I therefore request and require that you should apprise my trusty and trust-worthy trustee and banker, and crown and sheet-anchor, Douglas Kinnaird the Honourable, that he prepare all monies of mine, including the purchase money of Rochdale manor and mine income for the year ensuing, A.D. 1824, to answer, or anticipate, any orders or drafts of mine for the good cause, in good and lawful money of Great Britain, &c. &c.  May you live a thousand years I which is nine hundred and ninety-nine longer than the Spanish Cortes’ Constitution.”

LETTER 531.

TO THE HON.  MR. DOUGLAS KINNAIRD.

“Cephalonia, December 23. 1823.

“I shall be as saving of my purse and person as you recommend; but you know that it is as well to be in readiness with one or both, in the event of either being required.

“I presume that some agreement has been concluded with Mr. Murray about ‘Werner.’  Although the copyright should only be worth two or three hundred pounds, I will tell you what can be done with them.  For three hundred pounds I can maintain in Greece, at more than the fullest pay of the Provisional Government, rations included, one hundred armed men for three months.  You may judge of this when I tell you, that the four thousand pounds advanced by me to the Greeks is likely to set a fleet and an army in motion for some months.

“A Greek vessel has arrived from the squadron to convey me to Missolonghi, where Mavrocordato now is, and has assumed the command, so that I expect to embark immediately.  Still address, however, to Cephalonia, through Messrs. Welch and Barry of Genoa, as usual; and get together all the means and credit of mine you can, to face the war establishment, for it is ‘in for a penny, in for a pound,’ and I must do all that I can for the ancients.

“I have been labouring to reconcile these parties, and there is now some hope of succeeding.  Their public affairs go on well.  The Turks have retreated from Acarnania without a battle, after a few fruitless attempts on Anatoliko.  Corinth is taken, and the Greeks have gained a battle in the Archipelago.  The squadron here, too, has taken a Turkish corvette with some money and a cargo.  In short, if they can obtain a Loan, I am of opinion that matters will assume and preserve a steady and favourable aspect for their independence.

“In the mean time I stand paymaster, and what not; and lucky it is that, from the nature of the warfare and of the country, the resources even of an individual can be of a partial and temporary service.

“Colonel Stanhope is at Missolonghi.  Probably we shall attempt Patras next.  The Suliotes, who are friends of mine, seem anxious to have me with them, and so is Mavrocordato.  If I can but succeed in reconciling the two parties (and I have left no stone unturned), it will be something; and if not, we roust go over to the Morea with the Western Greeks—­who are the bravest, and at present the strongest, having beaten back the Turks—­and try the effect of a little physical advice, should they persist in rejecting moral persuasion.