for her own interest purely, and that, holding as he did the initiative in a movement of all the Christian races, he could, by the employment of it, compel Russia to favor his plans or lose her prestige with them, and to a great extent her moral influence. It was with this view that he prepared movements in Epirus and Thessaly, while Montenegro became agitated, and the seeds of the Cretan trouble seemed wafted over the whole Turkish Empire. Pending the question of intervention, the transport of families waited the arrival of the American ship, of which no advices came. I telegraphed to Admiral Goldsborough for news of her, and received reply that he knew nothing of any orders for Crete. Subsequent information showed that our Secretary of Legation at Constantinople, a Levantine, and, like his class in general, devoted to the Turkish Government, and a most rancorous and persistent assailant of both Mr. Morris and myself in the journals of Europe and America (and whom the disgraceful condition of our diplomatic service permitted to assail the acts of his superior and the declared policy of his own government), acting in the interests of the Turkish Government, had put himself in communication with the naval authorities by the intermediation of officers attached to the squadron in European waters, and instigated the revocation of the decision of the Government, and, when finally the _Canandaigua_ arrived in the middle of March, she had orders to do nothing in any way disagreeable to the Turkish authorities; and I soon found that the state of feeling in the navy was anything but favorable to the employment of our ships for humane purposes, I myself, as instigator of their discomfort, being treated by the officers with a degree of incivility which showed as little good-breeding as _esprit de patrie_, and was manifested so openly as to encourage the local authorities in their systematic persecution of me. With the exception of two or three of the younger officers, the whole wardroom broadly expressed their sympathies with the Turkish Government, so that, after having persuaded Captain Strong, who sympathized somewhat with the awkwardness of my position, to run down to Retimo with me to look into the condition of the Christian families shut up in that town, I saw the _Canandaigua_ sail, with a heartfelt desire not to see one of my country's men-of-war again while I was on the station. The Commissioner showed his appreciation of our official servility by ostentatiously ignoring the visit of Captain Strong, passing the _Canandaigua_ by without notice, while he visited all the other foreign men-of-war in the harbor. CHAPTER XI.