The end of the official war and the hopelessness of seeking to reestablish myself in a literary career in London, as well as the desire of my wife to try a residence in a climate and surroundings more attractive than those of the Isle of Wight—­the fact, too, of being without local ties—­led to the determination to find a residence for a time abroad, and the family came to meet me at Turin, en route for Corfu, where we decided to pass the winter.  If I had hoped to escape political agitation there, I was mistaken.  The Greeks had hung fire in joining in the Balkan movement, hoping that the powers would include them in the arrangements for a final settlement of the Eastern question.  When, in the negotiations which accompanied the conclusion of peace, Greece found that she was ignored, the inflammable public opinion broke out in a violent demonstration against the treaty of peace.  When the Russian government had decided to declare war, it proposed to Greece that if a Greek army were sent across the frontiers for even a fruitless attack on Turkey when that of Russia entered on the other side, Greece should participate in the benefits of the settlement.  Greece did nothing, and the offer was renewed at a later period, when the war was evidently tending to the complete triumph of Russia, but still there was no action at Athens, and Greece was consequently ignored by Russia when the treaty was negotiated.

Desperate at this delusion of all their hopes, the Greeks demanded that the invasion of Epirus and Thessaly should be at once undertaken, the semblance of an army corps was formed for the latter destination, and the insurrectionary committees organized (if the word can be applied to the huddling together of a mass of volunteers without organization) the invasion of Epirus from the coast.  A few hundred men of many nations, amongst whom were a number of gallant Italians, full of Hellenic enthusiasm, were landed at Aghia Saranda, a port opposite Corfu and in sight of the city, a scant allowance of food and ammunition was thrown on shore with them, and the steamer which brought them steamed away, leaving them to their fate, which was to be butchered under the eyes of the spectators at Corfu, looking on with horror.  Only a few of the hapless volunteers escaped under the guidance of one of the Greeks, who knew the country and guided a party through the mountains to the Gulf of Corinth, the rest being killed almost without resistance, no provision for their escape by sea having been thought of.  At the other extremity of the frontier the same tactics were successful in raising a brief insurrection about Volo, which collapsed after a few days’ fighting, during which a correspondent of the “Times,” Mr. Ogle, was killed by the Turkish troops.  The Greek ministry, in the dilemma of acting or being left out of the settlement, decided that the army to cross the frontier should be commanded by the King in person, but the King so earnestly declined the honor put upon him that the plan was abandoned.  One of the ministers assured me that the King with tears in his eyes begged to be excused from going.  He had never been popular in the country, and this failure to realize a step in the Panhellenic policy made him for the time the object of all the popular indignation.  But he probably realized that nothing was ready for such a movement and that it was certain to end in disaster.