Lord Byron Arrives in Greece

Englishmen came expecting to find the Peloponnesus filled with Plutarch’s men and returned thinking the inhabitants of Newgate more moral.

Continuing Lord Byron and the Greek War of Independence,
our selection from Lord Byron by John Nichol published in 1899. The selection is presented in 4.5 easy 5-minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in Lord Byron and the Greek War of Independence.

Time: 1823
Place: Greece

Had the Liberal proved a lamp to the nations, instead of a mere “red flag flaunted in the face of John Bull,” he might have cast anchor at Genoa; but the whole drift of his work and life demonstrates that he was capable on occasion of merging himself in what he conceived to be great causes, especially in their evil days.

Byron, indeed, left Italy in an unsettled state of mind: he spoke of returning in a few months, and, as the period for his departure approached, became more and more irresolute. A presentiment of his death seemed to brood over a mind always superstitious, though never fanatical. Shortly before his own departure, the Blessingtons were preparing to leave Genoa for England. On the evening of his farewell call, he began to speak of his voyage with despondency, saying:

Here we are all now together; but when and where shall we meet again? I have a sort of boding that we see each other for the last time, as something tells me I shall never again return from Greece.”

After which remark he leaned his head on the sofa and burst into one of his hysterical fits of tears. The next week was given to preparations for an expedition, which, entered on with mingled motives — sentimental, personal, public — became more real and earnest to Byron at every step he took. He knew all the vices of the “hereditary bondsmen” among whom he was going, and went among them with still unquenched aspirations, but with the bridle of discipline in his hand, resolved to pave the way toward the nation becoming better, by devoting himself to making it free.

On the morning of July 14, 1823, he embarked in the brig Hercules, with Trelawney; Count Pietro Gamba, who remained with him to the last; Bruno, a brilliant young Italian doctor; Scott, the captain of the vessel, and eight servants, including Fletcher; besides the crew. They had on board two guns, with other arms and ammunition, five horses, an ample supply of medicines, with fifty thousand Spanish dollars in coin and bills. The start was inauspicious. A violent squall drove them back to port, and in the course of a last ride with Gamba to Albaro, Byron asked, “Where shall we be in a year?” On the same day of the same month of 1824, he was carried to the tomb of his ancestors. They again set sail on the following evening, and in five days reached Leghorn, where the poet received a salutation in verse addressed to him by Goethe and replied to it. Here Hamilton Brown, a Scotch gentleman with considerable knowledge of Greek affairs, joined the party, and induced them to change their course to Cephalonia, for the purpose of obtaining the advice and assistance of the English resident, Colonel Napier.

This gentleman being absent from Cephalonia, Byron had some pleasant social intercourse with his deputy, but, unable to get from him any authoritative information, was left without ad vice, to be besieged by letters and messages from the factions. Among these were brought to him hints that the Greeks wanted a king, and he is reported to have said, “If they make me the offer, I will perhaps not reject it.”

The office would doubtless have been acceptable to a man who never — amid his many self-deceptions — affected to deny that he was ambitious; and who can say what might not have resulted for Greece, had the poet lived to add luster to her crown? In the meantime, while faring more frugally than a day-laborer, he yet surrounded himself with a show of royal state, had his servants armed with gilded helmets, and gathered around him a bodyguard of Suliotes. These wild mercenaries becoming turbulent, he was obliged to dispatch them to Missolonghi, then threatened with siege by the Turks and anxiously waiting relief.

Critics who have little history and less knowledge of war have been accustomed to attribute Byron’s lingering at Cephalonia to indolence and indecision; they write as if he ought, on landing on Greek soil, to have put himself at the head of an army and stormed Constantinople. Those who know more, confess that the delay was deliberate and that it was judicious. The Hellenic uprising was animated by the spirit of a “lion after slumber,” but it had the heads of a Hydra hissing and tearing at one another. The chiefs who defended the country by their arms compromised her by their arguments, and some of her best fighters were little better than pirates and bandits. Greece was a prey to factions — republican, monarchic, aristocratic — representing naval, military, and territorial interests, and each beset by the adventurers who flock round every movement, only representing their own. During the first two years of success, they were held in embryo; during the later years of disaster, terminated by the allies at Navarino, they were buried; during the interlude of Byron’s residence, when the foes were like hounds in the leash, waiting for a renewal of the struggle, they were rampant. Had he joined any one of them, he would have degraded himself to the level of a mere condottiere and helped to betray the common cause.

Beset by solicitations to go to Athens, to the Morea, to Acarnania, he resolutely held apart, biding his time, collecting information, making himself known as a man of affairs, endeavoring to conciliate rival claimants for pension or place, and carefully watching the tide of war. Numerous anecdotes of the period relate to acts of public or private benevolence, which endeared him to the population of the island; but he was on the alert against being fleeced or robbed. “The bulk of the English,” writes Colonel Napier, “came expecting to find the Peloponnesus filled with Plutarch’s men and returned thinking the inhabitants of Newgate more moral. Lord Byron judged the Greeks fairly and knew that allowance must be made for emancipated slaves.” Among other incidents we hear of his passing a group, who were “shrieking and howling as in Ireland” over some men buried in the fall of a bank; he snatched a spade, began to dig, and threatened to horsewhip the peasants unless they followed his example.

Lewis Sergeant began here. John Nichol began here.

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