former tutor, Cesar de Laharpe, were little careful in the
expression of their sympathy for the ideals of the Carbonari. In
Metternich's eyes Capo d'Istria, "the coryphaeus of liberalism," was
responsible for the tsar's vagaries, the fount of all the ills of which
the times were sick; and, for all the count's diplomatic reticence, the
Austrian spies who dogged his footsteps earned their salaries by
reporting sayings that set the reactionary courts in a flutter. For
Metternich the overthrow of Capo d'Istria's influence became a necessity
of political salvation. At Corfu Capo d'Istria became the repository of
all the grievances of his countrymen against the robust administration
of Sir Thomas Maitland. At the congress of Vienna the count had
supported the British protectorate over the Ionian Islands, the
advantages of which from the point of view of trade and security were
obvious; but the drastic methods of "King Tom's" government, symbolized
by a gallows for pirates and other evil-doers in every popular gathering
place, offended his local patriotism. He submitted a memorandum on the
subject to the tsar, and before returning to Russia travelled via Paris
to England to lay the grievances of the Ionians before the British
government. His reception was a cold one, mainly due to his own
disingenuousness, for he refused to show British ministers the
memorandum which he had already submitted to the Russian emperor, on the
ground that it was intended only for his own private use. The whole
thing seemed, rightly or wrongly, an excuse for the intervention of
Russia in affairs which were by treaty wholly British.

On his return to St Petersburg in the autumn of 1819, Capo d'Istria
resumed his influence in the intimate counsels of the tsar. The murder
of the Russian agent, Kotzebue, in March, had shaken but not destroyed
Alexander's liberalism, and it was Capo d'Istria who drew up the
emperor's protest against the Carlsbad decrees and the declaration of
his adherence to constitutional views (see ALEXANDER I.). In October
1820 Capo d'Istria accompanied the tsar to the congress at Troppau. The
events of the year--the murder of the due de Berry in March, the
Revolutions in Spain and in Naples--had produced their effect. Alexander
was, in Metternich's exultant language, "a changed man," and Capo
d'Istria apparently shared his conversion to reactionary principles. The
Austrian chancellor now put forth all his powers to bring Alexander