It was towards the latter end of January, as we have seen, that Lord Byron received his regular commission from the Government, as Commander of the expedition. In conferring upon him full powers, both civil and military, they appointed, at the same time, a Military Council to accompany him, composed of the most experienced Chieftains of the army, with Nota Bozzari, the uncle of the famous warrior, at their head.

It had been expected that, among the stores sent with Parry, there would be a supply of Congreve rockets,—an instrument of warfare of which such wonders had been related to the Greeks as filled their imaginations with the most absurd ideas of its powers. Their disappointment, therefore, on finding that the engineer had come unprovided with these missiles was excessive. Another hope, too,—that of being enabled to complete an artillery corps by the accession of those Germans who had been sent for into the Morea,—was found almost equally fallacious; that body of men having, from the death or retirement of those who originally composed it, nearly dwindled away; and the few officers that now came to serve being, from their fantastic notions of rank and etiquette, far more troublesome than useful. In addition to these discouraging circumstances, the five Speziot ships of war which had for some time formed the sole protection of Missolonghi were now returned to their home, and had left their places to be filled by the enemy's squadron.

Perplexing as were all these difficulties in the way of the expedition, a still more formidable embarrassment presented itself in the turbulent and almost mutinous disposition of those Suliote troops on whom he mainly depended for success in his undertaking. Presuming as well upon his wealth and generosity as upon their own military importance, these unruly warriors had never ceased to rise in the extravagance of their demands upon him;—the wholly destitute and homeless state of their families at this moment affording but too well founded a pretext both for their exaction and discontent. Nor were their leaders much more amenable to management than themselves. "There were," says Count Gamba, "six heads of families among them, all of whom had equal pretensions both by their birth and their exploits; and none of whom would obey any one of his comrades."

A serious riot to which, about the middle of January, these Suliotes had given rise, and in which some lives were lost, had been a source of much irritation and anxiety to Lord Byron, as well from the ill-blood it was likely to engender between his troops and the citizens, as from the little dependence it gave him encouragement to place upon materials so unmanageable. Notwithstanding all this, however, neither his eagerness nor his efforts for the accomplishment of this sole personal object of his ambition ever relaxed a single instant. To whatever little glory was to be won by the attack upon Lepanto, he looked forward as his only reward for all the sacrifices he was making. In his conversations with Count Gamba on the subject, "though he joked a good deal," says this gentleman, "about his post of 'Archistrategos,' or Commander in Chief, it was plain that the romance and the peril of the undertaking were great allurements to him." When we combine, indeed, his determination to stand, at all hazards, by the cause, with the very faint hopes his sagacious mind would let him indulge as to his power of serving it, I have little doubt that the "soldier's grave" which, in his own beautiful verses, he marked out for himself, was no idle dream of poetry; but that, on the contrary, his "wish was father to the thought," and that to an honourable death, in some such achievement as that of storming Lepanto, he looked forward, not only as the sole means of redeeming worthily the great pledge he had now given, but as the most signal and lasting service that a name like his,—echoed, as it would then be, among the watch-words of Liberty, from age to age,—could bequeath to her cause.

In the midst of these cares he was much gratified by the receipt of a letter from an old friend of his, Andrea Londo, whom he had made acquaintance with in his early travels in 1809, and who was at that period a rich proprietor, under the Turks, in the Morca.[1] This patriotic Greek was one of the foremost to raise the standard of the Cross; and at the present moment stood distinguished among the supporters of the Legislative Body and of the new national Government. The following is a translation of Lord Byron's answer to his letter.

LETTER 542. TO LONDO.

"Dear Friend,

"The sight of your handwriting gave me the greatest pleasure. Greece has ever been for me, as it must be for all men of any feeling or education, the promised land of valour, of the arts, and of liberty; nor did the time I passed in my youth in travelling among her ruins at all chill my affection for the birthplace of heroes. In addition to this, I am bound to yourself by ties of friendship and gratitude for the hospitality which I experienced from you during my stay in that country, of which you are now become one of the first defenders and ornaments. To see myself serving, by your side and under your eyes, in the cause of Greece, will be to me one of the happiest events of my life. In the mean time, with the hope of our again meeting,

"I am, as ever," &c.

