The reception their noble visiter experienced on his arrival was such as, from the ardent eagerness with which he had been looked for, might be expected. The whole population of the place crowded to the shore to welcome him: the ships anchored off the fortress fired a salute as he passed; and all the troops and dignitaries of the place, civil and military, with the Prince Mavrocordato at their head, met him on his landing, and accompanied him, amidst the mingled din of shouts, wild music, and discharges of artillery, to the house that had been prepared for him. "I cannot easily describe," says Count Gamba, "the emotions which such a scene excited. I could scarcely refrain from tears."
After eight days of fatigue such as Lord Byron had endured, some short interval of rest might fairly have been desired by him. But the scene on which he had now entered was one that precluded all thoughts of repose. He on whom the eyes and hopes of all others were centred, could but little dream of indulging any care for himself. There were, at this particular moment, too, collected within the precincts of that town as great an abundance of the materials of unquiet and misrule as had been ever brought together in so small a space. In every quarter; both public and private, disorganisation and dissatisfaction presented themselves. Of the fourteen brigs of war which had come to the succour of Missolonghi, and which had for some time actually protected it against a Turkish fleet double its number, nine had already, hopeless of pay, returned to Hydra, while the sailors of the remaining five, from the same cause of complaint, had just quitted their ships, and were murmuring idly on shore. The inhabitants, seeing themselves thus deserted or preyed upon by their defenders, with a scarcity of provisions threatening them, and the Turkish fleet before their eyes, were no less ready to break forth into riot and revolt; while, at the same moment, to complete the confusion, a General Assembly was on the point of being held in the town, for the purpose of organising the forces of Western Greece, and to this meeting all the wild mountain chiefs of the province, ripe, of course, for dissension, were now flocking with their followers. Mavrocordato himself, the President of the intended Congress, had brought in his train no less than 5000 armed men, who were at this moment in the town. Ill provided, too, with either pay or food by the Government, this large military mob were but little less discontented and destitute than the sailors; and in short, in every direction, the entire population seems to have presented such a fermenting mass of insubordination and discord as was far more likely to produce warfare among themselves than with the enemy.
Such was the state of affairs when Lord Byron arrived at Missolonghi;—such the evils he had now to encounter, with the formidable consciousness that to him, and him alone, all looked for the removal of them.
Of his proceedings during the first weeks after his arrival, the following letters to Mr. Hancock (which by the great kindness of that gentleman I am enabled to give) will, assisted by a few explanatory notes, supply a sufficiently ample account.
LETTER 537. TO MR. CHARLES HANCOCK.
"Missolonghi, January 13. 1824.
"Dear Sir,
"Many thanks for yours of the fifth; ditto to Muir for his. You will have heard that Gamba and my vessel got out of the hands of the Turks safe and intact; nobody knows well how or why, for there's a mystery in the story somewhat melodramatic. Captain Valsamachi has, I take it, spun a long yarn by this time in Argostoli. I attribute their release entirely to Saint Dionisio, of Zante, and the Madonna of the Rock, near Cephalonia.
"The adventures of my separate luck were also not finished at Dragomestri; we were conveyed out by some Greek gun-boats, and found the Leonidas brig-of-war at sea to look after us. But blowing weather coming on, we were driven on the rocks twice in the passage of the Scrofes, and the dollars had another narrow escape. Two thirds of the crew got ashore over the bowsprit: the rocks were rugged enough, but water very deep close in shore, so that she was, after much swearing and some exertion, got off again, and away we went with a third of our crew, leaving the rest on a desolate island, where they might have been now, had not one of the gun-boats taken them off, for we were in no condition to take them off again.
"Tell Muir that Dr. Bruno did not show much fight on the occasion; for besides stripping to his flannel waistcoat, and running about like a rat in an emergency, when I was talking to a Greek boy (the brother of the Greek girls in Argostoli), and telling him of the fact that there was no danger for the passengers, whatever there might be for the vessel, and assuring him that I could save both him and myself without difficulty[1] (though he can't swim), as the water, though deep, was not very rough,—the wind not blowing right on shore (it was a blunder of the Greeks who missed stays),—the Doctor exclaimed, 'Save him, indeed! by G—d! save me rather—I'll be first if I can'—a piece of egotism which he pronounced with such emphatic simplicity as to set all who had leisure to hear him laughing[2], and in a minute after the vessel drove off again after striking twice. She sprung a small leak, but nothing further happened, except that the captain was very nervous afterwards.