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London, through the agency of the Messrs. Ricardo, of which it afterwards appeared, that about one tenth part had been remitted in specie to Greece, where no satisfactory account of its progress through the hands of the members of government into whose possession it came, could be obtained. The great object was, the equipment of lord Cochrane's fleet. The two sixty-gun frigates were to be built in the United States, and 155,000l. were transmitted to new York to cover the expenses. The superintendence of the execution of this naval contract, the building and equipment of ships of war, was intrusted to Lallemande, an ex-general of Napoleon. The Greek deputies subsequently took credit, in their accounts, for 12,000l. paid to this person for his services during twelve months in a department of which he was, and must have been known to have been, profoundly ignorant; this the general denied, declining to answer "personal reflections, and injurious remarks," and with this denial he remained satisfied. The progress of the commission was what might have been expected from the wisdom which characterized its commencement. The 155,000l. were expended in New-York; and in return, the Greeks received, in the very end of 1826, instead of two ships of war, one frigate of sixty guns which was not worth one half of the money. A dispute ensued with the contractors; it was referred to the decision of three American arbitrators, who confirmed the honesty and fair-dealing of the whole transaction, and the first finding of whose award adjudged to themselves "4,500

dollars, for our services in the premises."

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In the mean time, the equipment of the steam boats in London did not proceed a whit more successfully. By the contract for equipping them, five steamvessels, within two months, or two months and a half at the latest from the 17th of August, 1825, were to have been placed at the disposal of lord Cochrane, as commander of the auxiliary marine force in the service of Greece, and his lordship was engaged to sail in the month of November: for the equipment of this armament, 150,000l. of the loan were set apart. It was the month of May, 1826, before one of the vessels was ready to leave the Thames; and even then, only one of them, the Perseverance, was fit for sea. She sailed under the command of captain Hastings for the Morea, and her machinery turned to be useless. She was tossed about helplessly in the Mediterranean, and, having heen forced almost to re-construct her machinery in Sardinia, it was not till the 14th of November, nearly four months after her departure, that she was able to reach Napoli di Romania. The other steam-vessels were either in the state in which she had left them, or, when they were tried in London, in September and October, it was found that the machinery refused to work, that it would be necessary to take it out, and that the whole work was to do again. The machinist, to whom the construction of the machinery had been committed, had a son in the service of the pacha of Egypt as an engineer; and inquisitive persons could not be prevented from asking, what

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zielloh security would there be for the son's head, if the pacha should learn, that the steam-boats which were defeating his fleets had been fitted out by the father? In the mean time, lord Cochrane was lingering, in vain expectation, about the shores of France and Italy. Instead of leading a gallant fleet to the assistance of Greece in November, 1825, he had not a ship under his command in Nov. 1826. When the Greek government consented to appropriate so large a portion of the loan to this armament, it made a great sacrifice at the moment, but made it likewise for a great object. If the terms of the contract, on which they were entitled to rely, had been at all observed, it is difficult to believe that Missolonghi would have fallen. The intended armament, added to the Greek fleet already on foot, and led by an officer like lord Cochrane, would have been to Ibrahim a very different force from any that he had yet encountered; and the peculiar powers of steam vessels, enabling them to enter the harbour, when the easterly gales blew the blockading squadron off

off the coast, would have insured the garrison against famine. After what had been already achieved by the Greek fleet on more occasions than one, there was no extravagance in supposing that it might now acquire and maintain the supremacy at sea; and, in that case, the fate of Ibrahim, dependent as he entirely was upon Egypt for supplies, was sealed. The Greek government, therefore, had every reason to complain of the mismanagement of those who had received, or had assumed the control of, this loan, and a clear right to annul the to as

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ontract for the steam boats; and it was still more astounded upon learning that, although scarcely any thing had been done, the whole 2,000,000Z., raised by the loan, were disposed of! Ninetenths of this sum had never come into their hands; but they were told it was expended, and all they had received in return werea sixtygun frigate, and a miserable steamboat, both of which arrived too late to be useful, when punctuality in point of time was essential to their value. Some of the chiefs began to clamour loudly for an account of the manner in which the money had been applied, and no one of them was willing that, where plunder and peculation were to be practised, they should be practised by other hands than their own. In the month of June the government recalled from London the deputies who had managed the negotiation of the loan, and ordered them to give in their accounts. M. Spaniolacki, another Greek, was authorized to examine these accounts, in conjunction with two respectable English gentlemen; and he was instructed to use the utmost t dili gence "from the present moment, in examining the accounts and I eliciting the truth."

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While the deputies were preparing for this investigation, a committee of Inquiry was appointed by a public meeting of the bondholders in London. Though the committee consisted nominally of a considerable number of persons, the pretended investigation seems to have been conducted only by colonel Stanhope and Mr. Bowring. Mr. Hume, though a member of the committee, did not attend one of its meetings.

