/: <*■ — «; c « :*$-■- i^l'r:': C r < c <; if- « «- «•■ -k f t . v W, l^i.owES aul SoK3| Slaniloril Strwt, SUBSTANCE OF A SPEECH, Sir, If I might presume to offer a general observation on the speech of the Right Honourable Baronet (Sir G. Grey), who has just addressed the House, I should say that it consisted very much less of discussion upon the particular subjects on which the House will, at the close of the debate, have to deliver its solemn judgment, than of a somewhat vague enunciation of principles, clothed generally in an abstract form, most moderately and temperately expressed ; and giving on the one hand very little occasion for dispute, but, on the other, helping us as little towards arriving at a practical conclusion. No one of us doubts that there are seasons when it is necessary to interfere in the concerns of other countries, or hesitates to profess in terms that the general rule should be to abstain from such interference. But these are mere generalities, and we must deal much more closely with the matter in hand if we desire to deal with it to advantage. Sir, before I proceed to examine the merits of the question, I think it my duty to offer some remarks upon the position of the Government, and the constitutional doctrines which they have laid down in regard to it. A vote has been passed by b2 ( 4 ) another House of the Legislature, which directly impugns and censures the policy of the noble Lord the Secretary of State for the Foreign Department, with reference to his manage- ment of certain affairs in Greece. On the passing of that vote, the First Minister of the Crown makes no sign. When at length he is drawn forth from his silence by a question of the learned gentleman the member for Sheffield (Mr. Roebuck), then indeed he submits a statement to this House, and it is one which, in my view, calls for particular remark. " The Government," so said the noble Lord, " do not intend to alter their policy : they do not intend to resign their offices : they do not intend, with reference to the terms of the question put, to adopt any specific course whatever in regard to what has occurred. But at the same time," to this effisct the noble Lord proceeded, " they do not dissemble that the vote of the House of Lords is an event of the gravest character ; that it will have an influence on the conduct of foreign States ; that it will impair the power which we ought to possess for the administration of the foreign affairs of this country." Sir, I for one must protest with all my might against the doctrine of the noble Lord. He is the First Minister of the Crown. He is the representative and the head of the great Whig party, with all its historical traditions ; and he has come here to state that having been deprived, by a vote passed in another place, of a portion of the power with which a Government requires to be armed in order to conduct the public affairs for the advantage of the State, he and his colleagues intend to continue to be the servants of the Crown, but do not intend themselves to take any step for the recovery of the power which they have lost. ( 5 ) But the noble Lord had a pair of precedents for his course, and very briefly may they be disposed of. First, he finds that in the year 1710, the House of Lords passed a resolution to the effect that England ought not to be a party to any ar- rangement which should leave both Spain and France in the possession of the House of Bourbon ; yet that this resolution was disregarded in the Peace of Utrecht. Is that a precedent at all ? The House of Lords has not now been passing resolutions upon hypothetical cases, about matters which have not occurred. When Parliament does any such thing, it does what may, indeed, under peculiar circumstances be justified ; but it steps beyond the discharge of its ordinary functions into a province not primarily its own. The House of Lords has not been attempting to fetter beforehand the free action of the Government by a premature judgment ; it has not been arrogating to itself any function of the Crown, to which is assigned by the Constitution the office of considering and adjusting by negotiation the terms of treaties, subject of course to the responsibility of its advisers ; but that House, in the regular order, having taken into consideration the actual conduct of those advisers, as it appears in the papers presented by command of the Crown, has discharged a duty which con- stitutionally appertains to it in pronouncing a condemnation of that conduct. And now what was the other precedent of the noble Lord ? It was the case of Portugal in 1833. In 1833 you had a vote passed by the House of Lords, which I will assume to be equivalent, for the purposes of tlie argument, to the recent vote respecting Greece. It was passed on the 3rd of June. On the Gth of June the same question was to be considered, at the ( 6 ) instance of a supporter of the Government, in the House of Commons ; but so far were the Whigs of that day from thinking that the House of Lords had no concern in controlling the Executive, and that its vote might simply be overlooked, that Lord Ebrington rose in his place on the 4th of June, and thought it needful to take from the noble Lord the Secretary for Foreign Affairs a specific assurance that the policy of the Administration would remain such as it had been until the House of Commons should (only two days later) have had an opportunity of giving its judgment upon the same (question. But what says the noble Lord now ? Various efforts were made to induce gentlemen, acting in opposition to the Govern- ment, to step in to their relief. The member for Middlesex (Mr. Osborne) made an appeal to the honourable Baronet the member for Radnorsliire (Sir J. Walsh) ; but unhappily without effect. And then the noble Lord himself suggested to the honourable gentleman the member for Buckingham- shire (Mr. Disraeli) that he might proj)ei']y make a motion on the subject. He, forsooth : and why was he to move ? The purpose was, to reinstate the Government in its constitutional position, in the possession of the powers without which it ought not to be a Government. The purpose was, to question the vote of the House of Lords, and to neutralise and destroy its effect. Was this his affair ? Sir, it is not for me to speak the sentiments of the honourable member, but if on this occasion I may attempt to divine them, I really apprehend that he was not so ill satisfied with the vote of the House of Lords as to be desirous to disturb it : but you, who are dissatisfied with that vote, you who are the Ministers of the Crown, you who know ( 7 ) that no Ministers should conduct the affairs of the country when stripped of the power which that vote has taken away from you, — it was for you, and not for him, to invite the judg- ment of this House in opposition to that decision in the House of Peers. However, you would not do so ; and it was reserved to a gentleman wholly independent of the Administration, to the honourable and learned member for Sheffield, to make the attempt at extricating the Administration from its dilemma. Well, Sir, the member for Sheffield has interposed : and now let us mark the manner of his interposition. Has he pro- posed a vote contradictory to the vote of the House of Lords ? Has he thought it prudent to raise the very same issue here that was raised there ? No, Sir, he has shifted the issue ; and no man shifts the issue, in the face of the enemy, without a motive. By so shifting it, he has given an indication of that which I plainly perceive, a very great unwillingness to meet the discussion upon the affairs of Greece. Is there any dispute about this unwillingness ? Why then was it that, after the honourable and learned member for Youghal (Mr. Anstey) had given notice of an addition to the motion, of such a nature that it would have directed the debate to the precise issue raised in the House of Lords, he was urged and induced by the noble Lord at the head of the Government to abandon his intention ? And again ; with what benevolent view did the honourable member for Montrose (Mr. Hume) conceive his amendment ? I invite the attention of the House to the words of that amendment. The honourable gentleman the mem- ber for Montrose proposed, and with perfect consistency and propriety as coming from him, words setting forth that " this House, taking into consideration tlie general policy of Her ( 8 ) Majesty's Government, are of opinion that on the whole it is calcuhited to promote the best interests of the country." On the whole it is calculated. Those words, " on the whole," are, I apprehend, without example in a vote of Parliamentary con- fidence. Let me venture to put a construction upon them. I construe the words of the honourable gentleman in this manner ; that " on the whole " means " although I am not prepared to approve of the particular policy which the House of Lords has condemned." That was the meaning of the honourable gentleman ; and he felt, and showed the feeling, that it would not be expedient to meet the discussion fairly, boldly, and simply, upon the affairs of Greece. And why w^as this ? I am sorry to perceive that I give so much dissatisfac- tion to some gentlemen. The nature of the opinions I have to express forbids me to hope that it will be in my power to please them : but if my opinions themselves are such as can hardly fail to be unpalatable, I promise to do my best to avoid rendering them more so by the tone in which they will be ex- pressed. Sir, I think there was a very sufficient reason for the shifting of the issue. I will not deny that it w^as a fair and legitimate reason, but I think it was one which ought to be placed distinctly before the House, so that no man shall mistake it or forget it. There was and is a feeling in this House that the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has amongst us sources of peculiar weakness, and also sources of peculiar strength. As to weak- ness, there exists a sentiment even among some part of the political adherents of the Administration — I will not discuss or attempt to define the extent i)f it, but I merely allege that it exists — a sentiment to the effect that the noble Lord, not- ( 9 ) withstanding his distinguished abilities, is not altogether as prudent as he is able in the management of the foreign affairs of this country. Understand, I beg, that I am not presuming to describe what are your general sentiments ; but even among a portion of those gentlemen who sit opposite there prevails an opinion, or a suspicion, that during the times when the admi- nistration of foreign affairs is in the hands of the noble Lord, the country is too commonly apt to be near the very verge of war. I admit, on the other hand, that the noble Lord pos- sesses likewise in this House a source of strength that is pecu- liarly his own. There are in this House a class of gentlemen professing to hold what are termed strong liberal opinions, with whom the noble Lord is in the utmost favour, because they believe that he uses energetically the influence of this country for the propagation of those opinions among the other nations of the world. It unfortunately happened, however, that in the case of Greece the noble Lord did not interfere on the side of liberty against despotism. The Government of that country is constitutional, and the interposition of the noble Lord has reference not to Greek affairs or institutions — at least on the surface it has no such reference, and we cannot tell what is beneath — but to certain real or presumed rights of British subjects resident in Greece. The case of Greece, therefore, so long as it stood alone, afforded no facilities for enlisting those sympathies of propagandism, to which I have referred, in favour of the noble Lord. On this account, I argue, it was judged wise to shift and to extend the issue ; to introduce other subject matter, and so to draw off attention in some degree from the specialties of the case of Greece, and to fall back upon the general good character which the noble ( 10 ) Lord enjoys in that particular quarter of the House, on account of the belief that his main study is to promote the progress of popular opinions throughout Europe. At any rate, Sir, it has now come to this, that we have before us two great divisions of the subject, each of them very distinct from the other ; each of them large enough to fill a separate debate, and the two very difficult to examine adequately to- gether. We have, first, the cluster of questions relating to the policy of the noble Lord in Greek affairs, questions quite apart from the conflict between despotism and freedom, and from the principle of intervention considered at large. In the case of Greece it is evident that the noble Lord could nol accurately be described as having meddled in the afiairs of a foreign State ; that is not the charge against him : he has, as matter of fact, been engaged — whether after a right or a wTong fashion it is for this House to determine — in giving what he calls protection to British subjects resident abroad. And there is no more important element in the whole range of the duties of a Foreign Minister, than rightly to bestow the care which is due to such persons. The first question raised for decision in the case of Greece is this : " Upon what rules and principles is the Foreign Minister of this country to proceed in securing the interests of British subjects domiciled in foreign States?" The second question, also involving most important principles, is this : " In what manner is the observance of engagements to co-guaranteeing powers to be secured ? " And we have, thirdly, the important question, a question which, if it be in strictness one of fact rather than of principle, is nevertheless one of the very first rank and moment, whether the conduct of the noble Lord, in respect to France, has been of a character ( 11 ) well calculated to preserve the friendly relations between Eng- land and that power, which are so essential to the well-being of Europe. And all these points we have to consider in the case of Greece, quite apart from the yet larger question, whether England is or is not to preserve the general policy condemned with emphasis and with justice by Earl Grey in the passage so appositely cited by my right honourable friend the member for Ripon (Sir J. Graham). And now, Sir, to clear my way as I proceed, and with re- ference to various precedents which have been alleged in this debate, I disclaim and repudiate altogether the trial