"I received a letter from you some time ago. I have been too much employed latterly to write as I could wish, and even now must write in haste.
"I embark for Missolonghi to join Mavrocordato in four-and-twenty hours. The state of parties (but it were a long story) has kept me here till now; but now that Mavrocordato (their Washington, or their Kosciusko) is employed again, I can act with a safe conscience. I carry money to pay the squadron, &c., and I have influence with the Suliotes, supposed sufficient to keep them in harmony with some of the dissentients;—for there are plenty of differences, but trifling.
"It is imagined that we shall attempt either Patras or the castles on the Straits; and it seems, by most accounts, that the Greeks, at any rate, the Suliotes, who are in affinity with me of 'bread and salt,'—expect that I should march with them, and—be it even so! If any thing in the way of fever, fatigue, famine, or otherwise, should cut short the middle age of a brother warbler,—like Garcilasso de la Vega, Kleist, Korner, Joukoffsky[1] (a Russian nightingale—see Bowring's Anthology), or Thersander, or,—or somebody else—but never mind—I pray you to remember me in your 'smiles and wine.'
[Footnote 1: One of the most celebrated of the living poets of Russia, who fought at Borodino, and has commemorated that battle in a poem of much celebrity among his countrymen.]
"I have hopes that the cause will triumph; but whether it does or no, still 'honour must be minded as strictly as milk diet,' I trust to observe both,
"Ever," &c.
It is hardly necessary to direct the attention of the reader to the sad, and but too true anticipation expressed in this letter—the last but one I was ever to receive from my friend. Before we accompany him to the closing scene of all his toils, I shall here, as briefly as possible, give a selection from the many characteristic anecdotes told of him, while at Cephalonia, where (to use the words of Colonel Stanhope, in a letter from thence to the Greek committee,) he was "beloved by Cephalonians, by English, and by Greeks;" and where, approached as he was familiarly by persons of all classes and countries, not an action, not a word is recorded of him that does not bear honourable testimony to the benevolence and soundness of his views, his ever ready but discriminating generosity, and the clear insight, at once minute and comprehensive, which he had acquired into the character and wants of the people and the cause he came to serve. "Of all those who came to help the Greeks," says Colonel Napier, (a person himself the most qualified to judge, as well from long local knowledge, as from the acute, straightforward cast of his own mind,) "I never knew one, except Lord Byron and Mr. Gordon, that seemed to have justly estimated their character. All came expecting to find the Peloponnesus filled with Plutarch's men, and all returned thinking the inhabitants of Newgate more moral. Lord Byron judged them fairly: he knew that half-civilised men are full of vices, and that great allowance must be made for emancipated slaves. He, therefore, proceeded, bridle in hand, not thinking them good, but hoping to make them better."[1]
[Footnote 1: A similar tribute was paid to him by Count Delladecima, a gentleman of some literary acquirements, of whom he saw a good deal at Cephalonia, and to whom he was attracted by that sympathy which never failed to incline him towards those who laboured, like himself, under any personal defects. "Of all the men," said this gentleman, "whom I have had an opportunity of conversing with, on the means of establishing the independence of Greece, and regenerating the character of the natives, Lord Byron appears to entertain the most enlightened and correct views.">[
In speaking of the foolish charge of avarice brought against Lord Byron by some who resented thus his not suffering them to impose on his generosity, Colonel Napier says, "I never knew a single instance of it while he was here. I saw only a judicious generosity in all that he did. He would not allow himself to be robbed, but he gave profusely where he thought he was doing good. It was, indeed, because he would not allow himself to be fleeced, that he was called stingy by those who are always bent upon giving money from any purses but their own. Lord Byron had no idea of this; and would turn sharply and unexpectedly on those who thought their game sure. He gave a vast deal of money to the Greeks in various ways."
Among the objects of his bounty in this way were many poor refugee Greeks from the Continent and the Isles. He not only relieved their present distresses, but allotted a certain sum monthly to the most destitute. "A list of these poor pensioners," says Dr. Kennedy, "was given me by the nephew of Professor Bambas."