It was the most disastrous campaign of the whole war, for the troops were slaughtered almost without resistance, killed by rolling down boulders on them. Bewildered in the intricacies of the defiles, without guides or provisions, and in small parties, they were dispatched, for days after. The army which had set out 17,850 strong, Egyptian and Turkish regulars, according to Dickson's official information, beside several thousand irregulars, was reported by Mustapha, after its return and reorganization, as amounting to 6000 men. We saw them as they defiled past Suda coming in, and the commander of one of the Italian ships took the trouble to count some of the battalions, one of which, consisting of 900 men when it set out, returned with only 300. The losses were certainly not less than 10,000 men, not counting the irregulars. CHAPTER XXII DIPLOMACY What had become evident, even at Constantinople, was that Mustapha and his influence, as well as the policy of repression by cruelty and devastation, had failed. Barbarities continued, and were met by active resistance on a small scale wherever the Turks attempted to penetrate. Small Turkish detachments were beaten here and there, but no general plan of operation appeared to offer a chance of ultimate success to either party. The Porte, therefore, sent its best diplomatic agent, Server Effendi, with a magniloquent and mendacious proclamation and a summons for the election of a deputation of Cretans of both religions, to meet at Constantinople to receive the promises of the well-intentioned Turkish government for their pacification and contentment. Server Effendi was an intelligent and liberal man, and we became very good friends, and if he had been permitted to treat on the basis of accomplished facts he might have attained something. But he was compelled to assume that the island had been subjected by arms to the will of the Porte, and must accept as concession what they had won a right to from an effective resistance, as yet not even partially subdued. He was not himself deceived, but the Sultan had passed into a condition of insane fury, and could not be induced to listen to any concessions or entertain any proposition but complete surrender. He had, Mr. Morris wrote me, had a model of the island made, which he used to bombard with little cannon, to give vent to his rage. All the powers, with the exception of England, now advised the Porte to concede a principality. The English policy in this case has always seemed to me mistaken, and in questionable faith, for by the protocol of February 20, 1830, the signatory powers bound themselves to secure for Crete a principality like that of Samos. For this defection of England from the general accord of the powers, Greece was, probably, mainly responsible, for at that juncture the influence of Greek demagogues prevailed in the island to make a compromise difficult, and the principality would certainly have been refused; still, England was