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

there “was something in the possession of power which seemed entirely to change
men”. 96
Russell and the Colonial Office defended Ward's policies against the criticisms
of the radicals. Hawes supported Ward’s martial law policy, as he had Torrington's in
Ceylon, arguing it helped Britain sustain law and government. 97 Using Ward’s
dispatches, Hawes described Cephalonia as a place of anarchy where the “most
atrocious and horrible” acts were committed by a peasantry driven by “passions and
temptations”. They committed “murders, rapes, robberies, house burnings” and
threatened “to rip up women big with child, and to kill children, if their husbands
and fathers refused to join the banditti”. 98 The situation had been so dangerous that
“within a week that island would have been a desert” had the Government failed in
“applying the promptest and most stringent remedy”. 99 Ionians were criminals and
“semi-barbarians” and deserved to be “treated” as such, respecting “nothing but
actual force”. The British government noted Ionian authorities also supported his
95 Hansard T. C., Parliamentary debates, 3 rd Series, CXIII, 9 August 1850, p. 976. There was never a
Commission of Inquiry into Ward’s actions. At the time, Russell and Grey had the inquiry into
Torrington’s martial law policy in Ceylon to contend with and the British government did not desire
the additional burden of an inquiry into the Ionian Islands. There was also concern another inquiry
would weaken the government further and lead to its collapse. Hannell D., “A case of bad publicity:
Britain and the Ionian Islands, 1848-1851”, European History Quarterly, 17, 1, 1987, pp. 131-43. For
Torrington's thanks to Grey for his support of martial law in Ceylon, see Torrington to Grey, Private,
13 December 1848, Grey Papers, GRE/B128/8/26.
96 Hansard T. C., Parliamentary debates, 3 rd Series, CXIII, 9 August 1850, pp. 979-80, 99; Hansard T.
C., Parliamentary debates, 3 rd Series, CXXII, 2 December 1852, p. 827.
97 Hansard T. C., Parliamentary debates, 3 rd Series, CXIII, 9 August 1850, p. 985. Ward criticised
some of his “old friends” in the House of Commons for their lack of support regarding his and
Torrington's implementation of martial law. See Ward to Hawes, Private, 5 June 1851, Grey Papers,
GRE/B130/6/41; Ward to Russell, Private, 7 September 1850, Russell Papers, PRO 30/22/8E.
98 Hansard T. C., Parliamentary debates, 3 rd Series, CXIII, 9 August 1850, p. 986.
99 Similar language was used in describing the Indian Mutiny of 1857. See Metcalf T., Ideologies of
the Raj.
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