Among the less serious embarrassments of his position at this period, may be mentioned the struggle maintained against him by his colleague, Colonel Stanhope,—with a degree of conscientious perseverance which, even while thwarted by it, he could not but respect, on the subject of a Free Press, which it was one of the favourite objects of his fellow-agent to bring instantly into operation in all parts of Greece. On this important point their opinions differed considerably; and the following report, by Colonel Stanhope, of one of their many conversations on the subject, may be taken as a fair and concise statement of their respective views:—"Lord Byron said that he was an ardent friend of publicity and the press: but that he feared it was not applicable to this society in its present combustible state. I answered that I thought it applicable to all countries, and essential here, in order to put an end to the state of anarchy which at present prevailed. Lord B. feared libels and licentiousness. I said that the object of a free press was to check public licentiousness, and to expose libellers to odium. Lord B. had mentioned his conversation with Mavrocordato[1] to show that the Prince was not hostile to the press. I declared that I knew him to be an enemy to the press, although he dared not openly to avow it. His Lordship then said that he had not made up his mind about the liberty of the press in Greece, but that he thought the experiment worth trying."

That between two men, both eager in the service of one common cause, there should arise a difference of opinion as to the means of serving it is but a natural result of the varieties of human judgment, and detracts nothing from the zeal or sincerity of either. But by those who do not suffer themselves to be carried away by a theory, it will be conceded, I think, that the scruples professed by Lord Byron, with respect to the expedience or safety of introducing what is called a Free Press into a country so little advanced in civilisation as Greece, were founded on just views of human nature and practical good sense. To endeavour to force upon a state of society, so unprepared for them, such full grown institutions; to think of engrafting, at once, on an ignorant people the fruits of long knowledge and cultivation,—of importing among them, ready made, those advantages and blessings which no nation ever attained but by its own working out, nor ever was fitted to enjoy but by having first struggled for them; to harbour even a dream of the success of such an experiment, implies a sanguineness almost incredible, and such as, though, in the present instance, indulged by the political economist and soldier, was, as we have seen, beyond the poet.

The enthusiastic and, in many respects, well founded confidence with which Colonel Stanhope appealed to the authority of Mr. Bentham on most of the points at issue between himself and Lord Byron, was, from that natural antipathy which seems to exist between political economists and poets, but little sympathised in by the latter;—such appeals being always met by him with those sallies of ridicule, which he found the best-humoured vent for his impatience under argument, and to which, notwithstanding the venerable name and services of Mr. Bentham himself, the quackery of much that is promulgated by his followers presented, it must be owned, ample scope. Romantic, indeed, as was Lord Byron's sacrifice of himself to the cause of Greece, there was in the views he took of the means of serving her not a tinge of the unsubstantial or speculative. The grand practical task of freeing her from her tyrants was his first and main object. He knew that slavery was the great bar to knowledge, and must be broken through before her light could come; that the work of the sword must therefore precede that of the pen, and camps be the first schools of freedom.

With such sound and manly views of the true exigencies of the crisis, it is not wonderful that he should view with impatience, and something, perhaps, of contempt, all that premature apparatus of printing-presses, pedagogues, &c. with which the Philhellenes of the London Committee were, in their rage for "utilitarianism," encumbering him. Nor were some of the correspondents of this body much more solid in their speculations than themselves; one intelligent gentleman having suggested, as a means of conferring signal advantages on the cause, an alteration of the Greek alphabet.

