[85]. In the House of Lords, July 18, 1878.
[86]. See Holland’s “European Concert in the Eastern Question.”
[87]. At the ninth meeting of the Congress “the Greek delegates asked the Congress to sanction the annexation to the Hellenic Kingdom of the island of Crete, and the province of Thessaly and Epirus” (The Duke of Argyll’s “The Eastern Question,” vol. ii. p. 167).
[88]. “Russia had pointedly and emphatically declared that she would not oppose any larger measure of liberty which the Congress might desire to secure to the provinces bordering on Greece. There was no symptom of any serious opposition from any other Powers. But England had deserted the cause of Greece, because they sold it to the Turks as part of the price to be paid for the island of Cyprus” (The Duke of Argyll’s, “The Eastern Question,” vol. ii. p. 170).
[89]. “Returning to Greece,” said Beaconsfield, “no one could doubt as to the future of this country. States, like individuals, which have a future, are in a position to be able to wait” (The Duke of Argyll’s “The Eastern Question,” vol. ii. p. 169).
[90]. The explanation of Lord Palmerston’s opposition to M. de Lessep’s scheme, which was given confidentially by him to one of his subordinates in the Foreign Office.
[91]. “We do not want Egypt, or wish it for ourselves any more than any rational man, with an estate in the north of England and a residence in the south, would have wished to possess the inns on the north road. All he could want would have been that the inns should be well kept, always accessible, and furnishing him, when he came, with mutton chops and post horses. We want to trade with Egypt, and to travel through Egypt” (Lord Palmerston’s Letter to Lord Cowley, November 25, 1859).
[92]. Pall Mall, September 15, 1886.
[93]. “If Russia obtained Constantinople, she must cease to be barbarous before she could become formidable; and if she made a great navy, it must be by doing as the Venetians, the Dutch, the English, and the Americans did, by the accumulation of wealth, the exercise of industry, the superior skill and intelligence of her artizans” (Cobden’s Manchester Speech).
[94]. Carlo’s “British India,” p. 59.