ature every 5 years; whilst the 3 lesser Islands shall send 1 Member only amongst them, to be alternately chosen in I of those Islands.

It has been thought proper to vest the right of nominating the Head of the Supreme Government in the Protecting Sovereign, and to delegate to this Head such power and authority, as may effectually render him the Representative of the Ionian People, and place him in a positiou corresponding with his high dignity.

A moment's reflection, on the most urgent wants of the Islands, on the habits acquired during 4 Centuries of servitude, on the evils which flow from a total want of concert, energy, and activity in the administration of the Government, on the benefits to be derived from the personal influence of the Head of a State in the transaction of official business, and on the advantages which must result to our Islands, should the Head of our Administration enjoy the full confidence of the Protecting Government, will convince every one of the vast importance of these 2 Resolutions.

Nevertheless, in order to prevent the powers entrusted to the Head of these States from exceeding the limits prescribed by the Laws, 2 Members of the Senate have been associated with His Majesty's Lord High Commissioner, the effect of which is to limit the extent of his authority, and to prevent its abuse. This measure, moreover, presents the advantage of establishing a species of honourable rivalry, and an additional security for the equilibrium, between the Members of the Senate and the President, which the public security requires, and which it is always advisable to provide, with reference to the Chief Magistracy of a free State. Besides, the Law directing that the Head of the Senate shall be a Native of the Ionian Islands, and a Person of distinguished condition, closes the avenue to every abuse, which might be apprehended in this respect, and is a guarantee that the Person appointed to this High Office, will possess the confidence of the King, and the approbation of the People.

The Body empowered to make Laws will assume the title of the Parliament, and the attraction will at once be perceived, of that name which has become so illustrious in the History of the Constitution of that Nation which, in government, arts, and arms, is so well entitled to be taken for our model.

The Parliament is empowered to frame the Laws of the State, and, at the expiration of a certain period, it will be convoked for that purpose, and also for the purpose of introducing into the Project submitted to you this day, such alterations as may be deemed necessary or expedient, founded upon the information which we shall daily ob tain, by investigating the defects of the existing system.

But the Laws which may be passed by the Parliament, are not to have the force of Laws, until they shall have received the assent of the Senate, as well as that of His Majesty's Lord High Commissioner; and a right is, moreover, reserved to the Sovereign Protector, to annul

any Law, which his Representative may have adopted in the absence of sufficient information upon the subject.

Well knowing that it is of the highest importance that the Laws of a Nation should be well and maturely considered, and free from the fault of haste or inaccuracy, it is proposed that every Law shall receive the approbation of 3 distinct Authorities, before it can be submitted to His Majesty.

If it be true, as has been asserted, that a Body of Men, even though assembled for the same objects, united by the same interests, and belonging to the same Class, are as much subject to the influence of prejudice as a single Individual, it must be acknowledged that this is a provision of the greatest utility. And, every free Government being based upon the Laws, and the Laws of the State imposing obedience alike upon the Governors and the Governed, it can scarcely be said that those Laws can be too much studied and examined, either in their principle or detail, or in their general application.

The same observations may be applied to the other arrangements of the Charter, which authorize the Senate, and His Excellency the Lord High Commissioner, to originate the Bills in Parliament.

The Parliament has the custody of the Key of the State Treasury. No. Tax can be imposed without its consent. The Civil List is uniformly fixed at the commencement of the Financial Year, lest the splendour of the Government should cause any discordance between the scale of its expenditure and the circumstances of the People.

The powers of His Majesty's Representative are distinctly defined. Upon this point, the Council has endeavoured, to the utmost of its power, to divest itself of all personal considerations, and to regard the Magisterial Office alone; lest its profound sentiments of devotion and attachment towards the illustrious Individual, Lieutenant-General Maitland, who at present discharges the functions of Lord High Commissioner of His Majesty, should influence its deliberations. In this, as well as in the other arrangements, a firm and impassable barrier has been made to surround the legitimate authority, and, at the same time, to prevent any abuse of it.

These observations equally apply to all Public Appointments, from the highest to the lowest; for, as they are instituted solely for the general good, they can never be regarded as the property of those who are appointed to execute the duties of them.

Hence it has been thought proper to determine, that none of those Appointments should be conferred for life; and that every Magistrate, Judge, or Delegate, should be held responsible for his conduct, and, in case of need, be suspended, removed, or otherwise punished.

Very little importance has, unfortunately, been hitherto attached to civil liberty in these Islands, the fact having apparently been overlooked, that civil liberty is the parent of political liberty; but provisions have now been made, for regulating the administration of

Justice, and every thing relating to the Laws, the Judges, and to all points connected with so important a branch of the Government.

The Judicial Body is no sooner appointed by the Executive, than it becomes altogether independent of that Power, and the People are thereby secured against the encroachments of despotism;—a regulation which also conduces to the due separation and balance of the Powers of the Government.

The mode of Election in general is so regulated, that (without granting too much latitude to those who are, comparatively, but little interested in seeing the franchise beneficially exercised,) every Citizen will enjoy a certain number of rights, and be eligible progressively to attain the highest Offices in the State, according to the measure of his merits and qualifications. The Electoral Bodies of the Islands, moreover, who are sufficiently numerous for the objects which they are destined to fulfil, are directed to choose for their Representatives in Parliament, those amongst the more distinguished Members of the Community, who are best qualified to promote the interests of the Nation.

The Parliament will nominate the Senate, subject to certain important and effectual restrictions, and the Senate is empowered to appoint the Judges, and the respective Heads of the Local Administrations of the various Islands. The appointment of the Municipal Officers exclusively belongs to the Syncleti.

