LETTER 539. TO MR. CHARLES HANCOCK.

"Missolonghi, January 19. 1824.

"Since I wrote on the 17th, I have received a letter from Mr. Stevens, enclosing an account from Corfu, which is so exaggerated in price and quantity, that I am at a loss whether most to admire Gamba's folly, or the merchant's knavery. All that I requested Gamba to order was red cloth enough to make a jacket, and some oil-skin for trowsers, &c.—the latter has not been sent—the whole could not have amounted to fifty dollars. The account is six hundred and forty-five!!! I will guarantee Mr. Stevens against any loss, of course, but I am not disposed to take the articles (which I never ordered), nor to pay the amount. I will take one hundred dollars' worth; the rest may be sent back, and I will make the merchant an allowance of so much per-cent.; or, if that is not to be done, you must sell the whole by auction at what price the things may fetch; for I would rather incur the dead loss of part, than be encumbered with a quantity of things, to me at present superfluous or useless. Why, I could have maintained three hundred men for a month for the sum in Western Greece.

"When the dogs, and the dollars, and the negro; and the horses, fell into the hands of the Turks, I acquiesced with patience, as you may have perceived, because it was the work of the elements of war, or of Providence: but this is a piece of mere human knavery or folly, or both, and I neither can nor will submit to it.[1] I have occasion for every dollar I can muster to keep the Greeks together, and I do not grudge any expense for the cause; but to throw away as much as would equip, or at least maintain, a corps of excellent ragamuffins with arms in their hands, to furnish Gamba and the Doctor with blank bills (see list), broad cloth, Hessian boots, and horsewhips (the latter I own that they have richly earned), is rather beyond my endurance, though a pacific person, as all the world knows, or at least my acquaintances. I pray you to try to help me out of this damnable commercial speculation of Gamba's, for it is one of those pieces of impudence or folly which I don't forgive him in a hurry. I will of course see Stevens free of expense out of the transaction;—by the way, the Greek of a Corfiote has thought proper to draw a bill, and get it discounted at 24 dollars: if I had been there, it should have been protested also.

[Footnote 1: We have here as striking an instance as could be adduced of that peculiar feature of his character which shallow or malicious observers have misrepresented as avarice, but which in reality was the result of a strong sense of justice and fairness, and an indignant impatience of being stultified or over-reached. Colonel Stanhope, in referring to the circumstance mentioned above, has put Lord Byron's angry feeling respecting it in the true light.

"He was constantly attacking Count Gamba, sometimes, indeed, playfully, but more often with the bitterest satire, for having purchased for the use of his family, while in Greece, 500 dollars' worth of cloth. This he used to mention as an instance of the Count's imprudence and extravagance. Lord Byron told me one day, with a tone of great gravity, that this 500 dollars would have been most serviceable in promoting the siege of Lepanto; and that he never would, to the last moment of his existence, forgive Gamba, for having squandered away his money in the purchase of cloth. No one will suppose that Lord Byron could be serious in such a denunciation: he entertained, in reality, the highest opinion of Conant Gamba, who, both on account of his talents and devotedness to his friend, merited his Lordship's esteem. As to Lord Byron's generosity, it is before the world; he promised to devote his large income to the cause of Greece, and he honestly acted up to his pledge."]

"Mr. Blackett is here ill, and will soon set out for Cephalonia. He came to me for some pills, and I gave him some reserved for particular friends, and which I never knew any body recover from under several months; but he is no better, and, what is odd, no worse; and as the doctors have had no better success with him than I, he goes to Argostoli, sick of the Greeks and of a constipation.

"I must reiterate my request for specie, and that speedily, otherwise public affairs will be at a standstill here. I have undertaken to pay the Suliotes for a year, to advance in March 3000 dollars, besides, to the Government for a balance due to the troops, and some other smaller matters for the Germans, and the press, &c. &c. &c.; so what with these, and the expenses of my suite, which, though not extravagant, is expensive, with Gamba's d—d nonsense, I shall have occasion for all the monies I can muster; and I have credits wherewithal to face the undertakings, if realised, and expect to have more soon.

"Believe me ever and truly yours," &c.

On the morning of the 22d of January, his birthday,—the last my poor friend was ever fated to see,—he came from his bedroom into the apartment where Colonel Stanhope and some others were assembled, and said with a smile, "You were complaining the other day that I never write any poetry now. This is my birthday, and I have just finished something which, I think, is better than what I usually write." He then produced to them those beautiful stanzas, which, though already known to most readers, are far too affectingly associated with this closing scene of his life to be omitted among its details. Taking into consideration, indeed, every thing connected with these verses,—the last tender aspirations of a loving spirit which they breathe, the self-devotion to a noble cause which they so nobly express, and that consciousness of a near grave glimmering sadly through the whole,—there is perhaps no production within the range of mere human composition round which the circumstances and feelings under which it was written cast so touching an interest.