Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/78

 46 EUI'ATOUIA. CHAPTER II. EUPATOKIA. A P. Condition ot things in Eui'atoria and its neighbour- hood. That seaport town Eupatoria which surrendered to our Admiral in the earliest hour of the in- vasion had of late been a subject of conflict. From the day when Mr Hamilton, the humor- ous purser of the Britannia, first set his foot in the place, and there jovially opened a market, the owners of flocks and herds pasturing in the ad- jacent districts had been glad to sell their cattle to purchasers who approached them with money in hand ; and the Allies thus established close, friendly relations with not only the people of the town but also their country neighbours.* Those countrymen, however, soon found that they were dangerously circumstanced ; for — unable to plead compulsion, like their happier brethren in the surrendered town — they lay open of course to the charge of wilfully aiding an enemy. Therefore, when they descried Kussian cavalry alarmingly near to their homesteads, these yeomen hastened
 * Ante, vol. ii. chap. xxi.