The Sun.
London, England, 1850-06-18 00:00:00

foreigners in general. The British Court established this
maxim with great strength of evidence on occasion of
the Prussian vessels seized and declared lawful prizes
during the late war."
The British Government had established this principle
during the last war. But here justice had not been re-
fused—the means of redress in the courts had not been
sought for, and no odious distinction was made between
the subjects of England and the subjects of Greece. The
paper to which Vattel referred in this extract was
the celebrated case of the Silesian. That was the pre-
cedent which had settled the law on this subject to the
satisfaction of all Europe. It had become the standard
authority upon all such subjects from that day to this.
That was drawn up by Lord Mansfield specially,
though he had united with him Sir F. Ryder, the Judge
of the Prerogative Court, and the King's Advocate of
that day. The Lord Chief Justice (Lord Campbell),
then sitting on the Woolsack, had recorded his opinion
of that procedure:— _ _ _

" Having often been employed in drawing up papers
of a similar nature, I have never perused this but with
mingled sensations of admiration and of despair ; as
it may be looked upon as combining wisdom and
truth itself."

Let the House, then, hear what it was that was so de-
scribed:—

" The law of nations, founded upon justice, equity,
convenience, and the reason of the thing, and confirmed
by long usage, does not allow of reprisals, except in case
of violent injuries directed or support-d by the stiste,
and justice absolutely denied in re minima dubia by all
the tribunals, and afterwards by the Prince. Where the
judges are left free, and give sentence according to
their conscience, though it should be erroneous, that
would be no ground for reprisals. Upon doubtful pies-
tions different men think and judge differently; and ull
a friend can desire is, that justice should be impartially
administered to him, as it is to the subjects of that Prince
in whose courts the matter is tried."

Did not, he would ask, this judgment appear to have
been written for the case of M Pacifico? The Noble Mar-
quis had dwelt a great deal upon one point—that of show-
ing that all sovereign states had power to redress their
own injuries without seeking the consent of any other state.
There could be no doubt that such was the fact; and under
ordinary circumstances they never would ask the per-
mission or consent of Russia or France to redress any
injury done to a subject. But the Noble Marquis ought
to recollect that Greece was particularly situated. Three
powers had united to found this very state. They had
guaranteed the integrity of its territory and its independ-
ence as a state; and a blow struck in this manner, by
one of those powers, was a blow struck at the existence
of the State in the maintenance of which all were inte-
rested. He could hardly account for no communications
being made until he found the reason stated in the pa-
pers of M. Drouyn de l'Huys, who, when the first letter
arrived announcing these events, was not in England.
When the news arrived in France it caused there a
great sensation, and M. Drouyn de l'Huys was sent to
England to obtai❑ an explanation. He, accordingly,
the very first day he arrived, which was the sth of Fe-
bruary, said—
"l laid before Lord Palmeraston a very animated
picture of the bad impression which the news from
Athens had produed upon the President, the Council,
the diplomaticbody, the whole assembly, and upon pub-
lic opinion. I dwelt upon all that was ( ffensive for us in
these sudden and violent resolutions, taken without our
knowledge and against an allied nation, all that was ex-
treme in the means of execution, all that was strange
and contradictory in the new situation which these events
were about to create in the East. . • • •

