The war declared by His M...
The Times, 1824-10-15T00:00:00

The war declarcd by -lis MAJEST Y'S GovcrneInct agail]st Greece continues to excite, as it oughit to do, the keenest emotions in the breast of every Elnglisllman. This extra- ordinary act?ICas been defendedl on a single pretext-namely, that the proclamation of the Greeks threatened the " Eng- - lish crew's" witlh capital puxnishment, 'as well as their vessels with destruction. Now the natural interpretation of the Greek manifesto appeared to us-as we have already stated-to be, tlhat underit British seamen employed in the transport of contraba.lx of war fQr the Turks, would render themsclves liable td dostruetion. by a- Grcek force, only in case of resistance to the right of search or se;zure, when excrcised by the armed vessels of the Republic. And if this obvious explanation be the true one, what Power can reasonably murmur at the assertion of suclh a right by an independent people?-a people whose indepoendence England implicitly recogniizes, by professing to observe, as between them and their enemy, the knowni obligations of the neutral character. If it bh according to public law that the right of searCl and of evontual seizure should be exercised by a belli- gerent upoll the merchantynen of a neutral ;-if, more cspe- cially, while the flag professing. neutrality is foundl in com- pany, and part of the same expedition witlh the enemy of the belligerent, conveying not merely enemy's goods, (wheni the principle contented for by England herself on all occasionls would come into play), but powder and ball and armed men for invading the country of the belligerent;-if, we say, under such circumstances, the right of detention be acknowledged law, resistancec to that right is against the law, bringing with it, as an inevitable consequence, thc right of attack; and if the hostile project can be no ether- wise defeated, or the contraband cargo laid hold of, the right of destruction by the belligerent power against the neutral ship, and nll that she carries on board her. But we for a moment wave this proposition, and meet the partisans of Sir FREDERIC K ADA: and his employers oni two other ground(sm. 1st. It is said that the objectionable part of the Greek manifesto was that which related to the crews of the merchantmen. If so, Mr. CA-NN1SO had no pre- tence for remonstrating, as his courtiers tell us he lhas done, against the whole procla2Tatiol, every clause of which, witlh that single exception, was orthodox, anid admissible, to the letter. Our Government were aggres- sers upon Greece, if they called upon her to retract a single syllable of her proclamation, except the one passage containing the offensive words. We should be glad, for Ithat reason, to understand the precise nature of Ir. C 4N- NING'S remonstrance through the Ionian Governor, since it is otherwise difficult to guess on what point the contro- versy hinges. In the mean time, the Ifinister's friends assure us that he quarrelletl witlh the w,hole proclamation. 2d. A threat against the lives of Englishmen Is to be visited upon Greece with the extreme penalty of war. Now the Englishmen have, ill the present instavce, mncXe themselves part and parcel of a rurkish force. If our countrymen engage in a quarrel betweeni two parties, both members of the civilizdt and Christian world, we are tis- posed to admit that their (Government ouglht to wattli over andl secure them against any more savage treatmnent than by the usages of eivilized war the said partios inflict upoin each other. But here the Eng5lishmenl go with their eyes open, and mix io a contest, not between civi- lized nations, nor carried on with that forbear- anec towards the conquered witlh whiclh the Chris- tian world are fanmiliarized. To tell suCII belligerents, thereforo, or, what wouldl be more preposterouLs, to tell one of such belligerents that he inylst maiik war upon his bar- barous enemy, not accordilng to such principles of wat fare as are best calculated to terrify andl subdue the barbarian, but according to civilized and polished usages, wllicli he laughs at and will not reciprocally practise, is a species of interference which may accord wiLh some men's notions of neutrality, but which we are sure that in reason, in jus- tice, or consistency, neitlher the present nor any future ge- neration of Englislhmeni will be found base enough to avow, There is aHother poinit on which we have yet said nothing. lVas there really one wortd about the e' crews" from first to last of the Greek proclamation ? A correspondent tells us net; and ii t'Aat event, what second subterfuge will the Down;ing-street casuists have recourse to ?