Though feeling, as strongly, perhaps, as Lord Byron, the importance of the great object of their mission,—that of rousing and, what was far more difficult, combining against the common foe the energies of the country,—Colonel Stanhope was also one of those who thought that the lights of their great master, Bentham, and the operations of a press unrestrictedly free, were no less essential instruments towards the advancement of the struggle; and in this opinion, as we have seen, the poet and man of literature differed from the soldier. But it was such a difference as, between men of frank and fair minds, may arise without either reproach to themselves, or danger to their cause,—a strife of opinion which; though maintained with heat, may be remembered without bitterness, and which, in the present instance, neither prevented Byron, at the close of one of their warmest altercations, from exclaiming generously to his opponent, "Give me that honest right hand," nor withheld the other from pouring forth, at the grave of his colleague, a strain of eulogy[1] not the less cordial for being discriminatingly shaded with censure, nor less honourable to the illustrious dead for being the tribute of one who had once manfully differed with him.

Towards the middle of February, the indefatigable activity of Mr. Parry having brought the artillery brigade into such a state of forwardness as to be almost ready for service, an inspection of the Suliote corps took place, preparatory to the expedition; and after much of the usual deception and unmanageableness on their part, every obstacle appeared to be at length surmounted. It was agreed that they should receive a month's pay in advance;—Count Gamba, with 300 of their corps, as a vanguard, was to march next day and take up a position under Lepanto, and Lord Byron with the main body and the artillery was speedily to follow.

New difficulties, however, were soon started by these untractable mercenaries; and under the instigation, as was discovered afterwards, of the great rival of Mavrocordato, Colocotroni, who had sent emissaries into Missolonghi for the purpose of seducing them, they now put forward their exactions in a new shape, by requiring of the Government to appoint, out of their number, two generals, two colonels, two captains, and inferior officers in the same proportion:—"in short," says Count Gamba, "that, out of three or four hundred actual Suliotes, there should be about one hundred and fifty above the rank of common soldiers." The audacious dishonesty of this demand,—beyond what he could have expected even from Greeks,—roused all Lord Byron's rage, and he at once signified to the whole body, through Count Gamba, that all negotiation between them and himself was at an end; that he could no longer have any confidence in persons so little true to their engagements; and that though the relief which he had afforded to their families should still be continued, all his agreements with them, as a body, must be thenceforward void.

It was on the 14th of February that this rupture with the Suliotes took place; and though, on the following day, in consequence of the full submission of their Chiefs, they were again received into his Lordship's service on his own terms, the whole affair, combined with the various other difficulties that now beset him, agitated his mind considerably. He saw with pain that he should but place in peril both the cause of Greece and his own character, by at all relying, in such an enterprise, upon troops whom any intriguer could thus seduce from their duty; and that, till some more regular force could be organised, the expedition against Lepanto must be suspended.

While these vexatious events were occurring, the interruption of his accustomed exercise by the rains but increased the irritability that such delays were calculated to excite; and the whole together, no doubt, concurred with whatever predisposing tendencies were already in his constitution, to bring on that convulsive fit,—the forerunner of his death,—which, on the evening of the 15th of February, seized him. He was sitting, at about eight o'clock, with only Mr. Parry and Mr. Hesketh, in the apartment of Colonel Stanhope,—talking jestingly upon one of his favourite topics, the differences between himself and this latter gentleman, and saying that "he believed, after all, the author's brigade would be ready before the soldier's printing-press." There was an unusual flush in his face, and from the rapid changes of his countenance it was manifest that he was suffering under some nervous agitation. He then complained of being thirsty, and, calling for some cider, drank of it; upon which, a still greater change being observable over his features, he rose from his seat, but was unable to walk, and, after staggering forward a step or two, fell into Mr. Parry's arms. In another minute, his teeth were closed, his speech and senses gone, and he was in strong convulsions. So violent, indeed, were his struggles, that it required all the strength both of Mr. Parry and his servant Tita to hold him during the fit. His face, too, was much distorted; and, as he told Count Gamba afterwards, "so intense were his sufferings during the convulsion, that, had it lasted but a minute longer, he believed he must have died." The fit was, however, as short as it was violent; in a few minutes his speech and senses returned; his features, though still pale and haggard, resumed their natural shape, and no effect remained from the attack but excessive weakness. "As soon as he could speak," says Count Gamba, "he showed himself perfectly free from all alarm; but he very coolly asked whether his attack was likely to prove fatal. 'Let me know,' he said; 'do not think I am afraid to die—I am not.'"

