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Updated: June 11, 2025
He landed at Canea, having lost, mostly by disease, from 20,000 to 25,000 men in a three months' campaign, and effected nothing except the destruction of six hundred villages and the murder of hundreds of Cretans.
In communicating the news of the affair of Arkadi to our government, I had fully explained my actual position and my proposed action on behalf of the insurgents, and begged that a man-of-war might be sent to convey from the island the refugee families who were dying of cold and hunger in the mountains, or being murdered in the plains. W.J. STILLMAN, ESQ., U.S. Consul, Canea:
The few remaining Christians in the cities were then forbidden to emigrate, and the Mussulmans in the city met in their quarter and organized a sortie to massacre all the Christians outside; the Wizard in the port protecting those in Canea, otherwise it had gone hardly with them.
I was anxious to see something of the provincial government of the island, as, in Canea, where the foreign consuls resided, there was always the slight check of publicity on the arbitrariness of the official, though what we saw did not indicate a very effective one.
As the Egyptian overtures did not seem to succeed, Schahin Pasha consulted some of the principal merchants of Canea, and was informed that Derché was of no weight or influence, and that if he wanted to move the Cretans he must do so through the American or Russian consuls; whereupon he came to me and frankly told me the whole plan, and that the viceroy proposed to build a great arsenal and naval station at Suda, and fortify the bay, the work being already planned by French engineers.
The call to come in was then renewed, and the entire Mussulman population gathered in the three fortresses of Canea, Candia, and Retimo. A panic on the part of the Christians followed, and all the vessels sailing for the Greek islands were crowded with fugitives.
He also told me that all the ravines near Arkadi were filled with the dead, while Retimo was filled with the wounded; and from the report of the hospital surgeon at Canea, I learned that four hundred and eighty were brought to our hospital, being unable to find shelter at Retimo.
My Canea dragoman, who was reading in the house all the time we were gone, had heard nothing and knew nothing about it; but, on examining the rifle, I found that some one had tried to wipe it out and had left a rag sticking half way down, the barrel. This pointed to a solution, and an investigation made the whole thing clear.
I was soon ushered into an assembly of the chiefs who were Spakiotes, and Mons. Resiere was there also. This Mons. Resiere was originally a physician of Canea; born in Crete and having received a good education and speaking European languages, he was considered by the President of Greece as a fit man to govern Crete.
A German officer, by the name of Geissler, Omar's chief of artillery, died of dysentery at Canea during the campaign, and, his effects being sent in to the consulate of France for transmission to his family, I had the chance to see his diary, in which were noted the incidents of the campaign.
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