Αναφορά του Φορέστη για τα γεγονότα που οδήγησαν στην επανακατάληψη των Επτανήσων από τους Γάλλους και τις συνέπειες αυτής της εξέλιξης για τα συμφέροντα της Βρετανίας, Γαλλίας και Ρωσίας σε Ευρώπη, Μεσόγειο και Ασία. Επίσης αναφέρεται στη σημασία της κατάληψης των Επτανήσων για τους ίδιους τους Ιόνιους, ενώ κάνει εκτενεί αναφορά και στις συνέπειες που θα έχει η απώλεια των Επτανήσων (και ιδίως της Κέρκυρας την σημασία της κατοχής της οποίας την συγκρίνει με αυτήν την Μάλτας και την θεωρεί πολύτιμη κτήση για την ασφάλεια της ευρύτερης περιοχής της Αδριατικής θάλασσας, της κεντρικής Μεσογείου και της Βαλκανικής Χερσονήσου – την αναφορά του την κάνει εκτενώς στο τέλος του κειμένου του) για την εμπορική παρουσία των Ρώσων στην Μεσόγειο, αλλά και την εμπορική παρουσία των Ελλήνων (εμπόρων) από το Αρχιπέλαγος και τα Επτάνησα στην Μαύρη Θάλασσα. Επίσης, κάνει και αναφορά ειδική στους Κεφαλονίτες και την ναυτική/πειρατική τους δράση υπό ρωσική σημαία και αναφέρεται στην πιθανότητα να αποτελέσουν κίνδυνο για τα βρετανικά συμφέροντα και εμπορικά πλοία στην περιοχή, ενώ συγκρίνει την δράση τους με αυτή των Μπαρμπερίνων. Επιπλέον, ο Φορέστης κάνει μία μεγάλη ανάλυση για το πώς η γαλλική παρουσία θα επηρεάσει τον ελληνικό πληθυσμό εν γένει της νότιας Βαλκανικής Χερσονήσου και την πιθανότητα να τεθούν υπό την προστασία της, θέτοντας σε κίνδυνο την ίδια την υπόσταση της Οθωμανικής Αυτοκρατορίας αλλά και θέτοντας σε κίνδυνο τις κτήσεις της Μεγάλης Βρετανίας στην Ασία. Τέλος προτείνει την άμεση κατάληψη των Επτανήσων από τους Βρετανούς για να επωφεληθούν των πλεονεκτημάτων τους.
Συγκεκριμένα γράφει:
By the Treaty of Peace, lately concluded between Russia and France, the Emperor Alexander renounces, in favor of the Emperor of the French, all His rights and titles, of sovereignty and protection over the Republic of the Seven Islands.
This act of remuneration was made known to the Senate of that Republic on the 10th August, by means of an official communication from the Russian plenipotentiary, who further informed the government that this article of the treaty would be earned into immediate effect, and that the Russian forces awaited only the arrival of the French troops to replace them in order to evacuate the territories of the Republic.
Such a cession, as this, must be regarded as the greatest and most painful sacrifice that the crown of Russia could make, and only the most urgent motives could have produce it.
To demand and obtain such a cession implies at once the determination of Bonaparte to exclude Russia, henceforth, from all direct interference and connection with the southern states of the European continent, to confine Her attention, influence, and sphere of action to the north Europe and to our Asiatic provinces, thus securing His own Empire from the control of so formidable a lower and impelling that influence in a direction, directly or indirectly, prejudicial to His rival and enemy Great Britain, and thus to lay a new foundation for a change in the political system of Russia. By giving up Her establishment in the Seven Islands the position that served as the basis on which she was gradually, but securely, establishing a predominant influence over Europe, Russia is, at once, deprived of an effectual control over the power of Turks, because she thus loses Her principal contact and connection with the Greeks, and by retiring wholly from the Mediterranean She loses, at once, the great maritime advantages which She enjoys, and was extending by means of Her extensive commercial maritime established in trading between Her ports in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean and which furnished so fruitful and constant a resource for supplying Her navy with seamen etc. The encouragement and protection given by Russia to the numerous Greek traders in the islands of the Archipelago and on the Terra Ferma and which has enable her in the present war with Turkey to cover the Adriatic, Ionian and Levant Seas with Her cruisers, privateers and merchant vessels sufficiently prove the advantages that resulted to Her from such a system.