of our conduct in Greece by a comparison with what other countries may have done on other occasions. At all events, I say, if we are to be guided by precedents, do not let them be either ex- clusively or mainly precedents of that class which exhibit the conduct of powerful States towards feeble ones, because I will venture to affirm that that is not a creditable chapter in the history of Europe ; and any examples you may allege, drawn from that chapter, will do absolutely nothing towards securing in your favour the impartial judgment of posterity. But I will say a word more particularly upon one precedent invoked by the right honourable Baronet (Sir G. Grey) who has just sat down, because it is taken from our own history. He cited the case of the sulphur claims urged by the British merchants in Sicily against the sovereign of that country ; and he remarked that Lord Lyndhurst had urged the Government to exact reparation in the case of those claims, as if that were a reason why any sort of exaction might be made for any sort of claim. But what is the use of perplexing and entangling a matter of this kind by the allegation of pretended precedents ( 12 ) that are in truth totally irrelevant ? The case of the sulphur claim was founded upon the construction of a treaty : that which Lord Lyndhurst did was, to assert what it appeared was the true construction of that treaty, and to require that effect should be given to it. That was a principle of unquestioned obligation ; whereas in the case of Greece, you have proceeded wholly on vague and arbitrary notions of your own, with what bearing on treaties, and on the law of nations, I shall presently proceed to show. Now, Sir, in coming to the consideration of the various claims against Greece, I must bear in mind how largely they have been discussed, both here and elsewhere ; and I shall therefore be studious to put aside, with a very few words, all those cases which are not essential to the main issue. First, I shall put aside the case of the Fantome. I fully admit and assert, that it was the duty of the noble Lord to exact an apology in that case from the Government of Greece. But, on the other hand, I am convinced that we might have had that apology without resorting to reprisals, or to any em- ployment of force. If you differ from me, I would observe that, before resorting to the use of force, it was the duty of the noble Lord to have put plainly and categorically his demand for such an apology ; but this he has never done. There is a strange and inexplicable gap in the correspondence, reaching fi-om a date soon after the event to that very 16th of January, when this subject was summarily revived in the list of final demands upon Greece, to be satisfied within twenty-four hours. Even had he made such a demand, and had it been refused, surely, with respect to such a question, we might have been content to leave the vindication of our honuiu* to the decision, by joint con- ( 13 ) ser.t, of some friendly Power. My belief is, that it would not have been refused ; but at any rate it was not upon this that the empIo\Tnent of force ultimately turned : we never had asked in plain terms for an apology, and Greece never had in reply refused one. I shall also pass by the cases of certain lonians, which I know not how to designate ; perhaps they might properly be called the " twenty-pound cases." If I refrain from examining them in detail, it is only because the attention of Parliament has been largely exercised in this respect already, not because I think the proceedings in them have been defensible. On the contrary, I must not pass on without these general remarks. First, that the opinion of Baron Gros in these cases is evidently against you. In the case of the two lonians at Patras he says, that " if he had to pronounce a judgment upon it " — that is, if he were arbiter — it would be " that that claim should not be prosecuted." * The second of these two cases he manifestly considers ridiculous ;t and of the case of the boats plundered at Salcina he says, that our claim is inadmissible.| But we are engaged, it seems, in protecting the interests of Ionian subjects. AYell, if that is so, surely there is one body which beyond all others is entitled to be heard, and from which we may confi- dently expect approval and support. There is a Legislative Chamber in the Ionian Islands ; and what language do they who represent in it the people of those islands hold with refer- ence to our obliging care of their countrj-men ? I will not say that they go the full length of making a positive complaint * Pieces Diplomatiques deposees sur le Bureau de I'Assemblee Nationale, p. 124. t Ibid., p. 126. X Ibid., p. 111. ( 14 ) against the noble Lord. That indeed would have been rather a bold proceeding on their part. Bnt they render you, as you sliall see, little thanks indeed for mixing up Ionian claims in your controversy with Greece. I quote from the recent address presented by them to the High Commissioner of the Islands in answer to his speech. They state that " the Assembly can- not and ought not to pass over in silence the profound grief that the people of all the islands have felt at the differences which have occurred between Great Britain and the kingdom of Greece ; and the more so, because among the grounds which have given occasion for those differences, it seems that the pro- tection of Ionian interests is alleged." You can, I think, under- stand the meaning of that language. The Assembly ends with calling on the High Commissioner to give them official in- formation on the subject. Not wishing then, Sir, to detain the House with the ex- amination of a mass of perplexed and contradictory details, I go to those larger cases which have occupied more of the public attention, and on which the main issue unquestionably depends. I must allude, however, among these, to the astonishing case of Stellio Sumachi, because there is no one affair of them all which more strikingly illustrates the noble Lord's method of procedure in this most important department of his duties ; and I ask the House, I ask the members of the Government them- selves, whether they are prepared to justify the manner in which the noble Lord conducted his treatment of that case. Stellio Sumachi, a man of no known character, and under accusation of theft, makes a complaint that he has been subjected to cruel tortures. I say he was under a charge of theft — not as if this circumstance disentitled him to protection, but because it was a ( 15 ) reason for the exercise of caution in accepting his statements. This complaint is adopted by the British consul at Patras, and transmitted to the British minister at Athens, Sir E. Lyons ; adopted by him, and transmitted to the noble Lord. There is no sifting, no scrutiny, no resort to the tribunals in the first instance for redress. The appeal is at once made to the noble Lord ; and the noble Lord, on the mere receipt of that ex-parte statement, without raising a question as to the trustworthiness of the person, without any reserve for what may remain to be said on the other side, without any inquiry as to remedy before the judicial tribunals (and I will dispute and overthrow every word that the right honourable Baronet, who preceded me, stated on the subject of recourse to the legal tribunals of the country), having received the first intimation of the case on the 21st of August, 1846, on the 24th returns that most extra- ordinary reply which I could wish to read at length if it were not midnight ; but I will simply recite the main allegations. He says that the British Government have learned with equal regi'et and surprise that this barbarous outrage and brutal tor- ture have been inflicted by the Greek police ; they had hoped that such practices " had ceased to disgrace the Executive Government of Greece ;" they cannot permit such things to be done with impunity ; they demand that the police officers con- cerned shall be immediately dismissed ; that adequate pecu- niary compensation be made to Stellio Sumachi ; and, lastly, that the compliance of the Greek Government with these " just and moderate demands " shall be reported to him by the next packet.* Now with regard to the matter of fact, whether this man * February Papers, pp. 195-197. ( 16 ) was ever tortured or not, you may have formed a different opinion from that which Baron Gros formed ; yet it is due to the Greek Government that you should know what opinion was formed by Baron Gros upon the spot, with full means of in- formation, and in his impartial position. (Cries of Oh ! oh !) Yes, I say in his impartial position ; and let me tell you that, if you have a due regard for the estimation in which you are to be held by the world at large, you cannot pursue a more short- sighted policy than first of all to invite — no, not to invite, but to accept — the good offices of a friendly Power, then to admit that that Power has selected a well-qualified person to be its organ in rendering those good offices, and at last, when you find that his judgment is against you, to meet with a sneer, as is now done by the learned gentleman the member for Southampton, the acknowledgment of his impartiality. Hear then the judg- ment of Baron Gros. On the 5th of April, 1850,* he wTites to General La Hitte, that he cannot find any conclusive testi- mony as to the facts, and that in the doubt in which his inquiry leaves him he would think it his duty to reject the claim. Now, as far as I am able to form a judgment, I think it pro- bable that some personal injuries may have been unjustly and illegally inflicted on this individual. But that is not the ques- tion at issue, and has nothing to do with it. The question is this : do you recognise it as one of the principles of the foreign policy of Great Britain — "calculated," in the terms of the motion, " to maintain the honour and dignity of this country " and " to preserve peace " with the nations of the world — that when an ex-parte complaint is made, proceeding from a man under accusation of theft, to the effect that he has been tortured * Pieces, p. 123. ( 17 ) contrary to law, you should, without examination as to the facts, and without inquiry as to the means of legal remedy, send to a Government allied with you, and protected by you, a peremptory demand for the dismissal of the officers charged and the payment of compensation to the complainant, and for the announcement by the next packet that both have been done ? Well, Sir, having, as I have shown, begun in violence, the noble Lord, strangely enough, shifted to the ground of reason. The correspondence went on, and an investigation took place. The noble Lord thought, and, as it appears to me, with some justice, that the investigation was insufficient : and at length he came to do what he should have done at first. Having, on August 24, 1846, written to demand the dismissal of public functionaries and the payment of compensation before the next packet, five months later, that is to say, on the 30th of January, 1847, he writes to Sir Edmond Lyons to require that all the circumstances of Sumachi's treatment shall be openly and impartially investigated at Patras.* Nothing could be more reasonable in itself, than such a request. But what I complain of is this, that the noble Lord, instead of writing to demand examination of the case in August, 1846, and then requiring redress, if the investigation had been frustrated, in January, 1847, should have written at the very first moment a letter im- plying a conclusive judgment on the case, and conveying that judgment in the most violent and oflfensive terms, and should have been obliged in the following January to write a fresh dispatch, admitting by clear implication that he had as yet had no materials for forming such a judgment, and requiring that such materials should be provided by a fresh examination. * February Papers, p. 234. C ( 18 ) And surely, Sir, it is by some notable and strange fatality that the noble Lord, when at length he has placed his case on a ground conformable to reason, cannot any longer keep up his interest in it, but must cease to act altogether. The agents of police, having been once criminally charged and acquitted, could not again be put upon their trial for the same offence : and after that announcement firom the Greek Government, not another syllable appears in these papers with respect to Stellio Sumachi. My honourable and learned friend, the mem- ber for Oxford (Mr. Wood), to whom, and still more to my honourable and learned friend, the member for Abingdon (Sir F. Thessiger), we are much indebted for having applied their great acquirements and skill to the examination of these subjects, was most eloquent on the subject of the wrongs done to Stellio Sumachi. His feelings had been much harrowed by the account of these excruciating tortures, all of which he appeared implicitly to believe, and he argued with great earnestness that such a case afforded an ample justification for the strong measures adopted against the Greek Government and people. My honourable and learned friend was evidently under the impression that redress had been demanded and obtained for Sumachi. No such thing, Sir. Why it was that his case did not appear along with others in the list presented in a peremptory manner last January I cannot tell, but certain it is, that if we are to rely upon the papers which have been presented to us, no demand was then made on behalf of that person ; his wrongs, which, if true, are most serious, remain to this hour without redress : if he was tortured, he has not even twenty pounds' worth of consolation, nor have the police officers charged with maltreating him been dismissed. If, ( 19 ) therefore, the noble Lord considered this to be the case of an injured British subject, he has altogether betrayed his duty by failing to afford him protection. For this man, upon whose chest we are told that heavy stones were placed, and that officers of police jumped upon them, and upon whom other horrors not fit to be mentioned were (as it is said) inflicted — for this man, in whose case the noble Lord first made a violent and preposterous demand that was made with contempt, and next a moderate demand that led to nothing — the noble Lord has neither gained nor sought compensation ; and I tell my learned friend, who, I am sure, is as conscientious in his view of the case of Sumachi as he is known to be in all other matters, that, with his per- suasion respecting the facts of it, he ought now to