Venetian rule in the Ionian Islands 1809, Great Britain took possession of all the islands with the exception of Corfu and Paxos, which was only surrendered in 1814. In 1815, the Ionian Islands became a British protectorate under the name United States of the Ionian Islands. The civil and military governor of the Ionian Islands was the "Provveditore generale da Mar", who lived on Corfu and had the supreme peacetime command of the Venetian navy. In wartime, due to his absence at the head of the fleet, he was sometimes replaced by a "Provveditore generale delle Tre Isole" ("Superintendent general of the Three Islands"), referring to
Sea of Marmara , with dimensions .Its greatest depth is . The sea takes its name from Marmara Island, which is rich in sources of marble, from the Greek "μάρμαρον" ("marmaron"), "marble". The sea's ancient Greek name "Propontis" derives from "pro-" (before) and "pontos" (sea), deriving from the fact that the Greeks sailed through it to reach the Black Sea, "Pontos". In Greek mythology, a storm on Propontis brought the Argonauts back to an island they had left, precipitating a battle where either Jason or Heracles killed King Cyzicus, who mistook them for his Pelasgian enemies. The surface salinity of the sea averages