judge of this when I tell you, that the four thousand pounds advanced by me to the Greeks is likely to set a fleet and an army in motion for some months. "A Greek vessel has arrived from the squadron to convey me to Missolonghi, where Mavrocordato now is, and has assumed the command, so that I expect to embark immediately. Still address, however, to Cephalonia, through Messrs. Welch and Barry of Genoa, as usual; and get together all the means and credit of mine you can, to face the war establishment, for it is in for a penny, in for a pound,' and I must do all that I can for the ancients. "I have been labouring to reconcile these parties, and there is now some hope of succeeding. Their public affairs go on well. The Turks have retreated from Acarnania without a battle, after a few fruitless attempts on Anatoliko. Corinth is taken, and the Greeks have gained a battle in the Archipelago. The squadron here, too, has taken a Turkish corvette with some money and a cargo. In short, if they can obtain a Loan, I am of opinion that matters will assume and preserve a steady and favourable aspect for their independence. "In the mean time I stand paymaster, and what not; and lucky it is that, from the nature of the warfare and of the country, the resources even of an individual can be of a partial and temporary service. "Colonel Stanhope is at Missolonghi. Probably we shall attempt Patras next. The Suliotes, who are friends of mine, seem anxious to have me with them, and so is Mavrocordato. If I can but succeed in reconciling the two parties (and I have left no stone unturned), it will be something; and if not, we must go over to the Morea with the Western Greeks who are the bravest, and at present the strongest, having beaten back the Turks—and try the effect of a little physical advice, should they persist in rejecting moral persuasion. "Once more recommending to you the reinforcement of my strong box and credit from all lawful sources and resources of mine to their practicable extent - for, after all, it is better playing at nations than gaming at Almack's or Newmarket - and requesting you to write to me as often as you can, "I remain ever, &c. N. BYRON." 66 THE squadron, so long looked for, having my Lord," says Mavrocordato," how much Of this anxiety, no inconsiderable part is doubtless to be attributed to their great impatience for the possession of the loan which he had promised them, and on which they wholly depended for the payment of the fleet. Prince Mavrocordato and the Admiral (says the same gentleman) are in a state of extreme perplexity: they, it seems, relied on your loan for the payment of the fleet; that loan not having been received, the sailors will depart immediately. This will be a fatal event indeed, as it will place Missolonghi in a state of blockade; and will prevent the Greek troops from acting against the fortresses of Nepacto and Patras." In the mean time Lord Byron was preparing busily for his departure, the postponement of which latterly had been, in a great measure, owing to that repugnance to any new change of place which had lately so much grown upon him, and which neither love, as we have seen, nor ambition, could entirely conquer. There had been also considerable pains taken by some of his friends at Argostoli to prevent his fixing upon a place of residence so unhealthy as Missolonghi; and Mr Muir, a very able medical officer, on whose talents he had much dependence, endeavoured most earnestly to dissuade him from such an imprudent step. His mind, however, was made up, - the proximity of that port, in some degree, tempting him, and having hired, for himself and suite, a light, fast-sailing vessel, called the Mistico, with a boat for part of his baggage, and a larger vessel for the remainder, the horses, &c., he was, on the 20th of December, ready to sail. The wind, however, being contrary, he was detained two days longer, and in this interval the following letters were written. LETTER 532. TO MR. BOWRING. "10bre 26. 1823. "Little need be added to the enclosed, which arrived this day, except that I embark to-morrow for Missolonghi. The intended operations are detailed in the annexed documents. I have only to request that the Committee will use every exertion to forward our views by all its influence and credit. occasionally hardly practical enough, in the present state of Greece; for instance, the mathematical instruments are thrown away none of the Greeks know a problem from a poker we must conquer first, and plan afterwards. The use of the trumpets, too, may be doubted, unless Constantinople were Jericho, for the Helenists have no ears for bugles, and you must send us somebody to listen to them. "We will do our best—and I pray you to stir your English hearts at home to more general exertion; for my part, I will stick by the cause while a plank remains which can be honourably clung to. If I quit it, it will be by the Greeks' conduct, and not the Holy Allies or holier Mussulmans — but let us hope better things. 66 Ever yours, N. B. "P. S.-I am happy to say that Colonel Leicester Stanhope and myself are acting in perfect harmony together — he is likely to the Committee, and is publicly as well as be of great service both to the cause and to personally a very valuable acquisition to our they all do who have not been in the country party on every account. He came up (as before) with some high-flown notions of the sixth form at Harrow or Eton, &c.; but Col. Napier and I set him to rights on those points, which is absolutely necessary to prevent disgust, or perhaps return; but now we can set our shoulders soberly to the wheel, without quarrelling with the mud which may clog it occasionally. 