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

write home for further instructions ; and he says—
" Here's an escape from our difficulties. I retract my
note of yesterday. I entreat you to receive this. I
hare this positive informaiun. Come to me and I will
show you my instructions, and for God's sake take no
ccp.a•cive measures until you shall receive corresponding
instructions to mine." Mr. Wyso*s ensrver was—.,
have no such instructions from my Government, and
therefore I cannot be guided by your instructions; and
cannot for one hour suspend coercive measures." He
wanted to know why those instructions were not lent?
That they were not is a matter of notoriety. These in-
structions were agreed to on the 9th, and Lord Palmer-
stun says—" The existing arrangement of the packets
for communication with Greece afforded me no oppor-
tunity, that I was aware of, of writing to Mr. Wyse be-
tween the 9th and the 17th of April." Now, having
come to the most delicate of all questions of interna-
tional interference on which the whole thing turned—
having come to an arrangement with the French Go-
vernment on the 9th of April, Lord Palmerston did
not think it worth his while to intimate by ex•
traordinary means to the Minister at Athens, that
any arrangement had been come to, but was perfectly
content to wait for the ordinary packet on the 17th.
Why could he not send till the 17th? General de La-
hiVe received the intimation on the 9th, at Paris, and
he found no difficulty, on the 12th, in making a com•
munication to Baron Gros; yet her Majesty's Secretary
of State for Foreign Affairs, not knowing that a packet
was about to sail, was not aware that there were any
means of communicating with Mr. Wyse before the

17th.—(Hear, hear.) But he goes on to say that even
if he had been aware, on the 15th M. Drouyn de Drays
came to him with a different arrangement, and, in conse-
quence of that, a convention was entered into. Yes, but
up to the 15th there was no prospect of a convention
being enter° into, and by that time the mischief had
been done; force had been had recourse to again; and,
not by means of an amicable arrangement, not through
the mediation of a friendly power, but solely because
M. Gros could not reconcile it to his soul and con-
science to demand 180,000 drachmas for M. Pacifico's
claim on Portugal, the mediation was suspended, and
force was had recourse to, which need not have been
the ease if Lord Palmerston had only taken the trouble
to send a special messenger to Mr. Wyse. But a con-
vention is established in London, and what are the
terms? That if any other arrangement should hare
been come to in the meantime by the three Ministers of
France, Greece, and Great Britain, be it more advan-
tageous or less advantageeus, the convention of London
was to be set aside, and that agreement adopted. No
such convention bad taken place, but another settlement
had been made, says Lord Palmerston, not by all the
three Ministers engaged in the negotiation, but by direct
communication between the Greek and British Minis-
ters, and it was the result of the renewal of hostilities
by the British squadron. Now, what would have
been more natural than to have said at once, " An un-
derstanding has been come to at Athens; to a certain
extent it has been acted upon, bat to the extent that it-
has not been acted upon I accept your convention of
London. I prefer the good offices of France rather than
the intervention of our naval force. I prefer to owe
the settlement of this great question to the good
offices of the French Government." Lord Palmerston
goes on stating, though there is little difference between
them, that he is still not prepared to adhere
frankly to the convention of London. In refusing
to: accept the convention at the last moment, her
Majesty's Government were trifling with the:powers
which proposed it. There was only one more point to
which he should call the attention of their Lordships.
It was one of considerable importance. namely, the ques-
tion of territorial difference between this country and
Greece. Intrinsically the amount and value of the ter-
ritory in question was incalculably insignificant—but
internationally it raises points upon which Russia and
France, as parties guaranteeing the integrity of the
Greek territory, have a right to interfere, and in
respect to which England has no right to an
independent action. And England, being one
of the three protecting powers, cannot inter-
pose between her own protected states of the lonian
Islands and the state of Greece, and decide as between
the two, to whom that territory belongs, setting aside
the claims of France and Russia to express their opinions
and pronounce their judgment with regard to what may
form part of the territory of Greece. Upon that ques-
tion neither France nor Russia will allow your inter-
ference single-handed; and now—now when you have
had the indignant remonstrances of Russia—when she
has told you that she will not tolerate that infraction
upon her rights—l suppose you aro about to recede from
the position which you took up.—(Hear.) But pre-
vious to that declaration, so far as the Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs and her Majesty's Government were
concerned, in October, 1849, orders were issued to the
commanders of her Majesty naval forces to seize upon
the islands of Cervi and Sapienza, to expel the G reek
inhabitants, and take possession of mese islands in the
name and on behalf of the lonian States.—(Hear.) For
years that claim had been set up, but without being
followed by any activity on the part of this country,
and years ago Greece was promised the documents
on which was founded your claim, and which documents
she has never yet received. But in the month of No-
vember last, Greece did put in a detailed answer to the
claim put forward on the part of the Foreign-office to
the possession of Cervi and Sapienza, and vindicated her
own claim and rejected that of Great Britain to the pos-
session of these islands. Bat what is the rejoinder of
Lord Palmerston? Does the receipt of this intelligence
induce him to pause before he takes further steps to
bring the matter to a satisfactory conclusion? Not at
