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]
[Footnote 1: In a letter to the same gentleman, dated January 27., he had already said, "I hope that things here will go on well some time or other. I will stick by the cause as long as a cause exists—first or second.">[
"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.