"10bre 26. 1823.
"Little need be added to the enclosed, which arrived this day, except
that I embark to-morrow for Missolonghi. The intended operations are
detailed in the annexed documents. I have only to request that the
Committee will use every exertion to forward our views by all its
influence and credit.
"I have also to request you _personally_ from myself to urge my
friend and trustee, Douglas Kinnaird (from whom I have not heard
these four months nearly), to forward to me all the resources of my
_own_ we can muster for the ensuing year; since it is no time to
ménager _purse_, or, perhaps, _person_. I have advanced, and am
advancing, all that I have in hand, but I shall require all that can
be got together;--and (if Douglas has completed the sale of Rochdale,
_that _ and my year's income for next year ought to form a good round
sum,)--as you may perceive that there will be little cash of their
own amongst the Greeks (unless they get the Loan), it is the more
necessary that those of their friends who have any should risk it.
"The supplies of the Committee are, some, useful, and all excellent
in their kind, but occasionally hardly _practical_ enough, in the
present state of Greece; for instance, the mathematical instruments
are thrown away--none of the Greeks know a problem from a poker--we
must conquer first, and plan afterwards. The use of the trumpets,
too, may be doubted, unless Constantinople were Jericho, for the
Helenists have no ears for bugles, and you must send us somebody to
listen to them.
"We will do our best--and I pray you to stir your English hearts at
home to more _general_ exertion; for my part, I will stick by the
cause while a plank remains which can be _honourably_ clung to. If I
quit it, it will be by the Greeks' conduct, and not the Holy Allies
or holier Mussulmans--but let us hope better things.
"Ever yours, N. B.
"P.S. I am happy to say that Colonel Leicester Stanhope and myself
are acting in perfect harmony together--he is likely to be of great
service both to the cause and to the Committee, and is publicly as
well as personally a very valuable acquisition to our party on every
account. He came up (as they all do who have not been in the country
before) with some high-flown notions of the sixth form at Harrow or
Eton, &c.; but Col. Napier and I set him to rights on those points,
which is absolutely necessary to prevent disgust, or perhaps return;
but now we can set our shoulders _soberly_ to the _wheel_, without
quarrelling with the mud which may clog it occasionally.
"I can assure you that Col. Napier and myself are as decided for the
cause as any German student of them all; but like men who have seen
the country and human life, there and elsewhere, we must be permitted
to view it in its truth, with its defects as well as beauties,--more
especially as success will remove the former _gradually_. N. B.
"P.S. As much of this letter as you please is for the Committee, the
rest may be 'entre nous.'"