Among the gems of history still hidden away in the Public Record Office, in London, is a manuscript account of a transaction in British foreign politics of the year 1829–30 which at least three countries might claim as one of their greatest national jokes. The documents which tell the story have recently been unearthed for the first time. Had they been discovered before, during the century which has elapsed since they were filed and forgotten, they would most certainly have been made public long since—for their story is incredibly funny.

The volume containing them is catalogued baldly as ‘F.O.32/16, Miscellaneous Domestic, 1830.’ It is a leather-bound folio volume of Foreign Office correspondence, comprising sundry reports from British consuls in Greece sent home during that year, and complaints from British subjects anxious to trace missing relatives in Greece.