Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall sp2.djvu/146

 aware that a British Admiral, with only seven sail of the line, two frigates, and two bombs, neither of them having a single soldier on board, had demanded the surrender, without resistance, of two three-deckers, ten other line-of-battle ships, nine frigates, and numerous small craft, protected by “a chain of batteries,” and ready to be defended by “near 200,000 troops,” from the enthusiastic janizary to the wild arab, there cannot be a doubt that Lieutenant Willoughby, the dragoman, and the English boat’s crew, would all have fallen victims to the insulted feeling of the proudest and most haughty nation in Europe.

Lieutenant Willoughby took leave of Ysak Bey,, off Seraglio Point, between 9-30 and 10 A.M., at which time the wind was still favorable for the British to attack Constantinople. Anxious to see decisive measures adopted, and knowing what the result of the expedition would otherwise be, he immediately proceeded on board the Endymion, communicated, by telegraph, to Sir John T. Duckworth, the answer he had received (“a negociator will be sent off to the British Admiral at noon”), and then pulled for the Royal George, in order to afford every information which his chief might require, as to the state of the Turkish fleet, the batteries, &c.

“At noon of the 21st.,” says Sir John T. Duckworth, “Ysak Bey came off; from whose expressions Mr. Arbuthnot thought it impossible not to believe that, in the head of the government there really existed a sincere desire for peace, and the negociation was carried on till the 27th;” but not one word does he mention about Lieutenant Willoughby, or his delicate mission. To the telescopes on board the Royal George, and not to the information obtained from his zealous subaltern, does he acknowledge himself indebted for the intelligence, “that the time granted the Sublime Porte to take its decision had been employed in warping the ships of war into places more susceptible of defence, and in constructing batteries along the coast, therefore rendering it his duty to lose no time .”

This, however, is not to us so much a matter of wonder,