Captain Stewart was subsequently left as senior officer in the Archipelago, where he took three prizes, one of which was a xebec mounting six guns, and destroyed many small vessels; “but,” says he, in a letter from Malta, dated April 11th, 1808, “it seems labour in vain: we have a new way with the Turks. Our officers are ordered in every way to destroy and annoy their trade, but the Admiralty Courts are not directed to condemn; so they put us in the light of pirates, and will not publicly avow their hostility. All the cargoes brought in here are rotting unsold.”
About this period, a band of Epirots, who had been in the pay and service of Russia previous to the peace of Tilsit, being left by Vice-Admiral Siniavin at the mercy of their former masters, took possession of two islands near the Gulf of Salonica, from whence, with large boats, they laid the coast, as far as the Dardanelles, under contribution, and made prize of all vessels going to Constantinople. The tribute from these parts of the Ottoman empire, being principally paid in corn, was thus intercepted, and the Turks having no force outside of the Dardanelles sufficient to crush this nest of pirates, made application to Captain Stewart, to know whether he would interfere with any squadron sent for that purpose? – to which he replied, that he should repel by force any ships attempting to come out. The Capitan Pacha was not, however, ignorant of the British force in the AEgean sea; and being anxious to suppress the Epirots, he sent a squadron of two frigates, two corvettes, two mortar-vessels, and some xebecs, for this purpose. On the approach of the Turks, the pirates despatched one of their chiefs with the intelligence to Captain Stewart, then at the island of Syra, who immediately weighed, and proceeded in search of the enemy; the chief and three of his men remaining, at their own request, on board the Seahorse.
