ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that consuls and their market functions as well as their trade background were important in establishing intermediary relations between state institutions. Nineteenth-century consuls had good commercial experience, so they had an important role in the flow of information and market intermediation. Merchants of Greek origin arrived in Britain in the first decades of the nineteenth century and adapted to the needs of the British imperial economy. Parallel to that, the emergence of the Greek national state in the 1830s provided a new platform for political and economic activities. The appointment of consuls and consular agents from the Greek state in Britain and its colonies can be revealing about the intermediary role of certain important merchant houses deriving their expertise from the Eastern Mediterranean, an area of intense trade activities which corresponds more or less to the Levant. This trade expertise enabled them to penetrate ‘new found lands’, where they had established outposts for their business. Still the main issue until the late nineteenth century was the intermingling and separation of private interests from national sovereign ones. This controversial problem was smoothed over by national consular regulations and the strengthening of national trade. 1
