a's folly, or the merchant's knavery. All that _I_ requested
Gamba to order was red cloth enough to make a _jacket_, and some
oil-skin for trowsers, &c.--the latter has not been sent--the whole
could not have amounted to fifty dollars. The account is six hundred
and forty-five!!! I will guarantee Mr. Stevens against any loss, of
course, but I am not disposed to take the articles (which I never
ordered), nor to pay the amount. I will take one hundred dollars'
worth; the rest may be sent back, and I will make the merchant an
allowance of so much per-cent.; or, if that is not to be done, you
must sell the whole by auction at what price the things may fetch;
for I would rather incur the dead loss of _part_, than be encumbered
with a quantity of things, to me at present superfluous or useless.
Why, I could have maintained three hundred men for a month for the
sum in Western Greece.

"When the dogs, and the dollars, and the negro; and the horses, fell
into the hands of the Turks, I acquiesced with patience, as you may
have perceived, because it was the work of the elements of war, or of
Providence: but this is a piece of mere human knavery or folly, or
both, and I neither can nor will submit to it.[1] I have occasion for
every dollar I can muster to keep the Greeks together, and I do not
grudge any expense for the cause; but to throw away as much as would
equip, or at least maintain, a corps of excellent ragamuffins with
arms in their hands, to furnish Gamba and the Doctor with blank bills
(see list), broad cloth, Hessian boots, and horsewhips (the _latter_
I own that they have richly earned), is rather beyond my endurance,
though a pacific person, as all the world knows, or at least my
acquaintances. I pray you to try to help me out of this damnable
commercial speculation of Gamba's, for it is one of those pieces of
impudence or folly which I don't forgive him in a hurry. I will of
course see Stevens free of expense out of the transaction;--by the
way, the Greek of a Corfiote has thought proper to draw a bill, and
get it discounted at 24 dollars: if I had been there, it should have
been _protested_ also.

[Footnote 1: We have here as striking an instance as could be adduced
of that peculiar feature of his character which shallow or malicious
observers have misrepresented as avarice, but which in reality was
the result of a strong sense of justice and fairness, and an
indignant impatience of being stultified or over-reached