Hunting Appointments 766 rather than tracing the different steps of
its diplomatic settlement, Club for Cheapening the Necessaries Advertisements 766 which present, now that we are enabled to look back on them, a cu- part of the British Government has been so indifferentl3r filled. The NEWS OF THE WEEK. British are notorious for their bungling diplomacy, and the various political changes that have taken place during the last four years, have The first attempt of the Greeks to interest in their favour the Sore- reigns of Europe, was made during the sitting of the Congress at' Verona in 1822. To that great council, whose object was the preser- ners in the popular odium. While M. DE LA BOURDONNAYE was in ration of tranquillity in Europe, their deputies were denied access ; and office, we were told that he and BOURMONT were the blemishes of the the only resolution agreed to on the subject by the assembled Monarchs, POLIGNAC Administration ; but now that LA BOURDONNAYE was, that when it came to be discussed it should be treated as an affair of YE has resigned, the journalists have discovered that he had the redeeming the Alliance, not as one peculiarly Russian. The Emperor ALEXANDER virtue of being a Frenchman ; and that the Premier, in originating joined with the Congress in refusing to recognize, or even to see the Greek deputies • but no sooner had the first great step been taken to- wards the establishment of Greek independence by the appointment of Government, than he made proposals of accommodation councils. The incapacity of MONTBEL and RANVILLE are much between the Porte and the insurgents, and in terms not very different insisted on ; and their prejudices are said to be quite as violent as those from those of the protocol of April 1826. The memorial containing these of LA BOURDONNAYE, and in the same direction. These persons are proposals was submitted to the Allied Courts in the winter of 1823, generally said to owe their.elevation to the secret rhe Emperor's plan was to erect Greece into three Hospodorates, tee influence of M. DE be governed on similar principles to those of Wallachia and Moldavia. meet was not directly forced upon him. It is said that the Presi- li ilThe argument to the Allied Courts was the suppression of a revo- deney of the Council was offered to him, when he first joined the lutionary spirit, which the continuance of the Greek insurrection Cabinet ; that he declined the office, and exacted from his colleagues tended to excite; the argument to the Po a promise that none of them should aspire to that preeminence ; and that rity which the arrangement offered for the punctual payment of rte was the better semi- the tribute. It was not supposed the Greeks would object ; and if from the moment the appointment of M. DE POLIGNAC was mooted, he refused to exercise his functions as a Minister. He has refused a peerage, they did—"the Allied Courts could not recognize their entire inde- pendence, without deviating from those maxims which had established preferring to remain in the Chamber of Deputies, that he may find room for the exercise of his hostilityit the safety of. Europe." The Greeks, however, objected ; the Turks At Bourdeaux, once the chief strong hold of ultra-attachment to the objected ; the Ambassador of Russsia intrigued and lectured to no purpose ; ALEXANDER was gathered to his fathers; and nothing was Bourbons, M. DE PEYRONNET, backed by the whole influence of the Crown, has been rejected by the electors ; and as the power of the done. On the accession of NICHOLAS, the Duke of WALLINGTON was sent to St. Petersburg, ostensibly to congratulate him on his ac- cession, but in reality on the business of Greece and Turkey; and the NAPOLEON in their possession, and other absurdities of the same sort protocol of April 1826 was the consequence. In the autumn of that have been enacted. .year, Mr. CANNING, on his visit to Paris, sounded the French Govern- Here is the commentary of the Journal des Debate on the present meat with a view to their accession, but without effect. The Austrian. aspect of affairs. Minister, METTERNICH, in December 1826, while he praised the spirit " Let M. de Polignac not deceive himself—M. de la Bourdonnaye was the of the protocol, declared that Austria would not sanction the employ- only power in his Ministry—a power which would have destroyed every thing went either of force or menace against Turkey ; and Count BERNS- if it had been brought into action ; but it was power given by M. de la Bour- TORFF, in January 1827, with more reason, declined any interference donnayc's skill in debating, and by the twenty-five or thirty votes that he on the part of Prussia, because of its geographical position, and the can dispose of. advantage that might result to all parties from possessing in her an " In the Home Department the doubles of M. de la Bourdonnaye and M. de unprejudiced and disinterested umpire. The negotiations between Villele remain ; in the Foreign Departnent we have the Duke of Wellington's of 1827 • and the zeal of he will remove those who would shackle the liberty or lessen the glory of the the French people having now been kindled in behalf of Greece, the. country." disinclination of the Ministers to negotiate was beaten down, and A correspondent of the Morning Chronicle, who assures its readers the treaty of July was signed. Admirals CODRINGTON and DE RIGNY that he knows the state of France better than any other man, asserts were already in the Mediterranean, where they were joined by Count that the days of Monarchy in that country are numbered ; that affairs HEYDEN in August. Secret instructions, dated the 12th July, were are driving on towards Republicanism ; and that a revolution more transmitted to Admiral CODRINGTON, by which he was directed to complete than that of 1789 is in rapid progress towards development. enforce a suspension of hostilities by sea, and to .prevent the landing of How I his may be, we cannot pretend to say. Those, indeed, among reinforcements from Asia, the Dardanelles, or Africa,on the coast of con the French themselves who guide and represent public opinion, seem tinental Greece, the Morea, or neighbouring islands. On the 4th Sep- t() trust a goad deal to the chapter of accidents, and whatever be their tember, these instructions were enlarged by the Ambassadors at Con. system, to show a good deal of the slipperiness of rhetoricians in the stantinople, to the prevention of all hostile expeditions from one port means by which they recommend it. on the coast to another. The Admirals were also directed, in the event of any part of the Turkish forces leaving the country, to