A report was prepared in the name of the committee, but, in fact, by Mr. Bowring, which, on the 23rd of October, was submitted to a meeting of the bond-holders. It manifested on the very face of it a strong anxiety to conceal much of the truth, rather than to present to the world a full disclosure of the fraud and folly with which the Greek loans had been connected and yet it betrayed enough to excite in the public mind strong disgust at the incapacity and dishonesty of most of those who had been parading on the public stage as disinterested friends of Greece.

The first loan, the report stated, was contracted for in the begin

Interest

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Commission on loan, and shipments to Greece

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Expenses of Agents, &c.

Sinking Fund

16,000 00

Specie sent to Greece

298,726 11 9

Stores sent to Greece

10,063 6 5

Bills drawn from Greece

3,858 15 0

1,027 15 10

Loan of Lord Byron, and interest repaid

4,683 6 8

1,624 15 11

5,900 0 0

5,045 0 0

140 0 0

Freights and Passages paid

Mr, Orlando, for 10,000l. Bonds.
Individual Expenses of the Deputation
Advertisements and Solicitors' Bills.
Balance paid to Messrs. Ricardo and Ralli.

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£.480,317 11 2

that the whole of the first loan, though placed under the guardanship of Mr. Ellice and Mr. Hume, had disappeared without producing even the semblance of benefit to Greece.

The report did not deal quite It was afterwards discovered that so gently with the second loan: this commission (so curiously blended the management of which had Lintone item with shipments to Greece) been in other hands. Its noamounted to no less than 28,0001. minal amount was 2,000,0007. allowed nominally to Co., but who in their turn paid 11,000% to sterling, which had been taken at Bowring. 55 per cent; and with some

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Penalty to Mr. Contostavlos, for the non-falfilment

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Individual Expenses of the Deputation

Marseilles and returned

4,552 11 0

Loss on Exchequer Bills, and on Money sent to sit ad

Ditto by Failure of Mr. Mavrocordato.

of a Contract for Guns

15,108

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5,039 9 11

6,716 19 8

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2,695 5 3

1,000 00 0

Paid to Mr. Graham for Military Stores, not sent, on

account of

of the Proclamation..

2,000 00

Sent for the relief of Missolonghi

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Arms and Clothing sent from Paris to Greece.
Paid to Captain Miaulis and his Crew.
Advertisements and Solicitor's Bills ..

Assistance and Charity to Poor Greeks in London

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Orlando, Luriottis and Spaniolacki (deputies or agents of the Greeks), Hume, Ellice, Bowring, and Messrs. Ricardo, filled newspapers with letters of palliation or recrimination. We shall not descend into the details of the petty meanness and manoeuvring, which the correspondence unveiled to the public: but two or three instances may be given of the mode in which the agents and trustees of Greece dealt with her money. In the first loan, Mr. Hume had assigned to him 10,000. stock, at the rate of 591, per hundred,

594.

1,300l., would amount to 547. He accordingly applied also for this sum of 547. and received it. In like manner Mr. Bowring took 25,0007. of stock at the original price of 591.per cent. The stock fell, and he, to c

the original price at which the contract was made. Some time afterwards, the bonds having fallen to 16 per cent discount, Mr. Hume became alarmed, and applied to the deputies and contractors to

relieve him from his loss. The being unable to parem,

deputies at first refused, intimating that, if the stock had risen, Mr. Hume would not have parted with the profit. He, however, insisted on his demand; he was powerful, for he had a control over the proceeds of the loan; and at length the deputies consented to take the stock off his hands at the rate of 13 per cent discount. Thus Mr. Hume lost only 1,3007. d of 1

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made vehement remonstrances, coupled with representations of his services the Greek ecause, to induce the deputies to make Greece bear the loss accruing upon his speculation. Hume seconded his entreaties; and, partly by menaces and partly by persuasion, the deputies were prevailed upon to commit a breach of trust and to take back the stock at the rate of 10 per cent discount. The stock having subsequently risen to a premium, Mr. Bowring applied to have the stock returned to him. The answer to his request was (and the answer was supported by the production of his own hand-writing) that he had sold the stock to the deputies. He declared that he had forgotten or misunderstood the circumstance: Mr. Hume again interfered in his behalf: and the deputies paid him back 2,500l., to which he had no right, and which was so much money abstracted from the funds of Greece.

and the loss of the 3007. was gratuitously thrown upon Greece. Some time afterwards Greek stock rose above par; and Mr. Hume made strenuous and persevering applications to have the 1,3007. returned to him. The request excited considerable surprise, but, from an unwillingness to disoblige so ardent and faithful a friend of the Greek cause, this sum was also given to him. Still Mr. Hume was not satisfied. He discovered that the interest on the 1,300l., from the date when the contractors took his stock from him at 13 per cent discount to the date when they made him a present ofthe -ueqxs sift of I. apo urut ntbyt eds to Jogbud sat has -let es bombes SDW V

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