give his vote against the policy of the noble Lord for so gross a neglect and dereliction of his duty. But however the case of Sumachi may illustrate the noble Lord's modes of proceeding, the measiu*es ultimately adopted by him respecting Greece turn mainly on the cases of Mr, Finlay and M. Pacifico. I do not doubt that the House hears those names with alarm ; and although there are a multitude of details in both their cases, which are highly instructive, and which ought to be thoroughly known, yet, at this hour, and this stage of the debate, I shall endeavour to keep the attention of the House, so far as it depends upon me, fastened only upon the principle that is involved in those cases. There is an original vice in the noble Lord's manner of pro- ceeding, which is made perfectly evident in Mr. Finlay's case ; and I am not the less willing to attempt to exhibit it in that case, for the reason that Mr. Finlay is, as I believe, a man of undoubted respectability ; or, further, for the reason that, c2 ( 20 ) whether he was or was not determined to have the best possible price for his land — a matter into which I do not consider that we are entitled to examine — his claim was in substance a just one. And, moreover, I will admit that the proceedings of the Government of Greece in respect to it, considered in certain points of view, were vexatious, even if they were not shuffling. But the great question which I wish to ask, and which I now seek to test by means of these claims, is the question, upon what system and by what principle are the relations of British subjects, domiciled abroad, to the States in whose territories they are so domiciled, to be regulated ? Are they to be regu- lated by an exceptional system ? Are we to place them upon a ground that the subjects of other States are not allowed by the rules of international intercourse to occupy ; or are they to be governed by the laws of the several countries within which they may reside ? — always, of course, with the reserve of diplo- matic intervention in case those laws should palpably fail to secure for them results conformable to general justice. Now, Sir, no words that I can use could exaggerate, or even ade- quately express, the immense importance of this question. The subject, indeed, of the restraints of international law may not at this moment be palatable to gentlemen whom I see sitting yonder (on the lower ministerial benches) ; it may not easily harmonise with their sense of their mission to propagate liberal opinions through the world : but it is nevertheless essential, now that this question has been raised, that it should be thoroughly investigated ; it is vital to every other country in which Bi-itish subjects reside ; it is vital to the British subjects thus residing abroad, that the whole world should know upon what terms they are henceforward to afford the rites of hospit- ( 21 ) able reception to such persons, and what price is to be paid for the benefits that their residence confers. Now, Sir, as to the general principle which governs this question, there can in terms be little dispute. I have here the citations from Vattel, who is perfectly clear upon it ; but I need not trouble the House with them, because I can appeal to an authority nearer hand. I may, indeed, in passing direct attention to the strange assertion of the honourable member for Cambridge. The honourable gentleman has actually laid down this general proposition — that the subjects of any given country, resident in any other country, have an absolute right to the enjoyment there of at least as good laws as those by which they would have been governed at home. The honourable gentleman, I suppose, has made up his mind to this conclusion after mucli consideration and a due inquiry into the principles of inter- national law and their bearings on the case. Still I think it will be found that he will have the exclusive enjoyment of such an opinion. I pass on, therefore, to the doctrine of the noble Lord the Secretary of State, which is of a very different order. He used the following words to describe the proper form of remedy for injuries suffered by such persons ; — " Where the law is applicable, British subjects are bound to have recourse for redress to the means which the law of the land affords them. That is the opinion which our legal advisers have given in innumerable cases." lie went on to explain that there were also cases in which there could be no legal remedy, and where another remedy should consequently be sought. I am sufficiently well pleased with the noble Lord's principle : and I shall take the liberty of testing his practice by it. So also my honourable and learned friend (Mr. Wood) laid ( 22 ) down the true principle with admirable clearness — I mean, as to the principle of law ruling the case, for I fear that I shall have to impugn his knowledge of the facts. I understand him to say, that if the law be found palpably deficient, a British subject may seek another remedy ; but that he can have no other remedy whatever until he has exhausted all the means which the law affords him. That subject, of remedies over and above the laws of the country in which as a foreigner you reside, is one of the utmost delicacy ; but I need not discuss it here. I contend, that in the cases before us, Mr. Finlay and M. Pacifico did not exhaust, nor try to exhaust, the remedies which the law of Greece supplied. My honourable and learned friend (Mr. Wood) says, his general rule is not applicable to Mr. Finlay's case : while he was eloquent upon the necessity of our making ourselves acquainted with the papers by a careful perusal, he too plainly showed that his various avoca- tions had not left him time for such a perusal. For my ho- nourable fi'iend actually assured the House that the Greek law was not applicable to the case of Mr. Finlay, and that the Government of Greece itself did not refer him to the tribunals. Now, Sir, on the contrary, there is not, I think, a single letter from the Greek Government in regard to Mr. Finlay's case, where they do not distinctly and pointedly intimate that the tribunals were open to him, and that to them he should have repaired. I will not trouble the House with reading the pas- sages ; but, in order that there may be no mistake, you shall have that which is the material point, namely, the references to them in the books which many members have at hand. The first is at p. 16 of the February papers, dated February 19, 1846. The second at p. 23, date November 4, 1846. The ( 23 ) third at p. 5 of the additional papers on this case, date August 30, 1848. And the fourth at p. 40 of the February papers, date November 21, 1848. In every one of these places, the Greek Government pointed out, in language which I defy my learned friend to mistake, that Mr. Finlay's proper recourse would have been to the tribunals. And so it would : for the Greek law, as I am informed, permits a private person to sue the sovereign : I believe through the medium of one of his officers. But did Mr. Finlay have recourse to the tribunals ? (Hear, hear.) I understand your ironical cheers. You mean to say, *' It was very well for the Government of Greece to refer him to the courts of law ; but we do not believe he could really have gone there." Then I will show you that Mr. Finlay himself admitted that he might have gone there. (No, no.) If you deny it, I am afraid I must read from Mr. Finlay's own letter for the purpose : and you will see that he advances special reasons, not why he could not, but only why he should not, go before the tribunals. (Hear, hear, from an honourable member.) Is the honourable and learned gentleman, who was loud in expressing his dissent when I asserted that the tribu- nals were legally competent to try the case, is he now going to ride off upon the feeble and evasive plea, that, although they may have been competent in point of jurisdiction, yet there were other reasons which rendered it inexpedient that Mr. Finlay should go before them ? With those other reasons I will deal presently ; but in the meantime I say, that whatever they may have been, if the tribunals were competent by law to try the case, then at all events, in order even to give you the basis of an ulterior claim in any other form, JNIr. Finlay was absolutely bound to go before them. If the tribunals were ( 24 ) open, and if Mr. Finlay would not plead before them, the case of the noble Lord against the Greek Government, so far as that gentleman is concerned, is unsound from the very bottom. If the tribunals were corrupt, it was his duty to go before them, and then to allege and show their corruption : if they were feeble, to show their weakness : if their jurisdiction would only cover part of his case, it was his duty to apply to them for that part, and then, in claiming diplomatic intervention, to show in what point they had fallen short. There may be, and no doubt there are, inconveniences and disadvantages in the operation of this principle ; but it is the principle of the law of nations : and it is the only principle on which you can conduct with honour or with safety your charge over British subjects dispersed through all the States of the civilized world. In his letter, dated September 4, 1848, Mr. Finlay says, " And with reference to my now carrying my claim before the Greek tribunals, M. Colocotroni is aware that any action 1 can bring must pass over the arbitrary seizure of my property." One word upon the fact of the arbitrary seizure. I may admit it for argument's sake ; but it is far from being clear, as it appears that Mr. Finlay, on behalf of himself and others, signed a petition of inhabitants of Athens to the King of Greece, offering to cede to him their lands at the very low price of twenty leptas a pic :* a price much lower than the inadequate price after- wards offered by the Government. If I admit the arbitrary seizure, I am admitting what Baron Gros declined to admit. Now, the arbitrary seizure is assigned by Mr. Finlay as his first reason for not going before the tribunals. The noble Lord (Palmerston) had stated, and in my opinion justly stated, that * Pieces, p. 106. ( 25 ) Mr. Finlay was entitled to compensation, first of all for the value of his land, according to what it was worth at the time when it was taken ; secondly, to something by way of addition, in consideration of its having been taken from him without his consent. Now, I say, that if the tribunals were competent to award to him the value of his land, as I conceive that he admits, but not competent to make any compensation for the compulsory purchase of it, it was his duty to go into the courts, to obtain from them the value of the land, and then, if he thought fit, to invoke diplomatic aid for the purpose of obtaining for him anything beyond, which law might be unable to give him, but to which he might plainly be entitled in point of justice. The second reason which Mr. Finlay assigns is this : " M. Colocotroni knows that the expense and delay attendant on bringing a case before the courts of law between a foreigner and the Crown for damages, when the wrong was inflicted prior to the Revolution of 1843, is tantamount to a denial of justice for the present." Sir, for my part I was not aware that any legal question, especially any one pertaining to the possession of land, could be tried without some kind of expense and delay ; and more especially I have never been fortunate enough to hear of any delay in a matter of law, which did not amount to a denial of justice to the suffering party for the time while it continued. What, however, I wish the House to observe is, that the second reason alleged by Mr. Finlay himself for not going before the courts, proves, like the first, that he might have gone before them if he had thought fit. And now we come to the third reason, Mr. Finlay's only ( 26 ) ultimate reason, as he himself intimates, for not applying to the Greek tribunals. He says, " I cannot equitably be called on to sue the Greek Government in its own courts, so long as it retains the power of changing the judges from day to day, a power which the Government of Greece has often used in a suspicious manner, as, I think, you are well aware." If, Sir, we are to say that on account of the circumstance that the Greek judges hold office during pleasure it was warrantable for Mr. Finlay to decline the jurisdiction of the courts in which they sit, let us at least consider, before we accept that doctrine, how far it will carry us. I ask to be informed how many coun- tries there are on the continent of Europe in which the judges do not hold office during pleasure ? We ourselves enjoy, in the United Kingdom, the advantage of a Bench of Judges in- dependent of the Executive Government ; an advantage which was the rather late result of experience and advancement in the practice of constitutional government. I am informed that in France a portion of the Judges, but a portion only, hold their offices during good behaviour. I wish to know from Her Majesty's Ministers in what other country of Europe that state of things does not prevail, which it seems is, wherever it pre- vails, to justify our departure from the general principle of international law, as in Greece ? But why do I speak of other countries ? I look to the empire of Great Britain : at this moment the head of the Judicial body in England, and in Ireland, the Lord Chancellor, holds office during pleasure ; and I ask you, would you permit a foreigner to demur to his juris- diction upon such a plea ? AVhat, again, are foreigners to do in the colonies of this empire ? Throughout their vast extent I suspect that, unless it be Canada, you will find scarcely a ( 27 ) single exception to the rule that the judges hold office during pleasure. They are liable to be dismissed, often by the petty head of a small community, and subject to no other review than by an officer of state sitting in Downing Street, at a distance of five or ten or fifteen thousand miles. And what should we say, if a foreigner domiciled in the colonies were to refer to the diplomatic agent of his country for the prosecution of his legal rights, on the ground alleged by Mr. Finlay, that the judges are not appointed for life ? I conclude that this House will not be of opinion that there is to be one rule for the weak and another for the strong, and that, because Greece is a kingdom of small extent and resources, therefore we are to estabhsh for resident Englishmen immuni- ties as against her, which we should