“The Turks are an obstinate race, as all former wars have proved them, and will return to the charge for years to come, even if beaten, as it is to be hoped they will be.  But in no case can the labours of the Committee be said to be in vain; for in the event even of the Greeks being subdued, and dispersed, the funds which could be employed in succouring and gathering together the remnant, so as to alleviate in part their distresses, and enable them to find or make a country (as so many emigrants of other nations have been compelled to do), would ‘bless both those who gave and those who took,’ as the bounty both of justice and of mercy.

“With regard to the formation of a brigade, (which Mr. Hobhouse hints at in his short letter of this day’s receipt, enclosing the one to which I have the honour to reply,) I would presume to suggest—­but merely as an opinion, resulting rather from the melancholy experience of the brigades embarked in the Columbian service than from any experiment yet fairly tried in GREECE,—­that the attention of the Committee had better perhaps be directed to the employment of officers of experience than the enrolment of raw British soldiers, which latter are apt to be unruly, and not very serviceable, in irregular warfare, by the side of foreigners.  A small body of good officers, especially artillery; an engineer, with quantity (such as the Committee might deem requisite) of stores of the nature which Captain Blaquiere indicated as most wanted, would, I should conceive, be a highly useful accession.  Officers, also, who had previously served in the Mediterranean would be preferable, as some knowledge of Italian is nearly indispensable.

“It would also be as well that they should be aware, that they are not going ’to rough it on a beef-steak and bottle of port,’—­but that Greece—­never, of late years, very plentifully stocked for a mess—­is at present the country of all kinds of privations.  This remark may seem superfluous; but I have been led to it, by observing that many foreign officers, Italian, French, and even Germans (but_fewer_ of the latter), have returned in disgust, imagining either that they were going up to make a party of pleasure, or to enjoy full pay, speedy promotion, and a very moderate degree of duty.  They complain, too, of having been ill received by the Government or inhabitants; but numbers of these complainants were mere adventurers, attracted by a hope of command and plunder, and disappointed of both.  Those Greeks I have seen strenuously deny the charge of inhospitality, and declare that they shared their pittance to the last crum with their foreign volunteers.