This painful event had not occurred more than half an hour, when a report was brought that the Suliotes were up in arms, and about to attack the seraglio, for the purpose of seizing the magazines. Instantly Lord Byron's friends ran to the arsenal; the artillery-men were ordered under arms; the sentinels doubled, and the cannon loaded and pointed on the approaches to the gates. Though the alarm proved to be false, the very likelihood of such an attack shows sufficiently how precarious was the state of Missolonghi at this moment, and in what a scene of peril, confusion, and uncomfort, the now nearly numbered days of England's poet were to close.

On the following morning he was found to be better, but still pale and weak, and complained much of a sensation of weight in his head. The doctors, therefore, thought it right to apply leeches to his temples; but found it difficult, on their removal, to stop the blood, which continued to flow so copiously, that from exhaustion he fainted. It must have been on this day that the scene thus described by Colonel Stanhope occurred:—

"Soon after his dreadful paroxysm, when, faint with over-bleeding, he was lying on his sick bed, with his whole nervous system completely shaken, the mutinous Suliotes, covered with dirt and splendid attires, broke into his apartment, brandishing their costly arms, and loudly demanding their wild rights. Lord Byron, electrified by this unexpected act, seemed to recover from his sickness; and the more the Suliotes raged, the more his calm courage triumphed. The scene was truly sublime."

Another eye-witness, Count Gamba, bears similar testimony to the presence of mind with which he fronted this and all other such dangers. "It is impossible," says this gentleman, "to do justice to the coolness and magnanimity which he displayed upon every trying occasion. Upon trifling occasions he was certainly irritable; but the aspect of danger calmed him in an instant, and restored to him the free exercise of all the powers of his noble nature. A more undaunted man in the hour of peril never breathed."

The letters written by him during the few following weeks form, as usual, the best record of his proceedings, and, besides the sad interest they possess as being among the latest from his hand, are also precious, as affording proof that neither illness nor disappointment, neither a worn-out frame nor even a hopeless spirit, could lead him for a moment to think of abandoning the great cause he had espoused; while to the last, too, he preserved unbroken the cheerful spring of his mind, his manly endurance of all ills that affected but himself, and his ever-wakeful consideration for the wants of others.

LETTER 543. TO MR. BARFF.

"February 21.

"I am a good deal better, though of course weakly; the leeches took too much blood from my temples the day after, and there was some difficulty in stopping it, but I have since been up daily, and out in boats of on horseback. To-day I have taken a warm bath, and live as temperately as can well be, without any liquid but water, and without animal food.

"Besides the four Turks sent to Patras, I have obtained the release of four-and-twenty women and children, and sent them at my own expense to Prevesa, that the English Consul-General may consign them to their relations. I did this by their own desire. Matters here are a little embroiled with the Suliotes and foreigners, &c., but I still hope better things, and will stand by the cause as long as my health and circumstances will permit me to be supposed useful.[1]

"I am obliged to support the Government here for the present."

The prisoners mentioned in this letter as having been released by him and sent to Prevesa, had been held in captivity at Missolonghi since the beginning of the Revolution. The following was the letter which he forwarded with them to the English Consul at Prevesa.

LETTER 544. TO MR. MAYER.

"Sir,

"Coming to Greece, one of my principal objects was to alleviate as much as possible the miseries incident to a warfare so cruel as the present. When the dictates of humanity are in question, I know no difference between Turks and Greeks. It is enough that those who want assistance are men, in order to claim the pity and protection of the meanest pretender to humane feelings. I have found here twenty-four Turks, including women and children, who have long pined in distress, far from the means of support and the consolations of their home. The Government has consigned them to me; I transmit them to Prevesa, whither they desire to be sent. I hope you will not object to take care that they may be restored to a place of safety, and that the Governor of your town may accept of my present. The best recompense I can hope for would be to find that I had inspired the Ottoman commanders with the same sentiments towards those unhappy Greeks who may hereafter fall into their hands.

