march next day and take up a
position under Lepanto, and Lord Byron with the main body and the
artillery was speedily to follow.

New difficulties, however, were soon started by these untractable
mercenaries; and under the instigation, as was discovered afterwards,
of the great rival of Mavrocordato, Colocotroni, who had sent
emissaries into Missolonghi for the purpose of seducing them, they
now put forward their exactions in a new shape, by requiring of the
Government to appoint, out of their number, two generals, two
colonels, two captains, and inferior officers in the same
proportion:--"in short," says Count Gamba, "that, out of three or
four hundred actual Suliotes, there should be about one hundred and
fifty above the rank of common soldiers." The audacious dishonesty of
this demand,--beyond what he could have expected even from
Greeks,--roused all Lord Byron's rage, and he at once signified to
the whole body, through Count Gamba, that all negotiation between
them and himself was at an end; that he could no longer have any
confidence in persons so little true to their engagements; and that
though the relief which he had afforded to their families should
still be continued, all his agreements with them, as a body, must be
thenceforward void.

It was on the 14th of February that this rupture with the Suliotes
took place; and though, on the following day, in consequence of the
full submission of their Chiefs, they were again received into his
Lordship's service on his own terms, the whole affair, combined with
the various other difficulties that now beset him, agitated his mind
considerably. He saw with pain that he should but place in peril both
the cause of Greece and his own character, by at all relying, in such
an enterprise, upon troops whom any intriguer could thus seduce from
their duty; and that, till some more regular force could be
organised, the expedition against Lepanto must be suspended.

While these vexatious events were occurring, the interruption of his
accustomed exercise by the rains but increased the irritability that
such delays were calculated to excite; and the whole together, no
doubt, concurred with whatever predisposing tendencies were already
in his constitution, to bring on that convulsive fit,--the forerunner
of his death,--which, on the evening of the 15th of February, seized
him. He was sitting, at about eight o'clock, with only Mr. Parry and
Mr. Hesketh, in the apartment of Colonel