As for myself, since the affair of Arkadi I had thrown aside all reserve, and, while never going beyond the limits of moral intervention, I had used all my influence with my colleagues, and with our minister at Constantinople as well as our Government, to provoke acts of positive intervention. I made no secret of it, nor did the Turkish Government of its hostility to me. A patrol of zapties watched my front door, and another my back door, and no Cretan dared enter my house. I was regarded as the postman of the insurgents, and so complete was the delusion that the authorities entirely neglected to watch my colleagues, two of whom daily received and sent letters to the mountains. All the little persecutions which a petty local government could inflict were laid on me, and I reciprocated, as I best could, by disseminating news of the true condition of the insurrection, and stimulating the activity of my colleagues. Mr. Morris, our minister at Constantinople, at first strongly under the influence of the English ambassador, the just and liberal Lord Lyons, became convinced that nothing was to be expected in the way of humane intervention from England, and passed entirely over to the Russian policy, and lent me his whole prestige and influence, made himself my defender at the Porte, and gave me instructions after my own drawing up. I made common cause, therefore, with my Russian colleague, on whose irresolution I managed, in most cases, to impose my resolutions, and, little by little, gained all the control over him which I desired for critical emergencies, while I flattered his _amour propre_ by giving him the credit of making up his own mind. I had also organized a sort of news agency, by which I was able to get the earliest and most reliable news of all movements in the island, so that gradually not only the consuls but the naval officers came to expect from me the most reliable information.