return, home, to accompany them to their destination. These instructions. The resistance which the Pacha of Scutari and his Albanians were document, dated London, 16th Sep- were expanded in a more form Novena and Modon, shall obstinately resolve to remain there, they must, as weli On the 20th of October, the Allied squadrons entered the harbour of Navarin, in order " to renew the proposition for the infidel forces leav- ing the Morea ;" and the celebrated battle of Navarin was the cone- quence. Immediately after the battle, Russia proposed to her Allies compel Turkey to accede to the treaty of July by force; but England refused to consent to this proposal. The famous hatti-sherif was sub- sequently published ; the Russians passed the Pruth and the Danube; and all prospect of settling the. contest by sea was given up. Admiral CODIIINGTON was recalled in August 4.82ge accused of having by his negligence suffered seven hundred Greeks to be reduced to voluntary servitude, while by his activity he had rescued the remaining mil- lion from unwilling slavery. The Turks still lingered in the Morea, notwithstanding a treaty concluded with Admiral CODRINGTON for its evacuation, and notwithstanding the utmost endeavour of the Greeks to drive them out. The French Ministry, in consequence, planned an ex- pedition to compel the evacuation ; and after a number of objections on the part of England, it sailed, and the Morea was cleared without the firing of a gun. The Morea cleared, it was the intention of Count MAISONi to do the same service by Northern Greece ; but he was stop- ped while about to pass the isthmus of Corinth, by the strong repre- sentations of the EngliSh Ministry to his Government. On the 16th November of the same year, the Allies declared that they took the Morea and Cyclades under their provisional guarantee, without prejudice to the question of the future boundaries of Greece. Ultimately, these boundaries were determined by a line drawn between Arta and Volo ; the island of Negropont being added to Greece, and Candia allowed to re- main with Turkey. It is, however, not a little singular, that so anxious was England for the smaller and insignificant boundary of the Morea, that our Consul-General in Greece was directed to demand of CAPO DISTRIAS the withdrawal of the Greek troops from all places without the Morea. CAPO D'ISTRIAS gave a point blank refusal to this de- mand ; and the French Government formally called for an explana- tion of what it deemed an unwarrantable proceeding. Still the Porte held out against all proposals, whether favourable or otherwise ; and at length the patience even of the British Cabinet seems to have been ex- hausted. In the end of last August, the Duke of WELLINGTON made a proposal to the Allied Ambassadors, assembled in conference, to leave the Sultan out of the question for. the future, and proceed at once to the settlement of Greece, without either hospodorates or tri- butes. This is the last protocol on the subject; though a subsequent attempt was made, not to modify, but altogether to alter it, by ac- ceding to a proposal of the Porte to restrict Greece to the Morea, under a hospodar of the Sultan's choice, and with the imposition of a
heavy tribute. The Russian and French Ambassadors demurred to this tardy concession ; and the victories of DIEBITSCH and the treaty of Adrianople have rendered all further consideration of it unneces- sary. The real independence of Greece is now secured, by a better and stronger assurance than bonds and signatures and seals can war- rant—the prostration for ever of that barbarous and bigoted govern- ment by which it had so long been held in ignominious thraldom. The substance of the above very brief summary has been derived from a clear, manly, and able paper on the Greek Revolution, in the
new number of the Foreign Quarterly Review. A perusal of the
whole will amply reward both the politician and the man of letters. Some weeks ago, we noticed that part of the protocol of the 22nd
March last, which bore upon the rumours relative to a Greek " monarchy." We subjoin, from the article in the Foreign Quarterly Review, a summary of its contents.
" 1. The Continental boundary line of the Greek state is to be drawn from the Gulf of Vain to the Gulf of Ambracia. All countries south of this line to be included in the Greek state, to which the adjacent Islands, comprehending Eubcea or Negropont, and the Isles of the Cyclades, are likewise to belong.
" 3. An annual tribute of 1,500,000* Turkish piastres to be paid by this Greek state. Greece is to pay the first year only a third, to be gradually increased till it reaches the maximum in the fourth year. "3. Turkish subjects who may be forced to depart from the Greek territory, to be indemnified.
" 4. Greece is to remain under the suzeraineta of the Porte, with the form of govern- ment best calculated to secure its religious and commercial liberty. The government is to approach as nearly as possible to a monarchical form, and to be hereditary in the family of a Christian prince, to be chosen, for the first time, by the three Powers in con- cert with the Porte. He is not to be a member of the families reigning in the states which are parties to the treaty of July 6."
The following is the confirmatory article in the treaty of Adrianople,
" Art. 10. The Sublime Porte, whilst declaring its entire adhesion to the stipulations of the treaty concluded in London on the NU: of June (the 6th of July) ,1827, between Russia, Great Britain, and France, accedes equally to the act drawn up on the 10th of March (22d) 1829, by mutual consent, between these same Powers, on the basis of the said treaty, and containing the arrangements of detail relative to its definitive execution. Immediately after the exchange of the ratification of the present treaty of Peace, the Sublime Porte shall appoint Plenipotentiaries to settle with those of the Imperial Court of Russia, and the Courts of England and France, the execution of the said stipulations and arrangements.
* The amount of the proposed tribute is comparatively of little moment. It would scarcely be pin-money for one of the favourites of the Sultan's harem ; and does not amount to the rent of some English country gentlemen, at the present rate of the Turkish piastre. When the Morea paid its full quota before the Revolution, its tribute was calculated at 12,000,000 of piastres. The piastre was then 20 pence—as appears from Lord Byron's notes to Childe Harold. It is now about 5 or 6 pence. But the tribute of one piastre, or one barley corn, infers feudal subjection—and feudal subjection to the Turk is a brand of infamy.—E. Q. R.
