On the following night a Greek came with tears rolling down his cheeks, and complained that one of Byron’s soldiers had, in a drunken frenzy, broken open his door and with drawn sword alarmed his whole family. He appealed to Byron for protection. Without a moment’s hesitation Byron sent an officer with a file of men to arrest the delinquent. He was a Russian who had lately arrived and enlisted in the artillery brigade. The man vowed that the charge was false; that he had lodged in that house for several days, and that he only broke the door open because the Greek would not admit him, and kept him outside in the rain. He moreover complained of the time and manner of his arrest, and sent a letter to Byron accusing the officer who had arrested him. Byron’s reply was as follows:
‘April 1, 1824.
‘Sir,
‘I have the honour to reply to your letter of this day. In consequence of an urgent and, to all appearances, a well-founded complaint, made to me yesterday evening, I gave orders to Mr. Hesketh to proceed to your quarters with the soldiers of his guard, and to remove you from your house to the Seraglio, because the owner of your house declared himself and his family to be in immediate danger from your conduct; and added that that was not the first time that you had placed them in similar circumstances. Neither Mr. Hesketh nor myself could imagine that you were in bed, as we had been assured to the contrary; and certainly such a situation was not contemplated. But Mr. Hesketh had positive orders to conduct you from your quarters to those of the artillery brigade; at the same time being desired to use no violence; nor does it appear that any was had recourse to. This measure was adopted because your landlord assured me, when I proposed to put off the inquiry until the next day, that he could not return to his house without a guard for his protection, and that he had left his wife and daughter, and family, in the greatest alarm; on that account putting them under our immediate protection; the case admitted of no delay. As I am not aware that Mr. Hesketh exceeded his orders, I cannot take any measures to punish him; but I have no objection to examine minutely into his conduct. You ought to recollect that entering into the auxiliary Greek Corps, now under my orders, at your own sole request and positive desire, you incurred the obligation of obeying the laws of the country, as well as those of the service.
‘I have the honour to be, etc.,
‘N. B.’
It is doubtful whether any other commanding officer would, in similar circumstances, have taken the trouble to write such a letter to a private in his regiment. We merely allude to the incident in order to show that even in trivial matters Byron performed his duty towards those under his command, taking especial interest in each case, so that breaches of discipline might not be too harshly treated by his subordinates.
On April 3 the whole town of Missolonghi was thrown into a panic of alarm. A rumour quickly spread that a body of troops had disembarked at Chioneri, a village on the southern shore of the city. At two o’clock in the afternoon about one hundred and fifty men, belonging to the chief Cariascachi, landed, and demanded reparation for an injury which had been inflicted on his nephew by some boatmen belonging to Missolonghi. Meanwhile the man who wounded the young man had absconded; and the soldiers, unable to wreak their vengeance upon them, arrested two of the Primates, and sent them to Cariascachi as hostages. They then seized the fort at Vasiladi, a small mud island commanding the flats, which on the sea side afford an impenetrable defence to the town. Cariascachi further declared that he would neither give up the Primates nor Vasiladi until the men who had wounded his nephew were delivered into his hands. On the same day seven Turkish vessels anchored off Vasiladi. Cariascachi had long been suspected of a treasonable correspondence with the Turks, and Mavrocordato was quick to perceive that his conduct on this occasion, coinciding as it did with the movements of the enemy, was part of a conspiracy against his authority in Western Greece. He expected every moment to hear that the Turks had taken possession of Vasiladi, and guessed that the soldiers sent by Cariascachi, ostensibly to avenge a private injury, had really come to open the gates to the Turks. It was a critical moment indeed. All the disposable troops were in the provinces; the Suliotes were marching to Arta, and some of them had already accepted service under Cariascachi himself.
Byron, with wonderful self-command, concealed his indignation at such evidence of treason, and urged Mavrocordato to dismiss his fears, and to display all possible energy in order to defeat Cariascachi’s designs. He offered his own services, that of the artillery brigade, and of the three hundred Suliotes who formed his guard. Gunboats were sent to Vasiladi with orders to dislodge the rebels, and Byron resolved that the suspected treason of this Greek chieftain should be severely punished. The batteries of Missolonghi were immediately secured by the artillerymen, and several of their guns were pointed towards the town, so as to prevent a surprise.
At the approach of the gunboats the rebels precipitately fled, and, perceiving the resolute bearing assumed by Byron’s troops, they immediately surrendered the Primates, and humbly asked permission to retire unmolested. This was of course granted, but Cariascachi was subsequently tried by court-martial, and found guilty of holding treasonable communications with the enemy.
According to Millingen, who was at Missolonghi at that time, it was not proved against Cariascachi that he had ever proposed to deliver up Vasiladi and Missolonghi to the Turks; but appearances were certainly against him, and his subsequent flight to Agraffa seems to have given evidence of a guilty conscience. Byron was deeply mortified by this example of treason on the part of a Greek chieftain. He had not been prepared to meet with black-hearted treachery, or to see Greeks conspiring against their own country, courting the chains of their former masters, and bargaining the liberties and very existence of their own fellow-countrymen.