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

HOUSE OF LORDS, June 17.

Their Lordships mot at Five o'clock.
Those portions of the House appropriated to strangers
were crowded to excess.

JUDGES OF ASSIZE BILL.

On the motion of Lord CAMPBELL this Bill was
read a second time. _ _ .. -

Several petitions were presented on the subject of Post-
office Sunday labour.
ACCO MMODATION OF THE HOUSE.
Lord BROUGHAM complained of thle conduct of cer-
tain persons who refused to obey the orders of the
House. It was clear that no Peer or Commoner had any
right in the Peeresses gallery—(Loud laughter)—and
there was now a gentleman there who had no right
there, and he moved that the standing orders be enforced
by the officers of that House.—(Loud laughter, particu-
larly in the galleries.) He did not move this discourteously,
because he had given ample notice to the gentleman that
if he did not leave that gallery he would have him turned
out.—(Loud and long continued laughter and great con-
fusion.)
Alter the lapse of a few minutes the gentleman
alluded to ltf; the gallery, accompanied by a party of

ingly coatt.k.tli,rory, and it appeared doubtful whether
the account of this lonian subject were true or not. The
local officers might have been punished by due course of
law. The trial took place; the police were acquitted, and
it was said that no torture had thken place. One would
have thought this would have been a staggerer for the Se-
cretary of State fur Foreign Affairs, but this
did not satisfy him. The Noble Lord bad
declared the trial unsatisfactory, and demands
reparation, whereupon Coletti transmits a note,
that the lawyers of Greece determine that there is
no reason for further inquiries, and the
subject dropped. This was not calculated to raise the
representative of the Foreign-office in the eyes of the
Greek Government. He would now proceed to the
claims which had been urged on the Greek Govern-
ment, and there was only one of these cases
in which be thought that reparation ought not
only to have been demanded, but to have been promptly
entoreed—he meant the insult to the boat's craw of any

of her Alijosty's ships at 13<vrai—but even this outrage
was not without it 4 c xcuse.—(Hear, hear.) At the
commencement of the year 1848 the provinces of
Greece had been in a state of disturbance of a revolu-

tiin,a^y character, and a very short time before, her
Majesty's steamer, the Spitfire, in pursuance of that kind
and generous policy which her Majesty's Ministers have
always pursued towards the Meliterranean states, called
in at Patras and received on board a notorious rebel

against the Government of Greece. Whilst the country
was in this strote of disorder her Majesty's ship Fantome
appeared off the coast of Patras ; and ou the ovening of
a dark day, in violation of a well-known order, a boat
of ours landed in a remote place in the very neighbour-
hood of the house from which the former rebel made

liiaesCWOio—oull4etimer: The attention of the guard
wai called to the fact. The boat landed two unknown

persons. On being invited to stop one of them imme-
diately fled, and, aided 'by the darkness of the night,
escaped. The other was taken. The guard then pro-
ceeded to the boat, and it 3 crew were made prisoners by
three Greek soldiers. The guard found a midshipman
on board the boat, not wearing his uniform, or any
distinction by which he could be known as a Bri-
tish ,officer. The boat's crew and the midshipman
were immediately taken before the nomarch. As the
one party could speak no Greek, anti the
other could speak nothing but Greek, there was some
difficulty in coming to an understanding of each
other ; but as soon as the commandant of the place
ascertained that they belonged to a British ship of
war, he discharged them from custody, and saw' them
on board the Fantome himself. Captain Le Hardy
on the next morning demanded from the Greek
nomarch, as was his duty, a reparation or apology for
the insult offered to his boat's crew, and compensation

for the loss of his boat's gear, as a bOathook (belonging,
however, to the Spitfire) had dropped overboard in the
struggle. Captain 'Le Hardy then appeared before the
nomarch and proposed that all parties should be called
in, and the whole case should be openly examined into,
but the nomarch refused to enter upon it, on the ground
that he had already put the case into the hands of the
Procureur du Roi. The Fantome was obliged to sail
the next evening for Malta; and, after she was known
to have departed, the nomarch demanded from our con-
sul leave to examine the boat's crew, contending that it
was not a boat of the Fantome but of the Spitfire, which
had landed on the previous evening. But the following
day the consul, not satisfied, says the nomarch must
have known he ought to have sent his explanation
sooner—must have known the Fantome was on the point
of sailing, and he transmits the whole correspondence to
the Minister at Athens. Together with correspondence
is a letter from Lieutenant Macdonald, of the Spitfire,

and Lieutenant Macdonald, of the Spitfire, appears to
correspond very well with the name which his vessel
bears.—(A laugh.) Hero is the moderate, temperate
letter of Lieutenant Macdonald, which is duly and offi-
cially transmitted with a request for reparation, and, as
a conciliatory mode of obtaining it, is sent to the Minister
at Athens:— _ _

" The governor of this town has taken upon himself
not only to display a hostile feeling towards the British
Government, but also to permit a most unjustifiable out-
rage to be committed on an officer and boat's crew of her
Majesty's sloop Fantome. I consider it my duty, as the
senior officer present at Patras, to prevent all commu-
nication between her Majesty's ship Spitfire, under my
command, and the town of Patras, except fur the pur-
pose of receiving the necessary supplies for the ship,
through the medium of a boat belonging to the shore. I
have further to request that you will be good enough
distinctly to state to the governor, that I have repre-
sented to my own Government this state of affairs, the
more especially when I bear in mind the abominable
falsehoods circulated by his authority, and through a
letter to yourself, accusing the officers and men of land-
ing strangers under cover of the night. It is quite im-
possible under these circumstances that I can hold any
communication for the future with an authority that
sets all international law at defiance. I have strictly

