Constructing Ionian identities: the Ionian Islands in British official ...

shocked by the information he received. He believed the new British political
arrangement had deprived the better class of the Ionian citizens of many rights they
had enjoyed under their previous rulers. Capodistria believed traditional aristocratic
government was the best protector of the people’s interest, not government by
outsiders. The governor, his Regents and officials were agents of Britain, responsible
to the mother country. Maitland had supplanted the aristocrats previously involved in
governing the Septinsula under Russian ‘protection’ from his inner-circle. He did not
know where their loyalties lay and feared ‘Russian influences’ would interfere with
‘British obligations’. Among those in the firing line were the Capodistria family and
their associates. 36
On 3 July 1818 Capodistria sent a Memorandum to the Colonial Office
documenting his concerns. 37 Capodistria maintained the Treaty of Paris gave political
independence to the Ionian States. 38 Yet through the Lord High Commissioner,
Britain had created the Constitutional Charter according to her own interests.
Capodistria revealed Maitland’s despotic character when he noted to Bathurst
Maitland’s interpretation of the Treaty in an address to the Primary Council and his
suppression of debate on the issue. Capodistria was convinced this indicated the
absolutist character of British rule and constituted an abuse of the Treaty.
36 Maitland to A’Court, 31 October 1819, Heytesbury Papers, XIX, Add. MS 41530.
37 The memorandum, Capodistria to Bathurst, 3 July 1818, CO 136/11, was written in French. A copy
of the memorandum, translated in English on 19 February 1820 by the Colonial Office, is included in
correspondence between Maitland to A’Court, 19 April 1820, Heytesbury Papers, XIX, Add. MS
41530. See also Prevelaki E., “I Egiklia epistoli tou Ioanni Kapodistria tis 6/18 Apriliou 1819” [The
Capodistria’s memorial of 6/18 April 1819], Praktika Tritou Panioniou Synedriou [Proceedings of the
3 rd Pan-Ionian Conference], (23-29 September 1965), 1, (Athens, 1967), pp. 298-328.
38 Capodistria to Bathurst, 3 July 1818, CO 136/11I.
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