idence, when the foes were like hounds in the leash, waiting for a
renewal of the struggle, they were rampant. Had he joined any one of them
he would have degraded himself to the level of a mere condottiere, and
helped to betray the common cause. Beset by solicitations to go to Athens,
to the Morea, to Acarnania, he resolutely held apart, biding his time,
collecting information, making himself known as a man of affairs,
endeavouring to conciliate rival clamants for pension or place, and
carefully watching the tide of war. Numerous anecdotes of the period
relate to acts of public or private benevolence, which endeared him to the
population of the island; but he was on the alert against being fleeced or
robbed. "The bulk of the English," writes Colonel Napier, "came expecting
to find the Peloponnesus filled with Plutarch's men, and returned thinking
the inhabitants of Newgate more moral. Lord Byron judged the Greeks
fairly, and knew that allowance must be made for emancipated slaves."
Among other incidents we hear of his passing a group, who were "shrieking
and howling as in Ireland" over some men buried in the fall of a bank; he
snatched a spade, began to dig, and threatened to horsewhip the peasants
unless they followed his example. On November 30th he despatched to the
central government a remarkable state paper, in which he dwells on the
fatal calamity of a civil war, and says that unless union and order are
established all hopes of a loan--which being every day more urgent, he was
in letters to England constantly pressing--are at an end. "I desire," he
concluded, "the well being of Greece, and nothing else. I will do all I
can to secure it; but I will never consent that the English public be
deceived as to the real state of affairs. You have fought gloriously; act
honourably towards your fellow-citizens and the world, and it will then no
more be said, as has been repeated for two thousand years, with the Roman
historians, that Philopoemen was the last of the Grecians."

Prince Alexander Mavrocordatos--the most prominent of the practical
patriotic leaders--having been deposed from the presidency, was sent to
regulate the affairs of Western Greece, and was now on his way with a
fleet to relieve Mesolonghi, in attempting which the brave Marco Bozzaris
had previously fallen. In a letter, opening communication with a man for
whom he always entertained a high esteem, Byron writes, "Colonel Stanhope
has arrived from London, c