His two emissaries or envoys proceeded to Tripolizza, where they found Colocotroni seated in the palace of the late vizier, Velhi Pasha, in great power; the court-yard and galleries filled with armed men in garrison, while there was no enemy at that time in the Morea able to come against them! The Greek chieftains, like their classic predecessors, though embarked in the same adventure, were personal adversaries to each other. Colocotroni spoke of his compeer Mavrocordato in the very language of Agamemnon, when he said that he had declared to him, unless he desisted from his intrigues, he would mount him on an ass and whip him out of the Morea; and that he had only been restrained from doing so by the representation of his friends, who thought it would injure their common cause. Such was the spirit of the chiefs of the factions which Lord Byron thought it not impossible to reconcile!
At this time Missolonghi was in a critical state, being blockaded both by land and sea; and the report of Trelawney to Lord Byron concerning it, was calculated to rouse his Lordship to activity. “There have been,” says he, “thirty battles fought and won by the late Marco Botzaris, and his gallant tribe of Suliotes, who are shut up in Missolonghi. If it fall, Athens will be in danger, and thousands of throats cut: a few thousand dollars would provide ships to relieve it; a portion of this sum is raised, and I would coin my heart to save this key of Greece.” Bravely said! but deserving of little attention. The fate of Missolonghi could have had no visible effect on that of Athens.
The distance between these two places is more than a hundred miles, and Lord Byron was well acquainted with the local difficulties of the intervening country; still it was a point to which the eyes of the Greeks were all at that time directed; and Mavrocordato, then in correspondence with Lord Byron, and who was endeavouring to collect a fleet for the relief of the place, induced his Lordship to undertake to provide the money necessary for the equipment of the fleet, to the extent of twelve thousand pounds. It was on this occasion his Lordship addressed a letter to the Greek chiefs, that deserves to be quoted, for the sagacity with which it suggests what may be the conduct of the great powers of Christendom.
“I must frankly confess,” says he, “that unless union and order are confirmed, all hopes of a loan will be in vain, and all the assistance which the Greeks could expect from abroad, an assistance which might be neither trifling nor worthless, will be suspended or destroyed; and what is worse, the great powers of Europe, of whom no one was an enemy to Greece, but seemed inclined to favour her in consenting to the establishment of an independent power, will be persuaded that the Greeks are unable to govern themselves, and will, perhaps, undertake to arrange your disorders in such a way, as to blast the brightest hopes you indulge, and that are indulged by your friends.”
In the meantime, Lord Byron was still at the villa he had hired in Cephalonia, where his conduct was rather that of a spectator than an ally. Colonel Stanhope, in a letter of the 26th of November, describes him as having been there about three months, and spending his time exactly as every one acquainted with his habits must have expected. “The first six weeks he spent on board a merchant-vessel, and seldom went on shore, except on business. Since that period he has lived in a little villa in the country, in absolute retirement, Count Gamba (brother to the Guiccioli) being his only companion.”—Such, surely, was not exactly playing that part in the Greek cause which he had taught the world to look for. It is true, that the accounts received there of the Greek affairs were not then favourable. Everybody concurred in representing the executive government as devoid of public virtue, and actuated by avarice or personal ambition. This intelligence was certainly not calculated to increase Lord Byron’s ardour, and may partly excuse the causes of his personal inactivity. I say personal, because he had written to London to accelerate the attempt to raise a loan, and, at the suggestion of Colonel Stanhope, he addressed a letter to Mavrocordato respecting the inevitable consequences of their calamitous dissensions. The object of this letter was to induce a reconciliation between the rival factions, or to throw the odium, of having thwarted the loan, upon the Executive, and thereby to degrade the members of it in the opinion of the people. “I am very uneasy,” said his Lordship to the prince, “at hearing that the dissensions of Greece still continue; and at a moment when she might triumph over everything in general, as she has triumphed in part. Greece is at present placed between three measures; either to reconquer her liberty, or to become a dependence of the sovereigns of Europe, or to return to a Turkish province; she has already the choice only of these three alternatives. Civil war is but a road which leads to the two latter. If she is desirous of the fate of Wallachia and the Crimea, she may obtain it to-morrow; if that of Italy, the day after. But if she wishes to become truly Greece, free and independent, she must resolve to-day, or she will never again have the opportunity,” etc., etc.
Meanwhile, the Greek people became impatient for Lord Byron to come among them. They looked forward to his arrival as to the coming of a Messiah. Three boats were successively despatched for him and two of them returned, one after the other, without him. On the 29th of December, 1823, however, his Lordship did at last embark.
CHAPTER XLIII
Lord Byron’s Conversations on Religion with Dr Kennedy
While Lord Byron was hesitating, in the Island of Cephalonia, about proceeding to Greece, an occurrence took place, of which much has been made. I allude to the acquaintance he formed with a Dr Kennedy, the publication of whose conversations with him on religion has attracted some degree of public attention.
This gentleman was originally destined for the Scottish bar, but afterwards became a student of medicine, and entering the medical department of the army, happened to be stationed in Cephalonia when Lord Byron arrived. He appears to have been a man of kind dispositions, possessed of a better heart than judgment; in all places wherever his duty bore him he took a lively interest in the condition of the inhabitants, and was active, both in his official and private capacity, to improve it. He had a taste for circulating pious tracts, and zealously co-operated in distributing copies of the Scriptures.