Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

the Greeks, with equal courage and magnanimity, have sacrificed their most valuable and dearest property. They preferred freedom under their tents, in their valleys, or the tops of their mountains, to the most splendid dwellings in slavery. Must not this remarkable circumstance in the history of the defensive war of the Greeks convince all Christian minds, that when they began the contest for the recovery of their rights with shaking off an intolerable yoke, the sacred object was to deliver their faith, their country, their holy temples, the graves of their fathers, their wives, and their children, and that they were strangers to the political views which agitated Europe? Guided by these principles in the struggle they maintained, they have not failed to implore the compassion of their brethren in Christendom, and officially to solicit the monarchs of the Vienna Congress to take insulted humanity under their protection. But European policy, entertaining other ideas on the principles of our cause, and far from possessing a true knowledge of the Ottoman dynasty, would neither give credit to the writings of the Greeks, nor hear their groans and complaints, but resolved to abide by a mere neutrality, which has been in some instances fatal to the Greeks. As the Greeks did not attain the object of their public applications, they were obliged to exert themselves with confidence, defending their sacred cause alone, and leave it to time to set their motives and principles in a clear light. The government, in fact, continued in its system of silence, and would have persevered in it had not a note, proceeding from the north of Europe, obliged

it to break silence. This note has Greece for its object, and decides on its fate according to a will which is foreign to it. It is difficult to imagine that such a note can have come from a court like that of Russia. The Greeks, however, cannot be deceived respecting the existence of this note; and the Greek nation, as well as its government, whose organ I have the honour to be, in offering their homage to his Britannic Majesty, through your excellency, solemnly declare that they prefer a glorious death to the disgraceful lot intended to be imposed on them. It is not credible that his Britannic Majesty, who has shown such philanthropical sentiments towards the people of South America, will consent that the Greeks shall be so unworthily excluded from the list of civilized nations, and delivered up to the caprice of the one or the other, without having the power to constitute themselves as a nation. Yet the Greeks are surely, with respect to their claims, in a more advantageous situation than the South Americans. They have impressed the stamp of disgrace on the Turkish weakness; they have proved that they are worthy to be free. They do not contend against their mother country, but against a foreign nation that occupied their country, and treated their children as slaves. The Greeks, to the astonishment of all nations, shook off the yoke of the barbarians. They commenced the war without means to carry it on, convinced that they could not assert their independence without innumerable sacrifices; they conquered fortresses, towns, and a number of posts which were in the hands of their ferocious despot. In several actions they

have defeated the numerous and

formidable Turkish fleet with small merchantmen; they have established laws like those of civilized nations; they have formed a government, and submitted to its commands. Can it now be doubted that the Greeks are worthy of independence? It will doubtless not escape his Britannic Majesty, that Greece, when free, both by the spirit of its people and its geographical position, may promote the interests of Great Britain. Trade is the vital principle of civilized nations; and where can trade be more advantageously carried on than in Greece?

What stronger barrier against the increase of a vast European power, what more favourable point for the maintenance of the balance of power, can England find than those natural compacts in the midst of which Greece is situated? These are indisputable truths which time will confirm. On these grounds, Greece, as I believe, has morally and politically the right to expect every kind of aid and protection from the humane English, and especially from his Britannic Majesty, whose honourable sentiments are universally known. It can no longer be doubted whether the independence of Greece coincides with the interests of the European nations, and this circumstance is a powerful reason that the Greek nation should not be stripped of its sacred rights, and that the English nation, whose weight in the political balance is so generally recognized, should be indifferent to the affecting sight of humanity so unjustly and so unworthily trampled under foot. I have the honour, &c.

(Signed) P. I. RODIOS,
Secretary-general,

Mr. Canning's answer to the Secretary-General of the Provisional Government of Greece.

