In a letter written soon after his first attack, he says, “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 been up daily, and out in boats or 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 any animal food”; then adverting to the turbulences of the Suliotes, he adds, “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.”  Subsequently, when pressed to leave the marshy and deleterious air of Missolonghi, he replied, still more forcibly, “I cannot quit Greece while there is a chance of my being of (even supposed) utility.  There is a stake worth millions such as I am, and while I can stand at all I must stand by the cause.  While I say this, I am aware of the difficulties, and dissensions, and defects of the Greeks themselves; but allowance must be made for them by all reasonable people.”

After this attack of epilepsy Lord Byron because disinclined to pursue his scheme against Lepanto.  Indeed, it may be said that in his circumstances it was impracticable; for although the Suliotes repented of their insubordination, they yet had an objection to the service, and said “they would not fight against stone walls.”  All thought of the expedition was in consequence abandoned, and the destinies of poor Byron were hastening to their consummation.  He began to complain!