"Genoa, May 21. 1823.
"Sir,
"I received yesterday the letter of the Committee, dated the 14th of
March. What has occasioned the delay, I know not. It was forwarded by
Mr. Galignani, from Paris, who stated that he had only had it in his
charge four days, and that it was delivered to him by a Mr. Grattan.
I need hardly say that I gladly accede to the proposition of the
Committee, and hold myself highly honoured by being deemed worthy to
be a member. I have also to return my thanks, particularly to
yourself, for the accompanying letter, which is extremely flattering.
"Since I last wrote to you, through the medium of Mr. Hobhouse, I
have received and forwarded a letter from Captain Blaquiere to me,
from Corfu, which will show how he gets on. Yesterday I fell in with
two young Germans, survivors of General Normann's band. They arrived
at Genoa in the most deplorable state--without food--without a
soul--without shoes. The Austrians had sent them out of their
territory on their landing at Trieste; and they had been forced to
come down to Florence, and had travelled from Leghorn here, with four
Tuscan _livres_ (about three francs) in their pockets. I have given
them twenty Genoese scudi (about a hundred and thirty-three livres,
French money,) and new shoes, which will enable them to get to
Switzerland, where they say that they have friends. All that they
could raise in Genoa, besides, was thirty _sous_. They do not
complain of the Greeks, but say that they have suffered more since
their landing in Italy.
"I tried their veracity, 1st, by their passports and papers; 2dly, by
topography, cross-questioning them about Arta, Argos, Athens,
Missolonghi, Corinth, c.; and, 3dly, in _Romaic_, of which I found
one of them, at least, knew more than I do. One of them (they are
both of good families) is a fine handsome young fellow of
three-and-twenty--a Wirtembergher, and has a look of _Sandt_ about
him--the other a Bavarian, older and flat-faced, and less ideal, but
a great, sturdy, soldier-like personage. The Wirtembergher was in the
action at Arta, where the Philhellenists were cut to pieces after
killing six hundred Turks, they themselves being only a hundred and
fifty in number, opposed to about six or seven thousand; only eight
escaped, and of them about three only survived; so that General
Normann 'posted his ragamuffins where they were well peppered--not
three of the hundred and fifty left alive--and they are for the
town's end for life.'
"These two left Greece by the direction of the Greeks. When Churschid
Pacha over-run the Morea, the Greeks seem to have behaved well, in
wishing to save their allies, when they thought that the game was up
with themselves. This was in September last (1822): they wandered
from island to island, and got from Milo to Smyrna, where the French
consul gave them a passport, and a charitable captain a passage to
Ancona, whence they got to Trieste, and were turned back by the
Austrians. They complain only of the minister (who has always been an
indifferent character); say that the Greeks fight very well in their
own way, but were at _first_ afraid to _fire_ their own cannon--but
mended with practice.
"Adolphe (the younger) commanded at Navarino for a short time; the
other, a more material person, 'the bold Bavarian in a luckless
hour,' seems chiefly to lament a fast of three days at Argos, and the
loss of twenty-five paras a day of pay in arrear, and some baggage at
Tripolitza; but takes his wounds, and marches, and battles in very
good part. Both are very simple, full of naïveté, and quite
unpretending: they say the foreigners quarrelled among themselves,
particularly the French with the Germans, which produced duels.
"The Greeks accept muskets, but throw away _bayonets_, and will _not_
be disciplined. When these lads saw two Piedmontese regiments
yesterday, they said, 'Ah! if we had but _these_ two, we should have
cleared the Morea:' in that case the Piedmontese must have behaved
better than they did against the Austrians. They seem to lay great
stress upon a few regular troops--say that the Greeks have arms and
powder in plenty, but want victuals, hospital stores, and lint and
linen, &c. and money, very much. Altogether, it would be difficult to
show more practical philosophy than this remnant of our 'puir hill
folk' have done; they do not seem the least cast down, and their way
of presenting themselves was as simple and natural as could be. They
said, a Dane here had told them that an Englishman, friendly to the
Greek cause, was here, and that, as they were reduced to beg their
way home, they thought they might as well begin with me. I write in
haste to snatch the post.
"Believe me, and truly,
"Your obliged, &c.
"P.S. I have, since I wrote this, seen them again. Count P. Gamba
asked them to breakfast. One of them means to publish his Journal of
the campaign. The Bavarian wonders a little that the Greeks are not
quite the same with them of the time of Themistocles, (they were not
then very tractable, by the by,) and at the difficulty of
disciplining them; but he is a 'bon homme' and a tactician, and a
little like Dugald Dalgetty, who would insist upon the erection of 'a
sconce on the hill of Drumsnab,' or whatever it was;--the other seems
to wonder at nothing."