London, December 1, 1824. The letter which you did me the honour to write to me on the 24th of August, did not reach me till the 4th of November. It contains remarks of the provisional government of Greece on a document which has been inserted in the European journals, as a plan for the establishment of peace in Greece, proceeding from the cabinet of St. Petersburgh. It is beyond a doubt that the publication of this document was made without any authority. I am unable either to affirm or to deny that it was derived from an authentic source. The opinion of the British government, however, is, that any plan for the restoration of peace in the east, proceeding from the cabinet of St. Petersburgh, can be drawn up only with friendly intentions towards the Greeks: consequently that such a plan cannot have for its object either to prescribe laws to the Greeks, or to awe the Ottoman government, and that his Imperial Majesty of Russia, whatever might be his intention, would think it fit to communicate any plan of this kind to the other powers, his allies, before he proposed it to the contending parties. The emperor has in fact laid before the allied courts the plan, to propose at the same time to the Porte, and to the provisional government of Greece, to suspend hostilities, in order to gain time for amicable mediation; and the British government would not have hesitated to accede to this proposal, had it been made at a proper moment. It must not be overlooked that the very document

which so greatly excited the displeasure of the Greek government awakened similar feelings in the Divan. While the Greeks express an invincible abhorrence of every agreement which should not pronounce their national independence, the divan repulses every kind of reconciliation which should not restore its sovereignty over Greece. In these dispositions of the parties, there is certainly but small hope of an acceptable and effectual mediation. If, before the extreme to which these opposite opinions were carried-if at the time when the varying chances of war seemed to give to both parties more than one rational motive for an amicable arrangement, Russia had proposed such an arrangement, no blame could have attached to it, or to those who might have been inclined to consider of such a plan. The document, considered as a Russian memorial, contains the elements of a treaty of peace, though these elements were probably not reduced into a form proper to communicate to the belligerent parties. If the sovereignty of the Turks should not be absolutely restored, if the independence of the Greeks should not be absolutely recognized (two extremes incompatible with a mediation), if the mediators could not express themselves without constituting themselves parties in the cause, no chance remained but in a manner and to a certain point to modify both the sovereignty of the Porte and the independence of the Greeks; and the form and the degree of these modifications seemed to form the question which was to be examined and solved. Each of the two parties might certainly defeat by its protest any plan for an arrangement, however reason

able in its principles, or impartial in its terms; but we know that both parties are equally resolved to reject every conceiveable arrangement, and that the hope of a suc cessful mediation is at the present moment absolutely inadmissible. With respect to that part of your letter in which you call on the British government to assist the Greeks in their struggle for independence, and compare their merits and their claims to such aid with those of the provinces of Spanish America which have separated from the mother country, I must observe, that Great Britain has declared and observed the strictest neutrality in the contest between Spain and those provinces; and that the same neutrality has been observed in the war which now desolates Greece. The rights of Greece, as a belligerent power, have been invariably respected; and if the British government was obliged, on a late occasion, to check the excesses that took place in the exercise of its rights, we hope that such a necessity will not again occur. The provisional government of Greece may depend on the continuation of this neutrality: it may be assured that Great Britain will take no part in any attempt to impose upon it by force a plan for the re-establishment of peace contrary to its wishes, if such a peace should ever be proposed; but should the Greeks ever think it advisable to ask our mediation, we will offer it to the Porte; and if it is accepted, we will neglect nothing to make it effectual in concert with the other powers whose intervention would facilitate the arrangement. This is, in our opinion, all that can be reasonably required of the British ministers. They have not to re

proach themselves with having directly or indirectly excited the Greeks at the beginning of their enterprise, or with having in any manner impeded its progress. Connected as we are with the Porte by the existing friendly relations, and by ancient treaties which the Porte has not violated, it can certainly not be expected that England should commence hostilities which that power has not provoked, and take part in a contest

which is not ours. I hope that what I have had the honour to represent to you will remove every kind of suspicion or reproach which error or intrigue may have caused, respecting the sentiments of the British government towards the Greeks, and be received as a proof of the purity of our intentions and of the frankness with which we are ready to avow them. I have the honour to be, &c. GEO. CANNING.

