Without doubt the capitulation was hopelessly mismanaged, and the Turks got off without paying a penny towards the expenses of the siege. If the same terms were given to every fortified place in the Morea, the national treasury and the funds of the Hetairia would be certainly drained dry before half the country was evacuated; and though morally nothing can excuse the scenes of horror which were about to take place, yet palliation may be found in those two things--that without plunder gained from the Turk the war was impossible, and that the nation was a nation of slaves, long ground down by cruelty of all kinds, now in the first hour of its freedom. The despised but long dominant race was underfoot, and they stamped it down. The Mainat corps was still at Monemvasia, where Petrobey was raising fresh recruits for the siege of Tripoli, and the prince occupying his leisure time, of which he had twenty-four hours every day, in trying to festoon the walls of the town with red tape, when news came of the fall of Navarin, a port on the west coast. Ypsilanti had sent there a civilian from his suite to represent the shadow of nothingness and the senate, one of the worst type of men, who, under the guise of patriotism, had got together a large band of freebooters, to plunder and seize all that he could lay hands on. Before the capitulation, which granted the besieged their lives and safe transport to Egypt or Tunis, had been concluded, many of the Turks had, under stress of hunger, escaped from the town, and thrown themselves on the mercy of the Greeks, with whom they had lived on friendly terms. But the town itself refused to capitulate till starvation compelled. Already for four days nothing could be bought, for a couple of sparrows or a half-starved cat represented a few hours' life, whereas a bushel of gold represented--a bushel of gold. One man the day before the surrender was found with a secret supply of food, on which he had subsisted for some days, the remains of which were seized from him by two starving savages and devoured before his eyes, after which they pelted him with all the money they had about them, telling him he was well paid. Perhaps some strange premonition of their fate induced the gaunt garrison to hold out; perhaps tales had reached them of what had been the fate of those who had thrown themselves on the mercy of the besieging army; and it was not till August 19th, just a fortnight after Monemvasia was taken, that the capitulation was signed.