It is difficult to conceive that Lord Byron, “the searcher of dark bosoms,” could have expressed himself so weakly and with such vanity; but the shadow of coming fate had already reached him, and his judgment was suffering in the blight that had fallen on his reputation.  To think of the possibility of reconciling two Greek factions, or any factions, implies a degree of ignorance of mankind, which, unless it had been given in his Lordship’s own writing, would not have been credible; and as to having nothing to do with the factions, for what purpose went he to Greece, unless it was to take a part with one of them?  I abstain from saying what I think of his hesitation in going to the government instead of sending two of his associated adventurers, Mr Trelawney and Mr Hamilton Brown, whom he despatched to collect intelligence as to the real state of things, substituting their judgment for his own.  When the Hercules, the ship he chartered to carry him to Greece, weighed anchor, he was committed with the Greeks, and everything short of unequivocal folly he was bound to have done with and for them.

His two emissaries or envoys proceeded to Tripolizza, where they found Colocotroni seated in the palace of the late vizier, Velhi Pasha, in great power; the court-yard and galleries filled with armed men in garrison, while there was no enemy at that time in the Morea able to come against them!  The Greek chieftains, like their classic predecessors, though embarked in the same adventure, were personal adversaries to each other.  Colocotroni spoke of his compeer Mavrocordato in the very language of Agamemnon, when he said that he had declared to him, unless he desisted from his intrigues, he would mount him on an ass and whip him out of the Morea; and that he had only been restrained from doing so by the representation of his friends, who thought it would injure their common cause.  Such was the spirit of the chiefs of the factions which Lord Byron thought it not impossible to reconcile!

At this time Missolonghi was in a critical state, being blockaded both by land and sea; and the report of Trelawney to Lord Byron concerning it, was calculated to rouse his Lordship to activity.  “There have been,” says he, “thirty battles fought and won by the late Marco Botzaris, and his gallant tribe of Suliotes, who are shut up in Missolonghi.  If it fall, Athens will be in danger, and thousands of throats cut: a few thousand dollars would provide ships to relieve it; a portion of this sum is raised, and I would coin my heart to save this key of Greece.”  Bravely said! but deserving of little attention.  The fate of Missolonghi could have had no visible effect on that of Athens.