THE IONIANS. 30th March 1854.
Sin—In your paper of the 25th there was a very sensible letter signed E. A. F., a kind of apology for the revolt in Epirus. In the interest as shown by that letter for the future welfare of the Greeks, I would ask your correspondent's sympathy likewise for the Ionians; no less Greeks (except perhaps the Corfiotes,) and under a thraldom in every point equal to the despotism now charged against the Pashas in the exercise of their functions as governors of the different provinces owning the away of the Sultan. Under the one as under the other, there exists the same selfish despotism. A. few privileged persons—and the people set at nought. For how many years have British soldiers and British ships of war been employed in the support of this despotism ?—nothing serious arising, of course, between the giant and the dwarf But for how many years may not British ships and soldiers now be employed in the support of the Turkish dynasty ? And let as inquire whether this our strength is not put forth in support of the Sul- tan wind a powerful antagonist on the terms that the Sultan should grant (no idle question of Anus or unjftness) to all his people the rights and privileges of the most equitable form of government ?—that all the pro- vinces of the Sultan from the Ionian Sea to the Pruth shall enjoy the social advantages of the most favoured countries ? Now it would be amusing, if the matter itself was not of so serious a na- ture as that of the miagovernment of the people, to suppose that the Sultan, in his high opinion of England, should have proposed that the Governor he should place over the respective provinces—his representative, in short— should have the same powers, civil and military, that the Lord High Com- missioner of the Ionian Islands possesses as the representative of the Queen of England ; and then to read the answer of her Majesty's Government, inveighing against such a proposition, so entirely subversive (as it undoubt- edly would be) of the relief in the social system they were resolved to establish in the Sultan's provinces with our beat blood and treasure. C. F.
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