everywhere," wrote the same correspondents on the 25th of September;
"his presumption is only equalled by his incompetency. Whatever he has
to do with is miserably deficient. We do not think his misconduct has
been intentional; but it has proved most fatal to the interests of
Greece, and of those engaged in her behalf. On your lordship it has
pressed peculiarly hard; and most sincerely do we lament that an
undertaking, which promised so fairly in the commencement should
hitherto have proved unavailing, and that your power of assisting
this unhappy country should have been rendered nugatory by the want of
means to put it in effect."

Those letters, and others written before and after, did not reach Lord
Cochrane till the end of October. In the meanwhile, finding that the
expected vessels did not arrive at Messina, and that in that place it
was impossible even for him to receive accurate information as to the
progress of affairs in London, he called at Malta about the middle
of September, and thence proceeded to Marseilles, as a convenient
halting-place, in which he had better chance of hearing how matters
were proceeding, and from which he could easily go to meet the vessels
when, if ever, they were ready to join him. He reached Marseilles
on the 12th of October, and on the same day he forwarded a letter
to Messrs. Ricardo. "I wrote to you a few days ago," he said, "from
Malta, and, as the packet sailed with a fair wind, you will receive
that letter very shortly. You will thereby perceive the distressing
suspense in which I have been held, and the inconvenience to which
I have been exposed, by remaining on board this small vessel for a
period of five months, during all the heat of a Mediterranean summer,
without exercise or recreation. This situation has been rendered
the more unpleasant, as I have had no means to inform myself, except
through the public papers, relative to the concern in which we are now