When Lord Byron died in Missolonghi 197 years ago today (19 April, 1824), he was the poet superstar of European letters. His celebrity not only drew world attention to the Greek cause against their Ottoman overlords, but his personal contribution to that cause at the ultimate cost of his life was also huge.

The British newspaper the Observer recently unearthed a bank note of exchange/cheque in the Greek state archives which reflects on the poet’s commitment to the Greek cause and the generosity for which he was famous.

In the note of exchange drawn in Kefalonia (one of the Ionian Islands under British rule) on 12 November, 1823, Lord Byron instructs that £4,000 be paid to the representative of the Greek provisional government, Giovanni Orlando. The amount which is the equivalent of £332,000 ($594,000 Australian) today was to finance the emergency needs of the Greeks.

At that time Missolonghi was besieged for the second time by Albanian Ottoman forces and the money was earmarked to pay for a fleet to defend and supply the besieged town.

According to the Guardian, the Observer’s sister newspaper, both Orlando and Byron agreed the money would be repaid as part of a larger loan that was to be obtained in London by Orlando.

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Byron academic and the author of a new study of Byron’s work “Dangerous to show, Christine Kenyon Jones said that because of his fame, Byron’s signature was often forged but the signature on the cheque was genuine.

“But it looks as if this is an original signature attached to the script of a clerk, which he seems to have impatiently corrected. Byron’s handwriting, like his personality, was fast and free, so there’s a contrast between the clerk’s careful hand and his own confident signature with its bold, open ‘B’ and characteristic flourish on the ‘n’,” Dr Jones was quoted as saying.

The signing of the cheque, which was witnessed by Italian Count Pietro Gamba, was subsequently cashed in Malta and converted as Spanish silver dollars and taken by the poet on his final journey to Missolonghi.

“The demand came from the legislative body. …A squadron of 14 vessels, nine Hydriot and five Speziot, would then immediately put to sea.”” wrote Count Gamba.

The fact that the people of Missolonghi could be supplied by sea helped to ensure that the second siege of the town would be doomed to fail.

Emeritus Professor of Modern Greek studies at King’s College in London, Roderick Beaton author of the authoritative “Byron’s War” told the Guardian that the loan came at a crucial time in the Greek Revolution.

“No historian of the war has really paid attention to this fact but the Ottoman Albanian troops who were besieging Missolonghi suddenly disappeared as soon as word got out that Byron had lent this money and the fleet was sailing out of Hydra and Spetses.”

However, Byron’s involvement influenced by the pinciples of the European Englightment, was pivotal in other ways, argued Prof Beaton.

The poet openly supported the educated and cosmopolitan Alexandros Mavrokordatos, the first leader of the fledgling Greek state. His involvement inspired a crew of foreign philhellenes to support the Greeks in battle and in the wider world.

“Byron helped the revolution resolve itself in the way it did, creating what at the time would be a progressive … modern nation state,” said Prof Beaton. “Greece did not follow the example of other parts of the Ottoman Empire that became nominally independent, but were run by local warlords.”

He said that Lord Byron’s loan along with a later loan raised in London had the effect of “tipping the scales in favour of the elected Greek government and against the warlords.”

Just months after signing the cheque, Lord Byron was to die of a fever in Missolonghi. His remains were sent to England on board the ship that had carried the first segment of the loan raised by private investors in London.

“He died in a strange land, and among strangers. …But more loved, more sincerely wept he could never have been, wherever he had breathed his last,” wrote Count Gamba in his journal.