The Sun. — 1870-05-24 (London, England)

MORNING EDITION  LONDON, TUESDAY, MAY 24, 1870.  The Protecting Powers, during the last forty years, over the modern Kingdom of Greece, have been— England, France, and Russia. It becomes a matter for very serious consideration, after these four decades last past, to discover what good, if any, tha three allied Powers have secured, either to Greece, or, through Greece, to the rest of Christendom, in their united capacity as a Protectorate. Contrast, for a moment, the incidents which have recently occurred in the immediate vicinity of Athens, and the attitude ever since then adopted towards the Greek Government by our own, with the incidents occurring exactly twenty years ago in the same capital, and the course instantly pursued at that time by our Administration. Subjects of the CROWN, peacefully travelling through Greece, and nominally under the shelter of its Government and under the aegis of their own, are lawlessly seized by bandits, are infamously detained as hostages until an exorbitant sum shall have been paid over as a ransom, and are then, by the insensate proceedings wantonly adventured upon by the administrators of King GEORGE, deliberately doomed to assassination—the captors of ourunfortunate countrymen,from having been pursued at a moment the most inopportune, being transformed thereby from robbers into murderers. Twenty years ago what was the grievance England had to complain of—and for which at the cannon's mouth she demanded instant reparation ? Was it an outrage in any way comparable to the one we have just now particularized? Listen to our reminder, here, of facts long since recorded on the page of history and then answer ! According to the statements put forth by the then Foreign Secretary of England, Lord PALMERSTON, the reigning Sovereign of Greece (OTHo) had, while clearing the ground for the construction of a Palace, near Athens, taken possession of a portion of a garden belonging to a Mr. FINLAY, a British subject, long settled in that kingdom ; while just about the same time another British subject (in point of fact a Portuguese by birth, as was indicated by his very name)—Don PAcinco—had had his house broken into and pillaged by a Greek mob —no redress having been obtained in either instance,  on the one hand from the parties implicated in the burglarious outrage, or on the otherfrom the spoliating Government. Don l'Acmco had lost neither an eye nor a tooth. Mr. FINLAY had been deprived neither of life nor of limb. In answering the diplomatic communication in which the claims preferred upon the Greek Government, under those two heads were duly set forth, that Government replied that they were willing to give a reasonable compensation, and that they would consent to a settlement of the claim by arbitration. France, on her part, warmly supported the reasonableness of that proposition. Carrying matters with a high hand, however, Lord PALMERSTON (Don Pacifico, as he was humorously dubbed en revanche, not long afterwards by Lord STANLEY) determined vi et armis to demand instant concessions at the muzzle of her guns. Admiral PARKER, then returning with the British squadron from the Dardanelles, was ordered [it is exactly twenty years ago, now, namely, in the May of 1850] to make sail for Athens. Obeying these instructions, Admiral PARKER anchored his fifteen ships of war off the Piraeus, repeating, there and then, in the name of his Government, their peremptory demand for repa' ration, accompanying the demand with the intimation that the harbour of the Pirams was in a state of siege. In consequence of these extrordinary proceedings, the Protecting Powers were directly afterwards upon the very verge of war. The French Ambassador, M.DROUYN DE LHUYS was recalled from England. The Russian Ambassador, Baron BRUNOW, was preparing to obey similar instructions from St. Petersburg. It was at this critical juncture that Lord STANLEY brought the whole of this extraordinary diplomatic imbroglio under the coisideration of the House of Lords, insisting upon it that the character of a great and powerful nation had been degraded before all Christendom by an endeavour to enforce unjust, be cense exorbitant, demands upon a small State, a State, by comparison with itself, utterly weak and powerless. Lord STANLEY'S motion was carried by a majority of 37 in a House of nearly two hundred. Viscount PALMERSTON thereupon placed his resignation in the hands of the Prime Minister, Lord