ude with regard to the legislation and general
administration of those states,' and was to appoint a lord high
commissioner to reside there with all necessary powers and authorities.
The Duke of Wellington foretold that it would prove 'a tough and
unprofitable job,' and so in truth it did. A constitutional charter in
1817 formed a system of government that soon became despotic enough to
satisfy Metternich himself. The scheme has been justly described as a
singularly clever piece of work, appearing to give much while in fact
giving nothing at all. It contained a decorous collection of chapters,
sections, and articles imposing enough in their outer aspect, but in
actual operation the whole of them reducible to a single clause enabling
the high commissioner to do whatever he pleased.

This rough but not ill-natured despotism lasted for little more than
thirty years, and then in 1849, under the influence of the great
upheaval of 1848, it was changed into a system of more popular and
democratic build. The old Venetians, when for a couple of centuries they
were masters in this region, laid it down that the islanders must be
kept with their teeth drawn and their claws clipped. Bread and the
stick, said Father Paul, that is what they want. This view prevailed at
the colonial office, and maxims of Father Paul Sarpi's sort,
incongruously combined with a paper constitution, worked as ill as
possible. Mr. Gladstone always applied to the new system of 1849 Charles
Buller's figure, of first lighting the fire and then stopping up the
chimney. The stick may be wholesome, and local self-government may be
wholesome, but in combination or rapid alternation they are apt to work
nothing but mischief either in Ionian or any other islands. Sir Charles
Napier--the Napier of Scinde--who had been Resident in Cephalonia thirty
years before, in Byron's closing days, describes the richer classes as
lively and agreeable; the women as having both beauty and wit, but of
little education; the poor as hardy, industrious, and intelligent--all
full of pleasant humour and vivacity, with a striking resemblance, says
Napier, to his countrymen, the Irish. The upper class was mainly Italian
in origin, and willingly threw all the responsibility for affairs on the
British government. The official class, more numerous in proportion to
population than in any country in Europe, scrambled for the petty
salaries of paltry posts allotted by popular election. Since 1849