all. In January he writes a letter in his usual off-hand
fashion, declaring that there is no force whatever in the
argument put forward on the part of Greece. And so far
as the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs is concerned
it does not rest with his discretion that forcible possession
was not taken of the islands of Sapienza and Cervi. Or-
ders to that effect were issued, without consulting or
communicating with the French or Russian governmnts;
anal it was simply because Sir W. Parker and Mr. Wyse
took upon themselves, pending further instructions to
that effect. 0) suspend these orders, that those islands
had not been foreihly taken possession of.— (Hear,
hear.) This is the position, then, in which we have been
placed by the Noble Lord—we have put forts positive
demands which we have finally waived; we have over-
looked the claims of France and Ruessis, as well as their
right in the matter. Fortunately, your officers disre-
garded your orders—(Hear, hear)—and now this coun-
try will, through the action of the Noble Lord upon her
foreign relations, by the remonstrances of France and
Russia, as well as by a sense of right and justice, recede
from that position, which is one that she should
never have taken.—(Hear, hear.) He had substantiated
that some of the claims put forward by the Noble Lord
the Foreign Minister as against Greece were excessive;
that others were, to say the least of them, of
doubtful justice and equivocal validity ; that
those claims had been enforced regardless of
the feelings, and also of the rights of our allies; and
that they were calculated to endanger—nay, that they
had endangered—the good understanding that had
hitherto subsisted between us and our most powerful
allies.—(Hear, hear). God grant that his anticipations
of evil might not be verified! God grant that the proceed-
ings of the Noble Lord might not have the effect of dis-
turbing the general pence of the world! But if such be
the race, that happy result would not, he was hound to
adr!, 1)3 brought atsont by the temper, the judgment, or the
moderetion with which that Noble Lord, as the orgen
of the British Government, had conducted the negotia-
tions in that case to a conclusion.—(Cheers). If,
indeed, we had been guilty of injustice towards
the defenceless, and oppression towards the weak,
at the same time that we have endangered our
relations with the powerful, and perilled peace with
the strong. surely it became the British Legislature
to come forward and declare that the Foreign-office of
England was not the people of England—and that
the fine generous feeling of the nation was not expressed
by the proceedings of the Noble Lord at the head of
that department.—(Hear, hear.) We separate our
acts from his on this occasion.—(Hear, hear.) Our
views of good faith and justice were not those of the
Government of which he is a member, in this matter.—
(1-fear, hear.) He knew the amount of private and per-
sonal influence that will be broaght to bear upon this
question to-night. He knew also the many amiable
qualities of the Noble Lord whose policy ho impugned
from personal acquaintance. But he was bound, in a
case involving such large issues, to speak, not of the
man, but of the Minister; and speaking thus he had to
express his deep regret and unqualified condemnation of
his acts in this instance. This was no case in which pri-
vate predilection or personal feeling can be honestly in-
dulged. You sit, said the Noble Lord,in a judicial capecdy.
You are to reconcile the feeling of the nation with the
dictates of justice; at all events, you are here, that your
judgment in the case may go torch, and remove from the
gma w must always attach a great
country the stigma
and mighty power enforcing unjust, untenable,to and ex-
orbitant demands upon a feeble and defenceless ally.—
The Noble Lord, having read his resolution, resumed
his seat at twenty minutes past eight o'clock amid great
acclamation.
The Marquis of LANSDOWNE trusted their Lord-
ships would not give their assent to the motion of the
Noble Lord. He did not dispute the right of the Noble
Lord to bring the question under their consideration, or
his right to hold her Majesty's Ministers in that House
responsible, one and all, as they admitted themselves to
be, for those proceedings of which the Noble Lord had
pronounced so unfavourable an opinion. lie must, how-
ever, say that he was sure it would be a source of con-
solation to his Noble Friend at the head of the Foreign
Department, which was more immediately concerned in
these transactions, that in that other branch of the Legis-
lature of which that Noble Lord was a most distinguished
ornament—(Hear, hear) —in which, beyond, perhaps, any
assembly in the world, the mercantile and manufac-
turing interests of the country and the world were
adequately represented, and which was long in the habit
of closely watching all proceedings which would affect
the public expenditure—that in that assembly up to the
present moment there had not been one single intima
tion—(Hear)—of any intention to bring under its notice
any of the proceedings to which the Noble Lord had
called attention. Nay, more, when those questions which
had been put to the Minister in that assembly came to
be tested by fact and truth they vanished into thin air.
—(Hear, hear.) That at least must be a source of con-
solation to the Noble Lord. As for the resolution be-
fore them, so little did the Noble Lord himself r<-1y upon
it that he found it necessary to devote the entire first
part of his speech to expiate away the terms of it. A
more objectionable resolution, or ono more entirely at
variance with the past policy of this country, or more
directly contradictory of the policy of all nations, or
more calculated to cut away from future Governments,
as far as a vote of that House could cut away, the
grounds upon which they might be called on to maintain
the honour of the country and the security of British
subjects, had never been proposed in that House.—
(Hear, hear.) The Noble Lord was sensible of that
when he found it necessary so elaborately to qualify it.
As for the claims of M. Pacifico and the position of the
lonian Islands, their Lordships must at once see how