escapes from the Turks,
and also from being ship-wrecked. We were twice upon the rocks; but
this you will have heard, truly or falsely, through other channels,
and I do not wish to bore you with a long story.

"So far I have succeeded in supporting the Government of Western
Greece, which would otherwise have been dissolved. If you have
received the eleven thousand and odd pounds, these, with what I have
in hand, and my income for the current year, to say nothing of
contingencies, will, or might, enable me to keep the 'sinews of war'
properly strung. If the deputies be honest fellows, and obtain the
loan, they will repay the 4000,'. as agreed upon; and even then I
shall save little, or indeed less than little, since I am maintaining
nearly the whole machine--in this place, at least--at my own cost.
But let the Greeks only succeed, and I don't care for myself.

"I have been very seriously unwell, but am getting better, and can
ride about again; so pray quiet our friends on that score.

"It is not true that I ever _did, will, would, could, _ or _should_
write a satire against Gifford, or a hair of his head. I always
considered him as my literary father, and myself as his 'prodigal
son;' and if I have allowed his 'fatted calf' to grow to an ox
before, he kills it on my return, it is only because I prefer beef to
veal. Yours," &c

LETTER 546. TO MR. BARFF.

"February 23.

"My health seems improving, especially from riding and the warm bath.
Six Englishmen will be soon in quarantine at Zante; they are
artificers[1], and have had enough of Greece in fourteen days. If you
could recommend them to a passage home, I would thank you; they are
good men enough, but do not quite understand the little discrepancies
in these countries, and are not used to see shooting and slashing in
a domestic quiet way, or (as it forms here) a part of housekeeping.

[Footnote 1: The workmen who came out with Parry; and who, alarmed by
the scene of confusion and danger they found at Missolonghi, had
resolved to return home.]

"If they should want any thing during their quarantine, you can
advance them not more than a dollar a day (amongst them) for that
period, to purchase them some little extras as comforts (as they are
quite out of their element). I cannot afford them more at present."

The following letter to Mr. Murray,--which it is most gratifying to
have to produce, as the last completing link of a long friendship and
correspondence