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
Greek New Zealanders their ethnicity as Greek in New Zealand was 2,478 in the March 2013 census. The vast majority of the Greeks immigrating to New Zealand came from the western prefecture of Aetolia-Acarnania, the Ionian Sea islands of Ithaca and Kephalonia, and from the island of Lesbos which is located in the northeastern Aegean Sea. Smaller numbers have come from Macedonia, Epirus, Attica, the Peloponnese, Crete, Romania and Cyprus. Chain migration has been popular. It is believed that the first Greek in New Zealand was a Mr Constas, an officer in the merchant navy from Sparta, Laconia which is situated in the