other vessels," he said, "were filled with pieces of the high-pressure
engines, all unfixed, and scattered about in the engine-room and on
deck. The boilers were in the small boats, and occupied nearly one
half of their length, Mr. Galloway having, through inattention or
otherwise, caused them to be made of the same dimensions as the
boilers for the great vessels, which, by the by, had been improperly
increased from sixteen feet, the length determined on, to twenty-three
feet." The inspection was unsatisfactory; but Mr. Galloway pledged
himself on his honour that the _Perseverance_ should start in a day or
two, that the _Enterprise_ and the _Irresistible_ should be completed
and sent to sea within a fortnight, and that the other three vessels
should be out of hand in less than a month.

Trusting to that promise, or at any rate hoping that it might be
fulfilled, and after a parting interview with Sir Francis Burdett, Mr.
Ellice, and other friends, Lord Cochrane left London on Monday, and
joined the _Unicorn_, at Dartford, on the 20th of May. It had
been arranged that he should wait in British waters for the first
instalment of his little fleet, at any rate. With that object he
called at Falmouth, and, receiving no satisfactory information there,
went to make a longer halt in Bantry Bay. At length, hearing that the
_Perseverance_ had actually started, with Captain Hastings for its
commander, and that the other two large vessels were on the point of
leaving the Thames, he left the coast of Ireland on the 12th of June.

He vainly hoped that the vessels would promptly join him in the
Mediterranean, and that within four or five weeks' time he should
be at work in Greek waters. The journey, however, was to last nine
months. The mismanagement and the wilful delays of Mr. Galloway and
the other contractors and agents continued as before. The urgent
need of Greece was unsatisfied; the funds collected for promoting her
deliverance were wantonly perverted; and the looked-for deliverer was
doomed to nearly a year of further inactivity--hateful to him at all
times, but now a special source of annoyance, as it involved not
only idleness to himself, but also serious injury to the cause he had
espoused.

He passed Oporto on the 18th, Lisbon on the 20th, and Gibraltar on the
26th of June. He was off Algiers on the 3rd of July, and on the 12th
he anchored in the harbour of Messina. There, and in the adjoining
waters, he waited nearly t