rcises. There neither is nor has yet been, since
my arrival in Greece, one single company--not even the marines, with
which so much pains was taken--that deserves the name of regular. Their
ideas are quite repugnant to everything that constitutes the military
character."

Lord Cochrane, who, it will be remembered, was chiefly instrumental in
the election of Count John Capodistrias as President of Greece in April,
1827, had hoped much from his government. His confidence was not a
little shaken by the long delay which the President had shown in
entering on his office, and when Capodistrias arrived, in Greece, only a
few days after Lord Cochrane's departure, his first acts were calculated
to shake that confidence yet more. He introduced many solid reforms; but
in other respects clung to the old and bad traditions of the people,
and, which was yet worse, allowed himself to be guided by some of the
worst placehunters and most skilful abusers of national power, whom he
ought to have most carefully avoided. Lord Cochrane began to perceive
this before he had been six weeks out of Greece. He yet hoped, however,
that wise counsels and good government would prevail, and he tendered
his advice, while he reported his own movements, in a second letter
which he addressed to Capodistrias.

"The information which your excellency must have acquired since your
arrival in Greece," he wrote to him on the 22nd of March, "may have
convinced you of the facts briefly touched on in the letter which I had
the honour to address to you on the 1st of January, and may also have
proved to you the impossibility, under existing circumstances, of my
rendering service to Greece, otherwise than by the course I have
pursued. Although, on my arrival in England, I was disappointed at
finding other ministers than those I expected in the counsels of his
Britannic Majesty, yet I had an opportunity of making facts known to
influential individuals in proof that the interests of England would be
best promoted by a liberal policy towards Greece, and by placing that
country, without loss of time, in the rank of an independent state,
having boundaries the most extensive that could be conceded. Since then,
I have had several conversations here with the gentlemen of the Paris
Greek Committee, and I have advised them to assure the ministers that
large naval and military armaments are not required for the expulsion of
the Turkish and Egyptian forces from Greece, or to pr