. _
Lord Palmerston, diminishing the importance of what
had passed at Athens, replied that this affair appeared
to him so simple, and of so little consequence, that be
had not thought it necessary to speak to the French Go-
vernment about it."—(Hear.)
That was treating the matter in a light which he
(Lord Aberdeen) could hardly have believed to be pos-
sible, knowing the position in which France and Russia
stood with respect to Greece.—(Hear, hear). But this
was an answer that did not apply when the claims in-
cluded a portion of the territory of Greece—France and
Russia being with Engiand guarantees fur the territory
of Greece. No doubt there should in common courtesy
have been a communication made to the co-
guarantees before executing such a project. In an early
stage of these transactions the Noble Marquis had with
offensive triumph stated that the demand for the islands
formed no part of the demand of Mr. Wyse; but the
Noble Marquis had not with his usual candour admitted
that the islands might have been occupied, and therefore
there was good reason for saying that these islands did
not form a part of the claims sent in by Mr. Wyse.—
(Hear.) Now he (Lord Aberdeen) considered it a very
important part of the question—(Hear)--because they
were thus obliged to abandon the grounds on which
they had insisted, and they had n .w to settle with other
powers after having asserted their determination to take
the whole settlement into their own hands.--(Hear.)
The whole of the question as to those islands, not of one
or two, but of 20 more, turned upon this consideration,
that they formed part of the Venetian territory before
the French revolution. Now, it was not easy to aster.
tain to whom uninhabited islands belonged, and these,
for the most part, perfectly waste rocks. He thought
that the reason given by the Greek Government was not
a bad one, that there was no proof to the contrary—
where there was no proof of ownership, those
nearest to the mainland might be taken to belong to
Greece, and those nearest to the islands to belong to the
lonian Island.—(Hear.) But the whole grounds on
which the Secretary of State rested assumed that these
islands indisputably belonged to the lonian Republic in
the month of January, 1804. Now, he (Lord Aberdeen)
happened to be in Curile in January, 1804, and at that
very time was present at the discussion in the Legisla-
tive Assembly, although ho did not profess to recollect
with certainty ono word of that discussion. This, how.
ever, he did recollect, that there was no Turkish autho-
rity present, and the assembly might have allotted what
islands they pleased, and Turkey then was the owner of
Greece. He utterly denied that the treaty between
Russia and the Porte of 1600 had anything to do
with this question, and still less did the treaty
of 1815 recognise in the slightest degree the posses-
sion of those islands. It only referred to islands belong-
ing to Venice, and that was the whole question.—
(Hear, hear.) He admitted that it was a doubtful
question—a question very properly to be discussed—but
discussed with those powers that had guaranteed the in-
te4rity of Greece.—(Hear.) It was not only in Greece
they had to lament the employment of the British fleet—
they had to lament it ever since the departure of that
fleet from the shores of England. The fleet made its
first appearance in the Tagus. It was seen at Lisbon,
and what did it do there? It excited the suspicions of
the Government, at the same time that the opposite
party remonstrated against the use made of it.—(Hear.)
Again, it appeared at Naples to threaten, to control,
and to thwart the operations of the King, and where
they had encouraged, deserted, abandoned, and betrayed
the engagements they made with both parties.—(Cheers.)
They then made their appearance at the lonian Islands
—he believed after the suppression of the revolt—and
therefore they could take no part in the events that oc-
curred. The British fleet only appeared to furnish Sir
Henry Ward with implements of punishment. But
then he might be told that this fleet had appeared in
the Dardanelles, and that it did wonders there;
that it had brought the Emperor of Russia to his sen-
ses; that it had effected miracles for the Polish refugees.
--(Hear, hear.) Ile believed that the fleet had entered
the Dardanelles on the sth November, and in the middle
of October the Emperor of Austria had made a demand
for the delivery of the refugees. Well, what had they
done? Tbey had apologised for entering the Darda-
nelles—they had disavowed the admiral, and they had
promised to do so no more.—(Cheers.) Nay, they had
even brought themselves to declare that they had been
driven into the Dardanelles by stress of weather.—
(Hear.) Now, he said that was a deception—it was
" the thing that is not."—(Laughter, and " Hear.")
They had appalled the Emperor—they had entered
the Dardanelles, and they had promised to do so no more.
He had now very little to say on the latter part of this
subject, on which his Noble Friend had addressed the
House. He really did not know in what state were
the transactions with France at this moment with re •
spect to this astonishing negotiation. They were going
on for three weeks on the same subject. He could only
say that the proposal of the French Government was ex-
ceedingly simple, and ought to have been acceded to at
once. At all events, seeing the undoubted good faith
of France, and that their desire was only to be of use to
the English Government, he did not understand why
any objection was made to the proposal of France, for
the instructions of General de Lahitte were quite a model
in their way they told M. Gros—" be as unjust as
you decently can, but there is a limit beyond which
you must nut go;" and it was quite clear that M. Gros
was acting on those instructions, for he did his best to
fulfil the desires of his Government.—(Hear, hear.) It
would appear that M. Drouyn de l'Huys was almost
the only French agent with whom you were not dissatis-
fied. He (Lord Aberdeen) thought that the raison-
deatanding originated in this the French
offered themselves as mediators, we, of course, in the
odious position in which we stood in the face of the
world, found it impossible to refuse the office. We,
therefore, employed M. Gros to execute our demands.
We said, in the diplomatic language genereally used
on such occasions, "It will give us satisfaction to
receive justice by means of the French intervention
rather than by force." The Secretary of State, in say-
ing that, said that they would do something like what
thenha
d.
was the case in the mediation between Naples and us in
respect to the sulphur affair, and in the mediation that
Frenchsuch a
ttooookk place
tobemtweaenenay
been in the two cases already stated. And it was un •
doubtedly the fact that in both of those cases the me-
diation became finally arbitration—(Hear, hear)—as all
mediations must become if the parties have any common
sense, because it was intended thereby to prevent the
continuation of a quarrel between the two parties. Now
that was the case with us; and ho (Lord Aberdeen)
himself, had taken an active part as mediator in the case
of France and Mexico, and to conclude that dispute
which had not been finally settled when he came into
office in 1841. The French Minister naturally thought
that he was authorised to exercise similar powers in the
way of mediation as had been exercised in both of those
cases to which he had referred. But it appeared that
that was not the intention of the British Government in
this matter, and hence the misunderstanding.—(llear.)
They thought, in fact, that they were to exercise some
discretion in suggesting, but we, it appears. bound them
to that which might be called the useful. [So we under-
stood the Noble Lord, who became frequently inaudible
in the latter part of his address.] The Noble Loid
continued—But I think we ought to have instantly said,
"We accept your mediation. Take the case, and m Ake
out of it whatever you please ; and whatever you think
fair and just we shall be satisfied with." That would
have been the spirit in which we should have dealt with
the French ; but instead of that, eve make a breach of
engagement with them ; and, although proceedings are
going on likely to be followed by the worst conse-
quences, still we go oil haggling with a miserable ne.