Lord Byron at Missolonghi

Byron brought to the Greeks at Missolonghi the four thousand pounds of his personal loan with the spell of his name and presence.

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: 1824
Place: Greece

On November 30th he dispatched to the Central Government a remarkable state paper, in which he dwells on the fatal calamity of a civil war, and says that, unless union and order are established all hopes of a loan — which, being every day more urgent, he was in letters to England constantly pressing — are at an end. “I desire,” he concluded, “the wellbeing of Greece, and nothing else. I will do all I can to secure it; but I will never consent that the English public be deceived as to the real state of affairs. You have fought gloriously; act honorably toward your fellow-citizens and the world, and it will then no more be said, as has been repeated for two thousand years, with the Roman historians, that Philopoemen was the last of the Grecians.”

Prince Alexander Maurocordatos — the most prominent of the practical patriotic leaders — having been deposed from the presidency, was sent to regulate the affairs of Western Greece, and was now on his way with a fleet to relieve Missolonghi, in attempting which the brave Marco Bozzaris had previously fallen. In a letter, opening communication with a man for whom he always entertained a high esteem, Byron writes: “Colonel Stanhope has arrived from London, charged by our committee to act in concert with me. Greece is at present placed between three measures — either to reconquer her liberty, to become a dependence of the sovereigns of Europe, or to return to a Turkish province. She has the choice only of these three alternatives. Civil war is but a road that leads to the two latter.”

At length the long-looked-for fleet arrived, and the Turkish squadron, with the loss of a treasure-ship, retired up the Gulf of Lepanto. Maurocordatos, on entering Missolonghi, lost no time in inviting the poet to join him, and placed a brig at his disposal, adding: “I need not tell you to what a pitch your presence is de sired by everybody, or what a prosperous direction it will give to all our affairs. Your councils will be listened to like oracles.”

At the same date Stanhope writes, “The people in the streets are looking forward to his lordship’s arrival as they would to the coming of the Messiah.” Byron was unable to sail in the ship sent for him; but in spite of medical warnings, a few days later, December 28th, he embarked in a small fast-sailing sloop called a mistico, while the servants and baggage were stowed in a larger vessel in charge of Count Gamba. From Gamba’s graphic account of the voyage, we take the following:

We sailed together till after ten at night; the wind favorable, a clear sky, the air fresh, but not sharp. Our sailors sang alternately patriotic songs, monotonous indeed, but to persons in our situation extremely touching, and we took part in them. We were all, but Lord Byron particularly, in excellent spirits. The mistico sailed the fastest. When the waves divided us, and our voices could no longer reach other each, we made signals by firing pistols and carbines. To-morrow we meet at Missolonghi — tomorrow. Thus, full of confidence and spirits, we sailed along. At twelve we were out of sight of each other.”

Byron’s vessel, separated from her consort, came into the close proximity of a Turkish frigate, and had to take refuge among the Scrofes rocks. Emerging thence, he attained a small seaport of Acarnania, called Dragomestri, whence sallying forth on January 2, 1824, under the convoy of some Greek gunboats, he was nearly wrecked. On the 4th Byron made, when violently heated, an imprudent plunge in the sea, and he never was afterward free from a pain in his bones. On the 5th he arrived at Missolonghi and was received with salvos of musketry and music. Gamba was waiting him. His vessel, the Bombarda, had been taken by the Ottoman frigate, but the captain of the latter, recognizing the Count as having formerly saved his life in the Black Sea, made interest in his behalf with Yusuf Pacha at Patras, and obtained his discharge. In recompense, the poet subsequently sent to the Pacha some Turkish prisoners, with a letter requesting him to endeavor to mitigate the inhumanities of the war.

Byron brought to the Greeks at Missolonghi the four thousand pounds of his personal loan — applied in the first place to defraying the expenses of the fleet — with the spell of his name and presence. He was shortly afterward appointed to the command of the intended expedition against Lepanto, and, with this view, again took into his pay five hundred Suliotes. An approaching general assembly to organize the forces of the West had brought together a motley crew, destitute, discontented, and more likely to wage war upon one another than on their enemies. Byron’s closest associates during the ensuing months were the engineer Parry, an energetic artilleryman, “extremely active, and of strong practical talents,” who had travelled in America, and Colonel Stanhope (afterward Lord Harrington), equally with himself de voted to the emancipation of Greece, but at variance about the means of achieving it.

Stanhope, a moral enthusiast, beset by the fallacy of religious missions, wished to cover the Morea with Wesleyan tracts, and liberate the country by the agency of the press. He had imported a converted blacksmith, with a cargo of Bibles, type, and paper, who on twenty pounds a year undertook to accomplish the reform. Byron, backed by the good sense of Maurocordatos, proposed to make cartridges of the tracts, and small shot of the type; he did not think that the turbulent tribes were ripe for freedom of the press, and had begun to regard republicanism itself as a matter of secondary moment.

Lewis Sergeant began here. John Nichol began here.

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