Rev. Walsh gave a large account dealing with the Turkish navy and the Greek revolt during his living at Constantinople . And again, just like other authors Walsh pointed out that the Turkish heavily depended on Greek sailors lacking Turkish sailors and the foreign influences, mainly French, in the naval shipbuilding. When the Greek sailors couldn’t be longer trust by the Turkish government, the Capitan Pasha or high admiral badly needing navigators for his warships proposed to engage the boatmen on the Bosphorus, although none of them ever had done this. The Capitan Pasha himself was according to Walsh such a boatman!
P. 378: “The Greeks had now a formidable naval armament from the islands of Hydra, Spezzia, and Ipsara, and the Turks prepared to meet and annihilate it. The Turkish men-of-war are, perhaps, the finest and largest in the world. They are built by skilful Europeans, from the enlightened parts of Europe , whom they invite to the dock-yards in the Golden Horn , which are, perhaps, the best supplied in Europe . Noble timber for ship-building is found in profusion in the forests on the shores of the Black Sea , within twenty miles of the capital; hemp for cord and canvass is imported readily from the neighbouring Russian ports; and metal for ordnance is abundant. Should a supply of
p. 379: these materials be suspended from abroad, they possess the means at home. Rosin, pitch, and tar, are obtained from Negropont; hemp from Samsoon ; and gunpowder is manufactured at Gallipoli and Salonichi. Of all these advantages the Turks have availed themselves with a sagacity quite extraordinary in such a people. I visited the arsenal and dock-yards at Fieri Pasha, the cannon-foundry and the depot at Tophana, and I think them more extensive, and apparently as well supplied and conducted, as those at Portsmouth or Woolwich; nor are they to be exceeded, I suppose, by any country in Europe. The former extends from Galata, along the harbour, for a mile and a half, having a grand range of stores and work-houses, constructed of solid masonry, with rope-walks, and a hospital. There are five hundred labourers, with as many slaves, who have been condemned for various crimes, who are chained together. With this are connected noble dry docks, one of them three hundred and forty feet long, constructed by a French engineer. They launch and rig ships not inferior to their means of building and equipment. In order to preserve them with the greater care, they only cruise in summer, and on their return in autumn they lie drawn up in the Bosphorus and harbour, exhibiting a noble appearance, superior, I think, to any fleet I have ever seen. The Turks themselves are no sailors; but their deficiency was supplied by the activity and intelligence of the Greeks, whose skill and enterprise in their merchant-ships were highly and justly appreciated by their masters, and the Greek sailors on board were always the main dependence of the crew. The great commercial islands of Hydra and Spezzia always supplied a certain number. They were now, however, not to be confided in: many were executed on suspicion, many were arrested and sent to the prison of
p. 380: the Bagnio, where they were chained as slaves; many had contrived to desert, and escaped in various directions to join the ships of their countrymen, and the few that remained were not employed in navigating the vessels. It had been usual on such emergencies to enter coffee-houses and take every man they could find, without knowing or caring whether he had ever been on board a ship, as the Turks had no commerce to resort to, or merchant-ships to furnish them with sailors for their fleet. On this occasion, however, the Capitan Pasha proposed that all the boatmen on the Bosphorus should be engaged for the purpose. He had been one, and he supposed they could navigate a ship, though not one of them, no more than himself, had ever sailed in one. An effort was made, therefore, to induce them to embark, but, to a man, they positively refused. Recourse was then had to a compulsory process, similar to our pressing; but the boatmen form a numerous and powerful body, and showed such a determination to resist, that it was deemed prudent to give up the attempt. Notwithstanding the unmitigated despotism and unsparing ferocity of the government, they dared not exasperate this fierce democracy, particularly as they were so useful a body, whose removal would have suspended all intercourse in the most necessary concerns of life, between Constantinople , Pera, Scutari, and the shores of the Bosphorus, to which caiques were the only mode of conveyance. The contrast between England and Turkey in this respect struck me very forcibly: in the freest government on earth a large and powerful class of men are liable to be torn from their families and employment on the slightest exigency, without the smallest regard to their civil rights; in the most despotic, the government, in its utmost need, dare not compel one of them against his inclination.
p. 381: The Turks, however, availed themselves of another and more skilful and efficient class. About the shipping of Pera and Galata there is always a number of Genoese, Maltese, Ragusan, and other European seamen unemployed, and ready to enter any service. The keepers of the coffeehouses which they frequented proceeded to the Porte, and offered their services. Some entered voluntarily, and many were entrapped in a state of intoxication. They were all, however, engaged to man the fleet, and supply the place of the Greeks. The Turks in general were not pleased to depend for defence, under present circumstances, on any Christian people; but they had no alternative. Another accession of Mahomedan force was made, which reconciled them to a few Christian auxiliaries. The Egyptian and Algerine fleets were ordered to meet the Turkish, and unite with them in the Archipelago. Before the fleet sailed from Constantinople , it hauled out of the harbour, and the whole were drawn up in the Bosphorus. I took a caique and rowed through it. I was astonished at the magnificence and equipment of these vast floating cities. One was called the Mahmood, after the Sultan, and was supposed to be the largest in the world. She was pierced for one hundred and forty, and had on board one hundred and thirty brass guns, carrying, I was told, one hundred pound balls on her lower decks; the rest, about twenty-five in number, were ships of the line and frigates. They presented a grand sight, rising out of the water, both in length and breadth, with an appearance more imposing, I thought, than English vessels of the same rate. The brightness of the guns - the freshness of the cordage and canvass - the gaiety and richness of the painting - all gave an impression of naval architecture brought to the highest state of perfection. On the bows of each was the lion, highly carved and naturally
p. 382: coloured, presenting this emblem of the Turkish empire in his most formidable attitude. They carried a complement, on an average, of one thousand four hundred men each, and they seemed capable of opening a cannonade that would almost blow a Greek island out of the water. The caiquegee Abdalla had been removed as altogether inefficient to conduct such a fleet; and Kara Ali, or Black Ali, had been appointed Capitan Pasha. The fleet sailed from the Bosphorus on the 14th of August, through crowds of people who lined the shore, with all the pride, pomp and circumstance that could produce an imposing effect; and when I considered that this noble fleet was to be reinforced by two others, and the naval power of Egypt and Africa was to join, I thought it impossible that any little flotilla the Greeks could collect could give it opposition for a single day.”
Source
Rev. R. Walsh. A Residence at Constantinople during a period including the Commencement, Progress, and termination of the Greek and Turkish revolutions. Vol. I. London, 1836. Digitized by Google
