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

esulted in the rebellion in Ceylon. While the rebellion was quashed, the martial law
policy introduced by Lord Torrington, was “considered to be so contrary to British
constitutional practice that they were roundly condemned, to the point where
Torrington’s ignominious recall from Ceylon almost led to the Whigs losing office in
1850”. 93 As Miles Taylor has argued, Britain “may have emerged unscathed from
1848, [however] considered as an imperial state it did not emerge unchanged”. 94
After 1848, political changes were introduced throughout British dependencies and
colonies and reforms, like the extension of the franchise, were granted to white
settler colonies decades before they were bestowed on Britons and Irishmen. 95
Taylor argued in Britain’s Mediterranean dependencies like Malta and the
Ionian Islands “there was an unavoidable overspill from the European
Revolutions….in both places during 1848 British governors sought to quell radical
opposition through extending the powers of the legislature and lifting press
censorship”. 96 However, in the Septinsula, Seaton did not construct a knee-jerk
“panicky reform policy” after the 1848 Revolutions. Indeed, freedom of the press
and control of the finances by the Ionian Assembly were proposed from Seaton’s
arrival in the Septinsula. Seaton’s aim was to limit Britain’s colonial power to
92 De Nie M., The Eternal Paddy, p. 126. Belchem notes the attempted incorporation of the Irish
Confederation with the Chartist movement to create an Irish nationalist movement from the shared
values for greater social egalitarianism. Belchem J., “The Waterloo of Peace and Order: the United
Kingdom and the Revolutions of 1848” in Dowe D., Haupt H. G., Langewiesche D., Sperber J., (eds.)
Europe in 1848, pp. 242-257.
93 Taylor M., “The 1848 Revolutions and the British Empire”, Past and Present, February 2000 , p.
175.
94 Ibid., p. 153.
95 Ibid., pp. 152-53.
96 Ibid., p. 171.
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