Comoundouros was, on the whole, the most competent prime minister for Greece whom the country has had in my time. Tricoupi, who was the chief of the opposition at the time, was an abler man, and a statesman of wider views,--on the whole, the greatest statesman of modern Greece, _me judice_; but in intrigue and Odyssean craft, which is necessary in the Levant, Comoundouros was his master. In 1868, when they were both in the ministry, they formed the most competent government Greece has known in her constitutional days, but it was betrayed by the King, who paid now in part for his defection, for no one placed the least confidence in him. The diplomatic corps pressed for peace, and the nation demanded war, for which it was not in the least prepared. The animosity towards the King was extreme. I saw people who happened to be sitting in front of the cafés rise and turn their backs to him when he walked past, as he used to do without any attendant. Comoundouros ran with the diplomats and hunted with the populace,--I think he really meant to continue running and avoid hunting at any risk, but he talked on the other side. I knew him well, and used continually to go to his house when he received all the world in the evening, in perfectly republican simplicity, as is the way in Athens, and he said to me one evening that the King prevented action, and impeded all steps to render the army efficient. This was evidently the feeling of the populace, and public demonstrations took place which menaced revolution, and on one occasion shots were fired, and the demonstrators were dispersed by the cavalry. I asked him on that occasion why the ministry did not let the revolution loose, and drive the King away. "Ah! they think now that we have no stability,--what would they think then? and what could we get better?" I find in a file of my letters of the time one which says: "I am not surprised at Mrs. ----'s opinion of the King,--there are few people of either sex here who are not of the same opinion, and the conviction is getting very general that no progress or reform is to be hoped for until he is expelled the country." Another, a little later, says: "It looks very much as if there were a revolution preparing, and that the King would have to go. He is so detested that I don't think any one wants to save him." To complicate matters, there came some scandals to light concerning the frauds and peculations in the furnishing of supplies for the army, which was being prepared for a campaign in extravagant haste, and rumor involved persons in the closest intimacy with the prime minister. I do not believe that Comoundouros was personally complicated, but I find in one of my letters the following, under date, "Athens, June 10:"--