Another eye-witness, Count Gamba, bears similar testimony to the presence of mind with which he fronted this and all other such dangers.  “It is impossible,” says this gentleman, “to do justice to the coolness and magnanimity which he displayed upon every trying occasion.  Upon trifling occasions he was certainly irritable; but the aspect of danger calmed him in an instant, and restored to him the free exercise of all the powers of his noble nature.  A more undaunted man in the hour of peril never breathed.”

The letters written by him during the few following weeks form, as usual, the best record of his proceedings, and, besides the sad interest they possess as being among the latest from his hand, are also precious, as affording proof that neither illness nor disappointment, neither a worn-out frame nor even a hopeless spirit, could lead him for a moment to think of abandoning the great cause he had espoused; while to the last, too, he preserved unbroken the cheerful spring of his mind, his manly endurance of all ills that affected but himself, and his ever-wakeful consideration for the wants of others.

LETTER 543.  TO MR. BARFF.

“February 21.

“I am a good deal better, though of course weakly; the leeches took too much blood from my temples the day after, and there was some difficulty in stopping it, but I have since been up daily, and out in boats of on horseback.  To-day I have taken a warm bath, and live as temperately as can well be, without any liquid but water, and without animal food.

“Besides the four Turks sent to Patras, I have obtained the release of four-and-twenty women and children, and sent them at my own expense to Prevesa, that the English Consul-General may consign them to their relations.  I did this by their own desire.  Matters here are a little embroiled with the Suliotes and foreigners, &c., but I still hope better things, and will stand by the cause as long as my health and circumstances will permit me to be supposed useful.[1]

[Footnote 1:  In a letter to the same gentleman, dated January 27., he had already said, “I hope that things here will go on well some time or other.  I will stick by the cause as long as a cause exists—­first or second.”]

“I am obliged to support the Government here for the present.”

The prisoners mentioned in this letter as having been released by him and sent to Prevesa, had been held in captivity at Missolonghi since the beginning of the Revolution.  The following was the letter which he forwarded with them to the English Consul at Prevesa.

LETTER 544.  TO MR. MAYER.

“Sir,