A Scottish general and philhellene, one of the first to take an active part in the revolution of 1821. He came from a noble family and loved traveling. Thus, he left the British army in 1810 and began to travel. He visited many places and, in Constantinople, married a Greek woman of Armenian descent. With the start of the revolution, he sailed with his own ship from Marseille to Greece. He ended up in Trikorfa, outside Tripoli, in August 1821, bringing with him 600 weapons, three cannons, and lead. Demetrios Ypsilantis welcomed him and assigned him to form a corps of Greeks and Philhellenes. After the fall of Tripolitsa (September 23, 1821), disappointed and enraged by the indiscipline and massacres committed by the Greeks, he left for London, where he became a member of a committee to support the Struggle with money and weapons. He returned to Greece upon invitation (1826) and settled in Kythera, from where he sent food and other supplies from abroad to the Greek camps. In the same year, he arrived in Nafplio with 14,000 pounds. It was the last money from the second loan. In 1827, he fought against Kioutachis on the hill of Munychia, which he fortified, leading 2,300 Greeks. Frustrated by their bad behavior, he left again. Later, he offered other services to the country and was appointed military governor of the Peloponnese. In Argos, he built the famous Gordon House in 1829. The neighborhood was later named "Gordon's district" (formerly Arvanitia).
When he came into conflict with Armansberg, he left Greece for good. He died in Scotland in 1841. He wrote the present History, a work extremely rich in primary information.
