These representations were put forward a month later as the general appeal of the Greek Committee, which had existed as a secret body for a year, but was formally and publicly organized on April 25th, 1879. Preparations were begun for a public meeting, and after several conferences with Lord Lansdowne

'I invited the speakers and drew up an appeal to the public, and acted as Chairman of the Executive Committee, with Rosebery for President and Lefevre for Treasurer. The meeting was held at Willis's Rooms on May 17th, 1879, and was attended by men of all shades of opinion—the Duke of Westminster, Sir Robert Peel, an independent Conservative, and several other Conservatives, as well as the mass of the Liberals. I presided, and Lansdowne moved the first resolution.'

Dilke said afterwards that this meeting had been 'sufficiently interesting to keep Harcourt and a Duke standing for three hours—putting Harcourt first because he was the more august.'

Immediately afterwards he went to Liverpool, as the guest of the Liverpool
Reform Club, to speak specially upon the Greek question.

'My speech was dull; the best thing said in the course of the evening was said by a man who had been Daily News correspondent in Crete— "They talk of Europe! What is Europe? Europe is a number of wicked old gentlemen with decorations, assembled in a room."

'During my stay in the neighbourhood of Liverpool I was the guest at Knowsley of Lord and Lady Derby, who were trying by all means in their power to emphasize the fact that they were quite ready to go over to the Liberal side' (as they did within the year). 'I tried hard to get Rosebery to make some speeches in the country upon the Greek question, but this attempt was a failure. He was greatly pressed to go to Manchester in the same way in which I had gone to Liverpool, but after taking a long time to think of the thing, he distinctly refused. I never quite knew why; but caution was always the predominant element in his nature, though he was occasionally rash just when he should have been cautious.'

In June Sir Charles became possessed of 'a curious document which he translated and made public.' According to the story told him, the letter had been in the mailbags aboard a steamer which was wrecked, and it had been retrieved along with the rest from the bottom of the sea. But

'it was probably bought for the Greeks by their spy Fitzgerald, the "journalist" who afterwards disappeared—finally—about 1894. He had, however, often disappeared for some years. The letter was stamped with an Italian stamp for foreign post, addressed to Mouktar Pasha, commanding in chief the Turkish army in Epirus; and, although the envelope was plain and not calculated to attract attention, the letter was on Italian Foreign Office paper, and dated from the Foreign Office at Rome on April 6th. It was from Corte, an Italian Consul-General who had been employed in Albania and afterwards in the Italian Foreign Office, and pointed to Italian intrigue in Albania to make the Italians rather than the Greeks the successors of the Turks in Albania and Epirus. Seven years later I saw a good deal of Mouktar Pasha at Constantinople, but I did not mention this letter either to him or to the Sultan. It referred to Mouktar's idea of "colonization in Epirus," and, from the context, and from what we know of previous proceedings, it would seem that this colonization of Epirus was to have been a colonization by Italian peasants.'

This letter came to Sir Charles as President of the Greek Committee, and here may be added notice of the birth of an enterprise kindred in spirit to the political association of those who loved Greece:

'On Monday, June 16th, I took part in the meeting at which the Hellenic Society was founded, it having grown out of a conference held at Cambridge between Mr. Newton of the British Museum (afterwards Sir Charles Newton), Professor Colvin, and me. The first resolution was moved by Lord Morley (Earl Morley, afterwards Chairman of Committees of the House of Lords), and seconded by Professor Sayce; the second by me, and seconded by the Dean of St. Paul's; the third by Sir John Lubbock, and seconded by Professor Jebb; and the fourth by Professor Colvin, and seconded by Gennadius.'