To forego, therefore, at once Her pledge with the Greeks, to resign so powerful a control over Her enemies or rivals the Turks, to lose Her important commercial intercourse with the Southern states of Europe are sacrifices which it is evident, from the abrupt and imperious manner with which She has made these sacrifices; and which by the unexampled precipitation and rigor with which they have been effectuated, have rendered their consequences still more fatal and injurious to the Russian name; all Her ancient and extensive connections with the Levant being thus left at the discretion of Her successors in those countries, whereby nearly a million of men are exposed to the precarious effects of revolutionary causes.
That necessity, more than sentiments, has produced so fatal a change may be inferred also from the considerations that any compensation or promise offered to Russia by France, however they might palliate the severity or facilitate the execution of such sacrifices, could never fully counterbalance them. The policy and ambition of Bonaparte are incompatible with such equitable arrangements. Nor would Russia forego Her good faith and honor in renouncing the most solemn pledges and solid advantages for fancied equivalents or contingent acquisitions.
But these losses, however, great in themselves, however they may be sustained or repaired by Russia, become heavier irreparable perhaps when it is considered that they are the positive gains of the implacable enemy of the British Empire and which decisive advantages when combined with his former immense acquisitions and resources cannot but justly increase the alarm and anxiety of the British government for its individual security and prosperity.
France by the possession she has also just obtained, by the above mentioned Treaty of the important harbor and fortress of Bocche di Cattaro now governs or controls all the states and ports of the Adriatic, not excepting even Trieste. By the further possession of the Seven Ionian Islands, but chiefly of Corfu, the great maritime, military and political advantages now belonging to Her, in that sea, will be augmented and secured. There will then be neither hope nor refuge for the disaffected or oppressed in those populous and valuable countries; resistance will only confirm their bondage and passive obedience, to the decrees of the power they hate, deprived of all hope of effectual succor desperation itself will acquiesce in the new order of things.
The increase of power and resources derived from her exclusive possessions in the Adriatic and Ionian Seas, directed and applied with skill and energy, will, at all times, enable France to combine, equip, and assemble at pleasure, and in a manner to allude all vigilance, the most formidable armaments and expeditions. The same resources will furnish Her with species of annoyance used by the most refined or barbarous nations.
The elements of the naval greatness and power of the Venetians were derived from the states bordering the Adriatic mechanics, ships, sailors, harbours, arsenals, fortresses, timber of all dimensions, and sorts in quantity, hemps etc etc etc, facilities for equipping and directing squadrons to all points in the Mediterranean, and for accoutering and marching troops to all quarters of the Terra Ferma are to be enumerated among the new resources which the enemy has just secured to Himself by His late arrangements in the Adriatic Sea, and Ionian Republic. Resources that will not be neglected by a power, the celerity and address of whose movements and combinations is seen, to comprise and exhaust whatever is within the limits of human agency.
The political and daring dispositions of the Sclavonians, Cephaloniotes etc are well known, and in the present war they have disgraced the imperial Russian flag under which they navigated. These nations, more formidable by their ambitious nature, may be let loose from numerous points, and inaccessible retreats, to the annoyance or destruction of the maritime commerce and intercourse of any state within their reach that may incur the hostility or jealousy of their ruler. The policy of France may turn these instruments against British commerce, even in better times, in the same way as the marine of the Barbary states was employed against the commerce and shipping of Naples, Genoa etc.
The same individuals, coerced by discipline and subordination, would become equally formidable, and expert when employed in more legitimate works or warfare.
In times of peace the same causes would be productive of the most desirable effects of national prosperity and should France retain all Her present possessions and influence in the Mediterranean, it is obvious that, in despite of the efforts of the British legislature, the balance of British intercourse, with that Sea, must be negative.
