A SOLDIER OF FORTUNE.

Otago Witness, Issue 1966, 29 October 1891, Page 39

A SOLDIER OF FORTUNE.

AN ENGLISHMAN WHO FOUGHT FOR GBEECE. Sir Richard Church, without being a man of first-rate abilities, possessed so strong a vein of originality that he was destined from the first to make his mark in the world. His character comprised a number of elements which are rarely found together— love of adventure combined with coolness of judgment, strong patriotism with philanthropy and sympathy for the oppressed, great industry and perseverence joined with dashing gallantry, and a warm interest in wild, halfcivilised natures with the power of reducing them to order. In this way he was fitted to carry out perilous enterprises and to obtain influence ever strange people ; and for such services there were ample opportunities during the first 30 years of the present century. J.Q6 COMMENCEMENT OS 1 HIS CAEEEK waE not the least remarkable part of it. Born and bred a member of the Society of Friends, at 16 years of age he ran away from home and enlisted in the army. His father must have been a man of good sense, for he recognised that it was easier to make a Quaker into a soldier than a soldier into a Quaker, and accordingly purchased a commission for him. That was in the year 1800 • and he was at once despatched to E^ypt to serve J * UNDER SIR RALPH ABEBCBOMBY, and in the March following took part in the battle of Aboukir and the expulsion of the French from that country. At this early period he was an ardent student, and he soon made himself familiar with the French and Italian languages, the knowledge of which, was of $rea.t service to him jn his I

subsequent employments. We next find him M AT MESSINA, serving in the Sicilian expedition of 1806 and during this he was engaged a ithe battle of Maida, on the Calabrian coast, by which the French were for a time driven out of that part of Italy. Subsequently, for two years (1806-8), as lieutenant under Hudson Lowe, he held the upper town of Capri as a look-out place IN THE VERY EYES OF JEBOME BONAPABTK, at Naples, and it was not until after his removal from that command th*t>the island was taken. In 1809-14 he took an active part in the capture of the lonian Islands from the French, and both his knowledge of languages and his influence over untrained natives rendered him very useful in this service. He now ventured to enrol a regiment of Greek volunteers, for even during his campaign in Egypt he had formed a high opinion of the capacities of that people. At the head of this Greek regiment he captured the strong castle of Santa Maura, but in the moment of victory HIS LEFT ABM WAS SHATTEBED by a bullet. To recover from the effects of this he was allowed to go on a tour through Greece and to Constantinople, where he commenced Mb friendship with Stratford Canning, who was already Minister there. After the peace of 1814, when he was no longer required for active service in the English army, his love of adventure forbade his remaining idle ; and, after he had been employed by his own Government on various missions, we find him, in 1817, undertaking for the Neapolitan Government to suppress the secret societies in South Italy, which from the atrocities that they committed had become the terror of the respectable population. In 1821 THE GBEEK "WAR OF INDEPENDENCE broke out, and for some time the course of events proved favourable to the cause of liberty ; but at length the tide turned, and in 1826 the fortunes of the Greeks hai reached their lowest ebb. Mesolonghi had fallen; Ibrahim Pasha occupied the Peloponnese, and by his barbarous ferocity had struck terror into the inhabitants ; and all Attica, with the exception of the Acropolis of Athens, was in the possession of the Turks, who also commanded the shores of the Corinthian Gulf, and many points in the interior of Northern Greece. In 1826 an official invitation came to him from the Greek Administration to undertake the office of generalissimo of their forces. He accepted the position, and arrived in Grsece in the spring of 1827. The first operation in which he took part was the ill-advised attempt to relieve the garrison of the Acropolis, which was forced on contrary to his advice by THE BASHNESS OB 1 LOBD COCHRANE, and ended in failure. The battle of Navarino was fought in October of the same year. This gave him the opportunity of carrying out the plan which he had advocated from the first, of causing a diversion by raising the western provinces, Acarnania and Epirus. Accordingly, after establishing himself at several points in that region, he at length obtained a safe base of operations in the Gulf of Arta ; and though he found the interior occupied by numerous Turkish garrisons, and his own resources were most scanty, by June 1829 he was in complete possession of Acarnania and JEtolia. The result of this waß of tte first importance for Greece. Had not the western provinces been in the hands of the Greeks when the new State'was constituted, it would have been limited to the Peloponnese, according to the arrangement contemplated by Capodistrias, who was then President of Greece. As it was, in the first instance the districts which Church had conquered were ordered to be given up to Tuikey, a proceeding which called forth an indignant letter of remonstrance from that general; but two years later, in 1832, the frontier was rectified by the efforts of Lord Palmerston and Sir Stratford Canning, and these provinces were finally united to Greece. The remainder of Church's long life of 90 years was spent peacefully at Athens ; and the soldier who i fought against the First Napoleon before he was emperor survived to witness the fall of the Second Empire at Sedan. THE EPITAPH ON HIS MONUMENT in the cemetery at Athens is one which most men might envy : — Riohabd Chuboh, Gbnebal, who having given himself and all that he bad to rescue a Christian race from oppression, and to make Greeoe a nation, lived for her service, and died amongst her people, rests here in peace and faith, — Academy,