"I beg you to believe me," &c.

LETTER 545.

TO THE HONOURABLE DOUGLAS KINNAIRD.

"Missolonghi, February 21. 1824.

"I have received yours of the 2d of November. It is essential that the money should be paid, as I have drawn for it all, and more too, to help the Greeks. Parry is here, and he and I agree very well; and all is going on hopefully for the present, considering circumstances.

"We shall have work this year, for the Turks are coming down in force; and, as for me, I must stand by the cause. I shall shortly march (according to orders) against Lepanto, with two thousand men. I have been here some time, after some narrow escapes from the Turks, and also from being ship-wrecked. We were twice upon the rocks; but this you will have heard, truly or falsely, through other channels, and I do not wish to bore you with a long story.

"So far I have succeeded in supporting the Government of Western Greece, which would otherwise have been dissolved. If you have received the eleven thousand and odd pounds, these, with what I have in hand, and my income for the current year, to say nothing of contingencies, will, or might, enable me to keep the 'sinews of war' properly strung. If the deputies be honest fellows, and obtain the loan, they will repay the 4000,'. as agreed upon; and even then I shall save little, or indeed less than little, since I am maintaining nearly the whole machine—in this place, at least—at my own cost. But let the Greeks only succeed, and I don't care for myself.

"I have been very seriously unwell, but am getting better, and can ride about again; so pray quiet our friends on that score.

"It is not true that I ever did, will, would, could, or should write a satire against Gifford, or a hair of his head. I always considered him as my literary father, and myself as his 'prodigal son;' and if I have allowed his 'fatted calf' to grow to an ox before, he kills it on my return, it is only because I prefer beef to veal.

Yours," &c

LETTER 546. TO MR. BARFF.

"February 23.

"My health seems improving, especially from riding and the warm bath. Six Englishmen will be soon in quarantine at Zante; they are artificers[1], and have had enough of Greece in fourteen days. If you could recommend them to a passage home, I would thank you; they are good men enough, but do not quite understand the little discrepancies in these countries, and are not used to see shooting and slashing in a domestic quiet way, or (as it forms here) a part of housekeeping.

"If they should want any thing during their quarantine, you can advance them not more than a dollar a day (amongst them) for that period, to purchase them some little extras as comforts (as they are quite out of their element). I cannot afford them more at present."

The following letter to Mr. Murray,—which it is most gratifying to have to produce, as the last completing link of a long friendship and correspondence which had been but for a short time, and through the fault only of others, interrupted,—contains such a summary of the chief events now passing round Lord Byron, as, with the assistance of a few notes, will render any more detailed narrative unnecessary.

LETTER 547. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Missolonghi, February 25. 1824.

"I have heard from Mr. Douglas Kinnaird that you state 'a report of a satire on Mr. Gifford having arrived from Italy, said to be written by me! but that you do not believe it.' I dare say you do not, nor anybody else, I should think. Whoever asserts that I am the author or abettor of any thing of the kind on Gifford lies in his throat. If any such composition exists it is none of mine. You know as well as any body upon whom I have or have not written; and you also know whether they do or did not deserve that same. And so much for such matters.

"You will perhaps be anxious to hear some news from this part of Greece (which is the most liable to invasion); but you will hear enough through public and private channels. I will, however, give you the events of a week, mingling my own private peculiar with the public; for we are here a little jumbled together at present.

"On Sunday (the 15th, I believe,) I had a strong and sudden convulsive attack, which left me speechless, though not motionless—for some strong men could not hold me; but whether it was epilepsy, catalepsy, cachexy, or apoplexy, or what other exy or epsy, the doctors have not decided; or whether it was spasmodic or nervous, &c.; but it was very unpleasant, and nearly carried me off, and all that. On Monday, they put leeches to my temples, no difficult matter, but the blood could not be stopped till eleven at night (they had gone too near the temporal artery for my temporal safety), and neither styptic nor caustic would cauterise the orifice till after a hundred attempts.

