artillery.

But this great success was balanced by the failure of the Greeks, under
Ypsilanti, to capture Napoli di Romania,--another strong fortress,
defended by eight hundred guns, regarded as nearly impregnable,
situated, like Gibraltar, on a great rock eight hundred feet high, the
base of which was washed by the sea. It was a rash enterprise, but came
near being successful on account of the negligence of the garrison,
which numbered only fifteen hundred men. An escalade was attempted by
Mavrokordatos, one of the heroic chieftains of the Greeks; but it was
successfully repulsed, and the attacking generals with difficulty
escaped to Argos. The Greeks also met with a reverse on the peninsula of
Cassandra, near Salonica, which proved another massacre. Three thousand
perished from Turkish scimitars, and ten thousand women and children
were sold into slavery.

Thus ended the campaign of 1821, with mutual successes and losses,
disgraced on both sides by treachery and massacres; but the Greeks were
sufficiently emboldened to declare their independence, and form a
constitution under Prince Mavrokordatos as president,--a Chian by birth,
who had been physician to the Sultan. The seat of government was fixed
at Corinth, whose fortress had been recovered from the Turks. Seven
hundred thousand people threw down the gauntlet to twenty-five millions,
and defied their power.

The following year the Greek cause indirectly suffered a great blow by
the capture and death of Ali Pasha. This ambitious and daring rebel,
from humble origin, had arisen, by energy, ability, and fraud, to a high
command under the Sultan. He became pasha of Thessaly; and having
accumulated great riches by extortion and oppression, he bought the
pashalic of Jannina, in one of the richest and most beautiful valleys
of Epirus. In the centre of a lake he built an impregnable fortress,
collected a large body of Albanian troops, and soon became master of the
whole province. He preserved an apparent neutrality between the Sultan
and the rebellious Greeks, whom, however, he secretly encouraged. In his
castle at Jannina he meditated extensive conquests and independence of
the Porte. At one time he had eighty thousand half-disciplined Albanians
under his command. The Sultan, at last suspecting his treachery,
summoned him to Constantinople, and on his refusal to appear, denounced
him as a rebel, and sent Chourchid Pasha, one of his ablest generals,
with forty thousand