118 EARL DE GREY'S ADDRESS. [May 28, 1860. 



Having subsequently devoted himself with much diligence to a 

 cultivation of those branches of military study which were so 

 efficiently encouraged and directed at that time by Sir Howard 

 Douglas, in the College at Farnham, when it became necessary to 

 define and map the boundary frontier between the empire of Turkey 

 and the newly created kingdom of Greece, Colonel Baker was 

 selected, in 1830, by the Earl of Aberdeen, who then held the seals 

 of the Foreign Office, as the English Commissioner to whom the 

 work was entrusted. Two other military officers were associated 

 with him as the respective representatives of France and Eussia, 

 by whom, jointly with this country, the measure had been adopted ; 

 and a Greek and a Turkish officer were added afterwards to the 

 Commission. 



The obstacles which presented themselves to the first commence- 

 ment of this operation, from the absence of any accurate geo- 

 graphical data on which it might with safety have been founded, 

 and the obstructions afterwards interposed during the progress of 

 it by the intrigues of the Turkish Government, requiring repeated 

 remonstrances on the part of the Allied Commissioners, which were 

 supported by our Minister at Constantinople — these were the diffi- 

 culties that created a very serious" delay before the work was finally 

 completed. Nor was it until December, 1835, that the map was 

 presented in its finished state to the Sultan. 



It was based upon a trigonometrical survey of a narrow strip 

 of country extending on each side of the boundary line, which, 

 reaching from the Gulf of Arta at its western to that of Yolo at its 

 eastern extremity, included, with all its sinuosities, a distance of 

 137 miles ; and it was defined by 95 landmarks, which, though 

 mostly destroyed by the Turks in the winter of 1832, were restored 

 in the following summer. The office devolved upon Colonel Baker 

 of submitting to the Conference of the Allied Powers, during these 

 protracted operations, a plan by which at length the objections 

 raised by the Porte to the arrangement were overcome, and the 

 measure was brought to a successful issue. 



Colonel Baker maintained to the latest period of his valuable life, 

 which closed at Bath in December, 1859, the same talent for military 

 survey, and the same diligence in prosecuting it, which characterised 

 him in his earlier career : for, having resided for a few weeks with 

 his family during the last autumn at Torquay, he drew up an able 

 report, accompanied with actual measurements, of the whole neigh- 

 bouring coast, pointing out the weak and the strong points of 



