returned to Poros on the 10th of May, after an absence of
just three weeks. He lost no time in rendering to the Government, then
located in that island, a personal account of his recent proceedings,
and in doing his utmost to persuade the Greeks to aid him in the new
exploits on which he hoped to enter with better prospect of success. An
address to the Psarians, dated the 11th of May, will serve as a specimen
of many documents of the same nature. "It was my intention yesterday,"
he said, "to have paid my respects to you, in order personally to have
made known to you the circumstances in which the naval service is placed
and the state and preparations of the enemy, and to have called on you
to show an example to the other islanders, on whose exertions now depend
the liberties and fate of their country. The abandonment of the
schooner, in which I have hitherto been embarked by all her seamen,
prevented me from fulfilling my intention, and the certain intelligence
received this morning that the Turkish fleet from Constantinople passed
Syra the day before yesterday, to join the Egyptian fleet, compels me
now to recommend you by writing, instead of by word of mouth, to save
your country and yourselves by prompt and energetic exertions. The money
I brought here with me, being the proceeds of subscriptions made
throughout Europe for your cause, has unfortunately been nearly consumed
in fruitless endeavours to save the capital of Greece by means of an
irregular and unmanageable body of men, who will neither receive
instruction nor listen to advice. I hope that the brave seamen who
understand their duty will listen to my recommendation through you that
they should at once step forward to save their families from oppression
and slavery, and the name of their country from being struck out of the
list of independent nations. By one glorious effort Greece may be free;
but if she remain in her present state of apathy all hope must be
abandoned. I call upon you now to stand forward in defence of your
religion and all that is valuable to man. I send you a thousand dollars,
which is all that I can spare. Those who will equip their ships may
depend on repayment out of the first money that shall be remitted to me
for the public service of Greece."

As that letter implies, Lord Cochrane had to begin his reconstruction of
the Greek navy--now the only remaining resource of the nation in its
hope of working out and assuring its independence by