troops, to subdue him. This was no easy task; and
for two years, before the Greek revolution broke out, Ali had maintained
his independence. At last he found himself besieged in his island
castle, impregnable against assault, but short of provisions. From this
retreat he was decoyed by consummate art to the mainland, to meet the
Turkish general, who promised an important command and a high rank in
the Turkish service. In the power now of the Turks, he was at once
beheaded, and his head sent to Constantinople.

Ali's death set free the large army of Chourchid Pasha to be employed
against the Greeks. Aided too by the enthusiasm which the suppression of
a dangerous enemy created, the Sultan made great preparations for a
renewed attack on the Morea. The contest now assumed greater
proportions, and the reconquest of Greece seemed extremely probable.
Sixty thousand Turks, under the command of the ablest general of the
Sultan, prepared to invade the Morea. In addition, a powerful squadron,
with eight thousand troops, sailed from the Dardanelles to reinforce the
Turkish fortresses and furnish provisions. In the meantime the
insurrection extended to Chios, or Scio, an opulent and fertile island
opposite Smyrna. It had eighty thousand inhabitants, who drove the Turks
to their citadel. The Sultan, enraged at the loss of this prosperous
island, sent thirty thousand fanatical Asiatic Mussulmans, and a fleet
consisting of six ships-of-the-line, ten frigates, and twelve brigs, to
reconquer what was regarded as the garden of the Archipelago. Resistance
was impossible against such an overwhelming array of forces, who
massacred nearly the whole of the male population, and sold their wives
and children as slaves. The consuls of France and Austria remonstrated
against this unheard-of cruelty; but nothing could appease the fanatical
fury of the conquerors. The massacre has no parallel in history since
the storming of Syracuse or the sack of Bagdad, Not only were the
inhabitants swept away, but the churches, the fine villas, the scattered
houses, and the villages were burned to the ground. When the slaughter
ceased, it was found that twenty-five thousand men had been slain, and
forty-five thousand women and children had become slaves to glut the
markets of Constantinople and Egypt, while fifteen thousand had fled to
the mainland.

This great calamity, however, was partially avenged by the sailors and
chiefs of Hydra, a neighboring island, u