“P.S.  I have had, by desire of a Mr. Jerostati, to draw on Demetrius Delladecima (is it our friend in ultima analise?) to pay the Committee expenses.  I really do not understand what the Committee mean by some of their freedoms.  Parry and I get on very well hitherto:  how long this may last, Heaven knows, but I hope it will, for a good deal for the Greek service depends upon it; but he has already had some” miffs with Col.  S. and I do all I can to keep the peace amongst them.  However, Parry is a fine fellow, extremely active, and of strong, sound, practical talents, by all accounts.  Enclosed are bills for three thousand pounds, drawn in the mode directed (i.e. parcelled out in smaller bills).  A good opportunity occurring for Cephalonia to send letters on, I avail myself of it.  Remember me to Stevens and to all friends.  Also my compliments and every thing kind to the colonels and officers.

“February 9. 1824.

“P.S. 2d or 3d.  I have reason to expect a person from England directed with papers (on business) for me to sign, somewhere in the Islands, by and by:  if such should arrive, would you forward him to me by a safe conveyance, as the papers regard a transaction with regard to the adjustment of a lawsuit, and a sum of several thousand pounds, which I, or my bankers and trustees for me, may have to receive (in England) in consequence.  The time of the probable arrival I cannot state, but the date of my letters is the 2d Nov. and I suppose that he ought to arrive soon.”

How strong were the hopes which even those who watched him most observingly conceived from the whole tenor of his conduct since his arrival at Missolonghi, will appear from the following words of Colonel Stanhope, in one of his letters to the Greek Committee:—­

“Lord Byron possesses all the means of playing a great part in the glorious revolution of Greece.  He has talent; he professes liberal principles; he has money, and is inspired with fervent and chivalrous feelings.  He has commenced his career by two good measures:  1st, by recommending union, and declaring himself of no party; and, 2dly, by taking five hundred Suliotes into pay, and acting as their chief.  These acts cannot fail to render his Lordship universally popular, and proportionally powerful.  Thus advantageously circumstanced, his Lordship will have an opportunity of realising all his professions.”

That the inspirer, however, of these hopes was himself far from participating in them is a fact manifest from all he said and wrote on the subject, and but adds painfully to the interest which his position at this moment excites.  Too well, indeed, did he both understand and feel the difficulties into which he was plunged to deceive himself into any such sanguine delusions.  In one only of the objects to which he had looked forward with any hope,—­that of endeavouring to humanise, by his example, the system of warfare on both sides,—­had he yet been