Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. — a MemoirBiddulph, Elizabeth Philippa, Baroness
History
Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. — a Memoir
Biddulph, Elizabeth Philippa, Baroness
Hardwicke, Charles Philip Yorke, Earl of, 1799-1873
'Powerful in strength must he be who can manage this; long in pocket,
with a head filled up with every talent that man is capable of
possessing and a pair of loaded pistols in his belt, with no more words
than are absolutely necessary to warn people, if they do not do this,
that they will have a chance of being sent to sleep with their Fathers.
'St. James's Street and English notions must be abolish'd, so must all
Romance of Liberty and the children of the antient Greeks struggling to
shake off the yoke of the bloody Turk; Lord Byron knows all this, and
is in fact the only man that has ever come out to them who understands
the people. He was at Missolonghi, living in every way like a great
Chief; and in fact he is so, arm'd to the teeth with 500 Suliotes, the
bravest and best troops the Greeks have, and twenty German Veterans,
besides a certain Count Gamba, a beautiful Albanian Page, an Italian
Chasseur, and an old Scotch butler, making in all about 530 well arm'd
men, besides the Suliotes from all parts of Greece flocking to him
daily, he could if he liked set up a Govt. in Missolonghi, but as he
hates governments, and likes this sort of life where his nod and beck
are a law, he will have nothing to do with their legislation altho'
they come and offer to place him at the head of the Government
victorious. He however has pay'd their fleet for them, who immediately
landed their Admiral and sailed away the Lord knows where. 'The first
interview I had with this Prince Mavrocordato I could do nothing, as I
plainly saw they were detaining me while they made out a case and that
Stanhope's wits were put in requisition. In addition to which I had no
interpreter, and so I was obliged to speak French, the only other
language Mavrocordato understood besides Greek. So I broke up the
interview by saying it was late and that I should wait on him again
to-morrow. This however I did not effect, as it blew a gale on the
following day, but the next I again saw him, and having previously put
a few questions to the purpose on paper I defeated his quibbles, and
made him refund in hard dollars the value of the cargo, threatening
that if he did not I should burn, sink and destroy immediately. I gave
him four hours to consider of it, and stay'd with Ld. Byron until the
time elapsed, much amused by all his sayings and anecdotes, firing
pistols at a mark, eating, &c. &c.
'The time pass'd and the money came; thus ended my diplomatic Mission
at Missolonghi. I have just seen some English papers, they talk of
Missolonghi having sixty pieces of Cannon and a large garrison.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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