'St. James's Street and English notions must be abolish'd, so must all
Romance of Liberty and the children of the antient Greeks struggling to
shake off the yoke of the bloody Turk; Lord Byron knows all this, and is
in fact the only man that has ever come out to them who understands the
people. He was at Missolonghi, living in every way like a great Chief;
and in fact he is so, arm'd to the teeth with 500 Suliotes, the bravest
and best troops the Greeks have, and twenty German Veterans, besides a
certain Count Gamba, a beautiful Albanian Page, an Italian Chasseur, and
an old Scotch butler, making in all about 530 well arm'd men, besides
the Suliotes from all parts of Greece flocking to him daily, he could if
he liked set up a Govt. in Missolonghi, but as he hates governments, and
likes this sort of life where his nod and beck are a law, he will have
nothing to do with their legislation altho' they come and offer to place
him at the head of the Government victorious. He however has pay'd their
fleet for them, who immediately landed their Admiral and sailed away the
Lord knows where. 'The first interview I had with this Prince
Mavrocordato I could do nothing, as I plainly saw they were detaining me
while they made out a case and that Stanhope's wits were put in
requisition. In addition to which I had no interpreter, and so I was
obliged to speak French, the only other language Mavrocordato understood
besides Greek. So I broke up the interview by saying it was late and
that I should wait on him again to-morrow. This however I did not
effect, as it blew a gale on the following day, but the next I again saw
him, and having previously put a few questions to the purpose on paper I
defeated his quibbles, and made him refund in hard dollars the value of
the cargo, threatening that if he did not I should burn, sink and
destroy immediately. I gave him four hours to consider of it, and stay'd
with Ld. Byron until the time elapsed, much amused by all his sayings
and anecdotes, firing pistols at a mark, eating, &c. &c.