About the middle of February, when the artillery had
been got into readiness for the attack on Lepanto--the northern, as
Patras was the southern, gate of the gulf, still in the hands of the
Turks--the expedition was thrown back by the unexpected rising of the
Suliotes. These peculiarly Irish Greeks, chronically seditious by nature,
were on this occasion, as afterwards appeared, stirred up by emissaries of
Colocatroni, who, though assuming the position of the rival of
Mavrocordatos, was simply a brigand on a large scale in the Morca.
Exasperation at this mutiny, and the vexation of having to abandon a
cherished scheme, seem to have been the immediately provoking causes of a
violent convulsive fit which, on the evening of the 15th, attacked the
poet, and endangered his life. Next day he was better, but complained of
weight in the head; and the doctors applying leeches too close to the
temporal artery, he was bled till he fainted. And now occurred the last of
those striking incidents so frequent in his life, in reference to which we
may quote the joint testimony of two witnesses. Colonel Stanhope writes,
"Soon after his dreadful paroxysm, when he was lying on his sick-bed, with
his whole nervous system completely shaken, the mutinous Suliotes, covered
with dirt and splendid attires, broke into his apartment, brandishing
their costly arms and loudly demanding their rights.
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