The conquest of Vasiladhi did not diminish the difficulties with which Hastings was surrounded, nor remove any of the disagreeable circumstances attendant on the neglect with which he was treated by Lord Cochrane and the Greek government. On the 7th of January 1828, he wrote to a friend in the following desponding terms:--"I am full of misery. I have not a dollar. I owe my people three months' pay, and five dollars a man gratuity for Vasiladhi. I have no provisions. I have lost an anchor and chain. If I can get out of my present difficulties, I may perhaps go into the gulf." On the 16th of January he wrote to the Greek government, stating all the difficulties of his position, and complaining of the manner in which the Karteria had been left entirely dependent on his private resources. He wrote: "It has become an established maxim to leave this vessel without any supplies. Dr Goss has just been at Zante, and has left three hundred dollars for the Helvetia, now serving under my orders--but not one farthing, no provisions, and not even a single word, for me. Five months ago, I was eight thousand dollars in advance for the pay of my crew; and, since that time, I have only received one thousand dollars from the naval chest of Lord Cochrane, and six hundred from the military of General Church. This last sum is not even sufficient to pay the expenses incurred by the detention of our prizes in order to serve as transports for the army. I have, in addition to the ordinary expenses of this vessel, been obliged to purchase wood for our steam-engine, and provisions for the gun-boat Helvetia--to which I have also furnished two hundred dollars in money to pay the crew. The capture of Vasiladhi has cost me two thousand dollars; yet I have not taken the brass cannon in that fort, and replaced them with the iron guns of our prizes, in order to assist me in meeting my expenses." About this time Count Capo d'Istrias arrived in Greece to assume the presidency of the republic; and Captain Hastings, as soon as he was informed of his arrival, transmitted him a very valuable letter, in which he gave a luminous picture of the state of affairs in Western Greece. This letter is particularly instructive, as it gives an admirable summary of the line of conduct which gained Hastings his great reputation in Greece. "From the hour of my receiving the command of the Karteria, I determined to break down the system existing in the navy of paying the sailors in advance, as such a practice is destructive of all discipline. The Greek government and Lord Cochrane, however, did not adopt this rule. They paid their own equipages in advance, and they left mine unpaid."