your country, and on
the ruinous consequences of persevering in inaction until the last
resources of war shall be exhausted."

Karaiskakes's only answer was that the army was in urgent need of spades
and shovels, with which he hoped that Lord Cochrane would supply him, as
without those means of making fresh tambourias he could not move from
his encampment. Lord Cochrane was reasonably indignant. "I confess," he
wrote in reply, "that I am now in despair of your making any movement
for the relief of the Acropolis, because I have now ascertained that,
all the obstacles which first presented themselves to your excellency
being overcome, others successively present themselves, to put off the
day of your march to the Acropolis. I have made a diversion here this
day in favour of your excellency, which, by all the rules of military
tactics, must increase the relative strength of your army and facilitate
its march. My time and attention must now be devoted to naval matters,
and unless you advance this evening, I shall have deeply and bitterly to
regret, for the sake of Greece, that I ever put faith in anything being
accomplished by individuals to whom so many difficulties, which my
experience has taught me to be imaginary, present themselves. I recall
to your excellency's recollection your promises and assurances, and I
call upon you to make some effort to save your country from inevitable
ruin. I solemnly declare that it is my opinion that a thousand men who
would obey orders and do their duty are more than are necessary to
perform the task at which your excellency hesitates. I shall be
oppressed with grief if, after the scene of yesterday, I am compelled to
return, first, to the seat of Government, and next to Europe, without
having witnessed any deed that can tend to obliterate the stain thereby
affixed on the Grecian people."

"I am making my last effort," wrote Lord Cochrane to Dr. Gosse, "to get
Karaiskakes to advance. The monastery is taken, its defenders are
destroyed, and now the sheepfold on the other side of the Phalerum is
the obstacle. We want mortars, shells, and fuses, shoes for the seamen,
and food for the mob denominated falsely the army of Greece."

The letter to Karaiskakes had some effect. On the 30th of April, General
Church wrote to say that he had persuaded the Greek captains to agree
unanimously to an immediate movement against Athens. Two thousand men
were to go, during the following night, by water to