your excellencies to fulfil the engagement
entered into relative to the appropriation of two-thirds of the revenues
of the islands, which you have thought fit to apply to other purposes."

To neither letter was any satisfactory answer sent by the authorities,
and Lord Cochrane, after all his previous troubles, believed that none
would ever be obtained. He therefore suddenly resolved to leave Greece
for a time, to go himself to England and France, and there, by personal
communication with the leading Philhellenes, to describe the actual
condition of Greece, and to see if any better state of affairs could be
brought about. This resolution he announced on the 1st of January, 1828,
to Count Capodistrias, who, having been elected President of Greece
nearly nine months before, and having accepted that office, had not yet
thought fit to enter upon it or to do anything towards repairing the
shattered fortunes and retrieving the violated honour of the State of
which he was nominally the head.

"On my return home from Brazil," said Lord Cochrane, in this memorable
letter, "I was pressed by various friends of Greece to engage in the
service of a people struggling to free themselves from oppression and
slavery. My inclination was consonant to theirs. It was stipulated that,
for the objects in view, six steam-vessels should be rapidly built, and
that two old vessels of war, or Indiamen, should be purchased and manned
with foreign seamen. The engines for the steam-vessels were to be
high-pressure, these being the easiest constructed and managed; and two
American frigates, when finished, were also to be placed under my
authority. The failure of the engineer, through disgraceful ignorance or
base treachery, in the proper construction of the engines--the want of
funds to procure the old vessels of war or Indiamen with foreign
seamen--and the retention of one of the frigates built in North America,
deprived me of the whole of the stipulated force, except the _Hellas_.
It is needless to remark that with one frigate I was unable to effect
that which has since required eleven European ships of the line, aided
by many frigates and smaller vessels, to accomplish. Under these
circumstances, it became my duty to confine myself to desultory
operations, secretly conducted against the enemy.

"The difficulties I have had to contend with, even in these excursions,"
he continued, "can best be appreciated by the few foreign European
officers who a