not claim from Russia, or from Austria, or from France, and which we never should cott- cede, as against ourselves, to any power upon earth. And if this be so, then, after what has been stated, I fear- lessly assert you cannot excuse your not having required a recourse to the courts of law before using force, in the case of Mr. Finlay, by the particular tenure of the judicial office as it exists in Greece. But there may remain another plea. You may be inclined to say that the tribunals of Greece are practically so corrupt that these cases could not with propriety be taken before them. I reply, it is too late to put that plea : you have entirely pre- cluded yourselves from employing it. My chief witness and authority is the Eleventh Article of the Treaty which you have concluded with Greece. Now recollect, I pray you, what is the position of the noble Lord. He has to prove that he is en- titled to take the causes of British subjects domiciled in Greece ( 28 ) out of the cognizance of the ordinary tribunals, to pass by those tribunals altogether, and to prosecute those causes by means of diplomatic intervention. But let us turn to the terms of this treaty, which define in a mode the most specific and distinct the footing on which the subjects of each country are to be placed, when residing in the other, with respect to the redress of their private wrongs. The article runs as follows : — " Throughout the whole extent of the territories of each con- tracting party, the subjects of both shall enjoy full and entire protection for their persons and property. They shall have free and easy access to the courts of justice in the prosecution and defence of their rights, and shall be at liberty to employ the lawyers, attorneys, or agents, of whatever denomination, whom they may deem the best qualified to maintain and defend their interests." And now I beg the particular attention of the noble Lord (Palmerston) to the succeeding words ; because they appear to me to have been most unhappily absent from his recollection during these proceedings : — — " it being understood that they shall conform in this respect to the obligations imposed upon native subjects by the laws of the country. In all that concerns the administration of justice, they shall enjoy the same privileges, rights, and franchises that belong to natives."* Is it then in the case of Greece that we shall arrogate an arbitrary power to pass by and ignore the courts of law, to be our own witnesses and our own judges and jury, to decide our 'own cause and assess our own damages, and to enforce what * Treaty with Greece, 1837. Hertslet, vol. v., p. 292. ( 29 ) we may choose to call our grievances by the use of military means, after we have thus solemnly bound ourselves in the face of Europe and the world by the clear declarations of a treaty, that our subjects in Greece shall stand, with respect to all matters touching the administration of the law, and touching the tribunals, in the same position, with the same rights, as natives of the country ? I seriously put it to the House, that the noble Lord, by the course he has thought fit to pursue, has not only violated the general law of nations, but has infringed the particular obligations of a treaty with Greece. And yet that treaty is a treaty of the year 1837, and the name which is attached to it on the part of England is no other than that of " Palmerston." But again, what do others say, what does Mr. Finlay him- self say, respecting the Greek tribunals ? And here I pause for a moment to remark, that I am a little surprised at the ex- treme severity with which the institutions of the kingdom of Greece are criticised in this House. I should have hoped to find here some stronger sense of the difficulties which beset the way of a State struggling towards the enjoyment of freedom, something more approaching to sympathy with the people of Greece. Nor can I think the more highly of the political wisdom of a noble Lord opposite (Nugent) because he smiles with some derision when I refer to those institutions. But if you tell me that bribery is used to facilitate the movement of the wheels of state in Greece, where there is a representative constitution not yet seven years old, I must ask you how long it is since this House of Commons was tainted by bribery, and whether more than two or at the utmost three gene- rations have elapsed since the wholesale employment of it ( 30 ) was almost a recognised element in the Government of the country ? But, Sir, though the tribunals of Greece, like those of many continental countries, may not be altogether free from stain, yet it is a gross error to suppose that they are radically corrupt ; and it is right that she should have the benefit of the testimony which has been borne in their favour by no less a person than Mr. Finlay himself; in words, let me add, which seem to me to do him the utmost honour for his manly avowal. He says, in the letter from which I have been quoting — " It is true that the Greek tribunals have so nobly defended the liberty of the press and the rights of the Greeks on many occasions against the Court and the Government, that I should feel great confidence in their equity in any case that could come fairly under their cognizance, if the judges were named for life." (Hear, hear.) What ! are you by those cheers again attempting to recur to a position you have been obliged to abandon? It has been shown before, that you cannot with decency, to say nothing of justice, enforce your claims by extralegal means against Greece on the ground that the judges are not named for life, unless you were prepared to enforce a similar law against powerful States, and to address to them the same imperious language : " We refuse the jurisdiction of your courts, and will proceed through the medium of diplomacy, directly backed by the strength of our armaments, in every case where our subjects have a claim in law or equity to adjust." And it has now been shown, out of the mouth of Mr. Finlay, that neither can you take your stand upon the plea that the tribunals of the country are un- worthy of confidence from their corruption. ( 31 ) But you shall have yet other evidences, the evidence of Sir Edmund Lyons himself, who, in his dispatch of the 24th of February, 1836, writes thus to the noble Lord: "The press is unshackled ; the tribunals are completely independent." I am assured by what I consider excellent authority that we underrate the civilization of Greece, so far as that depends (and it must greatly depend) upon the regular and professional study of law. There is, I believe, a flourishing law school in the University of Athens : there is a regular system of judicature, a regular course of appeal through three' courts ; and the highest of these, the Areopagus, is one of which the judicial sentences have never been tainted by the breath of hostile accusation. If such be the tribunals of Greece, how far are they from showing that entire and palpable inability to do justice, which it would be absolutely essential for the vindi- cation of the noble Lord to prove. But there is another point of great importance with respect to Mr. Finlay, on which I must beg you to give me an answer. In October, 1849, arbitrators were appointed by mutual consent to settle the claim of Mr. Finlay. Why had not that arbitration been concluded before January ? And why in January was it not allowed to proceed ? You will tell me, perhaps, that it could not proceed in January because the law of Greece only allows a period of three months for arbitrations, and that period had expired. But, Sir, I am informed by a gentleman of high re- spectability, holding a professorship in the University of Athens, that, although the fact does not appear in these papers, the Greek Government had offered, before the demand of Mr. Wyse, to waive its privilege of cutting off the arbitration, and to con- cede another term of three months for it. If this is not true, ( 32 ) let it be contradicted. If it is true, as I believe, you had not the shadow of a right to resort to reprisals in order to enforce Mr. Finlay's claim. But again I ask emphatically, why was it that the arbitration had not before the month of January reached its close ? On this point I complain very much of the indis- tinctness of the papers before us. I think Mr. Wyse says the want of progress was chiefly owing to the Greek Government : yet Mr. Finlay appears to me not to commit himself fully to that allegation. But however that may be, I beg the House to observe that Baroi? Gros, who is a man of character, and has acted as the representative of France, and whose word, I presume, will hardly be disputed on a matter of fact, states most distinctly that the reason why the arbitration had made no progress was this : that Mr. Finlay, who was the complaining party, and whose duty it was to make his case before the arbitrators, did not produce the necessary documents and proofs of his claim. The words of Baron Gros are to this effect : — " The act naming the arbiters was signed before a notary on the 6th of October, 1849." " However, no step onward has been taken. Mr. Finlay did not put the arbitrating tribunal in possession of information on the affair it is to decide, and all remains in statu quo.''* Do not therefore allege that it was the Greek Government which threw impediments in the way of the arbitration ; for Baron Gros, representing what I shall presume to call the im- partial agency of France in their affairs, distinctly affirms it was owing to Mr. Finlay. Upon the cause I scarcely venture to speculate ; yet, considering in retrospect all that has occurred, it is difficult to help supposing that Mr. Finlay had, in the * Baron Gros, March 24, 1850. Pieces, p. 108. ( 33 ) autumn, some glimpse of the likelihood that a British arma- ment might shortly appear near the Piraeus, and that more favourable terms might be obtained for his land by negotiation under the guns of that armament, than by the more usual method that had been agreed on ; and that in consequence he was not over anxious to press matters to a conclusion before the arbitrators. I come, however, now to the much more serious and much worse case of M. Pacifico. I shall again endeavour to avoid the vast mass of detail which this case comprises, because I hold that it must stand or fall by the principles applicable to the case of Mr Finlay. Had you the power of repairing to the courts of law for the reparation of the injury which he had suffered ? If you had, did you avail yourself of that power ? Otherwise you had yourselves alone, in the main point, to blame, and had no right to employ diplomatic agency for an end which non constat but that the regular course of law could have attained. M. Pacifico's principal claims were two. The first was for the sacking and plunder of his house : and that there may be no question as to my view of such proceedings, I at once declare that a detestable and execrable outrage was com- mitted upon him. Any attempt to palliate that outrage I cannot make. Further, I freely and entirely admit to you that the character of M. Pacifico does not matter to us one straw when we are considering his title to protection or to com- pensation, and that we must proceed to vindicate it in precisely the same manner, whether he be the best man or the worst man in the world. But at the same time I differ altogether from those who say that we have nothing to do with his ( 34 ) V character in this matter as it stands. I wish with all my heart that I could have avoided it : I do not find it a very agreeable subject to rake into. Then there is again the point of his religion. AVe are told by the supporters of the motion, that M. Pacifico is reviled, and injustice done him, because he is a Jew : but I do not hear any of its opponents found themselves on his religion as a reason either for oppressing him or for mistrusting him. I say fearlessly, whatever may be the differences of opinion in this House as to the admission of Jews to political privilege, that no person could dare to stand up among us and allege his religion as a ground for mistrust or for the denial of justice, without drawing down upon himself, from all quarters of the House alike, universal scorn and indignation. But M. Pacifico himself has compelled us to consider father narrowly the ques- tion of his character, because the whole of these enormous claims on his behalf, claims amounting to something like 30,000/. or 31,000/. out of a total of 32,000/. or 33,000/.