CHAPTER X
According to Gamba’s journal, on the day following the seizure to which we have referred, Byron followed up his former efforts to inculcate the principles and practice of humanity into both the nations engaged in the war. There were twenty-four Turks, including women and children, who had suffered all the rigours of captivity at Missolonghi since the beginning of the revolution. Byron caused them to be released, and sent at his own cost to Prevesa. The following letter, which he addressed to the English Consul at that port, deserves a place in this record:
‘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, etc.,
‘Noel Byron.’
The details of this incident have hitherto passed almost unnoticed. The whole story is full of pathos, and affords a view of Byron’s real character.
In June, 1821, when Missolonghi and Anatolico proclaimed themselves parts of independent Greece, all Turkish residents were arrested. The males were cruelly put to death, and their wives and families were handed over to the Greek householders as slaves. The miseries these defenceless people endured while Death stared them daily in the face are indescribable. Millingen says:
‘One day, as I entered the dispensary, I found the wife of one of the Turkish inhabitants of Missolonghi who had fled to Patras. The poor woman came to implore my pity, and begged me to allow her to take shelter under my roof from the brutality and cruelty of the Greeks. They had murdered all her relations, and two of her boys; and the marks remained on the angle of the wall against which, a few weeks previously, they had dashed the brains of the youngest, only five years of age. A little girl, nine years old, remained to be the only companion of her misery. Like a timid lamb, she stood by her mother, naked and shivering, drawing closer and closer to her side. Her little hands were folded like a suppliant’s, and her large, beautiful eyes—so accustomed to see acts of horror and cruelty—looked at me now and then, hardly daring to implore pity. “Take us,” said the mother; “we will serve you and be your slaves; or you will be responsible before God for whatever may happen to us.”
‘I could not see so eloquent a picture of distress unmoved, and from that day I treated them as relatives. Some weeks after, I happened to mention before Lord Byron some circumstances relative to these individuals, and spoke with so much admiration of the noble fortitude displayed by the mother in the midst of her calamities; of the courage with which maternal love inspired her on several occasions; of the dignified manner in which she replied to the insults of her persecutors, that he expressed a wish to see the mother and child. On doing so, he became so struck by Hatajè’s beauty, the naïveté of her answers, and the spiritedness of her observations on the murderers of her brethren, that he decided on adopting her. “Banish fear for ever from your mind,” said he to the mother; “your child shall henceforth be mine. I have a daughter in England. To her I will send the child. They are both of the same age; and as she is alone, she will, no doubt, like a companion who may, at times, talk to her of her father. Do not shudder at the idea of changing your religion, for I insist on your professing none other but the Musulman.”