PIRATE TRELAWNY

TRELAWNY was not really a pirate in the common acceptation of the term, or he would scarcely have survived to a ripe old age in a fashionable quarter of London; it was merely the name by which he was known among his friends and acquaintances of the middle of the last century, though it fitted him to a nicety.

After years of astonishing adventures among Malays, Arabs, and varieties of savage islanders in the Eastern Ocean, followed up, longo intervallo, by an intimacy in Italy with Byron and Shelley, all too speedily severed by their early death, he threw in his lot with an ambitious chieftain of the revolution in Greece, where he narrowly escaped assassination.

When finally he returned to England, the Pirate displayed an excellent taste in the choice of his place of residence, for in the forties, before it was cut up with broad gravelled roads in every direction, and the scorcher and motor-fiend were unknown, Wimbledon Common must have afforded a grateful imitation of wildness and solitude, and in those days he was living on Putney Hill.

Then some years later he bought a country-place on the Sussex coast and a house in Pelham Crescent, which in the seventies was just on the outskirts of town, and beyond it open spaces of garden and field, with only a fringe of houses along the main roads. Old Chelsea was resting in a condition of picturesque decrepitude, and along the Fulham Road, after you had passed the church at Walham Green, where Jenny Lind used to sing, you might walk on a May morning between hedges of whitethorn to the sleepy old village of Fulham and ferry across the river into the open country.

South Kensington was then a pleasant enough borderland, and peacocks' feathers were only a penny apiece. So between town and country the Pirate lived out his life, and only gave up the ghost, in 1881, at the respectable age of eighty-eight years. His mother before him had, however, lived to be ninety-three, which shows how useful a thing it is, if you are greedy of long life, to have secured a mother whose capacity in that respect is reliable.

That Trelawny's career was a remarkable one is sufficiently proved by the fact that the Dictionary of National Biography devotes seven

solid columns to his memory, and there he is described as 'author and adventurer.' As an adventurer he was a capable representative of those old West-country men of the days of Elizabeth and the Stuarts who sailed away to the Spanish Main and harried the Spaniards, while there can be little doubt that at one time he was deeply concerned in practices of a piratical nature which are politely alluded to in the Dictionary as privateering.

Sharp, in his Life of Severn, more handsomely styles the Pirate that latter-day Viking,' though most likely our remote ancestors would have found some difficulty in distinguishing between the two.

Then when his adventures were over and done, he sat down to tell us just what he chose of them, omitting a great deal more that only excites our curiosity. The two accounts that he did produce establish his right to a place in every library of English classics. To the reader jaded with the monotony of what nowadays passes for romance the Adventures of a Younger Son, for the forcefulness of the language and the rush of the narrative, will come as water in a thirsty land, while the charm of the love-story which holds the chief place in the Adventures lies beyond all criticism. These were written before he was forty, and it was not until he had reached the age of sixty-six that he gave some account of his doings in Italy and Greece, now known as the Records of Shelley, Byron, and the Author.

The old vigour of expression is still maintained, though the style is more polished and subdued, while our interest is equally great, because the writer is dealing with men whose names were in everyone's mouth, and whose doings and surroundings are more or less familiar to us. His power in summing up a position in a few emphatic words is admirable. I have read many accounts in widely different quarters of the complex circumstances which led up to and were consequent on that startling historical episode, the battle of Navarino, but never one in which the whole situation was set out with such compact and absolute correctness as Trelawny puts it with pungent sarcasm in half a dozen lines in the Records.

Mr. Edward Garnett in his introduction to the Younger Son (ed. 1890) tells us that the sources for a memoir of Trelawny are few. That being so, the discovery of certain letters and documents which I have been fortunate enough to meet with in the course of researches into the story of Greek revolutionary times will probably be of interest, especially as they were written with no ulterior object beyond their immediate purpose, and certain of them set at rest all doubt respecting an extraordinary performance in which the Pirate was concerned, though the writer in the Dictionary would fain have us believe that the story is untrue, and accordingly wipes it from the slate. In addition to the intrinsic value of these fresh details of his doings, there must be many still surviving who can remember

Trelawny himself as well as others whose names I shall have occasion to mention to whom these matters will be of personal interest.

