THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE 1821 TO 1833 BY W.ALISON PHILLIPS 1897

BYRON SAILS FOR MISSOLONGHI 141
He besought the Government to bring about a reconciliation
between the parties, and threatened that, if
union could not be restored, the payment of the loan
would be indefinitely postponed. To Mavrocordatos
he wrote: ' Greece is placed between three measures;
either to reconquer her liberty, to become a dependence
of the sovereigns of Europe,
Turkish province.
to the two latter.
or to return to a
Civil war is but a road which leads
If she is desirous of the fate of Wallachia
and the Crimea, she may obtain it to-morrow ;if
of that of Italy, the day after ;
but if she wishes to become
truly Greece, free and independent, she must resolve
to-day, or she will never again have the opportunity/
*
All his prayers and admonitions, however, fell
on deaf ears. The Greek factions wanted his money,
not his advice;
and, failing the appearance of the former,
they rejected the latter with scorn.
At last,
in January 1824, Byron
decided to take
a more active part in the war, and sailed for Missolonghi.
With characteristic perversity, he had
chosen, for the scene of his activity, in spite
of the
entreaties and warnings of his friends, one of the most
unhealthy spots in Greece.
For one whose health was
already undermined to settle amid the fever-breeding
marshes of the Acarnanian coast was, indeed, to court
i Dated December 2, 1822, from Cephalonia. Moore, p. 604.