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Consul Spiridion Foresti.
Abstract:Επιστολή του Φορέστη (Κέρκυρα 30 Απρίλη 1804) με την οποία ενημερώνει τον Hawkesbury για την υπέρμετρη αύξηση της επιρροής της Ρωσίας στα Επτάνησα. Συγκεκριμένα: Russia seems to have gained an entire influence over the Settinsular Government, which retains only the shadow of Independence; it becomes every day more and more humbled by the authority and acts of the former, and may be said to have lost its political existence as a free state almost before it had acquired it. The Minister Plenipotentiary of that Court governs despotically, and his edicts pronounced under the real or fictitious sanction of the Emperor his Master, are blindly adopted by the Senate and become law. The Constitution, as settled and promulgated by the legislative body, and formally sanctioned by him as representative of the Emperor of Russia, is daily violated, and by his feat he alters or breaks that code which a few months before was considered as the palladium of the liberties of this people…. forcible arrest and imprisonment of a member of the Legislative body for declaring his sentiments on a question before that assembly and the nomination of a certain law, and factious people to the rank of sincliti, without the necessary qualifications required by the constitution …. The Plenipotentiary, desirous of procuring a testimony in his favor from the mass of the people thought proper to dispatch secretly some agents round the country, to conciliate the minds of the peasants and induce them to sign a paper, which was drawn up for the occasion, and contained professions of the highest gratitude to the emperor of Russia for the interest he took in their behalf, and the generous protection he afforded them; …. Επίσης ο Φορέστης αναφέρεται στην κάκιστη οικονομική κατάσταση του κράτους ενώ τονίζει την απόφαση του Μοντσενίγου να μην αποσταλλούν αντιπρόσωπο σε Λονδίνο και να επιστρέψει στα Επτάνησα και αυτός του Παρισιού, καθώς όλη η επικοινωνία με τις ξένες αυλές θα πρέπει να γίνεται μέσω Ρωσίας, γεγονός που για τον Φορέστη σηματοδοτεί σημαντικές αρνητικές επιπτώσεις σε πολιτικό αλλά και εμπορικο επίπεδο: The Senate feels extremely mortified at being deprived of a direct communication with the two Principal courts of Europe both guaranties of its independence, and from that its political as well as commercial interests may suffer thereby. … |