What Kolokotronis and the Executive did not know was that two of the three deputies for London, Louriotis and Ioannis Orlandos, were also receiving secret instructions from Mavrokordatos. Far more was at stake, even, than the much-needed cash that a loan would bring. Great Britain, Mavrokordatos now advised Louriotis and Orlandos confidentially, was beginning to change its policy with regard to Greece. Under Canning, who had succeeded Castlereagh as Foreign Secretary the previous September, for the first time the rights of the Greeks as belligerents had been recognised by a foreign power. The new policy still fell a long way short of support for the Greek cause. But it did mark the first chink in the united front the allied powers had presented to condemn the uprising, ever since 1821. If the British government, even at its most conservative, thought it worth competing against Russia for influence in the region, this was an opening that Mavrokordatos now urged his emissaries to exploit. The secret part of their instructions was to sound out the British government about nothing less than a diplomatic alliance with the new Greek state.41
A week later, confidentially to Louriotis alone, and writing in French, which few of his opponents in Tripolitsa would have been able to read, Mavrokordatos urged the need to play on British fears of Russian designs:
Exert yourself to exploit their hostile sentiments toward Russia, while bringing home to them the impossibility of the continued existence of the Turkish dynasty in Europe, and the need to replace that spectre with a power young and dynamic, jealous of its independence and capable of supporting itself through alliances, as powerful as they are well chosen, against an invasion from the North.42
It was the dream that Mavrokordatos had nurtured in Pisa, long before he and Ignatios had come to consider Britain as the principal one among these potential allies. The intervention by the London Greek Committee, variously manifested through Blaquiere, Louriotis, and the news that Byron might soon be on his way, gave Mavrokordatos his chance. He was not without supporters among the members of the post-Astros Provisional Government. But he had taken an enormous risk, from a considerably weakened political position.
Within weeks of Blaquiere's departure from Tripolitsa, and during the very days while Byron was at Livorno and beginning his voyage to Greece, the simmering confrontation at the heart of the Greek Provisional Government came to a head.
The separation of the functions of government, according to well-meaning principles adopted from the western Enlightenment, and following the practice of the American Constitution, by now threatened to pit the Legislative Body against the Executive. The new Executive, with Kolokotronis as its Vice-President and the primate of Mani, Petrobey Mavromichalis, as its President, was dominated by the warlords. Mavrokordatos, as its Secretary, found himself increasingly isolated. When the Executive Body moved out of Tripolitsa on 2 July, he contrived to stay behind – to ‘intrigue’, as Kolokotronis would soon indignantly claim.43 For its part, the Legislative Body now wanted Mavrokordatos to leave his post with the Executive and assume the authority of its President. This was too much for Kolokotronis, who hurried back to Tripolitsa to prevent it.
Mavrokordatos was elected on Tuesday, 22 July (the tenth according to the Greek calendar at the time). The Bishop of Arta, one of three delegates sent by the Legislature to inform Kolokotronis of its deliberations, made the mistake of slapping his thigh as he sang the praises of the new President. Kolokotronis drew out his yataghan and started waving it. The horrified bishop protested that the whole Legislative Body would have no choice but to leave the Peloponnese if threats like that continued. This very soon happened. But worse was to come, first.44
Mavrokordatos was already in trouble with the Executive for failing to follow it on campaign towards Corinth. Relations with Kolokotronis had now reached breaking point. Kolokotronis had plans to force his own candidate upon the Legislature. As things now stood, for Mavrokordatos to accept the post risked an open breach between the two bodies. At first he hesitated. Then he refused the office. A second summons from the Legislature followed the next day, both in writing and via an emissary. The emissary found him at Kolokotronis’ house, where the signs of coercion would have been unmistakable. Once again Mavrokordatos said no. The Legislative Body now resorted to emotional blackmail: ‘Twice you have been called to serve as president of this Body, and now for a third time. Unless you come at once, the Nation cries out against you.’45
The next day, 24 July (this was the day that Byron sailed from Livorno), Mavrokordatos addressed the Legislature with a dignified but rather convoluted speech on the necessity of avoiding divisions within the government. That day and the two days following, the Proceedings record that he presided. But his tenure was to be short-lived. On the twenty-fifth, an abrupt note from Kolokotronis, little softened by the diplomatic language of an official scribe, sacked Mavrokordatos as Secretary of the Executive and called on him to give an account of himself. Obediently, and at some length, Mavrokordatos did so, invoking the higher cause of ‘our national independence’ as his justification.46
Kolokotronis would have none of it. There were no more diplomatic exchanges. On the twenty-sixth, he summoned Mavrokordatos. What he said has been repeated, with variations of wording, many times since. Closest to the event is the account that Kolokotronis himself gave to Byron's agents, when they arrived in Tripolitsa two months afterwards:
if he found him again intriguing he would mount him on a donkey and have him whipped out of the Morea. (These were his expressions) and that he only refrained then from putting his threat in execution, in consequence of the remonstrances of some friends, who represented the bad effects likely to be the cause from it.
