Russia, since the beginning of the seventeenth century, has ever been an excellent field for Scottish talent and valour. Thus Greig, by his superior skill in naval affairs, his intelligence and diligent discharge of the duties entrusted to him, soon attracted the special notice of the Imperial Government, and the Empress appointed him a captain in her fleet. He drew many other Scotsmen around him, and, with these, he was at incredible pains to teach the half-barbarous and wholly unlettered Russians the science of seamanship and the art of gunnery, in all of which they were very deficient, "and he rapidly raised the Russian naval service to a degree of respectability and importance which it never before had attained."
In 1769, when he was in his thirty-fourth year, a war broke out between Russia and Turkey, consequent on the civil strife which religious intolerance had kindled in Poland. The Czarina marched in her troops; and while pretending that her sole object was to rescue one body of Polish citizens from the tyranny of the other, she secretly sought to enslave them all, and render their country a province of the Russian empire.
The growing greatness of the latter had alarmed its old hereditary enemy, the Grand Seignior, who required Catherine immediately to withdraw her troops from the Polish republic. Evasions were given, and conflicts began between the Russian and Turkish outposts, on the borders of the Ottoman empire, until the sack of Balta, in Lesser Tartary, and a general massacre of its inhabitants, by the soldiers of the Czarina, procured the committal of her ambassador to the Castle of the Seven Towers, in October, 1769; and hostilities, which were only suspended by the rigour of the season, began early in the spring of the ensuing year.
Captain Greig was appointed commodore of the fleet which was to sail for the Mediterranean, under Alexis Count Orloff; and in that ample arena of service he had an opportunity of displaying his zeal and intrepidity in such a manner as led to his immediate promotion to the rank of flag-officer.
A partial breaking up of the ice in the Baltic enabled some of the fleet to sail; and so early as the 14th of January, 1770, one part of the armament, under the Scottish admiral Elphinstone, consisting of one 70-gun ship, two of sixty guns each, and five others, arrived at Spithead, en route for the Archipelago.
The other division, of twenty-two sail of the line, reached Port Mahon, in Minorca, so early as the 4th of January; and by the 6th of March appeared off Cephalonia, the largest of the Ionian Isles, and, with a fair wind, bore away directly for the Morea. At Minorca they left some vessels to wait for Elphinstone, who left Spithead on the 14th of April, passed Gibraltar on the 4th of May, and before the end of July had twice defeated the Turkish fleet—on one occasion encountering three times his force, and destroying eight ships; on the second occasion, with nineteen ships, encountering Giafar Bey, with twenty-three. Giafar's largest ships were destroyed, and his fleet dispersed.
In the great battle of the 6th of July, Greig, Mackenzie, and other officers in the Russian fleet, had an opportunity of eminently rendering good and gallant service; and by their energy and skill the world now saw a naval force, which, as Cormick says, had issued from the foot of the Baltic, able "to shake the remotest parts of the Mediterranean, to intercept the trade of the Levant, to excite and support the insurrection of the Greek Christians, and to leave nothing of the vast empire of their enemies free from alarm and confusion."
The united squadron of the Admirals Count Orloff, Elphinstone, Spiritoff, and Commodore Greig, followed the Turkish fleet, which consisted of fifteen sail of the line, twelve frigates, &c., into the Channel of Scio, which divides the island from Anadoli, or the Lesser Asia; there the Turks were at anchor in a most advantageous position, at the foot of the Gulf of Liberno, where their rear and flanks were protected by rocks.
Early in the morning of the 5th, Commodore Greig was sent to reconnoitre the roads between Scio and the main; and in the afternoon he signalled the enemy in sight, consisting of thirty sail in all. Orloff, the admiral-general, held a council of war, at which Greig's opinion was specially asked, and his advice followed.
