PROBLEMS IN SOUTHERN EUROPE.
The events of the year 1820 subjected the European concert to a severe
strain. An insurrection broke out in Spain on January 1, and on March 9
the king was forced to swear fidelity to the obsolete constitution of
1812. The result was to plunge the country into disorder, as both the
clerical party and the extreme revolutionists refused to accept the
constitution. Meanwhile the assassination by a working man of the Duke
of Berry, who died on February 14, 1820, had occasioned a new royalist
reaction in France, and had increased the general fear of the
revolutionary party. The Bourbon succession had seemed to depend on his
life, for his son, the Count of Chambord, was posthumous. On receiving
the news of the Spanish revolution the tsar, already tiring of his
liberal enthusiasm, fell back on his scheme for exercising paternal
discipline over Europe. He proposed in April that the ambassadors at
Paris should issue a joint remonstrance requiring the Spanish cortes to
disavow the revolution, and to enact severe laws against sedition.
Failing this, he proposed joint intervention, and offered for his own
part to send an army of 15,000 men through North Italy and southern
France to co-operate in the suppression of the revolution. To this
Castlereagh replied that England would never consent to a joint
intervention in Spain. Metternich was too much displeased with the
Russian encouragement of secret societies in Italy to wish to see
Russian troops in that country, and both Castlereagh and Metternich
wished to keep Spain free from French influence. In the face of this
opposition Russia could not, and France would not, do anything, and all
thought of intervention was postponed. It was the last time that
Castlereagh was able to assert the principle of non-intervention
without breaking up the European concert.
[Pageheading: _REVOLUTIONS IN SOUTHERN EUROPE._]
July and August saw three new revolutions. A rebellion at Nola on July 2
ended in King Ferdinand of the Two Sicilies taking the oath on the 13th
to the Spanish constitution, then regarded as a model by the liberals of
Southern Europe. But the grant of a constitution to Naples suggested a
demand for independence at Palermo. On July 17-18 that city rose in
revolt and was only subdued by the Neapolitans in the beginning of
October. Portugal, too, was in a disturbed state. The royal family had
been absent for nearly thirteen years, and the country had for five
years been governed by Lord, afterwards Viscount, Beresford as marshal
and commander of the Portuguese army. In April, 1820, he sailed for
Brazil, intending to induce the king, John VI., to return. During his
absence a revolution took place at Oporto on August 24, a provisional
government was established, and all British officers were dismissed.
This was followed by a similar revolution at Lisbon on September 15.
Beresford on his return was forbidden to land, and retired to England.
On November 11, the Spanish constitution was proclaimed in Portugal, but
six days later another proclamation left the question of determining the
constitution to the cortes which were to be elected on a popular
suffrage.
The Neapolitan revolution raised at once the question of intervention.
In this case Castlereagh held that Austria had a right to interfere,
because her position as an Italian power was endangered by the
revolution, and because the revolution was a breach of the secret treaty
of 1815 which had received the sanction of the British government. He
still objected to any joint interference and was opposed to the
reference of the question to a congress. Austria could not have
interfered alone without offending the tsar, who clung to the principle
of joint action. The question of intervention was therefore postponed
for the present. France, however, being jealous of Austrian influence in
Italy, demanded the meeting of a congress, and such a meeting was
accordingly held at Troppau on October 20. To this congress Austria,
France, Prussia, and Russia sent plenipotentiaries. Great Britain
carried her opposition to joint interference so far as to refuse to join
in the deliberations, though Sir Charles, now Lord, Stewart was sent to
Troppau to watch the proceedings. Metternich, on finding that he could
not avoid the meeting of a congress, determined to lead its proceedings,
and, before it met, drew up a memorandum defining his own views about
intervention. These views were accepted at the congress by Prussia and
Russia as well as by Austria; and a protocol was issued by the three
powers declaring that a state in which a revolution should occur was
dangerous to other states, and ceased to be a member of the European
alliance, until it could give guarantees for its future stability. If
such a revolution placed other states in immediate danger, the allied
powers were bound to intervene by peaceful means, if possible, or if
need were, by arms. Before parting, the congress invited Ferdinand of
the Two Sicilies to attend an adjourned meeting, to assemble early in
the following year at Laibach.[75] Against these decisions Castlereagh
protested in vigorous terms, and more especially against any possible
application of the principle of intervention to England; France under
the Duke of Richelieu joined in neither the protocol nor the protest.
The liberal tendencies of the tsar had been quenched by recent events,
so that, instead of a concert of Europe, there was left only a concert
of absolute monarchs.
[Pageheading: _AUSTRIAN INTERVENTION._]
In January, 1821, the sovereigns of Austria, Prussia, and Russia met the
King of the Two Sicilies at Laibach. France had vainly attempted to
mediate between the King of the Two Sicilies and his people. But the
Neapolitans were not satisfied with any vague promise of a constitution,
and before allowing their king to depart for Laibach, held him pledged
to the observance of an impossible condition, the maintenance of the
Spanish constitution of 1812. The king's oath to preserve this
particularly objectionable constitution was regarded by Austria as
sufficient to preclude negotiation, and it was resolved that she should
restore him by force as an absolute monarch, and should occupy the
Neapolitan territory. The duration of this occupation was reserved as a
question to be discussed at the next European congress, which it was
intended to hold at Florence in the autumn of the next year. After a
show of resistance at Rieti the Neapolitans submitted, and the Austrian
army entered Naples on March 24. The restoration of absolute government
was accompanied by severities towards the constitutionalists, but
Austria would not allow any repetition of the bloodshed of 1799.