According to long-established custom and tradition under the Ottomans, it would have been the ultimate public humiliation.47
In the face of these threats, Mavrokordatos resigned and the Legislature hastily decamped from Tripolitsa.48 For a whole year after this, the Legislative Body would continue to regard Mavrokordatos as its president and would make no attempt to replace him. After the debacle, Mavrokordatos himself stayed behind in Tripolitsa for two weeks, perhaps a virtual prisoner. But Kolokotronis soon left, to extort revenues and adjudicate local disputes in the remoter parts of the Peloponnese.49 Mavrokordatos seized his opportunity, and was smuggled out of the town with the help of the Peloponnesian primates, Londos and Zaimis.50
By this time, the badly scared legislators had found a temporary home at the quarters already taken up by the peripatetic Executive, in the Faneromeni Monastery on the island of Kolouri, near Athens.51 As the seat of government, the island was immediately re-baptised in official documents with its ancient name, that would be familiar to western Europeans: Salamis. For Mavrokordatos to follow the Legislature to Salamis would have been to risk putting himself back into the power of Kolokotronis’ supporters. Instead, he found refuge, from the middle of August, among the wealthy Albanian-speaking merchants and shipowners of the island of Hydra. The way was open for Greece to have two governments, in different parts of the country, in a state of undeclared war against each other.
In limbo
Byron had no intention, beforehand, of stopping in the Ionian Islands for much longer than he had stopped at Livorno.52 Everybody aboard the Hercules knew that their destination was free Greece. But when the brig dropped anchor in the long inlet of the sea that shelters Argostoli, the principal town of Cephalonia, on Sunday, 3 August, the news that greeted those aboard, according to Trelawny writing at the time, was ‘rather appalling’. The Morea, they now learned, was under blockade, its waters patrolled by a Turkish fleet of ‘between eighty and ninety ships of war’. A huge Turkish army was reported to be heading down the eastern side of the Greek peninsula ‘in three divisions’.53 The reality turned out to be less dramatic. The land force would prove much smaller than feared and its operations would reach no further south than Thessaly and Euboea. The strength of the enemy fleet, that had arrived off Patras six weeks before, was only half what Byron's informants told hi
m on that first day.54 But its existence had not been known in Italy. It was still a serious setback. While the blockade lasted, there would be little chance of entering a recognised Greek port, such as a vessel the size of the Hercules would require. In any case, Captain Scott was not willing to risk his ship in the attempt.
