[4] The American philhellene Samuel Gridley Howe described Mavrokordatos:"His manners are perfectly easy and gentlemanlike and though the first impression would be from his extreme politeness and continual smiles that he was a good-natured silly fop, yet one soon sees from the keen inquisitive glances which involuntarily escape from him, that he is concealing, under an almost childish lightness of manner, a close and accurate study of his visitor... His friends ascribe every action to the most disinterested patriotism; but his enemies hesitate not to pronounce them all to have for their end his party or private interest...

[3] Mavokordhatos, a crafty, intelligent man was the best politician thrown up by the Greek struggle and he dominated directly or indirectly the various assemblies that endeavoured to establish a government for Greece.

[5] He was active in endeavouring to establish a regular government, and in January 1822 he was elected by the First National Assembly at Epidaurus as the "President of the Executive", making him in effect Greece's leader.

[9] One observer commented about Mavrokordatos's tactics: "He imitates the cunning of the hedgehog who, they say, flattens his needles and makes himself thin to enter his burrow, and once inside fluffs them out again and becomes a ball of prickles to stop anyone else getting in".

[9] He commanded the advance of the Greeks into western Central Greece the same year, and suffered a serious defeat at Peta on 16 July, but retrieved this disaster somewhat by his successful resistance to the First Siege of Missolonghi (November 1822 – January 1823).

In 1843, after the 3 September uprising, he returned to Athens as Minister with no portfolio in the Metaxas cabinet, and from April to August 1844 was head of the government formed after the fall of the Russian party.