(Signed)

DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE between the BRITISH and UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT.

Mr. Addington to Mr. Adams. Washington, March 2, 1825. Sir,-On the 6th of November last, I had the honour to inform you, that I had received full powers from his majesty to conclude and sign with this government, a convention, verbatim, the same as that entered into on the 13th of March, last year, between Great Britain and the United States, with all the amendments subsequently effected in it by the senate, the erasure of the words "and America" in the first article, excepted.

In reply to that communication, you did me the honour to acquaint me, that the president had decided upon referring the whole subject to congress, whereby it became necessary for you to postpone giving a definitive answer to my proposal.

This resolution of the president was, at the commencement of the session, carried into effect; and I understand that the subject has been under the consideration of congress. You will therefore, I trust, Sir, allow me now to request

to be made acquainted with the definitive intention of the president, with respect to the proposition submitted by me on behalf of his majesty's government.

I have the honour to be with distinguished consideration, Sir, your obedient humble servant,

H. U. ADDINGTON. Hon. John Quincy Adams.

Mr. Clay to Mr. Addington.

Department of State, Washington, April 6, 1825. Sir, I have the honour to inform you that the delay in the transmission of a definitive answer to your note of the 6th of November last, has proceeded from an anxious desire on the part of the late president of the United States to ascertain the practicability of reconciling, if possible, the views of the government of the United States with those which are entertained by that of his Britannic majesty, in respect to the convention for more effectually suppressing the slave trade. With that object, the correspondence with your government, and the conven

tion in which it terminated, together with what has since passed between the two_governments, both here and at London, were submitted to congress during its late session. Of that reference you were apprized, by the note of my predecessor, of the 4th December last. It has so happened that neither the senate nor the house of representatives has expressed, directly, any opinion on the subject. But, on another convention having the same object, concluded with the republic of Colombia, on the 10th day of December, 1824, which was formed after the model of that which is pending between the governments of the United States and Great Britain, the senate has expressed a very decided opinion. In the Colombian convention, the coasts of America were excepted from its operation, and yet, notwithstanding this conciliating feature, the senate, after full deliberation, in the exercise of its proper constitutional powers, has, by a large majority, deemed it inexpedient to consent to, and advise, the ratification of this convention.

The government of his Britannic majesty is well acquainted with the provision of the constitution of the United States, by which the senate is a component part of the treaty-making power; and that the consent and advice of that branch of congress are indispensable in the formation of all treaties. According to the practice of this government, the senate is not ordinarily consulted in the initiatory state of negotiation, but its consent and advice are only invoked, after a treaty is concluded, under the direction of the president, and submitted to its consideration. Each of the two branches of the treaty

making authority is independent of the other, whilst both are responsible to the states and to the people, the common sources of their respective powers.

It results from this organization, that, in the progress of the government, instances may sometimes occur of a difference of opinion between the senate and the executive, as to the expediency of a projected treaty, of which the rejection of the Colombian convention affords an example. The people of the United States have justly considered that, if there be any inconveniences in this arrangement of their executive powers, those inconveniences are more than counterbalanced, by the greater security of their interests, which is effected by the mutual checks which are thus interposed. But it is not believed that there are any inconveniences to foreign powers, of which they can, with propriety, complain. To give validity to any treaty, the consent of the contracting parties is necessary. As to the mode by which that consent shall be expressed, it must necessarily depend with each upon its own peculiar constitutional arrangement. that can rightly be demanded in treating, is to know the contingencies, on the happening of which that consent is to be regarded as sufficiently testified. This information, the government of the United States has always communicated to the foreign powers with which it treats, and to none more fully than to the united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Nor can it be admitted that any just cause of complaint can arise out of the rejection by one party, of a treaty, which the other has previously ratified. When such a case occurs, it only proves that

All

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »