November 2nd, 1858.—Lord Carnarvon (then under-secretary at the colonial office) sent an earnest letter to me to come to the C.O. and advise with Rogers and himself as to drawing the commission. I met Bulwer Lytton there, overflowing with civility. The offer to Gladstone had arisen as I expected from Lord C., and he had told B. L. the conversation which he (C.) and I had together in the summer, in which I told Lord C. that I thought Gladstone would accept a mission extraordinary to Naples.... I risked without authority from G. this communication. Lord C. bore it in mind, and from this suggestion of mine sprang in fact this offer. So Lord C. said to me.
Lord Malmesbury very sensibly observed that to send Mr. Gladstone to Naples was out of the question, in view of his famous letters to Lord Aberdeen. To the new proposal Mr. Gladstone replied that his first impulse on any call from a minister of the crown to see him on public business, would be to place himself at the minister's disposal. The interview did not occur for a week or two. Papers were sent from the colonial office to Hawarden, long letters followed from the secretary of state, and Mr. Gladstone took time to consider. The constitution of the Ionian islands had long been working uneasily, and what the colonial secretary invited him to undertake was an inquiry on the spot into our relations there, and into long-standing embarrassments that seemed to be rapidly coming to a head. Sir John Young, then lord high commissioner of the Ionian islands, had been with him at Eton and at Oxford, besides being a Peelite colleague in parliament, and Mr. Gladstone was not inclined to be the instrument of indicating disparagement of his friend. Then, moreover, he was in favour of 'a very liberal policy' in regard to the Ionian islands, and possibly the cabinet did not agree to a very liberal policy. As for personal interest and convenience, he was not disposed to raise any difficulty in such a case.
The Peelite colleagues whose advice he sought were all, with the single exception of the Duke of Newcastle, more or less unconditionally adverse. Lord Aberdeen (October 8) admitted that Mr. Gladstone's name, acquirements, and conciliatory character might operate powerfully on the Ionians; still many of them were false and artful, and the best of them little better than children. 'It is clear,' he said, 'that Bulwer has sought to allure you with vague declarations and the attractions of Homeric propensities.... I doubt if Homer will be a cheval de bataille sufficiently strong to carry you safely through the intricacies of this enterprise.' The sagacious Graham also warned him that little credit would be gained by success, while failure would be attended by serious inconveniences: in any case to quell 'a storm in a teapot' was no occupation worthy of his powers and position. Sidney Herbert was strong that governments were getting more and more into the bad habit of delegating their own business to other people; he doubted success, and expressed his hearty wish that we could be quit of the protectorate altogether, and could hand the islands bodily over to Greece, to which by blood, language, religion, and geography they belonged.
I have said that these adverse views were almost unqualified, and such qualification as existed was rather remarkable. 'The only part of the affair I should regard with real pleasure,' wrote Lord Aberdeen, 'would be the means it might afford you of drawing closer to the government, and of naturally establishing yourself in a more suitable position; for in spite of Homer and Ulysses, your Ionian work will by no means be tanti in itself.' Graham took the same point: 'An approximation to the government may be fairly sought or admitted by you. But this should take place on higher grounds.' Thus, though he was now in fact unconsciously on the eve of his formal entry into a liberal cabinet, expectations still survived that he might re-join his old party.
As might have been expected, the wanderings of Ulysses and the geography of Homer prevailed in Mr. Gladstone's mind over the counsels of parliamentary Nestors. Besides the ancient heroes, there was the fascination of the orthodox church, so peculiar and so irresistible for the anglican school to which Mr. Gladstone belonged. Nor must we leave out of account the passion for public business so often allied with the student's temperament; the desire of the politician out of work for something definite to do; Mr. Gladstone's keen relish at all times for any foreign travel that came in his way; finally, and perhaps strongest of all, the fact that his wife's health had been much shaken by the death of her sister, Lady Lyttelton, and the doctors were advising change of scene, novel interests, and a southern climate. His decision was very early a foregone conclusion. So his doubting friends could only wish him good fortune. Graham said, 'If your hand be destined to lay the foundation of a Greek empire on the ruins of the Ottoman, no hand can be more worthy, no work more glorious. Recidiva manu posuissem Pergama was a noble aspiration;[375] with you it may be realised.'
MISSION ACCEPTED
He hastened to enlist the services as secretary to his commission of Mr. Lacaita, whose friendship he had first made seven years before, as we have seen, amid the sinister tribunals and squalid dungeons of Naples. For dealings with the Greco-Italian population of the islands he seemed the very man. 'As regards Greek,' Mr. Gladstone wrote to him, 'you are one of the few persons to whom one gives credit for knowing everything, and I assumed on this ground that you had a knowledge of ancient Greek, such as would enable you easily to acquire the kind of acquaintance with the modern form, such as is, I presume, desirable. That is my own predicament; with the additional disadvantage of our barbarous English pronunciation.' Accompanied by Mrs. Gladstone and their eldest daughter, and with Mr. Arthur Gordon, the son of Lord Aberdeen, and now, after long service to the state, known as Lord Stanmore, for private secretary, Mr. Gladstone left England on November 8, 1858, and he returned to it on the 8th of March 1859.
II
THE IONIAN CASE
The Ionian case was this. By a treaty made at Paris in November 1815, between Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, the seven islands—scattered along the coast from Epiros to the extreme south of the Morea—were constituted into a single free and independent state under the name of the United States of the Ionian Islands, and this state was placed under the immediate and exclusive protection of Great Britain. The Powers only thought of keeping the islands out of more dubious hands, and cared little or not at all about conferring any advantage upon either us or the Ionians. The States were to regulate their own internal organisation, and Great Britain was 'to employ a particular solicitude with regard to the legislation and general administration of those states,' and was to appoint a lord high commissioner to reside there with all necessary powers and authorities. The Duke of Wellington foretold that it would prove 'a tough and unprofitable job,' and so in truth it did. A constitutional charter in 1817 formed a system of government that soon became despotic enough to satisfy Metternich himself. The scheme has been justly described as a singularly clever piece of work, appearing to give much while in fact giving nothing at all. It contained a decorous collection of chapters, sections, and articles imposing enough in their outer aspect, but in actual operation the whole of them reducible to a single clause enabling the high commissioner to do whatever he pleased.