"On Tuesday, a Turkish brig of war ran on shore. On Wednesday, great preparations being made to attack her, though protected by her consorts[1], the Turks burned her and retired to Patras. On Thursday a quarrel ensued between the Suliotes and the Frank guard at the arsenal: a Swedish officer[2] was killed, and a Suliote severely wounded, and a general fight expected, and with some difficulty prevented. On Friday, the officer was buried; and Captain Parry's English artificers mutinied, under pretence that their lives are in danger, and are for quitting the country:—they may.[3]

"On Saturday we had the smartest shock of an earthquake which I remember, (and I have felt thirty, slight or smart, at different periods; they are common in the Mediterranean,) and the whole army discharged their arms, upon the same principle that savages beat drums, or howl, during an eclipse of the moon:—it was a rare scene altogether—if you had but seen the English Johnnies, who had never been out of a cockney workshop before!—or will again, if they can help it—and on Sunday, we heard that the Vizier is come down to Larissa, with one hundred and odd thousand men.

"In coming here, I had two escapes, one from the Turks, (one of my vessels was taken, but afterwards released,) and the other from shipwreck. We drove twice on the rocks near the Scrophes (islands near the coast).

"I have obtained from the Greeks the release of eight-and-twenty Turkish prisoners, men, women, and children, and sent them to Patras and Prevesa at my own charges. One little girl of nine years old, who prefers remaining with me, I shall (if I live) send, with her mother, probably, to Italy, or to England. Her name is Hato, or Hatagee. She is a very pretty, lively child. All her brothers were killed by the Greeks, and she herself and her mother merely spared by special favour and owing to her extreme youth, she being then but five or six years old.

"My health is now better, and I ride about again. My office here is no sinecure, so many parties and difficulties of every kind; but I will do what I can. Prince Mavrocordato is an excellent person, and does all in his power, but his situation is perplexing in the extreme. Still we have great hopes of the success of the contest. You will hear, however, more of public news from plenty of quarters; for I have little time to write.

"Believe me yours, &c. &c. N. BN."

The fierce lawlessness of the Suliotes had now risen to such a height that it became necessary, for the safety of the European population, to get rid of them altogether; and, by some sacrifices on the part of Lord Byron, this object was at length effected. The advance of a month's pay by him, and the discharge of their arrears by the Government, (the latter, too, with money lent for that purpose by the same universal paymaster,) at length induced these rude warriors to depart from the town, and with them vanished all hopes of the expedition against Lepanto.

LETTER 548. TO MR. MOORE.

"Missolonghi, Western Greece, March 4. 1824.

"My dear Moore,

"Your reproach is unfounded—I have received two letters from you, and answered both previous to leaving Cephalonia. I have not been 'quiet' in an Ionian island, but much occupied with business,—as the Greek deputies (if arrived) can tell you. Neither have I continued 'Don Juan,' nor any other poem. You go, as usual, I presume, by some newspaper report or other.[1]

"When the proper moment to be of some use arrived, I came here; and am told that my arrival (with some other circumstances) has been of, at least, temporary advantage to the cause. I had a narrow escape from the Turks, and another from Shipwreck on my passage. On the 15th (or 16th) of February I had an attack of apoplexy, or epilepsy,—the physicians have not exactly decided which, but the alternative is agreeable. My constitution, therefore, remains between the two opinions, like Mahomet's sarcophagus between the magnets. All that I can say is, that they nearly bled me to death, by placing the leeches too near the temporal artery, so that the blood could with difficulty be stopped, even with caustic, I am supposed to be getting better, slowly, however. But my homilies will, I presume, for the future, be like the Archbishop of Grenada's—in this case, 'I order you a hundred ducats from my treasurer, and wish you a little more taste.'

