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

in the costs of the Napoleonic Wars. 64 Bathurst was against any sacrifice of British
conquests. While protecting Britain’s interests in Africa in the 1820s, Bathurst turned
his attention to another European aggressor, Russia, who was looking for an
opportunity to expand her empire in the Southern Mediterranean.
Russophobia affected Bathurst’s attitude and policies concerning Britain’s
Mediterranean possessions. 65 When the Greek War of Independence broke out,
Bathurst suspected Imperial Russia would get involved in the revolt as the self-
proclaimed protector of Greek independence. Russia saw itself as “successor to the
Ottoman Empire, and ruler of the Orthodox Greek populations of the Balkans and
Levant”. 66 However, Bathurst, Castlereagh and Canning favoured the preservation of
the Ottoman Empire as a balance between the Great Powers and warned the Tsar to
restrain from supporting the revolt. 67
It was not surprising Maitland, with Bathurst’s blessings, had excluded those
close to Capodistria’s family from the administration of the Ionian state. Officially,
they were removed because they were corrupt. Unofficially, the British believed
those families were ‘poisoned’ by Russian influences. 68 Bathurst’s solution for
keeping Ionians out of the Greek struggle and protecting Britain’s presence in the
Islands was to institute a policy of neutrality and non-interference, punishing those
64 Thompson N., Earl Bathurst, pp. 56-9.
65 Gleason J. H., The Genesis of Russophobia in Great Britain, (Cambridge, 1950).
66 Bayly C. A., Imperial Meridian, p. 103.
67 Thompson N., Earl Bathurst, p. 150.
68 Maitland to Bathurst, 23 February 1817, CO 136/186; Maitland to Bathurst 21 October 1819, CO
136/12.
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