Life of Lord Byron Volume VI Part 12

"Sir,

"Coming to Greece, one of my princ.i.p.al 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 a.s.sistance 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," &c.

LETTER 545.

TO THE HONOURABLE DOUGLAS KINNAIRD.

"Missolonghi, February 21. 1824.

"I have received yours of the 2d of November. It is essential that the money should be paid, as I have drawn for it all, and more too, to help the Greeks. Parry is here, and he and I agree very well; and all is going on hopefully for the present, considering circ.u.mstances.

"We shall have work this year, for the Turks are coming down in force; and, as for me, I must stand by the cause. I shall shortly march (according to orders) against Lepanto, with two thousand men. I have been here some time, after some narrow escapes from the Turks, and also from being s.h.i.+p-wrecked. We were twice upon the rocks; but this you will have heard, truly or falsely, through other channels, and I do not wish to bore you with a long story.

"So far I have succeeded in supporting the Government of Western Greece, which would otherwise have been dissolved. If you have received the eleven thousand and odd pounds, these, with what I have in hand, and my income for the current year, to say nothing of contingencies, will, or might, enable me to keep the 'sinews of war'

properly strung. If the deputies be honest fellows, and obtain the loan, they will repay the 4000,'. as agreed upon; and even then I shall save little, or indeed less than little, since I am maintaining nearly the whole machine--in this place, at least--at my own cost.

But let the Greeks only succeed, and I don't care for myself.

"I have been very seriously unwell, but am getting better, and can ride about again; so pray quiet our friends on that score.

"It is not true that I ever _did, will, would, could, _ or _should_ write a satire against Gifford, or a hair of his head. I always considered him as my literary father, and myself as his 'prodigal son;' and if I have allowed his 'fatted calf' to grow to an ox before, he kills it on my return, it is only because I prefer beef to veal. Yours," &c

LETTER 546. TO MR. BARFF.

"February 23.

"My health seems improving, especially from riding and the warm bath.

Six Englishmen will be soon in quarantine at Zante; they are artificers[1], and have had enough of Greece in fourteen days. If you could recommend them to a pa.s.sage home, I would thank you; they are good men enough, but do not quite understand the little discrepancies in these countries, and are not used to see shooting and slas.h.i.+ng in a domestic quiet way, or (as it forms here) a part of housekeeping.

[Footnote 1: The workmen who came out with Parry; and who, alarmed by the scene of confusion and danger they found at Missolonghi, had resolved to return home.]

"If they should want any thing during their quarantine, you can advance them not more than a dollar a day (amongst them) for that period, to purchase them some little extras as comforts (as they are quite out of their element). I cannot afford them more at present."

The following letter to Mr. Murray,--which it is most gratifying to have to produce, as the last completing link of a long friends.h.i.+p and correspondence which had been but for a short time, and through the fault only of others, interrupted,--contains such a summary of the chief events now pa.s.sing round Lord Byron, as, with the a.s.sistance of a few notes, will render any more detailed narrative unnecessary.

LETTER 547. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Missolonghi, February 25. 1824.

"I have heard from Mr. Douglas Kinnaird that you state 'a report of a satire on Mr. Gifford having arrived from Italy, _said_ to be written by _me_! but that _you_ do not believe it.' I dare say you do not, nor anybody else, I should think. Whoever a.s.serts that I am the author or abettor of any thing of the kind on Gifford lies in his throat. If any such composition exists it is none of mine. _You_ know as well as any body upon _whom_ I have or have not written; and _you_ also know whether they do or did not deserve that same. And so much for such matters.

"You will perhaps be anxious to hear some news from this part of Greece (which is the most liable to invasion); but you will hear enough through public and private channels. I will, however, give you the events of a week, mingling my own private peculiar with the public; for we are here a little jumbled together at present.

