a singularly noble and stately spectacle, as about three o'clock on the afternoon of October 20, 1827, she came through the headlands of the bay of Navarino; and, ship after ship following in perfect order, moved across the crescent we have described, straight for a huge 84-gun ship flying the flag of the Turkish admiral. Next to it was the Egyptian flag-ship under Moharrem Bey. Nothing could be more impressive than the silent, menacing fashion in which the British flag-ship came on, passed close to the ship of Moharrem Bey, where the men were all at quarters, clewed up her topsails, rounded to, and dropped anchor with the most beautiful accuracy alongside the Turkish flagship. Ship after ship of the allied fleet came up in succession and anchored alongside an enemy's vessel, the French squadron taking the southeast curve of the crescent, the Russian the opposite curve. The corvettes and brigs of the fleet under Captain Fellows, of the Dartmouth, were detailed to "attend" to the enemy's fire-ships. Codrington had given the strictest orders that not a gun was to be