The effect of all these regulations cannot fail to inspire the noblest and most useful spirit of emulation.

In the firm conviction that the honour and happiness of a People principally depend upon its morals, and that the worship of the Divinity is closely connected with the inculcation of principles upon which morality can alone be founded, such measures have been adopted on the subject as cannot fail to exercise the most important influence in regenerating the Nation.

Our religion and our language are rendered independent of, and are placed before, those of the Protecting State; provision has been made for the education of our children: special arrangements have been made for the instruction of those who are destined for the sacred calling of the Priesthood; and there is every reason to hope that the generosity of the Protecting Sovereign may extend so far, as to exempt us from the burthen of maintaining his Troops, a subject which, owing to its connexion with our most immediate interests, has been one of the first to receive the attention of the Council.

A few omissions, which you will probably observe, will be supplied by Resolutions of the Senatus consulti organici, but which the Parliament will have the right of modifying or amending.

A perfect System of Government is not the portion of Man; and if what has been asserted be true, namely that, in the most insignificant works, sufficient occasion may be found for casting blame upon the

Authors of them, how much easier must it be to find materials for censure in the work upon which we are now employed.

Pride, prejudice, and personal interest, have always been opposed to the developement of truth: it is experience alone which renders to it tardy but inevitable justice.

It may, however, be proper to observe that, as this Constitution has not been adopted, nor even the Project of it presented to the Assembly, we are not yet called upon to regard it as a sacred Act, to which it is unlawful to object. We are at full liberty to express our sentiments upon its contents, and any Individual, who was a Member of the Primary Council, is not thereby disqualified from offering his opinion as a Citizen. But let every good Greek, in examining this Charter, remember, that one of his own Ancestors confessed, that he had been obliged to give to the Athenians, not such Laws as were best in themselves, but such as were most suitable to the condition of the Country.

The word Independence, which is very imperfectly defined in the vocabulary of Individuals of uncultivated minds, cannot be applied, absolutely and without qualification, to a Nation which does not, politically speaking, constitute a Sovereign State. No Nation can form a Sovereign State, which does not possess the exclusive, positive, and absolute power of adopting the measures necessary for its own defence, of alienating any portion of its Territory, of altering its political limits, of adding a Province to its Dominions, of declaring War and concluding Peace, of sending Representatives to Foreign Powers, of entering into Negotiations, of concluding Treaties of Alliance, Neutrality, Peace and Commerce, of raising Troops from amongst its Inhabitants, of subsidizing or calling in the aid of Foreign Troops, of arbitrarily disposing of its own Forces, &c. The Governors, Magistrates, Judges, and Delegates of such a Nation, cannot, therefore, be considered as absolutely independent, in any one branch of the Administrative Government, of the Monarch, who is invested with the rights of supremacy which have immediate relation to the various powers above enumerated, and to many others which are dependent upon them.

The Nation, which is now called upon to fix and determine its Constitution, should be particularly upon its guard against confining its predilections within a sphere traced by any party spirit, which is always, in its nature, diametrically opposed to public spirit. It should endeavour to identify its interests with those of the Sovereign, upon whom Europe has imposed the duty of providing for its welfare. It should generously lay aside all pretensions which, being repugnant to truth, experience, and the public good, instead of consolidating the State, would plunge it into the midst of divisions, which would inevitably lead to the destruction of its Government.

In these impressions, the Council have unanimously concurred; they are fully prepared to demonstrate the correctness of them, and are persuaded that they will obtain the approbation of the intelligent

Inhabitants of the Ionian Islands, and put an end to the calamities which have so long desolated this beautiful portion of Greece.

CONSTITUTIONAL CHARTER of the United States of the Ionian Islands.—Ratified by the Sovereign Protector, the King of Great Britain, the 26th of August, 1817.

GEORGE the IIIrd., by the Grace of God, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, King of Hanover, &c., &c., &c., To all and singular to whom these presents shall come, greeting: Whereas, by the Ind, IIIrd, and IVth Articles of a Treaty, signed at Paris, on the 5th day of November, in the year of our Lord, 1815, between His Majesty and their Imperial and Royal Majesties, the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, the Emperor of all the Russias, and the King of Prussia, purporting to be a Treaty fixing the destiny of the Seven Ionian Islands, it was declared, that the United States of the Ionian Islands should be placed under the immediate and exclusive protection of His Britannic Majesty, his Heirs, and Successors; that the United States of the said Islands should, with the approbation of the Protecting Power, regulate their internal organization, and that, in order to give to all parts of this organization the necessary consistency and action, His Britannic Majesty should appoint a Lord High Commissioner, to reside there, invested with all the necessary power and authorities, and to ground the political re-organization of the United Ionian States, upon the organization then actually in force; and that the said Lord High Commissioner of the said Protecting Power should regulate the forms of Convocation of a Legislative Assembly, in order to draw up a new Constitutional Charter for the States, which His Majesty, the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, should be requested to ratify: And whereas our right trusty and well-beloved Councillor, Sir Thomas Maitland, Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Military Order of the Bath, a Lieutenant-General of our Armies, and Commander-in-Chief of our Forces in the Mediterranean, appointed by Us the Lord High Commissioner in virtue of the aforesaid Treaty, has regulated the forms of Convocation of a Legislative Assembly: And whereas, the said Legislative Assembly, convoked in conformity with the Provisions of the Treaty aforesaid, has drawn up a new Constitutional Charter for those States, and has laid before Us, by a Nobleman from each of the 3 principal Islands of the Ionian States, the said Constitution so established as aforesaid, duly signed by the various Members of the said Legislative Assembly, which Constitutional Charter here follows in Original, in the Italian Language, with an authenticated Translation of the same thereunto annexed in the English Language.