Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron, 1788-1824 -- Last years; Poets, English -- 19th century -- Biography
'I write, not from a land of liberty and freedom, but from a country
at present a prey to anarchy and confusion, with the dismal prospect
of future tyranny.... Odysseus is at his fortress of Parnassus;
bribery, assassination, and every provocation, have been employed
against him. An English officer, Captain Fenton, who is with Odysseus,
as well as Trelawny, has been twice attempted to be assassinated,
after refusing to accept a bribe of 10,000 dollars, to deliver up the
fortress. _Mavrocordato's agents principally influence the Government;
the executive body remains stationary; and part of the loan has been
employed to secure their re-election._'
There is enough in this letter to account for Trelawny's irritation; but
he was entirely wrong in thinking that Byron was in any sense subservient
to the man whom he then regarded as the real author of his misfortunes.
Trelawny had made the mistake of joining the faction of Odysseus, but
Byron was never connected with any faction whatever. Odysseus seems to
have persuaded Trelawny that Byron had become a mere tool of Mavrocordato,
and it was under that erroneous impression that his letter to Mary Shelley
was written.
If, as Mrs. Julian Marshall says, 'Trelawny's mercurial and impulsive
temperament--ever in extremes--was liable to the most sudden revulsion of
feeling,' it would surely have been wiser, and certainly fairer, to have
withheld the publication of opinions which were not intended for
publication, and which he had, in later life, openly disavowed. In his
estimate of the character and policy of Mavrocordato, he was also
mistaken. It would be quite easy to show that Mavrocordato was perhaps the
only man of his nation, then in Greece, who united in an eminent degree
unadulterated patriotism with the talents which form a statesman.
Millingen, who knew him well, tells us that it was fortunate for Greece
that Mavrocordato was so well acquainted with the character of those with
whom he had to deal. That knowledge preserved Missolonghi, until the
arrival of reinforcements enabled it to hold out against Omer Pacha's
assault. Mavrocordato, he tells us, never pursued any other object than
the good of his country, and never sacrificed her interests to his own
ambition. He alone was capable of organizing a civil administration; in
fact, he created a stable form of government from the ashes of chaos. So
far from his having been a coward, as Trelawny asserts, Mavrocordato, in
his intense desire to serve his country, often placed himself at the head
of troops and fought bravely. Having held the position of Governor-General
of Western Greece in very trying times, he relinquished his command in
1825, in compliance with the orders of his Government, which recalled him
to Anapli, there to fill the post of Secretary of State. He sacrificed the
whole of his fortune in the service of Greece. According to Millingen, he
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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