"On Sunday (the 15th, I believe,) I had a strong and sudden convulsive attack, which left me speechless, though not motionless--for some strong men could not hold me; but whether it was epilepsy, catalepsy, cachexy, or apoplexy, or what other _exy _ or _epsy_, the doctors have not decided; or whether it was spasmodic or nervous, &c.; but it was very unpleasant, and nearly carried me off, and all that. On Monday, they put leeches to my temples, no difficult matter, but the blood could not be stopped till eleven at night (they had gone too near the temporal artery for my temporal safety), and neither styptic nor caustic would cauterise the orifice till after a hundred attempts.

"On Tuesday, a Turkish brig of war ran on sh.o.r.e. On Wednesday, great preparations being made to attack her, though protected by her consorts[1], the Turks burned her and retired to Patras. On Thursday a quarrel ensued between the Suliotes and the Frank guard at the a.r.s.enal: a Swedish officer[2] was killed, and a Suliote severely wounded, and a general fight expected, and with some difficulty prevented. On Friday, the officer was buried; and Captain Parry's English artificers mutinied, under pretence that their lives are in danger, and are for quitting the country:--they may.[3]

[Footnote 1: "Early in the morning we prepared for our attack on the brig. Lord Byron, notwithstanding his weakness, and an inflammation that threatened his eyes, was most anxious to be of our party; but the physicians would not suffer him to go."--COUNT GAMBA'S _Narrative_.

His Lords.h.i.+p had promised a reward for every Turk taken alive in the proposed attack on this vessel.]

[Footnote 2: Captain Sa.s.se, an officer esteemed as one of the best and bravest of the foreigners in the Greek service. "This," says Colonel Stanhope, in a letter, February 18th, to the Committee, "is a serious affair. The Suliotes have no country, no home for their families; arrears of pay are owing to them; the people of Missolonghi hate and pay them exorbitantly. Lord Byron, who was to have led them to Lepanto, is much shaken by his fit, and will probably be obliged to retire from Greece. In short, all our hopes in this quarter are damped for the present. I am not a little fearful, too, that these wild warriors will not forget the blood that has been spilt. I this morning told Prince Mavrocordato and Lord Byron that they must come to some resolution about compelling the Suliotes to quit the place."]

[Footnote 3: This was a fresh, and, as may be conceived, serious disappointment to Lord Byron. "The departure of these men," says Count Gamba, "made us fear that our laboratory would come to nothing; for, if we tried to supply the place of the artificers with native Greeks, we should make but little progress.]

"On Sat.u.r.day we had the smartest shock of an earthquake which I remember, (and I have felt thirty, slight or smart, at different periods; they are common in the Mediterranean,) and the whole army discharged their arms, upon the same principle that savages beat drums, or howl, during an eclipse of the moon:--it was a rare scene altogether--if you had but seen the English Johnnies, who had never been out of a c.o.c.kney workshop before!--or will again, if they can help it--and on Sunday, we heard that the Vizier is come down to Larissa, with one hundred and odd thousand men.

"In coming here, I had two escapes, one from the Turks, _(one_ of my vessels was taken, but afterwards released,) and the other from s.h.i.+pwreck. We drove twice on the rocks near the Scrophes (islands near the coast).

"I have obtained from the Greeks the release of eight-and-twenty Turkish prisoners, men, women, and children, and sent them to Patras and Prevesa at my own charges. One little girl of nine years old, who prefers remaining with me, I shall (if I live) send, with her mother, probably, to Italy, or to England. Her name is Hato, or Hatagee. She is a very pretty, lively child. All her brothers were killed by the Greeks, and she herself and her mother merely spared by special favour and owing to her extreme youth, she being then but five or six years old.

"My health is now better, and I ride about again. My office here is no sinecure, so many parties and difficulties of every kind; but I will do what I can. Prince Mavrocordato is an excellent person, and does all in his power, but his situation is perplexing in the extreme. Still we have great hopes of the success of the contest. You will hear, however, more of public news from plenty of quarters; for I have little time to write.

"Believe me yours, &c. &c. N. BN."