66 myself are as decided for the cause as any I can assure you that Col. Napier and German student of them all; but like men who have seen the country and human life, there and elsewhere, we must be permitted to view it in its truth, with its defects as well as beauties, more especially as success will remove the former gradually. N. B. "P. S. As much of this letter as you 'entre nous." LETTER 533. TO MR. MOORE. "I have also to request you personally from myself to urge my friend and trustee, Douglas Kinnaird (from whom I have not heard these four months nearly), to forward please is for the Committee, the rest may be to me all the resources of my own we can muster for the ensuing year; since it is no time to ménager purse, or, perhaps, person. I have advanced, and am advancing, all that I have in hand, but I shall require all that can be got together; and (if Douglas has completed the sale of Rochdale, that and my year's income for next year ought to form a good round sum,) — as you may perceive that there will be little cash of their own amongst the Greeks (unless they get the Loan), it is the more necessary that those of their friends who have any should risk it. "The supplies of the Committee are, some, useful, and all excellent in their kind; but Cephalonia, December 27. 1823. "I received a letter from you some time ago. I have been too much employed latterly to write as I could wish, and even now must write in haste. "I embark for Missolonghi to join Mavrocordato in four-and-twenty hours. The state of parties (but it were a long story) has kept me here till now; but now that Mavrocordato (their Washington, or their Kosciusko) is employed again, can act with a safe con science. I carry money to pay the squadron, &c., and I have influence with the Suliotes, supposed sufficient to keep them in harmony with some of the dissentients; for there are plenty of differences, but trifling. "It is imagined that we shall attempt either Patras or the castles on the Straits; and it seems, by most accounts, that the Greeks, at any rate the Suliotes, who are in affinity with me of bread and salt,'expect that I should march with them, and be it even so! If any thing in the way of fever, fatigue, famine, or otherwise, should cut short the middle age of a brother warbler, like Garcilasso de la Vega, Kleist, Korner 3, Joukoffsky (a Russian nightingale see Bowring's Anthology), or Thersander, or, - or somebody else- but never mind I pray you to remember me in your smiles and wine.' 6 It is hardly necessary to direct the attention of the reader to the sad, and but too true anticipation expressed in this letterthe last but one I was ever to receive from my friend. Before we accompany him to the closing scene of all his toils, I shall here, as briefly as possible, give a selection from the many characteristic anecdotes told of him while at Cephalonia, where (to use the words of Colonel Stanhope, in a letter from thence to the Greek committee,) he was " beloved by Cephalonians, by English, and by Greeks; and where, approached as he was familiarly by persons of all classes and countries, not an action, not a word is recorded of him that does not bear honourable testimony to the benevolence and soundness of his views, his ever ready but discriminating generosity, and 1 [Garcilasso de la Vega, the "prince of Spanish poets," was born of a noble family at Toledo in1503. After serving with distinction in Germany, Africa, and Provence, he was killed, in 1536, by a stone thrown from a tower, which fell upon his head as he was leading on his battalion. He died at the early age of thirty-three.] [Kleist lost his leg in fighting against the Russians at the battle of Kunnersdorff, and died in August 1759. He composed several popular war songs.] 3 [Korner, celebrated for the spirited poems which he composed during the campaign against Napoleon in 1813, was born in 1791, and fell in the field of battle, August 26. 1813. An hour before his death he had finished his famous Address to his Sword, and read it to his comrades. Thirty-two of his war songs have been published by his father; and some of them have been set to music by Weber.] the clear insight, at once minute and comprehensive, which he had acquired into the character and wants of the people and the cause he came to serve. "Of all those who came to help the Greeks," says Colonel Napier, (a person himself the most qualified to judge, as well from long local knowledge, as from the acute, straightforward cast of his own mind,)" I never knew one, except Lord Byron and Mr. Gordon, that seemed to have justly estimated their character. All came expecting to find the Peloponnesus filled with Plutarch's men, and all returned thinking the inhabitants of Newgate more moral. Lord Byron judged them fairly: he knew that half-civilised men are full of vices, and that great allowance must be made for emancipated slaves. He, therefore, proceeded, bridle in hand, not thinking them good, but hoping to make them better." 