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Mr. Canning, then, had either to allow the Russian cabinet to pursue its unavowed policy uncontrolled, or to limit its action by connecting himself with the policy which it professed. The contest, it was evident, after the first successes that had attended the Porte’s revolted subjects, would not be allowed to terminate in their subjugation. With the co-operation, or without the co-operation of Great Britain, the Morea was certain to be wrested from the Turks. To stand by neutral, calm spectators of what was certain to take place was to lose our consideration equally with the Ottoman empire and with Christian Europe, and to give to the Government which acted alone in this emergency, as the representative of an universal feeling, an almost universal prestige. But if our interference was expedient, the only question that could arise was as to the time and manner of our interfering.
As early as 1824 Count Nesselrode had had a plan for placing Greece in the situation of the Principalities of the Danube, and the great powers of Europe were invited to consider the subject. Mr. Canning was not averse to this project; but he hoped little from the discordant counsels of the five or six governments called upon to accept it; more especially as both Greece and Turkey, to whom it had become accidentally known, were equally dissatisfied; and he was therefore very properly unwilling to bind his government by a share in conferences which he foresaw were doomed to be fruitless. In short, the negotiators met and separated, and the negotiation failed.
But, in the meantime, affairs had been becoming every day more and more interesting and critical. On the one hand the sympathy for the Greeks had been increased by the unexpected resolution they had displayed; they had a loan, a government, and able and enterprising foreigners had entered into their service. So much was encouraging for their cause. But on the other hand the Egyptian army of Ibrahim Pasha had achieved cruel triumphs, and a great part of the Morea, devastated and depopulated, had submitted to his arms.
During these events the Czar Alexander died; and for some little time there was hesitation in the Imperial counsels. Alexander’s successor, however, soon pursued the policy which his accession to the empire had interrupted, and propositions (not unlike those formerly contemplated) were now submitted to our Minister, propositions in the carrying out of which Great Britain and Russia were alone to be combined. The circumstances of the moment showed that the period of action had arrived, and Mr. Canning no longer shrank from accepting a part which there appeared some hope of undertaking with success.
An alliance between two powers, indeed, afforded a fairer chance of fixing upon a definite course, and maintaining a common understanding, than the various counsels amongst which union had previously been sought. The Greeks also, who had formerly rejected all schemes of compromise (May, 1826), now requested the good offices of England for obtaining a peace upon conditions which would have recognised the supremacy of the Sultan, and entailed a tribute upon his former subjects. Finally (and this affords an interpretation to the whole of that policy which prevailed in the British counsels, from the first to the last moment of negotiation), the treaty of alliance into which Mr. Canning felt disposed to enter, contained this condition:
“That neither Russia nor Great Britain should obtain any advantage for themselves in the arrangement of those affairs which they undertook to settle.”
France became subsequently a party to this scheme of intervention, and it was hoped that a confederacy so powerful would induce the Turks to submit quietly to the measures which it had been determined, at all events (by a secret article), if necessary, to enforce.
But whilst these projects were being carried out, these hopes entertained, that dread King, more potent than all others, held his hand uplifted over the head of the triumphant and still ardent statesman.