His lawyers therefore advised him to return in the steamer to Athens, which he did.

Learning, soon after his arrival, through his wife, of a combination there to take his life, he acquainted Sir Edmund Lyons, the British Ambassador, with the fact, and that gentleman kindly offered him British protection in case of need.
It would be charitable to suppose, that the government had not entered into this prosecution willingly, but were urged on by the hierarchy.

Certain it is, that the whole subject was allowed to rest for nearly a year.

But on the 4th of June, 1847, the missionary received a citation from the officers of government to appear in person for trial before the criminal court at Syra.

As a similar court was at that moment holding a session in Athens, he could regard the motive of the citation as not very different from that which led the Jews to demand the transfer of St.Paul's trial from Caesarea to Jerusalem.