. On the establishment
of peace, he had passed into the Neapolitan service. Many of his old
Greek soldiers were now leaders in the Revolution, and, while Lord
Cochrane was on his way to become the First Admiral of the Greeks,
General Church had been invited to become Generalissimo on land. He
arrived at Porto Kheli, near Kastri or Hermione, on the 9th of March,
eight days before the appearance of Lord Cochrane. The generals
assembled at Hermione came out to meet him and tender their submission.
"Our father is at last come," said one; "we have only to obey him and
our liberty is secured." Sir Richard Church was at once sought as a
leader by the Moreot faction, just as Lord Cochrane was claimed by the
Phanariots as their champion. He, however, like his new comrade, wisely
resolved to avoid partisanship and to study the interests of Greece as a
whole, and to him must be assigned a share of the good work of
pacification in which Lord Cochrane was the prime mover. "This unhappy
country," he wrote to his new friend on the 19th of March, "is now
divided by absurd and criminal dissensions. I hope, however, that your
lordship's arrival will have a happy effect, and that they will do
everything in their power to be worthy of such a leader."

They did something, if not everything. It was firmly believed that party
strife had reached such a point that, had Lord Cochrane's arrival been
delayed only a few days longer, the leaders of the National Assembly at
Hermione, turning aside from their useless discussions, would have acted
upon a plot that had been in preparation for several weeks, and, landing
a hostile force at Egina, would have violently seized the whole
Governing Commission there established. Lord Cochrane's honest reproofs
averted this, and so saved Greece from the horrors of another civil war.

"I am happy to be able to inform you," wrote General Church on the 25th
of March, "that things are brought to that state that the union of the
parties is, I think, now effected. The deputies from Kastri came over to
me yesterday morning to Damala, and there they met those of Egina. After
some discussion, they have come to a conclusion, which, if ratified by
the Assembly at Egina, will finally terminate the affair."

The affair was not terminated immediately. Lord Cochrane had to despatch
many more letters and messages of earnest entreaty and indignant
reproach to the leaders of the rival factions at Egina and Hermione, and
to oth