A vessel was then hired, and the whole of them, to the number of twenty-four, were sent to Prevesa, provided with every requisite for their comfort during the passage.  These instances of humanity excited a sympathy among the Turks.  The Governor of Prevesa thanked his Lordship, and assured him that he would take care that equal attention should be in future paid to the Greeks, who might fall into his hands.

CHAPTER XLV

Table of Contents

Proceedings at Missolonghi—Byron’s Suliote Brigade—Their Insubordination—Difference with Colonel Stanhope—Imbecility of the Plans for the Independence of Greece

The arrival of Lord Byron at Missolonghi was not only hailed as a new era in the history of Greece, but as the beginning of a new cycle in his own extraordinary life.  His natural indolence disappeared; the Sardanapalian sloth was thrown off, and he took a station in the van of her efforts that bespoke heroic achievement.

After paying the fleet, which indeed had only come out in the expectation of receiving the arrears from the loan he had promised to Mavrocordato, he resolved to form a brigade of Suliotes.  Five hundred of the remains of Marco Botzaris’s gallant followers were accordingly taken into his pay.  “He burns with military ardour and chivalry,” says Colonel Stanhope, “and will proceed with the expedition to Lepanto.”  But the expedition was delayed by causes which ought to have been foreseen.

The Suliotes, conceiving that in his Lordship they had found a patron whose wealth and generosity were equally boundless, refused to quit Missolonghi till their arrears were paid.  Savage in the field, and untamable in the city, they became insubordinate and mercenary; nor was their conduct without excuse.  They had long defended the town with untired bravery; their families had been driven into it in the most destitute condition; and all the hopes that had led them to take up arms were still distant and prospective.  Besides, Mavrocordato, unlike the other Grecian captains, having no troops of his own, affected to regard these mercenaries as allies, and was indulgent to their excesses.  The town was overawed by their turbulence, conflicts took place in the street; riot and controversy everywhere prevailed, and blood was shed.

Lord Byron’s undisciplined spirit could ill brook delay; he partook of the general vehemence, and lost the power of discerning the comparative importance both of measures and things.  He was out of his element; confusion thickened around him; his irritability grew into passion; and there was the rush and haste, the oblivion and alarm of fatality in all he undertook and suggested.