Επιστολή του Φορέστη της 27ης Φεβρουαρίου του 1801 όπου αναφέρει πως το βράδυ της 19ης Φεβρουαρίου ένας αριθμός κατοίκων της Ζακύνθου ύψωσε την αγγλική σημαία στο φρούριο της πόλης, παρά την αντίσταση που προέβαλε η φρουρά. Επίσης, τονίζει πως μπορεί τα γεγονότα να έγιναν με ρωσική υποκίνηση.
Συγκεκριμένα:
p. 78-
Corfu 27. February 1801
The Right Honorable Lord Grenville
My Lord!
I beg leave to inform Your Lordship that an express arrived here on the 24 instant with letters from the government of Zante, to the Senate, containing the following information. That, in the night of the 19th instant, a number of the inhabitants of Zante rose, and hoisted the colours of His Britannic Majesty on the fortress, notwithstanding the opposition they meet with from the detachment on guard upon the spot. A letter was immediately written upon the occasion, by the Government, to Mr. Sargint, His Majesty’s vice consul there, and as this Gentleman declined taking any step in the transaction upon the ground of his not having any instructions from me applicable to the case, the Government applied to colonel Callender (of whose arrival at Zante, I had the honor to inform Your Lordship in my letter of the 25 ultimo) requesting that he would give them some advice upon the subject. This officer suggested to the Government, in reply, to state the affair to me, in order that information of it might be transmitted to His Majesty’s ambassador at Constantinople.
No such statement had been made to me, and the only letters I have received upon the subject are, one from Mr. Sargint, accompanying the letter written to him by the Government, and another from the Colonel enclosing a copy of his answer to that Government.
It struck me, on receiving this information, that whatever might be the spring of the transaction, it became me, upon every account, to disapprove of it. For I could not be certain that the affair had not been brought about by the arts of the Russians. The affair, too, brought to my recollection, a communication made to me by General Villettes, on his arrival at Malta. The following is the purport of it. That the General had had some conversation with Admiral Lord Keith, about these Islands, but that His Lordship did not think the inhabitants of them sufficiently steady or united on their principles to warrant him to give them any very decided support. His Lordship added, that other affairs of greater moment claimed his attention, and that any step of this sort would certainly commit the British with the Russians and the Turks. The subsequent change in politics, with respect to the one nation, did not, in my opinion, make this reasoning less applicable to the other.
For these reasons, I did not lose any time in writing to the President of the Senate, stating my dissaprobation of what had happened.
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