impossible contingency—were united against her; what a stronghold they would have at Corfu!” This was much the opinion that Lord Palmerston professed in 1850, but in 1863 he yielded to Lord Russell, and, apparently without a misgiving, gave up what he once considered too important a naval and military post ever to be abandoned by us. Lord Russell, as usual, was outwitted; he believed in a plebiscite and that a people should belong to masters of their own choosing; he could not see that, in this case, the plebiscite was an engine worked largely by ecclesiastical means at the disposal of Russia—in fact, a political and clerical intrigue. A very intelligent Roman Catholic priest told me that the islanders, having been led by Mr. Gladstone, in 1858, to believe that England would never give up the protectorate, thought that they were quite safe in declaring for annexation to Greece, as they were urged to do by their priests. They would in that way save their face with the Orthodox Church, while they would still enjoy the material prosperity for which they had to thank England. They thought that their true interest was to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. The Greek Archbishop used all his power to further the plans of Russia, and during the time of voting was nightly closeted in secret conference with the Russian Consul. When the end came, His Grace received a high decoration from the Tsar, from whom it was even said that he was actually in receipt of pay. Curiously enough, the party that had been hottest for annexation with Greece under King Otho would not vote for it under King George. The reason alleged was that the revolution against Otho had been the work of England, and that King George being the nominee of England, annexation with Greece would put the islands more than ever under the thumb of Great Britain. My priest went on to deplore the ruin which their mistaken nationalism had brought upon the unhappy people. Many of the principal business houses in Corfu were practically bankrupt and new failures daily expected. The poorer people found no sale for their fish and the produce of the farms, gardens and orchards. The market, which did a roaring trade daily, sometimes as much as two or three hundred pounds changing hands in a morning, was a thing of the past. Now there was no English Government House, no prosperous officials, no garrison, and with the departure of the last redcoat the happy days of plenty had gone. “Oh!” he cried, “if you would only come back again!”