5 In speaking of the foolish charge of avarice brought against Lord Byron by some who resented thus his not suffering them to impose on his generosity, Colonel Napier says, "I never knew a single instance of it while he was here. I saw only a judicious generosity in all that he did. He would not allow himself to be robbed, but he gave profusely where he thought he was doing good. It was, indeed, because he would not allow himself to be fleeced, that he was called stingy by those who are always bent upon giving money from any purses but their own. Lord Byron had no idea of this; and would turn sharply and unexpectedly on those who thought their game sure. He gave a vast deal of money to the Greeks in various ways." Among the objects of his bounty in this way were many poor refugee Greeks from the Continent and the Isles. He not only relieved their present distresses, but allotted a certain sum monthly to the most destitute. "A list of these poor pensioners,” says Dr. 4 One of the most celebrated of the living poets of Russia, who fought at Borodino, and has commemorated that battle in a poem of much celebrity among his countrymen. [He wrote his "Minstrel in the Russian Camp," just before the battle on the Tarulina. Kutaissow, his companion in arms, and a young Russian poet of considerable talents, was killed at the battle of Borodino.] 5 A similar tribute was paid to him by Count Delladecima, a gentleman of some literary acquirements, of whom he saw a good deal at Cephalonia, and to whom he was attracted by that sympathy which never failed to incline him towards those who laboured, like himself, under any personal defects. "Of all the men," said this gentleman, "whom I have had an opportunity of conversing with, on the means of establishing the independence of Greece, and regenerating the character of the natives, Lord Byron appears to entertain the most enlightened and correct views." 66 Kennedy, was given me by the nephew of flamed. One of the instances mentioned of his humanity while at Cephalonia will show how prompt he was at the call of that feeling, and how unworthy, sometimes, were the objects of it. A party of workmen employed upon one of those fine roads projected by Colonel Napier having imprudently excavated a high bank, the earth fell in, and overwhelmed nearly a dozen persons; the news of which accident instantly reaching Metaxata, Lord Byron despatched his physician Bruno to the spot, and followed with Count Gamba, as soon as their horses could be saddled. They found a crowd of women and children wailing round the ruins ; while the workmen, who had just dug out three or four of their maimed companions, stood resting themselves unconcernedly, as if nothing more was required of them; and to Lord Byron's enquiry whether there were not still some other persons below the earth, answered coolly that "they did not know, but believed that there were." Enraged at this brutal indifference, he sprang from his horse, and seizing a spade himself, began to dig with all his strength; but it was not till after being threatened with the horsewhip that any of the peasants could be brought to follow his example. "I was not present at this scene myself," says Colonel Napier, in the Notices with which he has favoured me, "but was told that Lord Byron's attention seemed quite absorbed in the study of the faces and gesticulations of those whose friends were missing. The sorrow of the Greeks is, in appearance, very frantic, and they shriek and howl, as in Ireland. It was in alluding to the above incident that the noble poet is stated to have said that he had come out to the Islands prejudiced against Sir T. Maitland's government of the Greeks: "but," he added, "I have now changed my opinion. They are such barbarians, that if I had the government of them, I would pave these very roads with them." I have mentioned this latter circumstance as perhaps justifying the inference that there was in Lord Byron's state of health at this moment a predisposition to the complaint of which he afterwards died. To Dr. Kennedy he spoke frequently of his wife and daughter, expressing the strongest affection for the latter, and respect towards the former; and while declaring as usual his perfect ignorance of the causes of the separation, professing himself fully disposed to welcome any prospect of reconcilement. The anxiety with which, at all periods of his life, but particularly at the present, he sought to repel the notion that, except when under the actual inspiration of writing, he was at all influenced by poetical associations, very frequently displayed itself. "You must have been highly gratified (said a gentleman to him) by the classical remains and recollections which you met with in your visit to Ithaca."