His Lordship’s agents had been received with all due welcome by the Government, who were most desirous that he should set out for the Morea without delay; and pressing letters to the same purport, both from the Legislative and Executive bodies, accompanied those which reached him from Messrs. Browne and Trelawney.  He was, however, determined not to move till his own selected time, having seen reason, the farther insight he obtained into their intrigues, to congratulate himself but the more on his prudence in not plunging into the maze without being first furnished with those guards against deception which the information he was now acquiring supplied him.

To give an idea, as briefly as possible, of the sort of conflicting calls that were from various scenes of action, reaching him in his retirement, it may be sufficient to mention that, while by Metaxa, the present governor of Missolonghi, he was entreated earnestly to hasten to the relief of that place, which the Turks were now blockading both by land and by sea, the head of the military chiefs, Colocotroni, was no less earnestly urging that he should present himself at the approaching congress of Salamis, where, under the dictation of these rude warriors, the affairs of the country were to be settled,—­while at the same time, from another quarter, the great opponent of these chieftains, Mavrocordato, was, with more urgency, as well as more ability than any, endeavouring to impress upon him his own views, and imploring his presence at Hydra, whither he himself had just been forced to retire.

The mere knowledge, indeed, that a noble Englishman had arrived in those regions, so unprepossessed by any party as to inspire a hope of his alliance in all, and with money, by common rumour, as abundant as the imaginations of the needy chose to make it, was, in itself, fully sufficient, without any of the more elevated claims of his name, to attract towards him all thoughts.  “It is easier to conceive,” says Count Gamba, “than to relate the various means employed to engage him in one faction or the other:  letters, messengers, intrigues, and recriminations,—­nay, each faction had its agents exerting every art to degrade its opponent.”  He then adds a circumstance strongly illustrative of a peculiar feature in the noble poet’s character:—­“He occupied himself in discovering the truth, hidden as it was under these intrigues, and amused himself in confronting the agents of the different factions.”

During all these occupations he went on pursuing his usual simple and uniform course of life,—­rising, however, for the despatch of business, at an early hour, which showed how capable he was of conquering even long habit when necessary.  Though so much occupied, too, he was, at all hours, accessible to visitors; and the facility with which he allowed even the dullest people to break in upon him was exemplified, I am told, strongly in the case of one of the officers of the garrison, who, without being able to understand any thing of the poet but his good-nature, used to say, whenever he found his time hang heavily on his hands,—­“I think I shall ride out and have a little talk with Lord Byron.”