— the whole of the allegations respecting them — which are of a nature, as I think, to strain to the uttermost the credulity of any man living — rest altogether on his personal credit. There may be one or two exceptions to such a remark, but they are so trivial and insignificant as to be little worth even this passing notice. It is not, with these trivial exceptions, upon the faith of docu- ments, not upon the faith of independent testimony, but upon this person's individual word, that Sir Edmund Lyons accepted — as in every case indeed he accepted from others, and in my judgment deserves the serious disapprobation of this House for having so accepted — the allegations wholesale as they were made, transmitted them without distinction or inquiry to the ( 35 ) noble Lord ; upon which the noble Lord, adopting them in the same inconsiderate and partial spirit, endeavoured to force them wholesale on the Government of Greece, so that in effect the unsupported allegation of M. David Pacifico has been the prime and main mover of the operations of the British fleet against Greece. Well then, Sir, we are bound to examine into the value of these allegations, as they are connected with the character of the party. And first, I think it my duty to remark that ten days ago a statement was made in terms the most distinct, before a full and distinguished concourse, and with the utmost notoriety, to the effect that a certain David Pacifico, of the same domicile, creed, and nation with our David Pacifico, did forge a bill for 600/. ; and the identity of the party was at least suggested. Was not that statement, thus openly made, susceptible of contradiction ? (Oh, oh !) Do those gentlemen who cry Oh ! mean to express their horror at tlie forgery of the bill — in which case I will cry Oh ! along with them — or at the notice taken of it, in which case I cannot ? Sir, I say it is a legitimate, and not only a legitimate, but a necessary matter for notice. I say this statement is a presumption, and, not having been denied, has become a strong presumption, though I do not say, even now, it is a demonstration, against M. Pacifico : and I say further, this is no question of holding a man innocent until he is found guilty — the people of Greece have been found guilty and mulcted on M. Pacifico's allegation, and he has received some hundred and forty thousand drachmas of their money, than which I take leave to say a greater iniquity has rarely been transacted under the face of the sun. If a man against whom there are prima facie reasons for questioning his D 2 ( 30 ) credit, comes before the Government of a State, and founds upon that credit enormous demands, to be enforced by military means against a friendly nation, I say it is your duty to dispose of those presumptions against him before you proceed to act upon his uncorroborated allegations. This charge then, it seems, has not been denied ; and if there was power to deny it, the fact that it has not been denied appears quite inexplicable. But, Sir, without resorting to a single hostile testimony, the very papers presented to us on behalf of M. Pacifico contain, in my judgment, too many presumptions of the same kind. And though his being a Jew is not a reason for debarring him from any of his just rights, yet neither is it a reason for exempting him from inquiry to which other persons would be subjected, irrespectively of their creed, under similar circumstances. Now, I ask the question, whether any one man in this House has read tlie celebrated inventory of M. Pacifico's furniture and effects without finding that it bears on the very face of it all the proofs of gross, palpable, and wilful exaggeration ? It is de- clared by Baron Gros, in language by no means too strong, to be a " deplorable exaggeration." It recites the great values of the articles of his furniture ; and then the learned member for Bath thinks that he has solved the difficulty by telling us that he has been to some upholsterer in London who said he could easily make a couch worth 170/., or even more. This is rare simplicity. Yes ! no doubt many a London upholsterer could make a couch worth 170/., and could get him a chest of drawers worth 53/., a carpet worth 60/., a card-table worth 24/., two mirrors worth 120/., and a bed worth 150/., and so forth : no doubt he could also purchase at shops in London of another class a china dinner-service worth 170/., and two tea ( 37 ) and coffee services worth 64/. All these coiikl be bought in London : you may find such articles in shops, and you may find some of them in private mansions, but then they are found inside the houses of men who outside those houses have 20,000/., 50,000/., or 100,000/. of income by the year. Then again you find recited as having been in the house of M. Pacifico all these articles and many more besides of the same high relative values, and the very first thing which must occur to a reader of that catalogue, and strike him as utterly marvellous, is, that he had not only the finest furniture and finest clothes in his house, but had no other kind of clothes or furniture. There was not an ordinary article of either from the top to the bottom of his house. Everything in it was a specimen of the richest and the rarest of its kind. AVhen I first heard this statement made in another place, I confess I thought it must have been a figure of rhetorical licence, and the House cannot now learn with more surprise than I did when I examined the document for myself, that the whole appliances and appointments of the mansion Pacifico were characterised by this astonishing luxury. And yet this man, who thus surpassed nearly all subjects and equalled almost any prince, according to his own account, in many articles of luxury, who has .5000/. worth of clothes, jewels, and furniture in his house, had not outside of it, except plate pledged to the Bank of Athens for 30/., which he had not been able to redeem, one single farthing ! The subject of M. Pacifico's claims may be a tedious one to the House, it has been so frequently under their notice, but I venture to express the opinion that the details of them, as they are con- tained in these volumes, would really aftbrd no bad material for some ingenious writer of Tomance. ( 38 ) So, Sir, having his house crammed full of fine furniture, fine clothes, and fine jewels, M. Pacifico was in all other respects a pauper : but this is not all ; it is plain that his furniture, as he has described it, was massive and solid in the highest degree. And yet we are told of its disappearing, its being broken to pieces and destroyed. It is not pretended that fire was used, but that a mob came into his house, and in an hour and a half, or, according to other places of the book, in three hours, destroyed these solid masses of mahogany. Why, Sir, they could not without fire thus have destroyed such articles, unless indeed they had eaten them. Sir, the whole statement bears on the very face of it outrageous fraud and falsehood. A man with this large mass of property in his house, carries on the trade of a money-lender upou a borrowed capital of 30/., and when his furniture is destroyed declares that he has not an obolus wherewith to buy his bread. No such case ever existed. But, besides allegations, there is, as I have said, some small documentary evidence produced by M. Pacifico. Let us use this evidence to test his character. The documents to wliich I shall refer are two. Never, until long after the fact — after you had used force against Greece — after Baron Gros had arrived in Athens — but then, at length, in order to overcome the in- credulity of Baron Gros, M. Pacifico was desired to produce evidence as to the value of his furniture. Well, Sir, he pro- duces, for one, a certain Signor Giacomo Capriles — evidently a man of high dignity, for, as he says of himself, " the Chevalier (Pacifico) had selected him to conduct his correspondence as his secretary, especially with the Minister at Lisbon ;" that is to say, Sir, in plain but, I trust, not profane language, Signor Giacomo Capriles was a consul's clerk. But Signor Giacomo ( 39 ) Capriles sets forth, that while he moved in this sphere of dig- nity, he enjoyed opportunities of " becoming acquainted with the noble and splendid mode of life practised in the house "* of M. Pacifico. You will, therefore, observe that this evidence bears out M. Pacifico's own representations. Before he was ruined by the Athenian mob, he was, by his own witness's tes- timony, practising a noble and splendid mode of life. Now, I turn to the second document : and, I must observe, that the Chevalier Pacifico has done wisely and well to eschew the pro- duction of much documentary evidence, and to trust to copious assertion ; for even in the few documents he has ventured to produce there is self-contradiction. At the time when the fleet of Sir William Parker commenced its operations against Greece you had had but one real document before you (for I cannot dignify with that name certain copies of letters certified, as Baron Gros says, only by M. Pacifico himself) ; and this was a notarial protest which he had lodged in Athens against the Portuguese Government on the 4th of January, 1845, for not paying him 26,000/. Now, in this document he himself speaks of his own condition and circumstances at the time to which the evidence of Capriles, cited already, referred ; and what he says is this — by withholding payment of these claims " the Portuguese Govern- ment have left me in indigence in a foreign land ! " So much for his veracity — for the trustworthiness of the man, upon whose unsupported allegations you have proceeded to violence against the Greek Government and people, and into whose character on that account, I say, it was both my right and my duty — and a nauseous and revolting duty it has been — to examine. * Further Correspondence (May 17), p. .'308. ( ^0 ) Well then, Sir, having this monstrous and wilful exaggera- tion in his hands, did M. Pacifico, or did he not, go before the tribunals, and exhaust the remedies afforded by the law, before betaking himself to diplomatic aid ? Sir, upon this point my learned friend (Mr. AYood), I must take leave to say, fell into serious error, for he entirely overlooked the distinction between the criminal justice of the country, which punishes offenders, and its civil justice, which gives redress to those who have suf- fered by the offence. M. Pacifico has indeed taken in some of us by his allegation that he went before the tribunals. It is true that he went, on the day of the riot, to the Procureur du Hoi, and moved him to institute an inquiry : but this inquiry had reference exclusively to a criminal prosecution, which has nothing whatever to do with civil redress. Had this prosecution been pushed with the utmost vigilance and rigour, and every one of those rascals who sacked his house been well punished, as they deserved to be, for the outrage they had committed, that would not have mended M. Pacifico's furniture, nor relieved liis beggary. He called in the Procureur du Roi just as in this country he might have called in the officer of police ; but the officer of police could have done nothing towards replenish- ing his empty purse. But why did these criminal proceedings fail ? It is alleged by M. Pacifico that the Greek authorities were unwilling to pursue the inquiry : and, I confess, I think it would have been more to their honour if they had prosecuted it with more vigour, notwithstanding the apprehensions which they might have entertained of any fresh outbreak of popular fana- ticism. But, on the other hand, I find no e-vidence that M. Pacifico himself gave them the aid which he might have afforded. The main question, however, is, could he, and did he, betake ( 41 ) himself to the courts of law for civil redress ? Of those who attacked his house in a tumultuous assemblage, each one, I apprehend, was fully liable for the acts of the body. Now, Sir, I challenge contradiction, when I say that M. Pacifico took no step whatever to obtain civil redress. He gives his pretended reasons : he states that he saw a great number of persons, some of them soldiers of the gendarmerie ; some of them belonging to families of wealth and station, particularly the sons of a minister of state, who, as the noble Lord (Palmerston) tells us, were not children, but young men of eighteen or twenty ; but a portion of them, as he alleges, were so poor that it would have been useless to proceed against them with a view to obtaining damages, and the rest were so rich and powerful that it would have been hopeless to expect a decision against them from the courts. But he does not deny that it was in his power to insti- tute a suit against these rich persons, whom he alleges that he saw, before the tribunals. Why did he not do it ? If he was poor and despised and a Jew, would he have had no aid fi-om the British embassy ? Could not the purse of this country have been freely opened if necessary, and the weight and influence of this country have been freely used in his behalf in the ])ath and by the methods of law, to obtain for a man who had suf- fered under an execrable outrage some reasonable redress ? No, Sir, there was a foregone determination not to call in the aid of the regular tribunals of the country. It was too notorious that all such complaints as these, be they what they might, and proceed they from whomsoever they might, were received without any scrutiny, as they arose, l)y the British minister, transmitted by him bodily as they stood to the noble Lord, accepted in like manner by the noble Lord, and then returned in the form of ( 42 ) official complaints and demands against the Government of Greece. And I must beg the House to hear what were the sentiments — I think, in the main, the just and reasonable sentiments — of the Government of Greece, with respect, not merely to the detail, but to the principles of this case ; for it is true that they ob- jected in principle, not to the claim for redress, but to the lodgment of that claim against the State in the first instance. M. Colocotroni wrote in these terms on the 28th of July, 1848, to Sir Edmund Lyons : — " You perceive, M. le Chevalier, that I do not enter upon the merits of the case ; it would not be competent for me to do so. That which one of my predecessors has maintained, that which I also think, is, that in order to give compensation, it is necessary that there should first be a sentence of a court; then, that the decisions of the judicial authority should not in their execution have been sufficiently supported by the competent authority ; and that the injured party should have no other resource save the interference of his representative, in order to obtain what a sentence had awarded to him. Diplomatic interference would in that case be well founded and expressly authorized by the law of nations. Let M. Pacifico then fulfil these indispensable formalities ; let him do what he ought to do ; and then he may be sure that his complaints will be listened to, and that the King's Government will interpose no delay in granting him, fi'om the proper quarter, the compensation which may be due to him," But steadily, and from the first, M. Pacifico eluded going before the tribunals, where his allegations would have been sifted and his fraud exposed ; and he was abetted in this mode of proceeding by the British Minister. On the 4th of April the ( 43 ) outrage happened ; on the 7th M. Pacifico invoked the aid of Sir E. Lyons ; it will hardly he contended that within those three days he had tried what the law could do for him, and had found it fail. One last authority I will quote to you, to prove that the Greek Government were right, and that he ought to have gone into the courts of lav/ ; a high authority ; the authority of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. On the 12th of October, 1847, M, Pacifico produced a story of another out- rage, to all appearance twin brother to the first. Having said this, I need not give the details.