The Eastern question advanced more slowly. On March 25, 1823, Canning recognised the Greeks as belligerents. After this step Great Britain enjoyed the advantage of being able to hold the Greek government responsible for piracy committed by Greek ships; but, coming as it did after the isolated action of Great Britain at Verona, it created a suspicion among the eastern powers of a desire to effect a settlement of the Eastern question without the co-operation of other states. In October, 1823, the Tsar Alexander and the Emperor Francis had a meeting at Czernowitz in Bukowina. Here they discussed joint intervention in Greece as a means of forestalling the isolated intervention of Great Britain. During the meeting the news arrived of the Turkish concessions to the Russian demands of 1821. Before the conference broke up, the tsar informally suggested a conference at St. Petersburg to arrange joint intervention on the basis of the erection of three principalities under Turkish suzerainty in Greece and the Ægean. In January, 1824, the same proposal was made formally in a Russian circular addressed to the great powers. Metternich and Canning both opposed the scheme, thinking that the principalities would fall under Russian influence.
Metternich met it by a counter proposal for the complete independence of Greece. Canning preferred to adopt neither course, and to watch the sequence of events. In April, however, he consented that Great Britain should be represented at the conference at St. Petersburg on condition that no coercion should be applied to Turkey, and that diplomatic relations should have been previously restored between Russia and Turkey; in August the Greek government sent to London its protest against the Russian proposals, and in November Canning, finding that neither Greeks nor Turks would accept the decision of the conference, and being still opposed to violent interference, refused to take part in it. At the same time he offered British mediation to the Greeks in case it should be absolutely necessary. Early in 1825 Metternich induced Charles X., the new King of France, to support his proposal. Russia, however, would not hear of the independence of Greece, which might mean the creation of a rival to her influence in the Turkish dominions. The conference therefore merely resolved that the Porte should grant satisfaction to its subjects, failing which the powers offered their mediation.
THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER I.
Turkey refused the offer. She was in fact busily engaged in restoring order in her own way. In February, 1825, an Egyptian army was landed in the Morea, and met with rapid successes of such a nature as to arouse a suspicion that it was the fixed policy of its commander, Ibrahim, the adopted son of Mehemet Ali, Pasha of Egypt, to depopulate the Morea. His advance upon Nauplia was checked by an order of the British commodore, Hamilton, and he retired towards Tripolitza and Navarino. The Turkish successes induced Canning to make proposals to Russia through Sir Stratford Canning, the British ambassador at St. Petersburg, for a joint intervention of the powers on condition that there should be no coercion of Turkey. The tsar refused to accept the condition and made preparations for war. Canning meanwhile declined an offer of the Greek government to place itself under British protection, and on August 18 Alexander declared that he would solve the Eastern question by himself. He then set out for the south of Russia, where his army had collected. Canning now dropped his scheme of an united intervention and opened negotiations for a separate intervention on the part of Great Britain and Russia alone. Meanwhile he informed the Greek government that he would allow no power to effect a settlement without British co-operation, and that if Russia invaded Turkey he would land troops in Greece. The negotiations with Russia were proceeding favourably when they were interrupted by the death of Alexander on December 1.
One event of the year 1825 which attracted little attention at the time was destined to be a cause of friction at a much later date. In 1824 the boundary between British America and the United States had been partially delimited, and this was followed early in the following year by a treaty, which attempted to settle the boundary between British and Russian America. Unfortunately the words used in this treaty were somewhat indefinite, and, although no difficulty was experienced for two generations, the discovery of gold in the north-west of America subsequently led to a bitter dispute between Canada on the one side and the United States, which had acquired the rights of Russia, on the other.
FOOTNOTES:
[75] Metternich, Memoirs, § 484, English translation, iii., 446.
[76] Wellington, Despatches, etc., i., 343-48.
[77] Wellington, Despatches, etc., i., 518-23. For a French account of the congress see Duvergier de Hauranne, Gouvernement Parlementaire en France, vii., 130-229.
[78] Wellington, Despatches, etc., i., 650. Compare pp. 638, 653-57.