Our Neighbours' Sport Beyond the Seas by Ronald McGowan

Author:Ronald McGowan [McGowan, Ronald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-04-16T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen :Enlightened Colonialism

The inestimable advantages of British rule – or, rather, British advice, had been enjoyed by the Ionian Islands now for over five years. In this they must be distinguished from the barely disguised French Rule of the Heptanesian Republic and the years of absorption as an actual department of the French State.

Those benefits had at first been duly appreciated by the people of the seven islands, who had welcomed the British as the liberators that they were, but with time had come both disappointment and disenchantment, especially among the old Venetian nobility, those whose names were inscribed in the Libro d’Oro. Some had expected rather too much from a nation whose idea of freedom is to be left alone to get on with one’s own business, and to leave others alone to get on with theirs. Others had perhaps fallen victim to the charms of the philhellenes, Lord Byron in particular, and had been expecting a great British Crusade to free Greece from the Turks and crown a new Christian Emperor in Constantinople. The inevitable disillusionment had soured relations, and all things British were no longer quite so much in favour.

Nowhere was this more evident than in the person of the British High Commissioner.

Wickham, whom one might have thought to be his chief’s main support, in fact waxed eloquent upon the subject the following morning when I chaffed him on his sour face when going in to his office.

“It is a service entirely otiose that I perform,” he replied, “as is most of what goes on in Government offices. I move papers around and sign them. The more important ones I stamp with a seal. The grade of importance has already been decreed before they reach me. I do nothing else. King Tom makes all the decisions and any who so much as express misgivings about them end up in a dungeon somewhere. The sole redeeming feature of his reign is that he is in Malta most of the time, and only comes to Corfu now and then to drum up subscriptions for his monument. There are statues of him all over the islands already, but a mere statue will not do for Corfu. Here there must be some great, triumphal arch or rotunda, a fitting tribute to the Napoleon of the Ionian Islands. Meanwhile, the Greeks here are boiling over, there is trouble on the mainland which at any moment may break out into open war between the Greeks and the Turks – a war which could very easily spread to the Islands – and what are we to do? We are to raise subscriptions for the Palace of St Michael and St George. The man is a petty tyrant, and not so very petty at that. But forgive me, I did not mean to burden you with my woes. I speak entirely in confidence, of course, and rely upon your discretion.”

Speaking in confidence about the Lord High Commissioner was very common among his subordinates, I was to discover in the next few days.

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