With regard to the political conduct to be pursued by Bonaparte, relative to his new acquisitions in the Seven Islands, it may be presumed, that his purposes of universal rule, will restrain him from destroying, at present, the actual constitution of the Septinsular Republic. Policy also will lead him to conciliate and flatter the court of St. Petersburg and will restrain him, for the present, perhaps, from eluding or violating the engagements he has just concluded with it respecting the protection of the Seven Islands, in whose destiny it will, naturally, feel a lively and constant interest. Bonaparte owes much of his success, in the career of conquest, to the discrimination and ability with which he has consulted the genius, prejudice, and wants of the people, whose subjugation was the object of his ambition, or of his interest. The force of arms has only served to complete the revolutionary work previously wrought by the dexterity and capacity of his agents and missionaries. The Greeks, though dispirited and discontented at the total failure of their cause in the hands of the Russians, are yet emulous of the freedom and renown of their ancestors, and they still look, with anxiety and hope, to the presentation and extension of the little Greek Republic on their Western frontier, in whose destiny they wish to participate. It will, henceforth, be the object of Bonaparte to cultivate that versatile, degraded people. The analogy between the Greek and modern Gallic characters will favor the promotion of it. The experience of the past and the circumstances of the present time will urge them to correspond with his views, abandoned or sacrificed, for the third time, by a power now itself constrained, they will readily embrace the new superior protection now offered them. A new federal republic will be projected or formed in Greece by the same power that has formed the confederacy of the Rhine. These objects will be easier achievement from the preparations already made by Russia from the exclusive protection Bonaparte will extend over the Septinsular Republic and from the proximity of his force and agents there. The effectual instruments for conciliating, and deluding this versatile people the object of his rule. The earlier, or later development of these phases of domination, or of conquest, will depend on the dispositions of the European governments especially of Great Britain, in proportion as they are warlike or pacific. But it is obvious that France will maintain the greatest influence over Greece so long as the protection of the Seven Islands remains under Her exclusive dominion and on the first appearance of any combinations against Her, by Great Britain, Russia, Turkey, or Austria etc, it will be then be in Her power to enter into the heart of the Turkish Empire. Such a resource will also afford to Her the most desirable means, both of passing into Asia Minor on the road to the British possessions in the East Indies, and with the descendants perhaps, of that Nation that subverted the Asiatic Empire, and, at all times, of effectually counteracting the British influence and establishments in the Levant.
The practicability of such plans ought no longer to be doubted of when it is considered that the genius of Bonaparte has known to subvert or coerce the most powerful empires on the globe in a single campaign, or even in a single battle. His intentions to execute them are equally certain, because they are directly hostile and prejudicial to the British Empire whose existence, in its present power and grandeur, is incompatible with his own. To sacrifice the repose and welfare of nations is nothing in the calculations of a victorious despot whose success and whose situation, alike, promt and promote his views of universal empire.
To prevent this menaces increase and consolidation of power, of the natural rival or enemy of Great Britain, in the south of Europe and the Mediterranean is therefore of the utmost importance to its permanent and mice to more to its temporary interests, more especially at this momentous crisis when so little is wanting to France to render all other European states, tributary or subservient to Her views.
Under the present political circumstances of Europe this important purpose might be most effectually accomplished by preventing the enemy from gaining a firm footing in the valuable Island of Corfu, the position, that by its geographical situation and actual circumstances, now not only consolidates and secures all his former acquisitions in the West, but also connects them with his interests and schemes of conquest in the East.
France will derive, from the possession of Corfu, a new system of forces adapted to all the purposes of peace and war, it will become a new center of a real, though nameless, kingdom to which the multifarious resources of the Morea, Albania, and the Adriatic States will converge; and which, without that point of concentration, will remain partly ineffectual by their distance and disunion.
If the fortifications of Corfu have been lately neglected, it was because the policy of neighboring jealous states rendered it necessary. But Corfu, should it pass into the possession of Bonaparte without effectual opposition, will, in a few months, become a military station, not less impregnable nor less important to the security of the Empire that he has hitherto obtained and nearly established, than Malta is itself to the British Government.
The value even of that possession will be in many respects impaired should France occupy Corfu which now also completes Her chain of naval arsenals on the northern shores of the Mediterranean from which she can, at pleasure, exclude all British connection. Thus a very considerable British naval force will be, henceforward, necessary and defeat the designs and operations of the enemy, now, not less powerful in the means than verse in all the arts of conquest and aggrandizement. Without the constant presence of such a force what reliance, indeed, can be placed on the validity of any engagements contracted by Great Britain with the Porte, or other of the Mediterranean states, which constantly exposed to the superior force and fraud of France? The very pledges even required from them for this security will render the enemy more inflexible in his purposes of aggrandizement and opposition and by weakening these states will second those purposes. Thus rendering such pacific and equitable measures, abortive, or only palliative, of the growing evil they are designed to cure.
From these considerations, therefore, it is obvious that the full success and utility of the measure proposed depends on the celerity and vigor with which it is executed.
Numerous partisans, money and ships may be now procured in the Ionian Islands to support and repay the protection that Great Britain may give them. Provisions stores and ammunition are now wanting there. In a few weeks those valid resources will pass into the hands of the Enemy, who, in return, will abundantly supply those deficiencies thus converting weakness into force. In the same interval of time these great advantages, both positive and negative, may be acquired by the British government. Its influence in the Adriatic be again restored and an effectual check be given to the overwhelming progress of its most formidable enemy.