* It was received, adopted, and transmitted, by Sir E. Lyons, in his invariable manner, without scrutiny or question. But when it came to the hands of the noble Lord, he returned this, as I think, most proper and reasonable reply ; it is dated Dec. 18, 1847 : — " I have to instruct you to cause a prosecution to be insti- tuted against the offenders, in the name of M. Pacifico, but at the expense of Her Majesty's Government." That letter, when received at Athens, instead of being obeyed, was simply referred to M. Pacifico. In this case, as you see, which, trumpery as it was, had the aspect of exact resemblance to that of April 4, the British Minister was or- dered, on his own responsibility, to institute the suit, to choose the counsel, and to back, of course if necessary, with the dignity of his position, an effort to obtain justice in the regular course. But M. Pacifico was not to be seduced ; he well knew where his best market lay. He wrote to the British Minister to say there was not one, no, not one member of the Greek bar who would dare to take up the cause for the poor despised Pacifico. This is strange enough : it is yet more strange that Sir E. * February Papers, p. 00. ( 44 ) Lyons actually returned this false and irrelevant plea of M. Paci- fico as his sole answer to the positive orders of the Secretary of State : it is most strange of all, that the Secretary of State, upon receiving this most irregular and improper answer, acqui- esced in it, and from that day to this we hear no more of resorting to the Greek tribunals. Now, Sir, I simply allege, quoting the authority of the noble Lord, as shown in his directions with regard to the mock affair of the 12th of October that the same course ought to have been enjoined and enforced with regard to the real affair of the 4th of April ; and I add, that if in conducting the foreign policy of this country we are to pay no regard to the laws and the tribunals of other nations, we have no title to expect that they shall pay any regard to ours. Sir, as to the second main claim of M. Pacifico, that in respect of certain documents which, as he asserted, proved his demand upon Portugal, I cordially subscribe to the language of Baron Gros on the 19th of last March ; it is not even of a nature to bear discussion. It is a claim for no less than 26,000/., alleged to have been due for a great number of years, for some twenty years, more or less ; with respect to which, as Baron Gros observes, this British subject had never once in- voked the aid of the British ambassador at Lisbon. AVe are told, indeed, that with a singular irregularity he had once asked Sir Edmund Lyons to write to Sir William Parker about these claims : Sir Edmund Lyons did it ; but Sir William Parker, then in the Tagus, knew his duty better, and replied (we are told), that the time was not convenient for naming them. The noble Lord, indeed, on receiving the account of this monstrous demand, of which Sir E. Lyons in his usual ( 45 ) fashion said, " I have every reason to believe that M. Pacifico's claim is just and proper,"* was a little staggered, and gently suggested that the claimant ought to produce some documents or testimony, or at all events to make a clear statement of particulars ; f but he remains contented with the trumpery reply that the documents had been scattered by the war in Portugal, or destroyed in the pillage of his house. But Baron Gros makes this observation, and I submit that it is quite unanswerable : — " Since M. Pacifico protests in 1845 against the Portuguese Government, that it has not ' yielded to his reasonable de- . mands,' there must necessarily exist in the archives of the Office of Foreign Affairs, or in that of the Finances at Lisbon, a demand for liquidation transmitted thither by M. Pacifico, and by consequence an authentic copy of the documents which served to establish his right and to make good the value of his claims." | But yet. Sir, notwithstanding not only the absence of posi- tive proof, but every presumption of falsehood and imposture, these enormous demands have been adopted by the Govern- ment of Great Britain, the naval power of Great Britain has been put in action to enforce them, and they have been urged, too, upon Greece in their entirety. (Lord Palmerston ex- pressed his dissent.) Yes, Sir, in their entirety. The noble Lord tells Sir E. Lyons on the 2nd of February, 1848, § that he had judged rightly in making a general demand for the whole upon the Greek Government, leaving it to the Greek Government to disprove any portion of it if they could. The noble Lord may shake his head, but that motion, however * February Papers, p. Sf). t IWJ-. P- 92. I Pieces, p. \M. § February Piipers, p. 93. ( 46 ) potent, will not remove written words from off the pages of the volumes that he has laid before us. These claims, I repeat, were urged without abatement by Mr. Wyse in his peremptory demand of January 16, and these were enforced by the action of the fleet. I do not say that a readiness to reduce them has not been declared at a later date ; but I quote the very words used by Mr. Wyse so lately as the 8th of March, 1850, nearly two months after the use of force, when he relates his first interview with Baron Gros, and says of all the claims in common, " I begged it to be distinctly understood, that I had no instruction to go into any discussion as to the nature or amount of these claims, or any authority to make any concessions or modifications." And now I think the noble Lord will not shake his head again, when I affirm before this House, that this huge imposture was adopted in the mass : that it was placed as it stood before the Greek Government among those demands which they were required to satisfy within twenty- four hours : that it constituted of itself something like five- sixths of the entire demand upon Greece : and when I support this assertion by a reference to the amount of seizures made by the fleet, because, while the whole of the other claims did not reach more than some 6000Z. or 7000/., the value of all the seizures made, as far as it can be estimated by an average founded on the valuation of those at Corfu,* was for the forty- one vessels, without reckoning cargoes, about 82,000Z. Sir, I assure the House that I turn from this subject with a relief and satisfaction as great as theirs. I have thought it right in a case of this serious nature to make the charge against the noble Lord as clear, definite, and * May Papers, p. 164. ( 47 ) circumstantial as possible. I do not wish to insinuate any- thing ; my desire is only to meet the noble Lord in open war- fare ; and if we, who are now in conflict with him, were capable of entertaining any different wish, I must say that the manner in which the noble Lord himself has fought his battle in this House, would have set us the example of the spirit and the temper in which we should proceed. I therefore thus sum up ray complaints of the noble Lord in terms the most explicit : I affirm, first (and this I have illustrated particularly by the case of Stellio Sumachi), that your demands, even if they had been just, were urged in a tone and manner wholly unjustifiable. I affirm, secondly, that you urged as just, and that upon a State both feeble in itself, and specially entitled to your regard as one of its Protecting Powers, demands which bore upon the very face of them the abundant proofs of fraud, falsehood, and absurdity. I affirm, lastly, that instead of trusting and trying the tribunals of the country, and employing diplomatic agency simply as a supplemental resource, you have interposed at once in the cases of Mr. Finlay and M. Pacifico the authority of foreign power, in contravention both of the particular sti- pulations of the Treaty in force between this country and Greece, and of the general principles of the law of nations ; and have thus set the mischievous example of abandoning the methods of law and order, in order to repair to those of force. Sir, there is another wholly distinct question, with respect to the little islands of Cervi and Sapienza, which must not be passed by. It involves a matter of the highest importance, namely, the principles on which we are to proceed towards co- guaranteeing Powers in subjects falling within the scope of the guarantee. ( 48 ) Sir, I complain that there has been unbounded mystification in regard to Cervi and Sapienza. We claim them on the part of the Ionian Islands. Greece claims them as a portion of her territory, of which the integrity was guaranteed by England, France, and Russia jointly. We are not able to deny that the question of dominion over these islands is a territorial question to be settled by the three Powers, and ought not to be touched by any one of them before the others have heard of it. There is great debate upon the question whether the claim to these islands was one of those included within Mr. Wyse's note of the 16th of January. M. Londos asserted that it was so in- cluded ; and, from evidence not contained in these papers, I think it possible that he may be right : but I pass that by. Mr. Wyse treats the assertion of M. Londos as a gross misre- presentation. He says everywhere that the case of Cervi and Sapienza was one entirely separate ; and, in all the correspon- dence with Russia and with France on this subject, they are given to understand, or left to infer, that we had done no act which was at variance with their rights as co-guaranteeing Powers, But why all this debate about the note of the 16th of January ? Suppose we are right in our doctrine about that note ; what will the House of Commons think when they are told that these papers contain anterior and conclusive evidences of the wrong done by the noble Lord ? The letter of orders to Sir William Parker, indeed, as my right honourable friend (Sir James Graham) observed, does not appear (I know not why) in these papers : but you will find in them a letter written by order of Earl Grey, from Mr. Elliot to Mr. Ad- dington, as follows : — ( 49 ) "Sir, " I am directed by Earl Grey to acknowledge your let- ters of the 12th and 27th ultimo, containing further intelligence respecting Cervi and Sapienza ; and I am to acquaint you that, in accordance with the suggestion of Viscount Palmerston, in- structions have been given to tlve Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands to adopt the necessary measures, in concert with the Admiral, as soon as he can conveniently detach a por- tion of his force for the purpose, to take possession of those islands, if they should not have been evacuated by the Greek authorities at the time when he receives his instructions. " I am, &c. (Signed) " Fredk. Elliot." This letter is dated the 6th of October, 1849. Is it to be vindicated or is it to be given up to censure ? What judg- ment is the House of Commons to pass upon this grave trans- action? For the sake of these worthless islands you impe- riously violated a right clear as the sun, the right of France and Russia to be consulted upon every question touching the integrity of Greek territory. You ordered possession to be taken of these islands months before France or Russia heard anything about it. And how were you saved from the conse- quences of so outrageous a proceeding ? By the greater dis- cretion of your agents on the spot. Sir William Parker and Mr. Wyse took it upon themselves to suspend the execution of your orders ; and it is not until very lately that you have even given your reluctant approval to that suspension, which has been the means of securing you from a most threatening crisis. E ( 50 ) Sir, in turning to the question of our relations with France, as they have been compromised by tlie Greek affairs, I must set out with saying, that, as it appears to me, we are under very great obligations to that country. First, for the offer of her mediation or good offices, and secondly, for the spirit in which she proceeded to carry that offer into execution. For on the 16th of February, 1850, the noble Lord (Palmerston) thus stated to Mr. Wyse his opinion of Baron Gros : — " Baron Gros is a man of sense, and of a conciliatory disposition, and the choice seems to be a good one." You are, I think, further obliged to France for the great efforts she made to meet your wishes in the consideration of these claims ; because I think it quite plain that if France had had to arbitrate, some 60,000 drachmas, or little over 2000Z., would have been all that she could have awarded to us. Now I do not think that the noble Lord has duly reciprocated these feelings on the part of France, or has done them justice in his own conduct. He did not, in my opinion, at any time keep Mr. Wyse properly informed as to the understanding on which it had been settled here that affairs should proceed at Athens. I will not dwell only upon the circumstance that the noble Lord could not find means for communicating to Mr. Wyse before the 17th of April what had been arranged between him and M. Drouyn de I'Huys on the 9th — though, from what we know of the noble Lord, I should have thought he could have compassed greater things than this ; nor upon the circumstance that when the 1 7th arrived, he did not then think proper to make a communica- tion. Even before the 9th of April, and long before it, he had arranged with the ambassador of France that it should rest wholly with the French negotiator at Athens to fix the termi- ( ^^1 ) nation of his own intervention, and that, until he announced it, the action of the squadron should remain absolutely sus- pended. The noble Lord himself has told us that M. Drouyn de I'Huys did not misunderstand him ; but when Baron Gros made known to Mr. Wyse that definition of his powers which had been transmitted to him on the authority of M. Drouyn de I'Huys, Mr. Wyse was utterly at fault, and on the 15tli of April he writes to the noble Lord : — *' I have not had the honour to receive any such instructions to this effect, nor am I aware how far such a case as that in which Baron Gros desires to stand has been contemplated by your Lordship."