United States of the Ionian Islands took Lefkada in 1810. The island of Corfu remained occupied by the French until 1814. The Congress of Vienna agreed to place the Ionian Islands under the exclusive "amical protection" of the United Kingdom. Despite British military administration, the Austrian Empire was guaranteed commercial status equal to the UK. The arrangement was formalised with the ratification of the "Maitland constitution" on 26 August 1817, which created a federation of the seven islands, with Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Maitland its first "Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands". The Party of Radicals (Greek: Κόμμα των Ριζοσπαστών) founded in 1848 was against the
Ionian League of Melia were part of the Lohmann et al. discoveries of 2004. Prior to then other theories of the location had been prevalent. The Ionian League was the first alliance of city-states in the region. Ionian League The Ionian League (ancient Greek: , "Íōnes"; , "koinón Iōnōn"; or , "koinē sýnodos Iōnōn"; Latin: "commune consilium"), also called the Panionic League, was a confederation formed at the end of the Meliac War in the mid-7th century BC comprising twelve Ionian cities (a dodecapolis, of which there were many others). These were listed by Herodotus as After 650 BC Smyrna, an originally