CHAPTER XXXVI.
GREEK BROILS--TRICOUPI--FLORENCE The troubles initiated at Gortyna increased until the eastern end of the island was drawn into them, and, as the Greek government at the same time began to agitate for the execution of those clauses in the Treaty of Berlin which compensated it for the advantages gained by the principalities through the war, I received orders to go to Athens and resume my correspondence with the "Times." Athens was in a ferment, and the discontent with the government for its inefficiency was universal; the ministry, as was perhaps not altogether unjustifiable under the circumstances past, allowed the King to bear his part of the responsibility, and discontent with him was even greater than that with Comoundouros, the prime minister, whose position became very difficult, for the King and his _entourage_ opposed all energetic measures, and the people demanded the most energetic.

Excitement ran very high, and the ministry was carried along with the populace, which demanded war and the military occupation of the territory assigned to Greece.
Comoundouros was, on the whole, the most competent prime minister for Greece whom the country has had in my time.

Tricoupi, who was the chief of the opposition at the time, was an abler man, and a statesman of wider views,--on the whole, the greatest statesman of modern Greece, _me judice_; but in intrigue and Odyssean craft, which is necessary in the Levant, Comoundouros was his master.

In 1868, when they were both in the ministry, they formed the most competent government Greece has known in her constitutional days, but it was betrayed by the King, who paid now in part for his defection, for no one placed the least confidence in him.

The diplomatic corps pressed for peace, and the nation demanded war, for which it was not in the least prepared.