It is understood that a considerable division of the Russian squadron in the Mediterranean consisting of 14 sail of the line etc is to be given up to the French with all the stores, all, or after, the evacuation of the Seven Islands; and that a levy of 12,000 men, to serve in the French navy, has been already ordered to be made in Dalmatia Cattaro etc. These are direct indications of Bonaparte’s determination to support his late arrangements on the continent as established by the Treaty of Peach with Russia, and of the unalterable intension of the latter to fulfill scrupulously Her stipulations.
The nature and quantity of the force requisite for executing the measure proposed must depend on the species of operations selected for it. As it is probable that the enemy will have effected a landing in Corfu, before any sufficient British naval forces can arrive to oppose it, and will have replaced the Russians – a blockade of the Adriatic Gulph, and of that Island, would be the first necessary steps in order to intercept all further communication with Italy and with the opposite, almost contiguous Turkish coasts, from whence the enemy will use every diligence and art to import artillery, ammunition, stores, provisions etc, the arrival of which would so much retard and enhance all further offensive operations.
A measure of less effect, though of great utility, would be that of appointing to the same stations a naval force to cruise against the enemy in order to prevent his correspondence and the transport of contraband of war, so much wanted, and so essential, to his security in his new acquisitions.
Should any British force arrive off Corfu, against the enemy, previous to the evacuation of that place by the Russian troops, whatever might be the determination of the Russian commandant in finding such an obstacle opposed to the orders of his sovereign to constrain the Russians to continue there would be still of great importance to the British government, Corfu would remain, at least, a friendly port and might, ultimately, be prevented from falling into the hands of the enemy.
Such are the valid and extensive resources resulting to France from her new acquisitions in the Adriatic and Ionian Seas. And such are the injurious operations they will produce, both in the temporary and permanent, interests of the British Empire.
If the interest, or means, required for preventing, or retarding the formation of this new force, so prejudicial, in all its directions, to the British nation are clear and obvious the right or expediency of such a proceeding is equally valid.
It may be remarked here that the production, or, in other words, the absolute dominion of the Septinsular Republic was not ceded to France at the instigation or by the consent of its citizens, but by the spontaneous act and design of Russia. Such an act which precluded that independent, although protected, state from the right of approving, or disapproving, the new political relations, so abruptly imposed on it with a foreign state, with which it was then at war, has committed the interest of many considerable families, who must now abandon their country, the reward for their zeal and attachment to their late protector.
Such a situation of things, if duly profiled by, would also greatly contribute to the support and success of the measures of opposition against France above suggested. And as the principles of self preservation sanction their adoption so the magnitude or importance of the object bears not to be compared with the means proposed or required for its attainment.
If after the Treaty of Presburg, December 1805, Great Britain as well as Austria judged it expedient to prevent Austria from carrying into execution the stipulated cession of Dalmatia and Bocche di Cattaro by taking possession of the latter with Russian forces, how infinitely more expedient must it be now when France is in actual possession of that important ceded place to prevent the enemy in the further extension of his power on the Seven Islands, which when united to his former immense acquisitions, will afford him the sure and incalculable means of attacking and defeating some of the best interests of the British government in Europe without, even, leaving to it the probability of any effectual indemnifications for the resistance to be opposed, or the losses to be sustained, in the future hostilities or competitions with the French empire.
The arguments that Russia or France might adduce against the successful results of the project here proposed would generally tend to confirm and recommend the validity and expediency of it. Europe is now in a state of subjection to France.
In the north, it may be presumed, that the late arrangements of Bonaparte have him little, or nothing, to fear or provide for in that quarter.
It is to the south, that his principal attention will be directed to consolidate or extend his power; and whatever may depress the interests of Great Britain will be thought undeceive to that end.
From such a state and tendency of things and from the present possessions of France, in the south of Europe, Corfu now becomes the principal, if not the only, point in the Mediterranean and, perhaps in Europe, where the future political and military operations of the enemy may be most effectually and advantageously counteracted.
If that position was occupied by British forces the great resources Bonaparte possesses in the peninsula of Italy, the Adriatic and Turkey would be rendered inefficient.
It would offer considerable indemnity for the past but more especially security for the future.
September 1st 1807
Spiridion Foresti
(to Lord Collingwood in Malta /British Government in London)