to exist after Tilsit, and regarding the appointed Senate as not representative of the Ionian people. In the end, the Ionian Islands were formed into a British protectorate, the "United States of the Ionian Islands", which existed until the islands were united with the Kingdom of Greece in 1864. Languages Due to the long Venetian rule, the Ionian Islands were linguistically and culturally influenced by Italy. Italian culture and language retained a dominant status among the educated urban elites well into the 19th century—Italian remained an official language until 1851—but the lower classes remained "monolingually and monoculturally Greek". The official language was at first the Italian language and then in 1803 Greek became, along with Italian, one of the two official languages of the Republic. During the Venetian period, Italian was used for official purposes in the islands but it was also widely spoken in the cities, whereas in the countryside people continued to speak Greek. The only island in which Italian (Venetian) had a wider spread was Cefalonia, where a greater number of people had adopted Venetian as their first language. The constitution of the Septinsular Republic was printed in Greek by the patriarchal press in Constantinople, using many loanwords from Italian for technical terms. However, the new constitution approved in 1803 was drafted in Italian. The text of the constitution was prefaced by the report of the committee that drafted it, which stated that: "the noble, rich and harmonious Hellenic dialect, having been exiled by the Venetians, should be recalled to the dominion and become the language of administration and the interpreter of the active citizens." This issue was considered to be so important that it was even given a separate article (Art. 211) in the constitution. According to the article, Greek was scheduled to replace Italian as the working language in public acts by the year 1820. Religion Most of the people on these islands during this period were Christians, with a small number of Jews on Corfu, Zante and an even smaller number on Cefalonia. The majority of Christians were Eastern Orthodox. However, there was a significant number of Catholics, especially on Corfu, Zante and Cefalonia. The Constitution of 1803 recognized Orthodoxy as the dominant faith; it also stated that the Roman Catholic faith was recognized and protected. The Constitution also provided for the enactment of a law defining the privileges of the Jews residing in