His next appointment, in 1822, was to the command of the brig _Alacrity_, where I shall be able to follow him in some interesting and important service on the Mediterranean station. CHAPTER IV GREEK PIRACY. 1823-1826 Charles Yorke, having attained the rank of commander in May of 1822, was in August of the same year appointed to the command of the sloop _Alacrity_, and in her sailed to the Mediterranean in the autumn, anchoring at Gibraltar on November 29. He was dispatched to that station to take up some important duties in the Greek Archipelago, which arose out of the Greek War of Independence, then in full progress. Until the year 1821, the Greeks, though often ready to rebel against the Turkish government at the instigation of the agents of foreign Powers like Russia or France, had shown little capacity for any really national movement. But the gradual spread of liberal ideas which followed the French Revolution; the bravery which distinguished the resistance of certain sections of the Hellenic peoples, such as the Suliotes, and Spakiots of Crete; the aspirations of Ali Pacha, who conceived the idea of severing his connection with the Sultan and assuming the independent government of Albania; the impunity with which the Klephts or pirates pursued their calling in the Levant, all combined to demonstrate the real weakness of the Turkish rule, and at last brought about a national rising. This is not the place to enter into any detailed account of the War of Independence which followed, but its main events must be mentioned in order to make clear the letters which my father wrote from the scenes of the disturbance. The insurrection was begun in 1821 by Prince Alexander Hypsilantes, who crossed the Pruth in March of that year, but his efforts failed and he fled to Austria three months later; and other movements in the northern provinces had a similar fate. But the rising in the Peloponnesus under Germanos, the Archbishop of Patros, was more successful; his forces drove the Turks before them, and the independence of the country was proclaimed in January of 1823. The Greeks, however, displayed little power of combination, and their partial success was followed by internal dissensions which greatly weakened their cause. Mavrocordato was elected president, but the aspirants for honours and leadership were numberless, the various factions were continually quarrelling with each other, and there was at length open civil war inspired by Colcotronis. Meanwhile the aspirations of Greece had excited great sympathy throughout Europe; a Greek Committee was formed in London; the Philhellenes became very powerful in most countries on the continent, as well as in America, and many volunteers, of whom Lord Byron was a notable example, enlisted in the cause of Greek liberty.