"For public matters I refer you to Colonel Stanhope's and Capt. Parry's reports,—and to all other reports whatsoever. There is plenty to do—war without, and tumult within—they 'kill a man a week,' like Bob Acres in the country. Parry's artificers have gone away in alarm, on account of a dispute in which some of the natives and foreigners were engaged, and a Swede was killed, and a Suliote wounded. In the middle of their fright there was a strong shock of an earthquake; so, between that and the sword, they boomed off in a hurry, in despite of all dissuasions to the contrary. A Turkish brig run ashore, &c. &c. &c.[1]

"You, I presume, are either publishing or meditating that same. Let me hear from and of you, and believe me, in all events,

"Ever and affectionately yours,
"N. B.

"P.S. Tell Mr. Murray that I wrote to him the other day, and hope that he has received, or will receive, the letter."

LETTER 549. TO DR. KENNEDY.

"Missolonghi, March 4. 1824.

"My dear Doctor,

"I have to thank you for your two very kind letters, both received at the same time, and one long after its date. I am not unaware of the precarious state of my health, nor am, nor have been, deceived on that subject. But it is proper that I should remain in Greece; and it were better to die doing something than nothing. My presence here has been supposed so far useful as to have prevented confusion from becoming worse confounded, at least for the present. Should I become, or be deemed useless or superfluous, I am ready to retire; but in the interim I am not to consider personal consequences; the rest is in the hands of Providence,—as indeed are all things. I shall, however, observe your instructions, and indeed did so, as far as regards abstinence, for some time past.

"Besides the tracts, &c. which you have sent for distribution, one of the English artificers (hight Brownbill, a tinman,) left to my charge a number of Greek Testaments, which I will endeavour to distribute properly. The Greeks complain that the translation is not correct, nor in good Romaic: Bambas can decide on that point. I am trying to reconcile the clergy to the distribution, which (without due regard to their hierarchy) they might contrive to impede or neutralise in the effect, from their power over their people. Mr. Brownbill has gone to the Islands, having some apprehension for his life, (not from the priests, however,) and apparently preferring rather to be a saint than a martyr, although his apprehensions of becoming the latter were probably unfounded. All the English artificers accompanied him, thinking themselves in danger on account of some troubles here, which have apparently subsided.

"I have been interrupted by a visit from Prince Mavrocordato and others since I began this letter, and must close it hastily, for the boat is announced as ready to sail. Your future convert, Hato, or Hatagée, appears to me lively, and intelligent, and promising, and possesses an interesting countenance. With regard to her disposition, I can say little, but Millingen, who has the mother (who is a middle-aged woman of good character) in his house as a domestic (although their family was in good worldly circumstances previous to the Revolution), speaks well of both, and he is to be relied on. As far as I know, I have only seen the child a few times with her mother, and what I have seen is favourable, or I should not take so much interest in her behalf. If she turns out well, my idea would be to send her to my daughter in England (if not to respectable persons in Italy), and so to provide for her as to enable her to live with reputation either singly or in marriage, if she arrive at maturity. I will make proper arrangements about her expenses through Messrs. Barff and Hancock, and the rest I leave to your discretion and to Mrs. K.'s, with a great sense of obligation for your kindness in undertaking her temporary superintendence.

"Of public matters here, I have little to add to what you will already have heard. We are going on as well as we can, and with the hope and the endeavour to do better. Believe me,

"Ever and truly," &c.

LETTER 550. TO MR. BARFF.

"March 5. 1824.

"If Sisseni[1] is sincere, he will be treated with, and well treated; if he is not, the sin and the shame may lie at his own door. One great object is to heal those internal dissensions for the future, without exacting too rigorous an account of the past. Prince Mavrocordato is of the same opinion, and whoever is disposed to act fairly will be fairly dealt with. I have heard a good deal of Sisseni, but not a deal of good: however, I never judge from report, particularly in a Revolution. Personally, I am rather obliged to him, for he has been very hospitable to all friends of mine who have passed through his district. You may therefore assure him that any overture for the advantage of Greece and its internal pacification will be readily and sincerely met here. I hardly think that he would have ventured a deceitful proposition to me through you, because he must be sure that in such a case it would eventually be exposed. At any rate, the healing of these dissensions is so important a point, that something must be risked to obtain it."