The destruction of the Turkish and Egyptian fleets delivered Greece from imminent peril; but in the exultation created by the assurance that their independence was firmly established, the Greek government began to forget the services which the Karteria had rendered in the days of their despair. No supplies of any kind were forwarded to Captain Hastings, who remained in the gulf; both Lord Cochrane and the government allowed him to remain without provisions, and his crew would have in great part quitted him, unless he had paid the men their wages from his own fortune. On the 17th of November he wrote to Lord Cochrane, urging the necessity of sending him some assistance. This letter, which remained unanswered, contains the following passages:--"I am now seven thousand pounds out of pocket by my services in Greece, and I am daily expending my own money for the public service. Our prizes are serving as transports for the army, and we must either shortly abandon this position or be paid. Without money I cannot any longer maintain this vessel. I will do all I can; but I must repeat, that it is not quite fair I should end a beggar, after all the labour, vexation, and disappointment I have experienced for so many years." The only body of troops available for any national purpose, which had been kept together after the loss of Athens, with the exception of the corps of regular troops under General Fabvier, was that assembled by General Church on the southern shores of the Gulf of Lepanto. As soon as the battle of Navarin had paralysed the movements of the Turks, General Church determined to transport his troops from the Morea into Acarnania, where the Greek captains, who had submitted to the Turks, offered again to take up arms, if an adequate force appeared in the province to support them. The principal object which detained the Karteria in the gulf had been to assist the movements of General Church, who now resolved to cross over to Acarnania from Cape Papas. On the evening of the 17th of November, Captain Hastings received a communication from General Church, requesting him to appear off Cape Papas next day. In order to arrive at the rendezvous in time, Hastings was compelled to quit the gulf in the daytime, and consequently to expose his own ship and the three prizes to the fire of the castles of the Morea and Romelia--an act of rashness of which he would not willingly have been guilty. The castle of the Morea mounted about sixty guns, and that of Romelia twenty-seven; those commanding the straights were of large calibre. As their fire crossed, the passage of the Dardanelles of Lepanto was always considered a dangerous enterprise; and certainly, if the batteries had been served by good artillerymen, no ship could have ventured under their fire without being destroyed. Even with the gunners of Ibrahim Pasha's army, the passage was attended with considerable risk.