The Sun.
London, England, 1830-05-31 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBTAC JOURNALS.

We have now read, with an attention which was
even painful, the whole mass of papers presented to
Parliament, relating as well to the original, general,
Ind subsequently extended objects of the treaty of
London, as to the especial and final measures for
investing Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg with the
sovereignty of independent Greece. Beginning
with that which is the least important circumstance
connected with the whole of these interesting anti
nrtructive papers—namely, the personal conduct
end character (as evidenced by that conduct) of the
lirincely personage who had been selected to revive
cud re-establish the Greek nation,—we are com-
pelled to state unequivocally, that in our opinte'.ll
hie Royal Highness had received credit for qualities
which he did not possess ; and has, therefore, (as it
seems to us,) been loaded with somewhat heavier
censures than he ought fairly to have borne. When
he offer was first made to Prince Leopold of that
new and glorious Sovereignty which he was well
known to have long wished, and, in the words of
Lord Aberdeen," expressly desired," it is certain
hat if the financial questions which afterwards
trose between the Allied Governments d
his Royal Highness formed no immediate
subject of discussion, there was a pretty
warm controversy upon the future state of Candle,
This point Prinu Leopold gave up, although he
had described it in his first letter to Lord Aberdeen
as the " greatest stumbling-block" to him who was
to undertake the Greek Government. Bat on the
lth of February his Royal Highness received from
Lord Aberdeen some papers, among which was the
Protocol of Me 3d of February, which Prcriocol
refers to the treaty of Adrianople, and to the oti.,
vantages secured to Greece by its tenth article.—
These advantages were comprehended in the release
of Greece from tribute and from vassalage, and the
acknowledgment by the Porte of her complete in-
dependence. The same Protocol then goes on to
say, that in consideration of such " advantages,
and in deference to the desire expressed by the
Porte to obtain the reduction of the frontiers fixed
by the Protocol of the 22d of March, the line of
demarcation of the limits of Greece should be,
&c., viz., those which are now, and we think
most justly, complained of by the friends of
Greece, but most inconsistently and weakly,
at the eleventh hour, assigned by Prince Leopold
as an adequate motive for his recent refusal of
the Government. After many days' consideration,
the Prince writes to the Duke of Wellington, in
reference to the above Protocol, and touches on its
demarcation of a frontier line, by stating it to be
" weak in a military, poor in a financial point of
view," and further bids his Grace be prepared to
hear the strongest objections against it in their next
conference. We allude to such matters for the pur-
pose of showing that Prince Leopold could not be
taken by surprise in the month of May, with regard
to questions which were considered and argued by
him in the month of February preceding. Prince
Leopold in the same letter dwells on Candia, con-
tingents, guarantees, &c., as matters of apparently
much deeper and more serious moment than that of
the north-west boundary of Greece. In the Prince's
formal and revised answer to the protocol of the 3d
of February, he, amongst other items there enume-
rated, proposes,—and this is very remarkable,—
that a new frontier shall be adopted, no further de-
viating from that to which he objects than by adding
the small canton of Vlochos, on the eastern
side of the Aspropotamos, to the Greek state, tend
striking off from it to the eastward by Mount (Eta,
thus voluntarily consenting in Me most unambiguous
manner, to the surrender of the whole of Acarnania to
Turkey, although in his last communications to
Government he mainly founds his breach of en-
gagement upon the evils which he is instructed would
arise from such a measure; but he afterwards ab-
solutely takes for granted his own assumption of
the sovereignty, with the frontier remaining un-
changed. The pecuniary parts of the negociation,
we have often said, and the official papers confirm
-it, had been fully agreed upon before the Prince
was advised to break off. The British Govern-
ment originally did not profess to meditate any ac-
commodation as to money. This repugnance, how-
ever,
ha
as gradually
it
mig h
tlead t
overpowered
a failure of the
by the apprehen-
sion
whole
policy which the Allies had it so cordially at heart
to enforce. A loan of 60,000,000 francs, or about
2,500,000/. sterling, was to be guaranteed, one-
third by each of the great Powers, and to be em-
ployed by the Greek Government as the public
service might require—thus entailing upon England,
France, and Russia, a contingent obligation of be-
tween 30,0001. and 40,0001. per annum each ; or,
perhaps, about one-seventh of the expence of these
extraordinary armaments which they had been un-
der the necessity of maintaining in consequence of
the war between Greece and Turkey. It is im-
possible on this occasion to place before our
readers every distinct passage of the correspondence
from which, as a whole, we hare drawn our own re-
luctant impvession of the spirit in which, or rather
from the absence of which, the personage in ques-
tion has acted. We conceive that if his Royal
Highness has escaped from a position which was
too arduous and elevated for him, by the same rea-
son Greece has had an escape even more providen-
tial and felicitous from what must have proved to
her an irretrievable visitation. Want of decision
has been the bane of Leopold, as it is of every small
man, who finds himself in circumstances requiring
vigour, sagacity, and the soul of a generous and
noble enterprise. An effeminate ambition, which
grasps at every thing, but weighs nothing, and
shrinks from the first touch of difficulty, is not the
stuff that can be moulded into beneficent power or
solid fame. We see no evidence of the paltry back-
stairs manoeuvring which has been charged upon the
Prince in this affair, and we therefore acquit him of
all but imbecility and poverty of purpose. That he
may have been made the unconscious tool of party
objects, is a conjecture to which we cannot for a
moment lend ourselves; but if so, we can predict
that his Royal Highness and his counsellors will gain
nothing by their motion. We take leave of this
subordinate branch of the Greek inquiry, 'and ad-
dress ourselves to the question—what will now be -
done ? But this part of the question we must re-
serve for another day.—Times.

In a late debate on colonial expenses, the condi-
tion and administration of New South Wiles were
described in terms which appear to us inconsistent
with the accounts lately arrived from that settle-
ment, both through the newspapers and official do-
cuments. Our file of the former comes down to
the end of October, and by the last arrival we had
notice of the transmission of some additional num-
bers, which have not yet reached us. We mention
this fact, not to charge the local authorities with the
suppression of our newspapers, but to say that their
acts in some other cases would warrant such a sus-
picion; and that it would be well for some of them
if they could prevent the knowledge of their con-
duct, as well as the convicts under their charge,
from returning front transportation. In making
some remarks on this subject, suggested by the
papers before us, we must begin by observing that
we were far from expecting that New South Wales
should exhibit a model of Utopian government. It
would be absurd to hope that a penal settlement,
peopled to a large extent by the refuse of our gaols
and the outcasts of our society, should all at once
become an orderly community ; or that a mixture
of convicts and their descendants, with free colo-
nists who despise them, and with official function-
aries who look down with contempt upon both,
could be instantly transformed by any code of laws
or system of administration, into a social fabric dis-
tinguished for its consistency of parts and beauty of
proportions. But we certainly did not expect (with
all our allowance for the nature of the materials Of
v..hich it is composed) to find so much mismanage
meta and abuse in any settlement under the Crown
of England, as are said to exist in the adtpinietration .