despatching the courier until the following morning."

The reply, dated the 21st of March, was wise and bold. "I have had the honour," wrote Lord Cochrane, "to receive the despatches which you have addressed to me, and I cannot but be flattered by the sentiments that they convey. This satisfaction is the more lively because I have had the opportunity of becoming personally acquainted with his excellency General Kolokotrones, and the officers who accompanied him. But I freely acknowledge that it is blended with a feeling of regret, in that it appears to me that the bravest and most renowned officers of Greece are devoting all their energies to the formation of a civil government and wasting their time in discussions as to the place in which they shall effect a reunion while the enemy is overrunning the country without resistance. Already he possesses three-fourths of the fortresses of Greece, and is besieging the capital of the republic. Athens is on the point of falling into the power of the Ottoman forces; the brave Fabvier and a few heroes, full of enthusiasm, are engaged in aiding the valiant defenders of that city; and meanwhile the officers of Greece betake themselves again and again to frivolous discussions on civil affairs. If the shade of Demosthenes could again animate the ashes of this great man which are here entombed, he would, changing only the names of persons and places, address to you his first Philippic, and you would hear from the lips of a compatriot profoundly versed in history and in the knowledge of mankind, what ought to be your manner of acting. I recommend you to read his discourse in full assembly, and I especially recommend the citizens charged with presiding over the destinies of Greece to follow his counsels point by point. With an authority so applicable to the existing circumstances, it would be unpardonable presumption in me to address to you other than his own words. 'If, Athenians, you will now, though you did not before, adopt the principle of every man being ready, where he can and ought to give his service to the state, to give it without excuse, the wealthy to contribute, the able-bodied to enlist; in a word, plainly, if you will become your own masters, and cease each expecting to do nothing himself, while his neighbour does everything for him, you will then, with God's permission, get back your own, and recover what has been lost, and punish your enemy.'"

To the same effect were Lord Cochrane's answers to the congratulatory letters sent to him by the other leading persons and parties in Greece. "It may be well to notice," he wrote on the same day to the Government at Egina, "that in the conversation which I had with the deputation from Hermione, I respectfully suggested that, as laws cannot be promulgated with advantage whilst the mass of the country is under the iron yoke of Turkish despotism, nor executed whilst the lives and properties of all continue insecure, the National Assembly might be adjourned with advantage until the capital is free, and thus we should avoid debating whilst we should be acting, and check those animosities and divisions which naturally arise from difference of sentiment under the peculiar conditions of modern Greece." "The time now draws near," he wrote to the Government of Hydra, "when the approach of a large force may reasonably be anticipated, and when consequently the means that the Greeks possess of contending with their enemies will be comparatively diminished. I have, therefore, in the name of all Europe—by whose people I may in truth say that I have been sent here—called upon the Executive Government, and upon all those connected with public affairs, to act with union and promptitude, and I have informed them that without harmony and exertion amongst the chiefs, the slender means placed at my disposal, and any services which I personally could render, would prove of no avail. The people are split into factions, and operations are paralyzed by the conflicting personal interests of chiefs who perceive not that the prize about which they are contending will fall to the share of others. I have as yet taken no authority upon me in naval affairs, because if union do not prevail I shall deceive Greece and deceive the world by inducing a belief that I could assist you."

While waiting, however, for the rivalries of the Greek leaders to be removed, or at any rate set aside for a time, Lord Cochrane was not idle. He had frequent interviews, not only with Admiral Miaoulis and the other native seamen of ability, but also with Dr. Gosse, and with Captain Abney Hastings, who joined him on the 22nd, and provided him with much precise information as to the naval strength of Greece, the character of the officers and crews, and the best methods of attacking the Turks with advantage. Information as precise about the land forces was derived from other Philhellenes, among whom Colonel Heideck and Colonel Gordon were perhaps the best informed. Lord Cochrane also made the acquaintance of a new comer in Greece, with whom he was soon to have very intimate relations—Sir Richard Church.

General Church had begun life as an officer in the British army. He had seen various service between 1801 and 1809, and in the latter year had organised a battalion of Greeks at Zante, with which, and afterwards with another which he also formed, he had played an important part in the war for the liberation of the Ionian Islands. On the establishment of peace, he had passed into the Neapolitan service. Many of his old Greek soldiers were now leaders in the Revolution, and, while Lord Cochrane was on his way to become the First Admiral of the Greeks, General Church had been invited to become Generalissimo on land. He arrived at Porto Kheli, near Kastri or Hermione, on the 9th of March, eight days before the appearance of Lord Cochrane. The generals assembled at Hermione came out to meet him and tender their submission. "Our father is at last come," said one; "we have only to obey him and our liberty is secured." Sir Richard Church was at once sought as a leader by the Moreot faction, just as Lord Cochrane was claimed by the Phanariots as their champion. He, however, like his new comrade, wisely resolved to avoid partisanship and to study the interests of Greece as a whole, and to him must be assigned a share of the good work of pacification in which Lord Cochrane was the prime mover. "This unhappy country," he wrote to his new friend on the 19th of March, "is now divided by absurd and criminal dissensions. I hope, however, that your lordship's arrival will have a happy effect, and that they will do everything in their power to be worthy of such a leader."

They did something, if not everything. It was firmly believed that party strife had reached such a point that, had Lord Cochrane's arrival been delayed only a few days longer, the leaders of the National Assembly at Hermione, turning aside from their useless discussions, would have acted upon a plot that had been in preparation for several weeks, and, landing a hostile force at Egina, would have violently seized the whole Governing Commission there established. Lord Cochrane's honest reproofs averted this, and so saved Greece from the horrors of another civil war.

"I am happy to be able to inform you," wrote General Church on the 25th of March, "that things are brought to that state that the union of the parties is, I think, now effected. The deputies from Kastri came over to me yesterday morning to Damala, and there they met those of Egina. After some discussion, they have come to a conclusion, which, if ratified by the Assembly at Egina, will finally terminate the affair."

The affair was not terminated immediately. Lord Cochrane had to despatch many more letters and messages of earnest entreaty and indignant reproach to the leaders of the rival factions at Egina and Hermione, and to other prominent men, before the good end that he and all true Philhellenes and patriots sought could be gained. "I have received the letter which your excellency has addressed to me," wrote the worthy Miaoulis, on the 3rd