The island of Corfu, on the coast of Epirus, and the whole of the Archipelago to the west of continental and peninsular Greece, down to the island of Cythera, which divides the waters of the Ionian Sea from those of the Ægean, have passed through the most singular political vicissitudes in the course of the last century. Corfu, thanks to the protection extended to it by the Venetian Republic, is the only dependency of the Balkan peninsula which successfully resisted the assaults of the Turk. When Venice was handed over to the Austrians by Bonaparte in 1797, Corfu and the Ionian Islands were occupied by the French. A few years afterwards the Russians became the virtual masters in these islands, which they formed into a sort of aristocratic republic under the suzerainty of the Porte. In 1807 the French once more took possession of them; but the English captured one after the other until there remained to them only Corfu, and this, too, had to be given up in 1814. The Ionian Islands were then converted into a “Septinsular Republic,” governed by the landed aristocracy, supported by British bayonets. Twice did England alter the constitution of this republic in a democratic sense, but the patriotism of the islanders refused to submit to British suzerainty; and, when Great Britain parted with her conquest, the Ionian Islands annexed themselves to Greece, and they now form the best educated, the wealthiest, and the most industrious portion of that kingdom. England, no doubt, consulted her own interests when she set free her Ionian subjects; but her action is nevertheless deserving of approbation. England exhibited her faith in the axiom that moral influence is superior to brute force, and yielded with perfect good grace, not only the commercial ports of the islands, but likewise the citadel of Corfu, which gave her the command of the Adriatic. This magnanimous policy has not hitherto met with imitators in other countries, but England herself has still many opportunities of applying it in other parts of the world.