The fierce lawlessness of the Suliotes had now risen to such a height that it became necessary, for the safety of the European population, to get rid of them altogether; and, by some sacrifices on the part of Lord Byron, this object was at length effected. The advance of a month's pay by him, and the discharge of their arrears by the Government, (the latter, too, with money lent for that purpose by the same universal paymaster,) at length induced these rude warriors to depart from the town, and with them vanished all hopes of the expedition against Lepanto.

LETTER 548. TO MR. MOORE.

"Missolonghi, Western Greece, March 4. 1824.

"My dear Moore,

"Your reproach is unfounded--I have received two letters from you, and answered both previous to leaving Cephalonia. I have not been 'quiet' in an Ionian island, but much occupied with business,--as the Greek deputies (if arrived) can tell you. Neither have I continued 'Don Juan,' nor any other poem. You go, as usual, I presume, by some newspaper report or other.[1]

[Footnote 1: Proceeding, as he here rightly supposes, upon newspaper authority, I had in my letter made some allusion to his imputed occupations, which, in his present sensitiveness on the subject of authors.h.i.+p, did not at all please him. To this circ.u.mstance Count Gamba alludes in a pa.s.sage of his Narrative; where, after mentioning a remark of Byron's, that "Poetry should only occupy the idle, and that in more serious affairs it would be ridiculous," he adds-- "----, at this time writing to him, said, that he had heard that 'instead of pursuing heroic and warlike adventures, he was residing in a delightful villa, continuing Don Juan.' This offended him for the moment, and he was sorry that such a mistaken judgment had been formed of him."

It is amusing to observe that, while thus anxious, and from a highly n.o.ble motive, to throw his authors.h.i.+p into the shade while engaged in so much more serious pursuits, it was yet an author's mode of revenge that always occurred to him, when under the influence of any of these pa.s.sing resentments. Thus, when a little angry with Colonel Stanhope one day, he exclaimed, "I will libel you in your own Chronicle;" and in this brief burst of humour I was myself the means of provoking in him, I have been told, on the authority of Count Gamba, that he swore to "write a satire" upon me.

Though the above letter shows how momentary was any little spleen he may have felt, there not unfrequently, I own, comes over me a short pang of regret to think that a feeling of displeasure, however slight, should have been among the latest I awakened in him.]

"When the proper moment to be of some use arrived, I came here; and am told that my arrival (with some other circ.u.mstances) _has_ been of, at least, temporary advantage to the cause. I had a narrow escape from the Turks, and another from s.h.i.+pwreck on my pa.s.sage. On the 15th (or 16th) of February I had an attack of apoplexy, or epilepsy,--the physicians have not exactly decided which, but the alternative is agreeable. My const.i.tution, therefore, remains between the two opinions, like Mahomet's sarcophagus between the magnets. All that I can say is, that they nearly bled me to death, by placing the leeches too near the temporal artery, so that the blood could with difficulty be stopped, even with caustic, I am supposed to be getting better, slowly, however. But my homilies will, I presume, for the future, be like the Archbishop of Grenada's--in this case, 'I order you a hundred ducats from my treasurer, and wish you a little more taste.'

"For public matters I refer you to Colonel Stanhope's and Capt.

Parry's reports,--and to all other reports whatsoever. There is plenty to do--war without, and tumult within--they 'kill a man a week,' like Bob Acres in the country. Parry's artificers have gone away in alarm, on account of a dispute in which some of the natives and foreigners were engaged, and a Swede was killed, and a Suliote wounded. In the middle of their fright there was a strong shock of an earthquake; so, between that and the sword, they boomed off in a hurry, in despite of all dissuasions to the contrary. A Turkish brig run ash.o.r.e, &c. &c. &c.[1]

[Footnote 1: What I have omitted here is but a repet.i.tion of the various particulars, respecting all that had happened since his arrival, which have already been given in the letters to his other correspondents.]

"You, I presume, are either publis.h.i.+ng or meditating that same. Let me hear from and of you, and believe me, in all events,

"Ever and affectionately yours,

"N. B.