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No sooner did this fleet appear, however, than Canaris and Miaulis attacked it with their dreaded fire-ships, and the forty ships of Egypt fled from fourteen small Greek vessels, and re-entered the Dardanelles. But the Turks, always more fortunate on land than by sea, pressed now the siege of the Acropolis, and Athens fell into their hands early in 1827.
Into this town the armed peasantry threw themselves, with five thousand troops under Niketas, while Miaulis with his fleet raised the blockade by sea and supplied the town with provisions. Reschid Pasha determined on an assault, but was driven back. Thrice he advanced with his troops, only to be repulsed. His forces at the end of October were reduced to three thousand men.
This great calamity, however, was partially avenged by the sailors and chiefs of Hydra, a neighboring island, under the command of one of the greatest heroes that the war produced, the intrepid and fearless Andreas Miaulis, who with fire-ships destroyed nearly the whole of the Turkish fleet.
Their honesty has been generally considered more questionable than their courage; for though the names of Miaulis, Kanaris, Marco Botzaris, Niketas, Kolocotroni and Karaiskaki are known to all Europe, the only spotless statesman, in the opinion of the Greeks themselves, is the unknown Kanakaris.
But time is rolling on ten years have elapsed since King Otho first stepped on the Hellenic soil the heroes of the war are sinking into the grave Miaulis, the best of the brave Zaimi, the sagacious timid Moreote noble Kolocotroni, the sturdy strewd old klephtic chieftain; these three representatives and leaders of numerous classes of their countrymen, now sleep in an honoured grave, and their followers no longer form a majority in the land.
To oppose this great armament, the Greek admiral Miaulis had only seventy sail, manned by five thousand sailors and carrying eight hundred guns. In spite however of this disproportion of forces he advanced to meet the enemy, and dispersed it with a great Turkish loss of fifteen thousand men. All that the Turks had gained was a barren island.
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