-"You quite mistake me," answered Lord Byron "I have no poetical humbug about me; I am too old for that. Ideas of that sort are confined to rhyme." For the two days during which he was delayed by contrary winds, he took up his abode at the house of Mr.Hancock, his banker, and passed the greater part of the time in company with the English authorities of the Island. At length the wind becoming fair, he prepared to embark. "I called upon him to take leave," says Dr. Kennedy, "and found him alone, reading Quentin Durward. He was, as usual, in good spirits." In a few hours after the party set sail, Lord Byron himself on board the Mistico, and Count Gamba, with the horses and heavy baggage, in the larger vessel, or Bombarda. After touching at Zante, for the purpose of some pecuniary arrangements with Mr. Barff, and taking on board a considerable sum of money in specie, they, on the evening of the 29th, proceeded towards Missolonghi. Their last accounts from that place having represented the Turkish fleet as still in the Gulf of Lepanto, there appeared not the slightest grounds for apprehending any interruption in their passage. Besides, knowing that the Greek squadron was now at anchorage near the entrance of the Gulf, they had little doubt of soon falling in with some friendly vessel, either in search, or waiting for them. 66 While residing at Metaxata, he received an account of the illness of his daughter Ada, which "made him anxious and melancholy (says Count Gamba) for several days." Her indisposition he understood to have been caused by a determination of blood to the We sailed together,” says Count Gamba, head; and on his remarking to Dr. Kennedy, in a highly picturesque and affecting passage, as curious, that it was a complaint to which" till after ten at night; the wind favourable he himself was subject, the physician replied, that he should have been inclined to infer so, not only from his habits of intense and irregular study, but from the present state of the right eye appearing to be in his eyes, a clear sky, the air fresh but not sharp. Our sailors sang alternately patriotic songs, monotonous indeed, but to persons in our situation extremely touching, and we took part in them. We were all, but Lord Byron particularly, in excellent spirits. The Mistico sailed the fastest. When the waves divided us, and our voices could no longer reach each other, we made signals by firing pistols and carbines 'To-morrow we Missolonghi -to-morrow.' Thus, full of confidence and spirits, we sailed along. At twelve we were out of sight of each other." meet at You had better send my friend George Drake (Draco), and a body of Suliotes, to escort us by land or by the canals, with all convenient speed. Gamba and our Bombard are taken into Patras, I suppose; and we must take a turn at the Turks to get them out: but where the devil is the fleet gone? taken by the Turkish frigates, and my party and myself, in another boat, have had a narrow escape last night, (being close under their stern and hailed, but we would not answer, and bore away,) as well as this morning. Here we are, with the sun and clearing weather, within a pretty little port enough; but whether our Turkish friends may not In waiting for the other vessel, having send in their boats and take us out (for we more than once shortened sail for that pur- have no arms except two carbines and some pose, the party on board the Mistico were pistols, and, I suspect, not more than four upon the point of being surprised into an fighting people on board,) is another question, encounter which might, in a moment, have especially if we remain long here, since we changed the future fortunes of Lord Byron. | are blocked out of Missolonghi by the direct Two or three hours before daybreak, while entrance. steering towards Missolonghi, they found themselves close under the stern of a large vessel, which they at first took to be Greek, but which, when within pistol shot, they discovered to be a Turkish frigate. By good fortune, they were themselves, as it appears, mistaken for a Greek brûlot by the Turks, who therefore feared to fire, but with loud shouts frequently hailed them, while those on board Lord Byron's vessel maintained the most profound silence; and even the dogs (as I have heard his Lordship's valet mention), though they had never ceased to bark during the whole of the night, did not utter, while within reach of the Turkish frigate, a sound ;a no less lucky than a curious accident, as, from the information the Turks had received of all the particulars of his Lordship's departure from Zante, the barking of the dogs, at that moment, would have been almost certain to betray him. Under the favour of these circumstances, and the darkness, they were enabled to bear away without further molestation, and took shelter among the Scrofes, a cluster of rocks but a few hours' sail from Missolonghi. From this place the following letter, remarkable, considering his situation at the moment, for the light, careless tone that pervades it, was despatched to Colonel Stanhope. the Greek, I mean; leaving us to get in without the least intimation to take heed that the Moslems were out again. "Make my respects to Mavrocordato, and say that I am here at his disposal. I am uneasy at being here: not so much on my own account as on that of a Greek boy with me, for you know what his fate would be; and I would sooner cut him in pieces, and myself too, than have him taken out by those barbarians. We are all very well. "N. B. taken; at least, so it appeared to us (if taken she actually be, for it is not certain); and we had to escape from another vessel that stood right between us and the port." "The Bombard was twelve miles out when Finding that his position among the rocks of the Scrofes would be untenable in the event of an attack by armed boats, he thought it right to venture out again, and making all sail, got safe to Dragomestri, a small seaport town on the coast of Acarnania; from whence the annexed letters to two of the most valued of his Cephalonian friends were written. |