When Byron and Trelawny had set out for Greece on board the Hercules in July 1823, after the revolution had been raging for more than two years, they arrived at Cephalonia, one of the Ionian Islands, off the west coast, in the beginning of August, where Byron determined to stay until he could secure some clear information as to the position of affairs and decide upon the course of action that seemed to promise the best results. This delay by no means suited the impetuosity of the Pirate, who called it 'dawdling,' and forthwith set out for the mainland in company with Hamilton Browne, making his way to the seat of the Greek Government, to whom he carried letters from Lord Byron. He then crossed to Hydra, an important island off the east coast and the chief seat of Greek commercial activity, whence he despatched the deputies to England for the purpose of raising a loan; and having finished the business entrusted to him by Byron, he afterwards proceeded to Athens.

Here the insurgent leader Ulysses (Odysseus) was in command, to whose fortunes Trelawny speedily attached himself, remaining on terms of the closest friendship with that chieftain until his career was brought to a sudden end. During his mission to the Morea in June 1824 Major Temple,' Resident at Santa Maura, met Ulysses, and describes him as a perfect Albanian chieftain: savage in manners and appearance, of great muscular strength, and about six feet high,' adding that he entertained us with the miraculous cures of his Turkish surgeon.' But he was the very leader to attract a man of the Pirate's temperament.

He had his headquarters in an extensive cavern in the face of the precipices of Mount Parnassus, which he had strongly fortified and rendered impossible of approach. (An engraving of this cave is to be found in the Younger Son, though it has nothing whatever to do with the adventures there recorded.) Here he kept his family in security, and stowed the treasure which he had accumulated, as well as that of many of his friends, thus rendering himself an additional object of the jealousy of his enemies in the Greek Government.

In the winter of 1823-24 Trelawny accompanied Ulysses as aidede-camp upon an expedition into Euboea (Negropont), and on their return to Athens, where Colonel Stanhope (Earl of Harrington) had by this time arrived, Trelawny sent a letter to his mother, of which the following is an extract :

Athens, 18th of February 1824.

DEAR MOTHER,- I am enabled to keep twenty-five followers, Albanian soldiers, with whom I have joined the most enterprising of the Greek captains and most powerful-Ulysses. I am much with him, and have done my best during the winter campaign, in which we have besieged Negroponte, to make

Father of the late Archbishop Temple.

up for the many years of idleness I have led. I am now in my element, and the energy of my youth is reawakened. I have clothed myself in the Albanian costume and sworn to uphold the cause.

Everything here is going on as well as heart can wish. Great part of Greece is already emancipated. The Morea is free, and we are making rapid progress to the westward. Lord Byron spends [£]5,000 a year in the cause and maintains 500 soldiers. This will in the eyes of the world redeem the follies of his youth.

Your affectionate son,

Mrs. Maria Trelawny, Fleet Street, London.

EDWARD TRELAWNY.

The Younger Son contains a print of Trelawny in 'Greek dress,' from a portrait by Kirkup; but it will be noticed that he himself styles it Albanian costume. What is called Greek dress was in fact adopted by the Greeks in imitation of the Albanian highlanders, who at this time were at the height of their warlike fame, the white kilt being copied from that worn by the Tosks of Albania. It is just as if cockneys were to be seized with the idea of strutting about in the picturesque costume of the Scottish Highlanders, and called it English.

In December 1823, upon the appointment of Mavrocordato as Dictator of Western Greece, Lord Byron had decided to go to Missolonghi, and at that unhealthy spot, situated in the midst of swamps, he landed early in January.

