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

Douglas provided the Colonial Office with the opinion of the President of the
Ionian Senate, Count Bulgari, a Corfiot aristocrat advocating the unfitness of Ionians
to enjoy a free press. Douglas and Bulgari both feared excessive criticism of British
rule in the Islands: “Every end and object of Government will become null”, because
“neither the Senate nor the Lord High Commissioner could count longer upon the
support of any members of the Assembly”. There were Ionian lobbyists inside the
Assembly, “unquiet spirits” Bulgari stated, who would attract the “weaker side” of
the Ionian Assembly and unbalance the political status quo of the Ionian state. An
informed Assembly would, for Bulgari, “institute … a mode of expounding and
interpreting the present Constitution such as to render it impossible under it to
conciliate longer the powers of the state”. 79 The exclusive and absolute authority of
Britain in conducting colonial policy for the Septinsula was at stake.
Bulgari’s opinions served Douglas’s interests, demonstrating the Ionians’
incapacity to handle responsibly the freedom of the press and subduing any
possibility of alterations to the Ionian constitution. Although Douglas appeared to
ask the Colonial Office for instructions on how to deal with this issue, in reality he
had already decided against granting a free press, even if the British government
favoured alterations to the Constitution of 1817 on the issue. Douglas’s dispatch was
a gentle warning to the Colonial Office against overruling his own or his Executive
Council’s opinion. 80
79 Ibid.
80 Glenelg to Douglas, 7 November 1836, CO 136/82.
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