What upset Byron more even than this was the report that Blaquiere, far from waiting for him at Tripolitsa, as his last letter had seemed to promise, was already on his way to England. Byron probably never learned the true reason for Blaquiere's abrupt departure. At the time, and for some while afterwards, he took Blaquiere's behaviour as a personal betrayal.55 That same night, writing ‘on the binnacle of a ship by the light of a lanthorn and a Squall blowing’, he dashed off a furious note to Blaquiere. ‘Here am I – but where are you?’ Beneath the anger, a glimpse of real despair peeps through: ‘what ought I to do?’ Suddenly, on arriving in Greek waters, Byron found himself rudderless. Thus far, he had relied entirely on Blaquiere to draw him onward to the next stage of his expedition, and on Bowring and the Committee in London to push from behind. He had left Livorno with the slightly resentful realisation: ‘As the Committee has not favoured me with any specific instructions…I of course have to suppose that I am left to my own discretion.’56 That first night at anchor off Argostoli, Byron understood for the first time what that might mean, and was appalled by it.
Next morning, he awoke to find the Hercules surrounded by small boats and a crowd of kilted Souliot tribesmen swarming over the deck, to the consternation of Captain Scott and his crew. Ever since their compatriots had saved him and Hobhouse after their shipwreck in 1809, Byron had had a weakness for these colourful warriors. For a moment it must have looked as though the Provisional Government had after all sent a guard of honour to welcome him to their country – and to transport him momentarily back to the sights and sounds of his youth. Parley with their leaders on the deck – the chieftains Fotomaras, Tzavellas, and Drakos – quickly revealed the truth. These men knew nothing of any government in Greece. They had found refuge here with their families from the fighting on the mainland. When Byron discovered that the British authorities had prudently confiscated their weapons as a condition for this sanctuary, he professed outrage, and immediately took forty of the men into his service. If the Provisional Government in Greece had neglected to send him the guard of honour he had at first imagined them to be, Byron would create his own.
And what of the Provisional Government? As the days passed, and Byron's party kept to the ship to minimise embarrassment to the British authorities on shore, there was no sign of any reception committee or even a message from the mainland. Blaquiere was supposed to have prepared the ground for his coming. Even if Blaquiere himself had defected, why had no one been sent from Tripolitsa to receive him – or at least to bring a message? The last letter Byron had received from Blaquiere before leaving Italy had promised that Louriotis would be writing. ‘Mavrocordato is also desirous of thanking you, and will most probably do too.’57 Where were these letters? As a matter of fact, Mavrokordatos had written to him, on 14 July, at the same time as he had been briefing Louriotis and Orlandos for their mission to London. Thinking Byron was still in Genoa, Mavrokordatos hoped that his emissaries might be able to deliver his letter on their way. But the letter had still travelled no further than Hydra and would not reach Byron for another six weeks. Byron was not to know this, but within days of his arrival in Cephalonia, there would be nobody left in Tripolitsa who would have had either the wish or the authority to invite the noble foreigner into their midst.58
The day after the invasion by the Souliots, Byron received another visitor aboard the Hercules. This was Colonel Napier, the Resident, who had only that morning returned to the island from a meeting with the Turkish naval authorities from Patras.59 With Napier, Byron at once struck up a friendship based on mutual respect. A veteran of Wellington's Peninsular campaigns during the Napoleonic wars, and the future conqueror of the Indian province of Sind, Napier sympathised strongly with the Greek cause and held very decided views about how it should be prosecuted. He was also an energetic, if not necessarily a very popular, governor in Cephalonia. Napier is still remembered there for the ambitious programme of public works that he pursued, conscripting the islanders for forced labour. Roads, lighthouses, and bridges built or planned by Napier can still be seen today. Back in April, Napier had risked the displeasure of the government he served, when he volunteered a memorandum of advice to the Provisional Government of Greece on the conduct of the war.
