"March 10.
"Enclosed is an answer to Mr. Parruca's letter, and I hope that you
will assure him from me, that I have done and am doing all I can to
re-unite the Greeks with the Greeks.
"I am extremely obliged by your offer of your country house (as for
all other kindness) in case that my health should require my removal;
but I cannot quit Greece while there is a chance of my being of any
(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. When I
say this, I am at the same time aware of the difficulties and
dissensions and defects of the Greeks themselves; but allowance must
be made for them by all reasonable people.
"My chief, indeed _nine tenths_ of my expenses here are solely in
advances to or on behalf of the Greeks[1], and objects connected with
their independence."
[Footnote 1: "At this time (February 14th)," says Mr. Parry, who kept
the accounts of his Lordship's disbursements, "the expenses of Lord
Byron in the cause of the Greeks did not amount to less than two
thousand dollars per week in rations alone." In another place this
writer says, "The Greeks seemed to think he was a mine from which
they could extract gold at their pleasure. One person represented
that a supply of 20,000 dollars would save the island of Candia from
falling into the hands of the Pacha of Egypt; and there not being
that sum in hand, Lord Byron gave him authority to raise it if he
could in the Islands, and he would guarantee its repayment. I believe
this person did not succeed."]
The letter of Parruca, to which the foregoing alludes, contained a
pressing invitation to Lord Byron to present himself in the
Peloponnesus, where, it was added, his influence would be sure to
bring about the Union of all parties. So general, indeed, was the
confidence placed in their noble ally, that, by every Chief of every
faction, he seems to have been regarded as the only rallying point
round which there was the slightest chance of their now split and
jarring interests being united. A far more flattering, as well as
more authorised, invitation soon after reached him, through an
express envoy, from the Chieftain, Colocotroni, recommending a
National Council, where his Lordship, it was proposed, should act as
mediator, and pledging this Chief himself and his followers to abide
by the result. To this application an answer was returned similar to
that which he sent to Parruca, and which was in terms as follows:--