In February 1827, Captain Hastings was ordered by the Greek government to co-operate with the troops under General Gordon, destined to relieve Athens. Captain Hastings, sailing from Egina, passed round the island of Salamis, and entering the western strait between it and Megara, arrived, unobserved by the Turks, in the bay where the battle of Salamis was fought--now called the port of Ambelaki. This was the first time the passage had ever been attempted by a modern man-of-war. During the presidency of Count Capo-d'Istrias, Sir Edmund Lyons carried H.M.S. Blonde through the same passage. The troops under General Gordon were landed in the night, and they occupied and fortified the hill of Munychia without any loss of time. It was then resolved to drive the Turks from a monastery at the Piraeus, in which they kept a garrison to command the port. The troops were ordered to attack the building on the land side, and Hastings entered the Piraeus to bombard it from the sea. A practicable breach was soon made; but the Greek troops, though supported by the fire of a couple of field-pieces, were completely defeated in their feeble attempts to storm this monastery. The Turks, on the other hand, displayed the greatest activity; and the Seraskier Kutayhi Pasha, who commanded the army besieging Athens, soon arrived with a powerful escort of cavalry, and bringing with him two long five-inch howitzers with shells, boasting that with these he would sink the Karteria. As the object of the Greek attack had completely failed, and the troops had retired, the Karteria quitted the port just as the Turks opened their fire on her.