ame in his way; finally, and perhaps strongest
of all, the fact that his wife's health had been much shaken by the
death of her sister, Lady Lyttelton, and the doctors were advising
change of scene, novel interests, and a southern climate. His decision
was very early a foregone conclusion. So his doubting friends could
only wish him good fortune. Graham said, 'If your hand be destined to
lay the foundation of a Greek empire on the ruins of the Ottoman, no
hand can be more worthy, no work more glorious. _Recidiva manu posuissem
Pergama_ was a noble aspiration;[375] with you it may be realised.'

MISSION ACCEPTED

He hastened to enlist the services as secretary to his commission of Mr.
Lacaita, whose friendship he had first made seven years before, as we
have seen, amid the sinister tribunals and squalid dungeons of Naples.
For dealings with the Greco-Italian population of the islands he seemed
the very man. 'As regards Greek,' Mr. Gladstone wrote to him, 'you are
one of the few persons to whom one gives credit for knowing everything,
and I assumed on this ground that you had a knowledge of ancient Greek,
such as would enable you easily to acquire the _kind_ of acquaintance
with the modern form, such as is, I presume, desirable. That is my own
predicament; with the additional disadvantage of our barbarous English
pronunciation.' Accompanied by Mrs. Gladstone and their eldest daughter,
and with Mr. Arthur Gordon, the son of Lord Aberdeen, and now, after
long service to the state, known as Lord Stanmore, for private
secretary, Mr. Gladstone left England on November 8, 1858, and he
returned to it on the 8th of March 1859.

II

THE IONIAN CASE

The Ionian case was this. By a treaty made at Paris in November 1815,
between Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, the seven
islands--scattered along the coast from Epiros to the extreme south of
the Morea--were constituted into a single free and independent state
under the name of the United States of the Ionian Islands, and this
state was placed under the immediate and exclusive protection of Great
Britain. The Powers only thought of keeping the islands out of more
dubious hands, and cared little or not at all about conferring any
advantage upon either us or the Ionians. The States were to regulate
their own internal organisation, and Great Britain was 'to employ a
particular solicit