“The Greeks accept muskets, but throw away bayonets, and will not be disciplined.  When these lads saw two Piedmontese regiments yesterday, they said, ’Ah! if we had but these two, we should have cleared the Morea:’  in that case the Piedmontese must have behaved better than they did against the Austrians.  They seem to lay great stress upon a few regular troops—­say that the Greeks have arms and powder in plenty, but want victuals, hospital stores, and lint and linen, &c. and money, very much.  Altogether, it would be difficult to show more practical philosophy than this remnant of our ’puir hill folk’ have done; they do not seem the least cast down, and their way of presenting themselves was as simple and natural as could be.  They said, a Dane here had told them that an Englishman, friendly to the Greek cause, was here, and that, as they were reduced to beg their way home, they thought they might as well begin with me.  I write in haste to snatch the post.

“Believe me, and truly,

“Your obliged, &c.

“P.S.  I have, since I wrote this, seen them again.  Count P. Gamba asked them to breakfast.  One of them means to publish his Journal of the campaign.  The Bavarian wonders a little that the Greeks are not quite the same with them of the time of Themistocles, (they were not then very tractable, by the by,) and at the difficulty of disciplining them; but he is a ‘bon homme’ and a tactician, and a little like Dugald Dalgetty, who would insist upon the erection of ’a sconce on the hill of Drumsnab,’ or whatever it was;—­the other seems to wonder at nothing.”

LETTER 522.  TO LADY ——.

“May 17. 1823.

“My voyage to Greece will depend upon the Greek Committee (in England) partly, and partly on the instructions which some persons now in Greece on a private mission may be pleased to send me.  I am a member, lately elected, of the said Committee; and my object in going up would be to do any little good in my power;—­but as there are some pros and cons on the subject, with regard to how far the intervention of strangers may be advisable, I know no more than I tell you; but we shall probably hear something soon from England and Greece, which may be more decisive.

“With regard to the late person (Lord Londonderry), whom you hear that I have attacked, I can only say that a bad minister’s memory is as much an object of investigation as his conduct while alive,—­for his measures do not die with him like a private individual’s notions.  He is a matter of history; and, wherever I find a tyrant or a villain, I will mark him. I attacked him no more than I had been wont to do.  As to the Liberal,—­it was a publication set up for the advantage of a persecuted author and a very worthy man.  But it was foolish in me to engage in it; and so it has turned out—­for I have hurt myself without doing much good to those for whose benefit it was intended.