PRINCE ALEXANDER MAVROCORDATO (1791-1865), Greek states man, a descendant of the hospodars, was born at Constantinople on Feb. I I, 1791. In 1812 he went to the court of his uncle Ioannes Caradja, hospodar of Walachia, with whom he passed into exile in Russia and Italy (1817). He was a member of the Hetairia Philike and was among the Phanariot Greeks who has tened to the Morea on the outbreak of the War of Independence in 1821. In January 1822 he presided over the first Greek national assembly at Epidaurus. He commanded the advance of the Greeks into western Hellas, and was defeated at Peta on July 16, but retrieved this disaster somewhat by his successful resistance to the first siege of Missolonghi (Nov. 1822 to Jan. 1823). His English sympathies brought him, in the subsequent strife of factions, into opposition to the "Russian" party headed by Deme trius Ypsilanti and Kolokotrones; and though he held the port folio of foreign affairs for a short while under the presidency of Petrobey (Petros Mavromichales), he was in retirement until Feb ruary 1825, when he again became a secretary of state. The land
ing of Ibrahim Pasha followed, and Mavrocordato again joined the army, only escaping capture in the disaster at Sphagia (Spakteria), on May 9. 1815, by swimming to Navarino. He was vice-president of the National Assembly at Argos (July, 1832), and was ap pointed by King Otto minister of finance, and in 1833 premier. From 1834 onwards he was Greek envoy at Munich, Berlin, Lon don and—after a short interlude as premier in Greece in 1841— Constantinople. He was again prime minister in 1844 and in 1854-5. He died in Aegina on Aug. 18, 1865.