17 MAY 1856, Page 13

THE TERMS OF PEACE.

SIR—I will not, at this time of the year, trouble you with a long letter, but I wish to place on record certain remarks which occur to me on the terms of the late treaty of peace. I need not say that no one can rejoice more than myself at the conclusion of peace on any terms. We are at least delivered from the horrors of war ; we are ,_I trust, partially at least, delivered from the guilt of so unjust a war. But there is much in the terms of the treaty to make every lover of freedom mourn. As commonly results from secret diplomatic conclaves, the treaty is conceived in the interests of governments and not of nations.

The terms are such as might be expected from the representatives and allies of Louis Napoleon and Francis Joseph.

First, then, the stock-phrase of diplomacy again occurs. " The integrity and independence of the -Ottoman empire " is guaranteed. I proteat gene- rally against all guaranties, but there might have been no special objection to guaranteeing the " Ottoman empire " against the absorption of any por- tion of it by any of the Powers contracting the treaty. The Greeks, Bul- garians, Serbs, Wallaehs, Albanians, Arabs, Armenians, Copts, and Syrians, now united under Ottoman bondage, might be fairly, guaranteed against Russian, Austrian, French, or English annexation. But a guaranty of "the Ottoman empire" is a guaranty not of the people against foreign annexation, but of a foreign intruder against the people. The integrity of the Otto- man empire' -denies the people the right to overthrOw-their common op- pressor and to separate at their good pleasure. It especially denies the Hel- lenic and SlaVonic portion of them their natural right to coalesce with their independent brethren in Montenegro and the Greek kingdom. As usual, the dictates of nature, justice, and Providence, are despised, for the sake of a supposed political necessity, or of a mere conventional phrase. S.econdly, if the contmetmg Powers-determined to guarantee the continu- ance of this abomination known as the Ottoman empire, the least they could have done would have been likewise to guarantee the observance of the late Hatti-seheriff. The Sultan holds his crown as an eleemoeynary gift from England and France. It was the right and duty of England and France to Make good behaviour the condition of its retention. I had always imagined that very shame would compel them to make some stipulations on behalf of the Eastern Christians. The Hatti-schoriff gives in name almost everything:that is wanted—except the expulsion of the intruders altogether. But everybody knows that the Sultan has not the power, that hardly any other Turk has the will, to execute it. The mere octroi of a despot, it may be at any moment revoked it is almost cer- tain, even if. unrevoked, to remain a dead letter, except. by Western inter- ference, which is refused, or by Eastern revolt, which is forbidden. The Western Powers, while guaranteeing the "independence;'- &c., in no way

guarantee the observance '

servance of the Hatti-scheriff; in feet, they formally de- cline to interfere in any case between the Sultan and his "subjects." That is, the Russian protectorate is excluded, and nettling else substitilted South-eastern Christendom is betrayed ; it is given up, without condition or stipulation, to the covenanted or uncovenanted morales of the barbarian.

Thirdly, I can find in the treaty no stipulations for the suppression of that loathsome and accursed slave-trade by sea and laud which Russia so effectually laboured to extinguish. If we lavish million's to suppress the African trade, can we do nothing to suppress this unspft1Mble abomination ; or is it essential to the liberty and civilization of Eurobe that a constant supply of victims of both sexes should be supplied to the seraglios of our cherished ally ? . -

Meanwhile, while Western Europe is betraying the gmt, while we sur- render Greece and Bulgaria to their tyrants, while Rome and Parma are still held down under foreign bondage, while the French Usurper, with my Lord Clarendon's approbation, stretches forth his long arm to attack the

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liberty of Belgium, the East is doing something for herself. - The Govern- ment of independent Greece, at which Lord Palmerston; so respectful to despots and invaders, sneers with such inimitable jauntiness, has been la- bowing, and for some time past successfully, to suppress the brigandage IC& has so long disgraced the country. Let Western Christendom only help Greece instead of abusing her; let it give her her natural boundaries, and cease to invade and insult the small portion to which freedom is eon- deded,—if Greece fail then, I will allow it has a right.to mock at her ; but it has no right to censure her for evils of which Western diplomacy has been almost entirely the cause.