Colonel Stanhope proposed a congress of the civil and military leaders, to meet at Salona, and to this Ulysses agreed. Trelawny set out for Missolonghi to invite Lord Byron and the western chiefs, but before his arrival there on the 24th of April, Byron had breathed his last. Mavrocordato looked upon Trelawny as a personal enemy, thinking that the latter only wanted to get Lord Byron out of his hands, and when Trelawny left, taking into his pay as many of Byron's followers as he could afford to maintain, Mavrocordato foisted upon him one Fenton to act as a spy.

After returning by way of Salona, Trelawny again accompanied Ulysses into Eastern Greece, where, as he says, they carried on the war in the same desultory way as before, unaided by the Government and left to our own resources.' In the autumn Trelawny was at Argos, whence a letter (supposed to be his), of which the following is an extract, was written to his brother, Lieutenant Trelawny, R.N.

...

Argos, 5th of October 1824.

To give you an idea of the misery existing here is beyond all expression. The Town is nothing more or less than a chaos of ruins, not a house inhabitable. The fever making great havoc, people actually falling down in the streets. The stench of the place so great I am obliged to remove my quarters to the once famous Argos, not more than an hour's walk from Agamemnon's tomb, which I have not yet seen. The scenery is beautiful; perfectly romantic. I am now living in a house without doors or windows; every man armed.

The Commissioners are both sick. Mr. Bulwer has proposed to raise a body of fifty men, but I am afraid it will all evaporate in smoke, like all his under

takings here. I am much afraid nothing is to be done: they look on all foreigners as intruders. Many of the French have behaved most shamefully, but, as I told you before, I will exert every effort. All my hopes are placed in Colonel Gordon's arrival.

Your brother [no signature].

The Commissioners referred to were Henry Lytton Bulwer (Lord Dalling) and J. H. Browne, sent out by the Greek Committee, when it was too late, to see if the nature of the Greek Government warranted the payment of that part of the loan raised in England on their behalf not already advanced.

The whole business was a sorry exhibition of incompetence and mismanagement. For instance, at the outset, the Committee appointed as Commissioners to superintend the disbursement of the moneys Lord Byron, Colonel Stanhope, and Colonel Napier, names beyond cavil or reproach; but the two latter were officers on the active list, who, with any pretence to the maintenance of neutrality, could not possibly have been allowed to act. Lord Byron died, and the business came to a standstill when the Greeks were in urgent need of help. Colonel Stanhope was recalled at the instance of the Porte; and Colonel Napier (the most famous of that name) was absolutely inadmissible, for he was Resident and Commandant at Cephalonia.

No War Office could have been capable of more egregious blundering than the philosophical Radicals of the Greek Committee. Their intentions were excellent, but we all know where the road leads that is paved with such material.

The following, from J. C. Hobhouse (Lord Broughton), one of the Committee, to J. H. Browne, conveys a good idea of the complacent and patronising British attitude which the foreigner finds so pleasing:

Chisholme, 3rd of October, 1824.

The Loan, alas! looks as sick as ever, and I fear is on its Death-bed, unless you can prescribe any remedy during your expedition. . . . I do not despair yet of clubbing my canteen with yours at Argos some time next year-nothing would give me greater pleasure-and if I can persuade Colonel Stanhope to go with me, so much the better. He can legislate and I can look on. He is a most excellent and valuable person, and has done enough for Greece to be styled her principal benefactor.

Ellice (another of the Committee, and sometime M.P. for Westminster), at whose house I am, sends his best regards.

Ulysses became beset with difficulties, the Government refusing to supply him with men or money. Towards the end of 1824 it appears, from a letter of Barff at Zante, that Trelawny had sent his friend Captain Humphreys to Hancock at Cephalonia to raise money, but that he had failed to do so. (Barff and Hancock, of Zante and Cephalonia, were Lord Byron's bankers in the Ionian Islands.)

Ultimately Ulysses made a truce for three months with Omer Pasha, of Negropont; but being now regarded with suspicion by both