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the Government; it is indeed a necessary qualification for the effective discharge of their most important duties. A knowledge, therefore, of these languages must in future be considered as an indispensable condition of promotion, and you will take care to adopt such measures as you may think best calculated to test the qualification in this respect of the different civil servants, in order that this condition may be strictly enforced.

8. I concur in your Lordship's opinion that it is necessary to punish with severity the leaders and promoters of this insurrection, which will prove the most merciful course in the end. But whilst it is necessary to vindicate and maintain the law, it is desirable that acts of justice and severity should be strictly limited to what is inevitably called for by the occasion, and that the prevailing character of measures consequent upon excite- ment and insubordination should at all times be that of moderation and clemency towards those who have been misled. This implies no indulgence towards the guilty contrivers of sedition, nor any forgetfulness of the claims to consideration and protection of the loyal, peaceable, and industrious, who constitute, as I am happy to find, the great majority of Her Majesty's subjects in Ceylon.

The Right Hon. Viscount Torrington,

&c.

&c.

&c.

I have, &c. (Signed) GREY.

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Martial Law in Cephalonia, 1849.

IN Cephalonia, on account of an insurrection of the peasantry, Martial Law was proclaimed on August 30, 1849, and seems to have been discontinued on the 27th of October.

The numbers of persons punished by Courts-martial were as follows:—

Executed

Transported or imprisoned.. Flogged

21

35

80

136

The following are extracts from the Parliamentary Paper,. "Ionian Islands," March

1850.

No. I.

?

PROCLAMATION issued by the Lord High Commissioner.

On the part of his Excellency Henry George Ward, Esq., Lord High Commissioner of Her Majesty the Protecting Sovereign in the United States of the Ionian Islands, &c.

FOR the reasons given, and under the circumstances stated in his Excellency the Lord High Commissioner's Message, this day addressed to the most Excellent the Senate, and in virtue of the power confided to his Excellency Article IV, sec. 2, cap. 7, of the Constitution of these States, Martial Law is proclaimed throughout those districts of the Island of Cephalonia to which the late insurrectionary movement, marked by acts of such atrocity, has extended, and in all other districts to which it may spread.

The inhabitants of these districts are warned that the whole expense incurred for the maintenance of the military force sent from this garrison to establish order and afford protection to the well-disposed shall be borne by them, and that such charge shall continued to be levied until criminals implicated in the recent transactions shall have been brought to that punishment which awaits their guilt.

The present shall be printed in the Greek, English, and Italian languages, and published for general intelligence.

Given from the Palace of St. Michael and St. George, on this 30th day of August, 1849.

By command of His Excellency.

(Signed)

J. FRASER,

Secretary to the Lord High Commissioner.

No. 2.

EXTRACT from a DESPATCH from Sir HENRY WARD to Earl GREY, dated

October 19, 1849, No. 54.

I DID not lose a moment after the arrest of Vlacco in redeeming the promises given in my previous proclamations, and upon the faith of which incessant exertions had been made by the peasantry of the well-disposed districts, in conjunction with the troops and the police, for the capture of the rebels. On Sunday morning the embargo was taken off which has so long paralyzed the trade of the island, but in which the principal merchants have cheerfully acquiesced, because they felt that if the leaders were allowed to reach that general asylum of Mediterranean crime-Greece, their impunity would

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