* And the same ignorance on the part of Mr. Wyse, due to the noble Lord, on the occasion of the arrival of the Vauban, led to the final rupture, on wiiich I will not dwell as to parti- culars ; but I will state in passing that, with respect to the dispute about the communications at Athens upon the arrival of the Vauban, there is no charge (as I think) affecting the honour either of Mr. Wyse or of Baron Gros ; and, resuming the main subject, I aflarm that these limited communications to Mr. Wyse respecting the powers of Baron Gros give rise to the supposition, from which I think the noble Lord has yet to clear himself, that while he was negotiating at home with every profession and appearance of desiring an amicable settlement, he was not very unwilling that the matter should again go to the issue of force abroad. But I pass to other matter, and I blame the noble Lord for having haggled with France upon the difference between the Convention of London and that of Athens, and for having * May Papers, p. 300. K 2 ( 52 ) attempted to evade acknowledging the extent of that difference. I think that the course he pursues in this part of the corre- spondence was quite unworthy of the courage which he shows in this House. In more than one dispatch he struggles to make light of the differences between the two Conventions ; says Her Majesty's Government have scarcely any reason for preferring either one of them in the abstract to the other, but suggests gently that the one — namely, that of Athens — has taken effect, and it seems, therefore, a pity to disturb it. Now, Sir, I will call upon the House to give marked attention to this difference, which the noble Lord treats as so trivial. It pertains chiefly to that old subject of the claims on Portugal. By the Convention of Athens, not only was there a deposit of no less than 150,000 drachmas, which of itself tended to produce an idea that there was some considerable body and substance in the claims (which idea might be very operative upon the judg- ment,) but, what was still more important, a provision that the examination of the claims, and the decision of the amount, should be in the hands of the two Governments of England and Greece. Sir, we can all judge what that would mean in prac- tice, while the recollections of January and April were yet fresh, and under the guns of Admiral Parker's squadron. It would mean that the claims should be settled by the prepon- derating influence of England. But very different is the Con- vention of London. First of all, it requires that M. Pacifico shall prove his loss, not, as you had contended, that the Greek Government should disprove it ; secondly, there shall be no deposit. But the difference on which I rely is this : the inves- tigation of the claims is to be conducted, not between strong England and weak Greece alone, but between strong England ( 53 ) and weak Greece, with strong France, not to render good offices, reducible to nothing, but to arbitrate and determine between them. That is the difference of which the noble Lord has made so light — a difference of provisions reaching over a claim of 26,000/., or some five-sixths of all he had demanded. And, Sir, I do not scruple to express the opinion that, under the arrangement as it now stands, the claims of M. Pacifico for his Portuguese documents are virtually dead, and that if he sold them by auction no man would be found to make a bid for them. But the French Government, unhappily, could not be brought to see the almost identity of the two Conventions : they pressed the noble Lord hard and closely upon that subject, and after various attempts at escape, he was compelled to submit, I will say, to the humiliation which he has brought upon himself, and not only upon himself, but upon his country, resorting to violence in the first instance, then failing to fulfil his understanding with France, and so permitting a second resort to violence to occur at Athens ; and then being com- pelled by France, who, I must say, has justly vindicated her offended dignity, to undo what his armaiuent had done, and to accept the Convention of London even after that of Athens had been carried, so far as time permitted, into full effect. But, Sir, it is not only with France that we have had to deal : what is the lesson that Count Nesselrode has read to us ? The gentlemen of liberal politics, who have such favour to the noble Lord (Palmerston), must surc^ly, of all things, most desire, that England should not be humbled in the eyes of a foreign Power ; they must surely also say, and I synij)athise with them, "If we are to receive public lessons u])on our conduct, let us receive them tVoni lliorc who have from intaucy drunk the ( 54 ) milk and breathed the breath of freedom like ourselves." Not such has been our fate under the unhappy auspices of the noble Lord, And now, Sir, I will read, at this late hour ; and read, too, without apology. These grave and pregnant words of Count Nesselrode are words that may sting you while you hear them ; but to them, at least, you will not listen, as you justly might to me, with indifference. On the 19th of February last, Count Nesselrode thus writes to the noble Lord : — " The reception which may be given to our representations may have considerable influence on the nature of the relations we are henceforth to expect from England ; let me add, on the position towards all the Powers, great or small, whose coast exposes them to a sudden attack. It remains, indeed, to be seen whether Great Britain, abusing the advantages which are afforded her by her immense maritime superiority — " (Interruption from conversation among some honoui'able mem- bers.) "\Miat, Sir, are there then gentlemen in this House who can pursue their idle chat, while words like these are sounding in their ears ? If there are, I must tell them frankly, that I am little mortified at their withholding fi-om myself the compliment of their attention. And now I will resume : — " It remains, indeed, to be seen whether Great Britain, abusing the advantages which are afforded her by her immense maritime superiority, intends henceforward to pursue an isolated policy, without caring for those engagements which bind her to the other Cabinets ; whether she intends to detach herself from every obligation, as well as from all community of action, and to authorise each great Power, whenever it shall find occasion, to recognise towards the weak no other rule but its own will, no other right but its own material force." ( 55 ) That is the lesson which has been read to you — which has been read to you justly — which has been read to you without reply ; and this lesson, so read to you without reply, is a lesson from the mouth of the Autocrat of all the Russias. And now. Sir, what compensation have we for this ? Why, we had the compensation of hearing a great speech from the noble Lord ; and, Sir, I for one assure the House that, as far as it goes, I do not undervalue that compensation. 1 respect- fully assure the noble Lord, if he will permit me, that no man who sits in this House can be more sensible of the masterly character of that speech, alike remarkable as a physical and as an intellectual effect : no man, even of those who sit beside him, listened with keener admiration and delight, while, from the dusk of one day until the dawn of the next, the noble Lord defended his policy, and through the livelong summer's night the British House of Commons, crowded as it was, hung upon his lips. But in what remains, in the endeavours to canvass the noble Lord's general conduct, I must be brief. I will not at this time follow the noble Lord into the discussion of all those particular instances of his policy on which he dwelt in reply to my right honourable friend the member for Ripon (Sir J. Graham), and which, I do not doubt, will be treated of by others who may follow me in the debate, and who are much more competent to discuss them. " But there is plainly a great question of principle at issue between us, to which I cannot hesitate to advert. This is a matter in which mere words and mere definitions convey little meaning ; but the idea which I have in my mind is that commonly expressed by the word non- interference or non-intervention. Such a word, apart from all ( 56 ) cavils as to exact definition, does convey a principle, a temper, a course of policy, which is practically understood and prac- tically approved by the people of England. Sir, so strong is this House, with a strength founded both in its nature as a representative body and in its general conduct, that it can sometimes even afford to deviate a little from the true line of action ; its credit with the people may suffer some deduction, and yet remain in great vigour. You may, I say, afford the loss, but certain I am that you will incur such a loss, if you pass any vote which shall seem to disparage that principle and policy, which shall be calculated to impress the people with the belief that you are infected with a mania and an itch for managing the affairs of other nations, and that you are not contented with your own weighty and honourable charge. The right honourable gentleman who spoke last has put a question which I will answer. He says, if we are not satisfied with the rule of his noble friend's proceedings, what is the antagonistic principle which we advance ? I answer him in that one word to which I have referred : it is the principle of non-intervention in the domestic affairs of other countries. I subscribe to those declarations of general maxims that fell from him ; everything depends upon the tone and spirit of the man who has to act upon them. They are in themselves but vague abstractions : they acquire life, and weight, and vigour (mly as they take effect in administrative acts. Greatly as I respect in general the courage, the energy, the undoubted patriotism of the noble Lord, I accuse him of this, that his policy is marked and characterised by what I must call a spirit of interference. I hold that this is a fundamental faidt : a fault not to be excused. The noble Lord tells us, indeed, ( ^7 ) that he does not go abroad to propagate extreme opinions in other countries, and that I do not for a moment doubt. I do not doubt he has the feeling — which must, indeed, be the feeling of every Englishman, and especially of every Secretary of State in England for Foreign Aifairs— which has been the feeling, I am convinced, of the various distinguished persons who have held that office since the peace, of Lord Aberdeen, of Mr. Canning, and of Lord Londonderry likewise ; I mean a sincere desire that when a legitimate opportunity creates itself, and makes it our duty, in conformity with the principles of public law, to exercise a British influence in the regulation o^ the internal affairs of other countries, that influence should be exercised in the spirit which we derive from our own free and stable form of Government, and in the sense of extending to such countries, as far as they are able and desirous to receive them, institutions akin to those of which we know from experi- ence the inestimable blessings. Upon this there can be no difference of opinion among us ; no man who sits here can be the friend of absolute power any more than of licence and disorder. There can be no difference upon the proposition that, considering how the nations of Europe are associated together, and, in some sense, organized as a whole, such occasions will of necessity from time to time arise ; but the difference among us arises upon this question : Are we, or are we not, to go abroad and make occasions for the propagation even of the political opinions which we consider to be sound ? I say we are not. I complain of the noble Lord that he is disposed to make these occasions : nay, he boasts that he makes them. He refers back to his early policy in Spain and Portugal, and he say;^ it was to us a matter of very small ( 58 ) nioniout wliotlier Portugal were ruled by Dom Miguel or Donna Maria ; whether the Crown of Spain went to Don Carlos or to Donna Isabella ; but then, he says, there were opportunities of propagating the political sentiments which we think sound, and therefore we did what otherwise it might not have been wise to do. This doctrine, Sir, of the noble Lord is, I admit, a most alluring doctrine. We are soothed and pleased with denunciations the most impartial alike of tyranny and of anarchy ; and assured, I doubt not with truth, that the only part played by the noble Lord is that of the moderate reformer. Sir, I object to the propagandism even of moderate reform. In proportion as the representation is alluring, let us be on our guard. The noble Lord lays a snare for us, into which, as Englishmen, glorying in our country and its laws, we are but too likely to fall. We must remember that if we claim the right not only to accept, where they come spon- taneously and by no act of ours, but to create and to catch at, opportuities for spreading in other countries the opinions of our own meridian, we must allow to every other nation, every other Government, a similar licence both of judgment and of action. What is to be the result ? That if in every country the name of England is to be the symbol and the nucleus of a party, the name of France, of Russia, or of Austria may and will be the same. And are you not, then, laying the founda- tion of a system hostile to the real interests of freedom, and destructive of the peace of the world ? Sir, we hear something in this debate of success as not being the true test of the excellence of public measures. And God forbid that I should say it is their true test, when you are in your own sphere, minding your own affairs. But when you think •( 5i) ) fit to go out of that sphere and to manage those of other people for them, then I do think success throws much light upon the examination of the question whether your intervention was wise and just. Interference in foreign countries, Sir, according to my mind, should be rare, deliberate, decisive in character, and effectual for its end. Success will usually show that you saw your way, and that the means you used were adapted and adequate to their purpose. Such, if I read them aright, were the acts done by Mr. Canning in the nature of intervention : they were few, and they were effectual — effectual whether when, in his own noble language, he " called the new world into existence to redress the balance of the old," or when, founding himself on the obligations of public law, he dispatched the troops of England to prevent the march of a Spanish force into Portugal. I do not find the same character in the inter- ventions of the noble Lord opposite. I cannot look upon all that has taken place during the four years which are the subject-matter of this motion, without seeing a rash desire, an habitual desire, of interference — a disposition to make the occasions of it, and, that which will always follow, a disposition, in making them, to look too slightly at the restraints imposed by the letter and spirit of the law of nations. I will confine myself to a single illustration. We have heard from the noble Lord what he has to say in vindication of his offer, or at least of his suggestion, of the Sicilian crown to the Duke of Genoa. Could any dispassionate hearer conceive his defence to be a good one ? He took credit for this : that his offer to recognise the title was contingent upon the Duke of Genoa's obtaining positive pos- session of the Crown