On the 6th, at ten in the morning, Orloff signalled to form line, and the Russian fleet approached the Turks. Orloff was in the centre, with three Birnates; Commodore Greig led one division, and Elphinstone the other—in all, ten sail of the line, and five frigates; and they each bore down with ensigns flying, all their ports open, and decks cleared for action. There were many French officers on board of the Turkish fleet, which had been joined by about thirty lieutenants, who had received the permission of King Louis to enter the Sultan's service. A terrible scene of carnage ensued, and the whole conflict is admirably detailed in a letter published in the Scots' Magazine for that year, by a Lieutenant Mackenzie, who served on board of her Imperial Majesty's ship the Switostoff.
At eleven o'clock the battle began. Admiral Spiritoff ranged up alongside of the Turkish admiral, who was in the Sultana, of ninety brass guns, and thus they fought yard-arm and yard-arm together, pouring in and receiving cannon-shot, chain-shot, hand-grenades and musketry. Spiritoff's topmasts were shot away, his bulwarks battered down, and blood ran from his scuppers into the sea. He led his sailors in an attempt to board the Sultana, and tore the banner of the Crescent from her stern; but the boarders were repulsed, and obliged to sheer off, for the Turk took fire, and his burning mainmast fell on board of Spiritoff's ship, which also became wrapped in flames; and in ten minutes both ships blew up. "I leave you to judge," says Mackenzie, "of the dreadful scene of seeing so many hundreds of poor souls blown into the air, while the rest were hotly engaged." Spiritoff and twenty-four officers saved themselves in the barge.
The remainder of the Turkish fleet, after being severely mauled by Elphinstone and Greig (Orloff was little of a seaman), cut their cables, and ran into the harbour of Chismeh, a small town in the Sanjak of Siglah, at the bottom of a bay one mile broad, and two miles long. Across the mouth of this bay the fleet, under Orloff, Elphinstone, and the Commodore, lay for the whole night, firing round shot, and throwing in bombs. The fire of Greig's ship was particularly destructive; but on the Turks getting batteries established on the height between Scio and the coast of Anadoli, he and the two admirals were obliged to haul off. Two fireships were prepared an the 7th, under the direction of Elphinstone and Greig; and a council of war was held by the principal officers in the cabin of Count Orloff. It was there suggested by the Commodore, and resolved upon, that at midnight four ships of the line, two frigates, and the bomb-ketch, should enter the harbour, and while attacking the enemy, send the fireships on their errand of destruction; but volunteers were required to lead, and three officers, all Scotsmen, at once stepped forward. These were, Commodore Greig, Lieutenant Mackenzie, of the Switostoff, and Captain-Lieutenant Drysdale (or Dugdale, for this officer is called alternately by both names in many accounts of these wars), and they made every preparation for the desperate duty before them. At half-past twelve at night the signal was made to weigh anchor, and bear into the little bay; Drysdale and Mackenzie had the fireships; Greig led the ships of the line and the two frigates, which, at four hundred yards' distance, cannonaded the Turks, while the bomb-ketch plied its mortars. Greig signalled the fireships to bear down; Drysdale and Mackenzie answered it, and, favoured by the wind, ran right into the teeth of the Turks, whose centre ship was at that moment set on fire by a fortunate shot from the Commodore.
Drysdale's crew unfortunately left his ship before the proper time. Indeed, the Russians were so overcome with terror by the darkness of the night, the boom of the Turkish shot, and by the fireships, of which they were unable to comprehend the use, that it was only by dint of his sword and pistols that Drysdale kept them to their duty; but when near the enemy the helmsman abandoned the rudder, the whole crew sprang into their boat, and abandoned the brave Scotsman on board of the fireship!
In this terrible situation his native courage never deserted him; he lashed the helm, and (though a boat full of armed Turks was pulling alongside) held the ship on her course till, with his own unaided hands, he hooked the grapnel-irons to the anchor-cable of the nearest ship, which proved to be a large caravella. He then fired the train by discharging a pistol, and in doing so was severely scorched by the explosion. At the moment the Turks boarded him on one side he sprang into the sea from the other,