For George Finlay 1823 was a year of decision. He began it in Gottingen, a student of twenty-three, studying Roman law as a prelude to entering the Scottish bar. He ended it in Athens, an ardent Philhellene in search of a role in the war against the Turks.
The sun shone at Missolonghi on Monday, January 5, 1824. By morning the crowds of citizens and soldiers — men and women of every age — were thick along the shore, waiting for the man they reckoned their ‘delivering angel’, watching for his arrival. And then at eleven, with all eyes on it, a Speziot boat crossed the lagoon, came alongside the quay, and George Gordon Noel Byron stepped ashore.