of Sicily. Sir, I never heard of any royalty, of any government except two ; either one dcjurc, or at the least ( ^0 ) one (le facto. I cannot give the noble Lord much credit for not having recognised a title which, beyond all dispute, existed neither dejure nor de facto. Sir, I protest against these antici- pations of occasion, on every ground both of policy and of justice. The general doctrine is that we are not entitled to recognise a Government, far less to suggest one, until we see it established, and have presumptive evidence that it springs from a national source. If we move without that evidence, and broach some favourite scheme of our own, it becomes the sport and the shuttlecock of circumstances, and we become so along with it. I am the more willing to argue this principle in the instance of Naples, because the spirit of Neapolitan institutions is so far removed from that of our own, that the prejudices of every one who hears me must be unfavourable ; and particu- larly must our sympathies be diverted from that Government, as respects the particular case of Sicily. The more we may be tempted to sympathise with Sicily, the less we admire Nea- politan institutions and usages of government, the more tena- cious, as I contend, we should be of our duty to do them full justice — the more careful that we do not, because we differ from them, impair in their case the application of those great and sacred principles that govern and harmonise the intercourse between States, and from which you never can depart, without producing mischiefs by the violation of the rule, a thousand-fold greater than any benefit you may promise yourself to achieve in the special instance. I say, therefore, that the noble Vis- count, when he thus anticipated the dismemberment of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, pointing to that as likely to occur which had not occurred, and which was not to occur, and in which he had no legitimate concern, did an act which brcatlied ( Gl ) the spirit of hostility towards a friendly Power, an act at variance with duty, and an act ill adapted to advance the true interests of freedom in that or in any other country. And if. Sir, departing from the higher ground of duty and of justice, I must invoke considerations of prudence also, I say that we, the Parliament of this widely extended empire, which has its innumerable limbs dispersed through the wide world from one of its extremities to the other, are not in a condition to deal lightly with those laws which prohibit allied nations from seeking to compass the dismemberment of one another. We might conceive a case. AVe might suppose that in the insur- rection of Canada a portion of the province might for a time have been in possession of the insurgents : what view should we have taken of the conduct of a foreign Power which, while the contest was still doubtful, and before our gallant troops should have shown their inability to hold the soil they were defending for their sovereign and their country, had fore&hown events as yet contingent, perhaps never to be realised, and had presumed to indicate to the people, who were still no more than insurgents, the choice of a particular head or a particular form of government ? Sir, I am well prepared, following the example of other and more distinguished men, to bear my share in the abuse which, I doubt not, may attend the part which we shall take on this occasion. I am prepared to hear it said that we are espousing the cause, as against England, of countries other than our own ; that we cabal against the noble Lord because lie is the pro- tector of Englishmen domiciled abroad. Sir, I deny that he has truly protected Englishmen by the course he has pursued. I hold that no Minister in his place can really give to English- ( 62 ) men resident in foreign lands either an effectual or a permanent protection, except by a careful observance of the principles, that have been consecrated by the universal assent of mankind for governing the conduct of nation to nation. In vain do you talk to us of a knot of foreign conspirators : the only knot of foreign conspirators against the noble Lord, is the combined opinion of civilized Europe. In vain you talk of the two kinds of revolutionists — the revolutionists who will have too much reform for the noble Lord's taste, and the revolutionists who will have too little. These, he says, are the pei*sons opposed to him and his moderate reforms, and all on grounds petty, paltry, narrow, and personal ; but under his description there will, I fear, be found to fall nearly every party in nearly every country of Christendom. Sir, great as is the influence and power of Britain, she cannot affbrd to follow, for any length of time, a self-isolating policy. It would be a contravention of the law of nature and of God, if it were possible for any single nation of Christendom to emancipate itself from the obligations which bind all other nations, and to arrogate, in the face of mankind, a position of peculiar privilege. And now I will grapple with the noble Lord on the ground which he selected for himself, in the most triumphant portion of his speech, by his reference to those emphatic words, Civis RomaniLs sum. He vaunted, amidst the cheers of his supporters, that under his administration an Eng- lishman should be, throughout the world, what the citizen of Rome had been. AVhat then, Sir, was a Roman citizen ? He was the member of a privileged caste ; he belonged to a con- quering race, to a nation that held all others bound down by the strong arm of power. For him there was to be an excep- ( fi3 ) tional system of law ; for him principles were to be asserted, and by him rights were to be enjoyed, that were denied to the rest of the world. Is such, then, the view of the noble Lord, as to the relation that is to subsist between England and other countries ? Does he make the claim for us, that we are to be uplifted upon a platform high above the standing-ground of all other nations ? It is, indeed, too clear, not only from the expressions, but from the whole spirit of the speech of the noble Viscount, that too much of this notion is lurking in his mind ; that he adopts in part that vain conception, that we, forsooth, have a mission to be the censors of vice and folly, of abuse and imperfection, among the other countries of the world ; that we are to be the universal schoolmasters, and that all those who hesitate to recognise our office, can be governed only by pre- judice or personal animosity, and should have the blind war of diplomacy forthwith declared against them. And certainly if the business of a Foreign Secretary properly were to carry on such diplomatic wars, all must admit that the noble Lord is a master in the discharge of his functions. AVhat, Sir, ought a Foreign Secretary to be ? Is he to be like some gallant knight at a tournament of old, pricking forth into the lists, armed at all points, confiding in his sinews and his skill, challenging all comers for the sake of honour, and having no other duty than to lay as many as possible of his adversaries sprawling in the dust ? If such is the idea of a good Foreign Secretary, I for one would vote to the noble Lord his present appointment for his life. But, Sir, I do not understand the duty of a Secretary for Foreign Affairs to be of such a character. I understand it to be his duty to conciliate peace with dignity. I think it to be the very first of all his duties studiously to observe, and to ( 01 ) exalt in honour among mankind, that great code of principles M-hich is termed the law of nations, which the learned memhev for Sheffield has found, indeed, to he very vague in their nature, and greatly dependent on the discretion of each par- ticular country ; but in which I find, on the contrary, a great and noble monument of human wisdom, founded on the combined dictates of reason and experience — a precious inheritance be- queathed to us by the generations that have gone before us, and a firm foundation on which we must take care to build whatever it may be our part to add to their acquisitions, if, in- deed, we wish to maintain and to consolidate the brotherhood of nations, and to promote the peace and welfare of the world. Sir, the English people, whom we are here to represent, are indeed a great and noble people ; but it adds nothing to their greatness or their nobleness, that when we assemble in this place we should trumpet forth our virtues in elaborate pane- gyrics, and designate those who may not be wholly of our mind as a knot of foreign conspirators. When, indeed, I heard the learned gentleman the member for Sheffield glorifying us, to- gether with the rest of the people of this counti-y, and an- nouncing that we soared in unapproachable greatness, and the like, I confess I felt that eulogies such as those savoured some- what of bombast ; and thought it much to the honour of this House that the praises thus vented seemed to fall so flat ; that the cookery of the honourable and learned gentleman was evi- dently seasoned beyond the capacity and relish of our palates. It is this insular temper, and this self-glorifying tendency, which the policy of the noble Lord, and the doctrines of his sup- porters, tend so much to foment, and which has given to that policy the quarrelsome character that marks some of their ( 65 ) speeches ; for indeed it seems as if there lay upon the noble Lord an absolute necessity for quarrelling. No doubt it makes a difference, what may be the institutions of one country or another. If he can, he will quarrel with an absolute monarchy. If he cannot find an absolute monarchy for the purpose, he will quarrel with one which is limited. If he cannot find even that, yet, sooner than not quarrel at all, he will quarrel with a re- public. He has lately shown us this in the case of France : he showed it once before in the case of America. The tenacious memory of the noble Lord reached back to transactions many years farther off than 1843 : he referred to the foundation of the throne of Belgium, which was under Lord Grey's govern- ment, and had nothing to do with the present motion ; but I am sorry it should not have retained what happened to him in 1843 respecting the Ashburton treaty, when this House, by its vote upon that treaty, read him a lesson of which he seems not to have reaped the benefit. The House of Coriimons at that time had the good sense to take a dispassionate view of a question depending between ourselves and a foreign country, and, re- jecting the advice of the noble Lord, which must have led to a rupture between the two Powers, showed that it had no fear even of being thought afraid. Sir, I say the policy of the noble Lord tends to encourage and confirm in us that which is our besetting fault and weak- ness, both as a nation and as individuals. Let an Englishman travel where he will as a private person, he is found in general to be upright, high-minded, brave, liberal, and true ; but with all this, foreigners are too often sensible of something that galls them in his presence, and I apprehend it is because he has too great a tendency to self-esteem —too little disposition to regard F ( 66 ) the feelings, the habits, and the ideas of others. Sir, I find this characteristic too plainly legible in the policy of the noble Lord. I doubt not that use will be made of our present debate to work upon this peculiar weakness of the English mind. The people will be told that those who oppose the motion are governed by personal motives, have no regard for public principle, no en- larged ideas of national policy. You will take your case before a favourable jury, and you think to gain your verdict ; but. Sir, let the House of Commons be warned — let it warn itself — against all illusions. There is in this case also a course of appeal. There is an appeal, such as the honourable and learned member for Sheffield has made, irom the one House of Parliament to the other. There is a further appeal from this House of Parliament to the' people of England ; but, lastly, there is also an appeal from the people of England to the general sentiment of the civilized world ; and I, for my part, am of opinion that England will stand shorn of a chief part of her glory and her pride if she shall be found to have separated her- self, through the policy she pursues abroad, from the moral supports which the general and fixed convictions of mankind aflford — if the day shall come in which she may continue to ex- cite the wonder and the fear of other nations, but in which she shall have no part in their affection and their regard. No, Sir, let it not be so : let us recognise, and recognise with fi'ankness, the equality of the weak with the strong ; the prin- ciples of brotherhood among nations, and of their sacred inde- pendence. ^Mien we are asking for the maintenance of the rights which belong to our fellow-subjects resident in Greece, let us do as we would be done by, and let us pay all the respect to a feeble State, and to the infancy of free institutions, which ( 67 ) we should desire and should exact from others towards their maturity and their strength. Let us refrain from all gratuitous and arbitrary meddling in the internal concerns of other States, even as we should resent the same interference if it were attempted to be practised towards ourselves. If the noble Lord has indeed acted on these principles, let the Government to which he belongs have your verdict in its favour ; but if he has departed from them, as I contend, and as I humbly think and urge upon you that it has been but too amply proved, then the House of Commons must not shrink from the performance of its duty, under whatever expectations of momentary obloquy or reproach, because we shall have done what is right ; we shall enjoy the peace of our own consciences, and receive, whetlier a little sooner or a little later, the approval of the public voice, for having entered our solemn protest against a system of policy which we believe, nay, which we know, whatever may be its first aspect, must of necessity in its final results be unfavourable even to the security of British subjects resident abroad, which it professes so much to study — unfavourable to the dignity of the country, which the motion of the learned member asserts that it preserves — and equally unfavourable to that other great and sacred object which also it suggests to our recollection, the maintenance of peace with the nations of the world. 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