Dissensions had arisen between the volunteers and Cretans; and the chiefs of the former, wearied of a pointless and resultless guerilla warfare, and sure that the question was only to be settled on the continent, in order to hasten the preparation of movements on Epirus and Thessaly, one by one returned to Greece, followed by most of their retinues. The Cretan combatants, relieved of their families, were quite sufficient for all the needs of the situation, and, well armed and provided, could have kept up the struggle for years, if disposed. But the fatal blow to the insurrection was being prepared by its own friends. The Russian Government had, during the nuptial visit of the King of Greece to St. Petersburg, secured a complete ascendency over him, and immediately on his return to Greece it became evident that the dismissal of the Comoundouros ministry had been decided in that conclave with the execution of whose plans no motive of humanity ever interferes, whose deliberations no curious House of Commons pries into or clamoring journal opposes. The Russian Government had decided to take the direction of the insurrection, and to that end, to get rid of Comoundouros and his friends, whose anti-Russian tendencies were too strong to be bent to the desired course, the king, when the moment had arrived, made a difference with the ministry on some trivial point, and peremptorily dismissed it. But the chamber, with an unexpected constancy, refused to sanction any change in the administration, and the Russian minister in Athens then made overtures to the dismissed president of the council, offering to bring him back to power if he accepted the programme of St. Petersburg. He refused, and the chamber, unyielding, was also dissolved, and in the new election, in which the whole influence of the court and throne was exerted against the Comoundouros party, by the most violent and illegal measures the deposed chief and his principal adherents were kept out of the new chamber, which was, to a sufficient degree, subservient; and Bulgaris, the evil genius of Greece since her independence, under whose auspices at all times disorder and dishonesty, brigandage and peculation, had especially thriven, became the arbiter of the destinies of Crete.