The Sun.
London, England, 1850-05-22 00:00:00

Ciatnina

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 1850.

A moiety of the correspondence which has recently
taken place in the negotiations between France and
England respecting the Greek question has new been
officially published, consequent upon its presentation
by General LAHITTE to the Legislative Assembly
Already these documents have be en translated into
several languages, our own amongst the number ;
and hence it has come to 'pass that we are thus early
enabled to estimate the merits of the discussion from
the version furnished jointly by General LAMM?,
the French Minister, and by M. DRoUTN DE L'Hurs,
the French Ambassador. Out of their own
mouths we judge them, they themselves having
furnished us with the materials and the
opportunity for arriving at a distinct end
specific conclusion in judgment. Now, without
waiting for the explanations of our own Foreign
Secretary, without tarrying for the papers which will
shortly be laid by him upon the table of the
British Parliament, we can dispense, any rational
and discerning man can dispense with the assistance
of Lord PALMERSTON in weighing the Matter of these
negotiations, and in deciding as to the proportionate
frankness or duplicity of the:respective negotiators.
Laboriously as the subject has been discussed,
we conceive that it admits of a very
clear appreciation, even prior to the revela-
tions so noisily deminded from her Britannic
Majesty's Foreign Secretary. And this candid com-
prehension of the object of so many violent discus-
, sions we regard as inevitable on stripping the whole
of the Question at issue naked from its present mas-
querade of misrepresentation.
The occurrence from which has emanated all this
scrutiny is, as every one very well knowi by this time
the sudden recall of the French Ambassador to the
English Government. An. incident so remarkable in
itself naturally calls forth a multitude of inquiries :
yet . it is not to the
,obvious importance
of any such circumstance that these same inquiries
are attributed by the bitter and rancourous assailants
of Viscount PALMERSTON. According to those very
unscrupulous dealers in personality, the examination
is one provoked not so much by the abrupt departure
of M. DROUIN DR LifIUTS from London, as by the
manifest chicane of her Britannic Majesty's Foreign
Secretary. In order to. demonstrate the totally un-
founded character and consequent atrocity of these
charges against Viscount PALMERSTON, it is
only necessary to review in one comprehensive
glance the rise, the nature, and the development
of the late negotiaticns between himself and
the French Government. From such a retrospective
survey of the correspondence, it will be as clear as an
induction in ,matheMatics, as irrefragable as even the
most venerable axiom in moral philosophy, that the
British Foreign Secretary has acted throughout
with the utmost candour, and that the policy pur-
sued by him in the entire transaction was one worthy
of his own character, of his Ministerial colleagues,
and, what is yet more, of the great country whose
honour, whose interests, and whose dignity have been
during so many years entrusted to his conservation.
To disentagle the question under consideration from
all the confusion into which it has fallen in the popular
mind requires, no doubt, the exercise of a very
striking synthetical lucidity—but even amidst all the
bewilderment caused by the ignis fatuus of party spirit
—even with the labyrinth before us of a somewhat in-
tricate and voluminous correspondence, we do not
despair of reducing the facts of these negotiations to
an epitome that shall be at once comprehensible.
The light of truth and the clue of a disingenuous
simplicity will be quite enough to guide us
through the maze of so many embarrassing diffi-
culties.

Therefore we reduce all these wordy documents of
diplomacy, all these prolific misrepresentations, all
these quibblings, and sophistries, and vituperatiops to
the following very plain and most undeniable parti-
culars :

Greece, partially created, and subsequently fos•
tered by England, Greece, the ungrateful object of
British protection, and the cause of almost endless so-
licitude to British statesmanship, owed certain in-
demnities to certain subjects of our SOVEREIGN. The
claim advanced for these indemnities is admitted on all
hands as one of undeniable justice. Until recently we
had abstained from forcing it upon the acceptance of
the ,Athenian Legislature. Only after most pro-
tracted and generous delays was it at length sub•
mitted to the acceptance of the Cabinet of OTHO.
The result is notorious. The demands made by
England were refused by Greece. No alternative
compatible with the reasonableness of the required
reparation of the evils inflicted upon our fellow.
subjects remained to the Administration in Downing-
street but the enforcement of the claims re-

jetted by the Athenian Cabinet. Admiral
PARKER appeared with his squadron off the
shores of Greece, to insist upon the acceptance of the
terms originally offered by Mr. Wrsz, the British
Ambassador. With a view to prevent all unnecas•

sary. bloodshed, France, acknowledging the justice of
the claim made by England,' and recognizing also
the folly of the resistance made by Greece, came for-
ward with the tender of the good offices 'of her media-
tion between the belligerents. That. proposal .of a
French mediation was at once and most
cordially accepted by Lord PALMERSTON.
Forthwith .M. Gatos was dispatched to Athens,
and - the negotiations immediately afterwards com-
menced between the three capitals, Athens, Paris,
and ...
"lin, beiween- the three statesmen,
_ 7 T, AHIT T E j and PALMBESTON, aided
Lb7D-tn! Iheir diplomatic subordinates, Mr. WYSE
respective 4anbassado
and •M. Gans, the two Plenipotentiaries, and
Hors and the
I their
3wEh ill ei the, English
Marquis of NORMANDY.
rs• M. DROUYN
all coercive Admiralineasuses'dnrinatth the Piraeus suspended
parties, that
eummon•understanding, and indeed Mean-
ege negotiations, on the
with the express
herselfstipulatiotnheofall
right
of renewing hostilities in the
the French Qovernment.
England reserved to
G event
R o s had
dthe e e
Re failure
ntrusotefa the mission with which M.
Now, be it remembered that the claims of
England,
intimated by Mr. Wrsic in six distinct clauses, were
by
at the very outset acknowledged ~
all
parties engaged in the labour of mediation
including M. Gaos himself, that in fact theie six'
claims constituted the basis of the whole negotiation.
Again did .the Greek Government most rashly, most
unjustly, most insanely refuse to ! take
the aforesaid claims into consideration. i Mr.
Wyss had previously met with a like', ill.
reception. M. GROS received from the Ministerial
advisers of King Onto only similar treatment.
Then it was that, having suddenly made exceptions
never before hinted at in regard to one portion of the
claims, those relating to M. PACIFICO, thereby attOmpt -
lag of course to change the whole basis of the uego-
tiaticns, the French Plenipotentiary, M. Gum, on

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