The Russian government now concluded to take the direction of matters.  Its minister at Athens required Comoundouros to fall in with a plan for a general movement in all the Balkan provinces under Russian direction, Russia beginning to fear a pan-Hellenic rising.  To this Comoundouros gave a peremptory refusal; it was a Greek movement and should remain under Greek direction.  The king of Greece had married a Russian princess, and during his stay at St. Petersburg had given himself up to the influence of the court.  He was a weak, incapable young man, and the absolutist atmosphere suited his temperament perfectly, and the independence of Comoundouros did not.  Under the requisition of the Russian minister, the king dismissed the ministry of Comoundouros.  The Chamber refused its confidence to the new ministry, and the Russian minister then made the formal proposal to Comoundouros that if he would accept the programme of St. Petersburg he should come back to power.  This proposal was also rejected, and the Chamber was dissolved, and in the new elections, by the most outrageous exercise of all the expedients that could be applied, Comoundouros and all his principal adherents were excluded, and a subservient Chamber elected, under the shadow of a ministry of affairs composed of men of no party and no capacity.  The popular feeling ran so high that an insurrection was imminent, and was averted only by the formal promises of the ministry to carry on the war in Crete with renewed energy; but, at the same time, the means were withdrawn from the Cretan committee, who were the most capable and honest, as well as patriotic, people to be found in Athens.  Never had the condition of affairs been so favorable for the realization of a thorough Greek policy.  The Greeks on the Continent were ready and all the Turkish empire was in a ferment.  Joseph Karam, prince of the Lebanon, was waiting at Athens on the plans of the Greek government to give the word for a rising in his country.  The election having given the ministry the majority it desired, it gave place to Bulgaris, the Russian partisan, and colleagues nominated by the Russian minister for the distinct purpose of suppressing the Cretan insurrection.

Omar Pasha went home in disgrace in November, and left in charge Hussein Avni, who had a plan of paralyzing the insurrection by building lines of blockhouses across the island and isolating the bands.  With much pain and expense a number of blockhouses were built and roads made in the western provinces; but, with the exception of another fruitless attack on Zurba, nothing really serious was attempted on either side in the island.  The Turkish hospitals were full of fever and dysentery patients, and the insurgents harried all the country round about with perfect impunity.  Most of the houses around us at Kalepa were occupied as hospitals, and the very air seemed infected by the number of sick; there were 3000 in and around Canea.