prohibited any officer or man to land from this ship, ana
my reasons for doing so must appear evident, fJr in the
event of a repetition of the circumstances that occurred
to the boat of the Fantome' the evening before last, a

collision must inevitably ensue, which it is my wish to
avoid as far as lies in my power. My positive orders
having been issued that in all future communications
between this ship's boats and the shore, the Spitfire's
boats are to be fully armed and equipped, and fully pre-
pared to resent any insult that may be offered to them."
Was there ever such a mountain made out of a molehill?
—(Hear.) This was transmitted as a serious matter
of international quarrel by her Majesty's representa-
tive to the Minister at Athene..—(Hear. hear.) %Veil,
what says he? Ho says, " I am exceedingly sorry to
find that there is any misunderstanding, and that it is
supposed there is an unfriendly feeling on the part of the
authorities towards her Majesty's subjects; I assure you
there is nothing of the kind. I send you at once the
papers I have as yet got; you shall have all that I re-
ceive; I only send you those now that you may see there
is a iffirent accountfrom yours."—(llear;hear.) There
the account closes; and mark, where there has been
really an insult offered—where the solemn declaration
and word of honour of two British officers commanding
ships of her Majesty were not accepted and admitted as
a declaration of a matter of fact—where that affront
(for such I conceive it to be) has been offered to the
honour of her Majesty's service, you find upon that
question, though the consul is exceedingly 'salve and
the Minister is exceedingly active, there is no demand
for reparation or apology on the part of the Secretary
for Foreign Affairs, and the whole matter has
been allowed to sleep from 1848 to 1850.—(Hear,
hear.) The next case was one in which some
lonian boats' crews were plundered in the port of Sal-
cina. It appears that a band of armed men took pus-
session of the Greek CuStom-house, bound the Custom-
house officer, and, availing themselves of the Custom-
house itself, decoyed lonian boats into the harbour, and
plundered them to the amount of 1,200 dollars. Sir E.
Lyons of course reported the facts; he wrote to M.
Coletti, and this is the letter which he hands in to M.
Coletti:—
The enclosures relate to the plunder of six lonian
boats at Salcina, in the river Achelous; with rt ference
to that subject, I have to instruct you to address a note
to M. Coletti, stating that her Majesty's Government
expect and demand that the Greek Government will
make full compensation to the lonians for the losses and
sufferings inflicted upon them by the Greek robbers and
pirates who were allowed upon that occasion to take
possession of the Custom-house at Salcina; and you
will say that her Majesty's Lord High Commissioner of
the lonian Islands will be instructed to ascertain the
amount to be claimed on behalf of the masters and crews
of the six lonian boats, and to send you an account
thereof."

It was exceedingly doubtful whether, on the part of the
British Government or the lonian Government, there
was just ground for demanding; indemnity from the Go-
vernment of Greece.—(Elear, hear.) The Government
was bound to afford protection to foreigners and to its
own subjects alike; but British subjects before now had
been pillaged in the Roman States and the Neapolitan
States, and he never heard of any demand against the
Government of either of those states because robbers
came down and committed plunder.—(Elear, hear.) lie
was very much inclined to agree with the very tempe-
rate answer of M. Coletti. Ile says—

" The duty of the King's Government was to put down
crime, and it has not neglected to do so. I think it su-
perfluous, M. le Chevalier, to bring before your notice
again the difficulties which are always opposed to effec-
tually maintaining authority in the province of Acar-
nania; but no one is ignorant of the attempts which
have been made. Soldiers have fallen in encounters
with the banditti; several of the latter have recently
been killed. The pursuit is still continued, and, with
the assistance of the Lord High Commissioner, I
hops that the individual marked out as the principal
author of the outrage committed at Salcina, the lonian
Tryphon, who has escaped from the prisons of. Santa
Mawa, will at last fall into the hands of justice. No-
thing aaill be neglected in order to obtain this result,
which I have much pleasure in hoping will be consi-
dered by the Government of her Britannic Majesty as
the fofitnavnt of the only obligation which the Govern-
ment of his Hellenic Majesty can be held responsible for
in this affair."
What is the answer of Lord Palmerston?
" I have received your dispatch of the 9th ult., enclos-
ing a copy of M. Coletti's letter to you of the 30th of
March, declining to compensate the master of the six
lonian boats which were plundered at the Custom-house
at Salcina in October lust; and I have to instruct you to
state to M. Coletti that there is nothing in his letter
which alters the view which her Majesty's Govbrnment
have taken of this case; and you will say, that as the
Greek Government have been either unwilling or unable
to put down the gangs of robbers which have for BMW
time been allowed to infest Acarnania with impunity,
and even to choose a Greek Custom-house as the spot
for plundering and otherwise ill-using lonian subjects,
her Majesty's Government must require the Government
of Greece to make good the loss incurred by those lonian
subjects, and they hope and trust that M. Coletti will
see the justice of acceding to this demand without any
further,
,delay."
If a similar case had occurred in England, and if such
a demand had been couched in such terms, he wished to
know whether the ambassador wbo had dared to present
it would not have received his passports in less than 48
hours?—(Cheers.) He had been told that within the
last few weeks an application had been made by the
Austrian Government in a case that occurred on the
coast of Ireland. A request was made for compensa-
tion, and was transmitted to her Majesty's Government.
He should like to know whether the demand was made
as a right.—(Hear, hear.) Her Majesty's Government,
finding it a very convenient time for acceding to that
request—(Hear, hear)—finding it might be brought for-
ward as a precedent—(Hear, hear)—thought that 5001.
would be well expended in compensating the Austrian
crew for their losses and sufferings; but he should like
to know whether it was granted as of right or of favour.
Here was another case, some lonians at Patras, keepers
of a coffee-house, on a festival, put up a great variety of
flags—British, lonian, Greek, and others—as ornaments
over their shop. There was some little disturbance in