acute and penetrating mind of Lord Byron that the difficulties of the enterprise were vast. In August, 1824, before Ibrahim with his Egyptian forces had taken part in the quarrel, the Greek government entreated England to take up the cause of independence, and frustrate the schemes of Russia.[1] Mr. Canning received this letter on November 4th, and answered it on the 1st of December. In his reply he only promised that Great Britain would mediate, on the request of Greece, with the assent of the sultan, a friendly sovereign who had given to this country no cause of complaint. The chief importance of this answer lay, first, in the fact that it included the recognition of a government[2] authorized to act for the Greeks, and thus of their latent right to form themselves into a State: secondly, that it indicated a step on which, when taken by them, he would be prepared to found further proceedings. He had indeed already, in 1823, by a recognition of the Turkish blockade of the Greek ports, given to the insurgents the character of belligerents.[3] But it seems plain on grounds of common sense, although in 1861 the question came to be clouded by prepossessions, that a measure of this nature is properly determined by considerations of fact, rather than of principle.
In August, 1825, the military pressure, through the invasion of the Peloponnesos by the Egyptian force, had become severe: and an act, as formal and authoritative as the condition of a State still in embryo would permit, then declared that "the Greek nation places the sacred deposit of its liberty, independence, and political existence, under the absolute protection of Great Britain."
Mr. Canning at once perceived the full significance of the step; and entered upon perhaps the boldest and wisest policy which has been exhibited by a British minister during the present century. It did not consist in empty but offensive vaunts of the national resources, or loud proclamations of devotion to British interests, of which Britons, like other nations in their own cases respectively, have little need to be reminded. Neither did it rest on those guilty appeals to national fears and animosities, which it is too much to expect that the body of a people can withstand when they come to them with the sanction of authority. On the contrary, its leading characteristic was a generous confidence in the good sense, and love of liberty, which belonged to his countrymen, and a brave and almost chivalrous belief that they would go right if their leaders did not lead them wrong. Before Mr. Canning took office in 1822, the British government viewed the Greek rebellion with an evil eye, from jealousy of Russia. According to Finlay,[4] its aversion was greater than that of "any other Christian government." Its nearest representative, Sir Thomas Maitland, well known in the Ionian Islands as King Tom, after breaking faith with the people there by the establishment of a government virtually absolute in his own hands, endeavored (but in vain) to detect by the low use of espionage the plans, yet in embryo, of the revolution. Nor had any individual more temptation to indulge feelings of hostility to the despotic governments of Europe, than a minister, who was more hateful in their eyes than any secretary of state who before or since has held the seals of the Foreign Office. But he saw that the true method of preventing the growth of an exorbitant influence, of disarming Russian intrigue, and shutting out the power of mischief, was for England to assume boldly her own appropriate office as the champion of freedom, and thus to present her figure in the eyes of those who were struggling to attain the precious boon. Invested with a sole authority by the address of the Greeks, and thereupon at once tendering, through Mr. Stratford Canning, his distinguished cousin, the mediation of England to the Porte, he at the same time sought to associate with himself as partner in his office that power, who, as he well knew, had it in her hands either to make or mar his work.[5] The circumstances were, in some respects, propitious. Alexander, who had been perplexed with perpetual balancing between his orthodox sympathies and his despotic covenants or leanings, died before the close of 1825: and Nicholas, his successor, expended the first fruits of his young imperial energies in repelling the mediation of England as to his own quar-
- ↑ Finlay's Greek Revolution, ii., 166; Gordon, 283.
- ↑ Tricoupi, Hellenikè Epanastasis, vol. iii., p. 193.
- ↑ La Russie et la Turquie, par Dmitri de Boukharow. Amsterdam.
- ↑ Greek Revolution, ii. 161; Gordon, i. 315. Also compare Tricoupi, Hellenikè Epanastasis, i. 339, seqq.; ii. 219; iii. 267. On the change in the English policy, and its effect, see Tricoupi, iii. 191-194. The majority of Mr. Canning's cabinet did not sympathize with him: but he had the advantage of a thoroughly loyal chief in Lord Liverpool.
- ↑ Compare Tricoupi, Hellenikè Epanastasis, iii. 278.