Envisioning a military advance through Thessaly to take Salonica and even Constantinople, Napier had given short shrift to the kind of constitutional debates that at the time had been preoccupying the Greek leaders gathered at Astros:
The Greek Government should have nothing to do with constitutions for a country which does not belong to them[,] which Greece does not, while a single Turkish soldier bears arms in Europe. Prince Mavrocordato should be made dictator; his success gives him a full title to that high honour, and for the present the men, the arms, the money of Greece, ought to be at his command.60
Napier shared these ideas with Byron, probably from the beginning. To one who had once dreamed of being ‘the first man – not the Dictator – not the Sylla, but the Washington or the Aristides – the leader in talent and truth’, Napier's bluntness must have been exhilarating. On the politics of the Revolution, once he was in a position to formulate ideas of his own, Byron would take a very different line. But on military matters he would ever afterwards defer to Napier. Soon, he would be confidentially recommending his new friend to the London Greek Committee as a possible commander-in-chief for Greece.61
Here, at last, and just when he was most needed, was someone of whom Byron could ask, as he had rhetorically demanded of Blaquiere, what was he to do now? Napier was the only person in the island with the authority to invite Byron's party to come ashore and to prolong their stay. In the circumstances, Byron could only agree. Until he knew who was expecting him in Greece, and where, he could go no further in any case. But he refused Napier's offer of hospitality at the Residency. No doubt he was jealous of his independence. And despite the suspicions of Trelawny and others, he will still have believed that his stay would be a short one. So Byron and his party kept to their cramped quarters aboard the Hercules. But he was soon regularly accepting invitations to dine with Napier. He had his horses put ashore, and took to riding out with Lieutenant-Colonel Duffie of the Eighth Regiment. A different kind of acquaintance began to be cemented with the Scottish Presbyterian medical officer, James Kennedy, who would keep a meticulous record of his Conversations on Religion, with Lord Byron and Others, the first of which took place on Sunday, 10 August.62 As surprising to Byron as the lack of warmth shown by the Greeks he was on his way to serve, was the enthusiastic welcome extended by these representatives of his own nation, that he thought had long ago disowned him for good, in this provincial garrison town.
But these were distractions. During his first week in Cephalonia, and most likely acting on advice from Napier, Byron did everything he possibly could to establish contact with the Greek authorities on the mainland. He despatched a messenger to Corfu with his note for Blaquiere, and instructions to bring him back if by any chance he was still there. Blaquiere's intelligence from Tripolitsa would be vital, if only it could be obtained. Another messenger carried a letter through the blockade to Markos Botsaris, the Souliot chieftain recommended by his informants in Livorno. At the same time, Byron made the acquaintance of a local nobleman who promised to contact the Provisional Government in Greece on his behalf.
This was Count Demetrio Delladecima. Described as ‘a gentleman of some literary acquirements’, Delladecima would impress the young Julius Millingen with his ‘shrewdness, sound judgment, and deep acquaintance with the Greek character’. Byron gave him the nickname ‘Ultima Analise’, apparently a catchphrase of his.63 Many of the landed families of these islands were descended from the I
talian nobility that had settled there during seven centuries of rule by Venice, intermarried, and adopted the near-universal Greek Orthodox form of Christianity. It was still the custom for the men of this class to receive their education in Italy. As a result, they were more used to writing in Italian than in their mother tongue. This made it easy for Byron to converse with Delladecima.
By the end of Byron's first week in Cephalonia, Delladecima had agreed to convey his urgent message to the Provisional Government. Since he was on good terms with Mavrokordatos, and believing him still to be Secretary to the Executive Body, Delladecima wrote to the person he knew, in Italian, and giving the address, simply, as ‘Peloponneso’. As well as conveying Byron's questions, the Count gave a factual account of his arrival, entourage, and demeanour so far. That Byron was to be taken seriously, he wrote, was evident from his offer to put up 1,000 dollars per month to maintain a corps of Souliots at the disposal of the Government. Delladecima added that in his own opinion this force would be of greatest use in Western Greece, where it would back Botsaris’ campaign in the mountains. To this, Byron had agreed.
Next come Byron's questions, which are to be answered by the government. They reveal the immediacy, as well as the urgency, of Byron's dilemma when he had been only one week in the Ionian Islands:
1. At what place in Greece would it most advisable for him to disembark?
2. When should he arrive at the place fixed upon?
Byron's War Page 22