CHAPTER XVII.
I ENTER THE TURKISH NAVY.
After superintending, as it were, the adventures just detailed, I found that there was still a year to pass before my time for service as a post-captain came on; so I determined on making a Continental tour to fill up the space.

After wandering about in different countries, I more by accident than design visited Constantinople.
While there, I called upon that great statesman Fuad Pasha, the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, to whom I presented my letters of introduction.

He received me most cordially, and, during our conversation, mentioned that for some years Turkey had had to deal with a serious insurrection in the island of Crete, which it was found difficult to suppress, owing to the assistance from without which the revolutionary party received from Greece; also on account of the somewhat doubtful laws existing as to blockade-running.

For, although Turkish men-of-war were continually on the look-out, vessels mostly under the Greek flag, carrying warlike stores, provisions, &c., evaded the watch of the cruisers on one pretext or another, and so managed to keep a lively communication with the insurrectionary subjects of the Sultan in Crete.

Only one vessel had been captured _in flagrante delicto_ after a sharp fight, and had been condemned as a lawful prize.
The Turkish authorities were told that, according to international law, a blockade-running vessel could not be followed more than ten miles from the coast, though having been seen breaking the blockade, and that as soon as a blockade-runner was within four miles of any island not belonging to Turkey, she could not be touched, &c.