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

shared. 85 Gladstone was also an outspoken advocate of responsible government, an
option the Colonial Office was already leaning towards for the Islands. 86
Gladstone's mandate from the Colonial Office, and his own goals during this
mission, was to search for appropriate reforms that would make the Islands
governable. 87 Lytton recognised Young's difficulties and with Gladstone considered
1852, during Ward's tenure, the turning point when Ionians' sentiments “turned from
the consideration of improvement in the Constitution … towards annexation to a
foreign state”. 88 He believed Gladstone's mission would offer a “policy of
conciliation” and restore communication between Britain and the Ionians. 89 It would
also allow the British government to understand the “defects in the working of the
Constitution under which the Government of the Ionian Islands is carried on which
require reform”. 90 Gladstone could not “consider the abrogation of the Treaty of
1815” nor the “cession of the Ionian Islands to any state in Europe”; his powers were
“to inform himself of existing imperfections and their causes and to recommend such
measures of improvement as may render the practical working of the Ionian
Constitution more harmonious with the natural results of Self Government”. 91 Lytton
85 Quoted in Matthew H. C. G., Gladstone, 1809-1874, p. 13.
86 Farnsworth S., British Imperial Policy, Chapters 1-3.
87 Carnarvon to Gladstone, 15 January 1859, Gladstone Papers, Add. MS 44391.
88 Lytton to Gladstone, 18 January 1859, CO 136/194. Other historians, such as Holland and Markides
and Knox, have suggested Gladstone's mission was the result of Young's disputes with the Assembly
over municipal conflicts. However, Gladstone's mission resulted from the deadlock with the Assembly
that both Ward and Young experienced and which Britain was attempting to rectify, the discussion of
which these historians have not noticed. For their interpretations of Gladstone's mission see Holland
R., and Markides D., The British and the Hellenes, pp. 18-20; Knox B., “British Policy in the Ionian
Islands”, pp. 515-19.
89 Lytton to Young, Private, 7 January 1859, CO 136/194.
90 Lytton to Young, 8 January 1859, CO 136/194.
91 Lytton to Young, 8 December 1858, CO 136/194. The italics are mine.
289