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

Deeply concerned about British administration of the Ionian Islands, he
requested a Commission of Inquiry be established to investigate the Islands’ “present
political condition” and report to the House the Ionians’ feelings concerning their
political arrangement with Britain. He argued the original proclamations issued at the
beginning of the British occupation in 1809 had portrayed the British as the
liberators of the Ionian people from the “French Yoke” and not as oppressors. He
strongly believed Britain had “violated” their original promises of “liberty and
independence” towards the Ionian people. He accused the British establishment from
1809-1814 of exercising a “considerable degree of tyranny” by imposing heavy
taxation and practising the “most arbitrary power” in preventing the Ionians from
sending their own representatives to the Congress of Vienna. The Great Powers, in
their battle for “the extent of territory or the possession of power”, had betrayed the
trust of the Ionian people. 37
The political instability and civil disputes in the Islands, following the
establishment of French rule after the Venetians, were regularly used as an argument
against granting them political independence. This was strongly rejected by Monck,
who argued the Ionians “had their own taste in legislation and government; they
would be proud of their independence and of the power of managing their own
concerns”. 38 He maintained they had satisfactorily managed their own affairs in the
37 Hansard T. C., Parliamentary debates, 1 st Series, XXXIV, 21 May 1816, pp. 638, 639, 642.
38 Ibid., p. 637.
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