The man of action spoke there; and the man of action also came out in Byron's expressions of disdain for his colleague, Colonel Stanhope--the "typographical colonel," as he called him--who maintained that the one thing needful for the salvation of the Greeks was that they should "model their institutions on those of the United States of America, and decree the unlimited freedom of the Press." Byron knew better than that. He was not to be persuaded that "newspapers would be more effectual in driving back the Ottoman armies than well-drilled troops and military tactics." He knew that fighting would be necessary, and he was awaiting his chance of fighting with effect. His chance came when Mavrocordatos, emerging from the ruck of revolutionary leaders, arrived to raise the siege of Missolonghi, after mopping up a Turkish treasure ship by the way, and invited Byron to join him, placing a brig at his disposal for the voyage. "I need not tell you," he wrote, "to what a pitch your presence is desired by everybody, or what a prosperous direction it will give to all our affairs." The "typographical colonel," who was already with Mavrocordatos, wrote at the same time: "It is right and proper to tell you that a great deal is expected from you, both in the way of counsel and money ... you are expected with feverish anxiety. Your further delay in coming will be attended with serious consequences." Whereupon Byron, resolving at last to take the plunge, wrote to Douglas Kinnaird, who was managing his affairs for him in London: "Get together all the means and credit of mine you can, to face the war establishment, for it is 'in for a penny, in for a pound,' and I must do all that I can for the ancients." And so, with Pietro Gamba, to the dismal swamp, where he was "welcomed," Gamba tells us, "with salvos of artillery, firing of muskets, and wild music." "Crowds of soldiery," Gamba continues, "and citizens of every rank, sex, and age were assembled on the shore to testify their delight. Hope and content were pictured in every countenance. His lordship landed in a Spezziot boat, dressed in a red uniform. He was in excellent health, and appeared moved by the scene." Moved by the scene, indeed, he doubtless was. The scene was the beginning of his rehabilitation in the eyes of those who had treated him with contempt--the beginning of the proof that he had the qualities of a leader, and could wield other weapons besides the pen--the demonstrative proclamation that the path of duty was to be the way to glory. The scarlet uniform was an appropriate tribute to the solemnity of the occasion on which he formally entered upon his last and best new way of life. He did not enter upon it, however, "in excellent health," as Gamba says, but as a broken man with a shattered constitution, who had but a little time in which to do his work before the inevitable malaria came up out of the marsh and gripped him.