While the Austrian army was marching southwards, a new revolution broke
out in Piedmont. The Spanish constitution was proclaimed at Alessandria
on March 10, and at Turin on the 12th. On the 13th, Victor Emmanuel I.,
King of Sardinia, abdicated, appointing as regent his distant cousin
Prince Charles Albert of Carignano, who had been in communication with
the revolutionary party. The regent immediately accepted the Spanish
constitution on condition of the maintenance of the line of succession
and of the Roman catholic religion. The new king, Charles Felix, was at
Modena when the revolt occurred. He refused to acknowledge the new
constitution, and ordered Charles Albert to betake himself to Novara,
where the royalist troops were collecting. On the night of the 21st,
Charles Albert fled from Turin to Novara, but the constitutional party
did not submit without a struggle. On April 8 the Austrians crossed the
frontier and, uniting with the royalists, defeated the constitutionalists
at Novara. Two days later the royalist army entered Turin. The two
Italian revolutions had thus ended in an Austrian occupation of the two
largest Italian states which were not ruled by members of the imperial
house. The Papal States were now the only Italian principality of any
size which was not dominated by Austria.
So far Austria had been sufficiently powerful in the congresses of the
powers to be able to prevent interference with other states where it was
not to her interest, and to incline the balance in favour of it where
intervention would strengthen her. The reopening of the Eastern question
made her ascendency more difficult to maintain. The congress of Laibach
had been closed, but the sovereigns had not yet departed, when the news
arrived that a revolt, engineered by Greeks with the pretence of Russian
support, had broken out against the Turks in Moldavia and Wallachia.
Russia at once agreed with Austria that the principle laid down at
Troppau applied to this revolt; the insurrectionary leaders were
disowned by Russia, and by the end of June Turkish authority was
restored in the Danubian principalities. So far the action of Russia had
met with the approval not only of Austria but of Great Britain, and
Castlereagh had written to Alexander urging him not to join the Greek
cause, which appeared to him to be part of an universal revolutionary
movement.
Early in April, however, a more serious insurrection broke out in the
Morea, and was followed a few weeks later by one in Central Greece. The
war was disgraced from the first by inhuman massacres on both sides. The
Greek patriarch at Constantinople together with three archbishops was
executed by the Turks on Easter Sunday, April 22. A great ferment in
Russia was the result, where the people were anxious to assist their
co-religionists and to avenge the death of the patriarch, whom they
regarded as a martyr. The grievances of the Orthodox religion were
seconded by the proper grievances of Russia. Greek ships, sailing under
the Russian flag, had been seized in the Dardanelles; the principalities
of Moldavia and Wallachia had not been evacuated by the Turkish troops
as was required by treaty, while an ancient treaty rendered it possible
to regard the wrongs of the Greek Church as the political wrongs of
Russia. A Russian ultimatum was despatched on June 28; and, while
awaiting a reply, Russia consulted the other powers as to the course
they would pursue in the event of war breaking out between Russia and
Turkey, and the system with which they would propose to replace the
Turkish domination if it came to be destroyed. The principle of joint
intervention, adopted at Troppau, seemed to require the powers to give
their support to Russia. Great Britain and Austria, however, refused to
treat war with Turkey as a possibility. The Greek revolt seemed to them
to express the principle of revolution, and the tsar himself became
inclined to take this view of the situation when the Greeks established
an advanced republican form of government. They accordingly
distinguished between the treaty rights of Russia, which the four powers
would urge Turkey to respect, and the provision of a more secure state
of order in Turkey, which would be discussed at a European congress. The
Russian ambassador had been withdrawn from Constantinople on August 8,
and the negotiation was conducted mainly by Lord Strangford, the British
ambassador at Constantinople, who was supported by Austria, France, and
Prussia. He succeeded in inducing Turkey to evacuate the principalities
and to open the Dardanelles to ships of all nations, but Turkish
obstinacy deferred the conclusion of a treaty.
[Pageheading: _THE SPANISH QUESTION._]
Meanwhile the Spanish question became more critical. As time went on
Spain grew less instead of more settled, while the ultra-royalist party
gained strength in France. To them the position to which the Bourbon
King of Spain had been reduced seemed at once an insult and a menace to
France. The establishment of Austrian supremacy in Italy made them long
for French supremacy in Spain. In August, 1821, the presence of yellow
fever in Spain was made the occasion for establishing a body of troops,
professing to act as a sanitary cordon, upon the frontier. They were
retained there when the fever had disappeared, and their numbers were
gradually raised to 100,000. In December, 1821, an ultra-royalist
ministry entered on office in France under the leadership of Villèle.
Villèle, like King Louis XVIII., was opposed to war, but he might easily
be forced to adopt the war policy which was popular with his party.
Fresh evidence was given of the contagious nature of the Spanish
revolution by the adoption, on the 27th of the preceding June, by the
Portuguese cortes, of a constitution modelled on that of Spain. Six days
later the Portuguese king arrived at Lisbon and was induced to sign the
new constitution. This event was the more significant in the eyes of the
powers, because the proclamation of the constitution had been
accompanied by an insult to the Austrian embassy.
If Spanish liberalism placed Spain in danger of a war with France, Spain
was in equal danger of a war with Great Britain because she was not
liberal enough. The revolution of 1820, instead of reconciling the
revolted colonies, had served as an example to the loyal colonies to
seek their liberty. By the summer of 1822 Upper Peru was the only part
of the American mainland where Spain held more than isolated posts; she
had been compelled to sell Florida to the United States, and San Domingo
had joined the revolted French colony of Hayti. The Spanish cortes,
however, were even more resolute than the king had been to maintain the
authority of the mother country, and protested against the right which
the British had claimed and exercised of trading with the revolted
colonies. The disorderly state of these colonies encouraged the growth
of piracy, which flourished even in the ports which still acknowledged
the supremacy of Spain. Special irritation was caused in 1822 by the
condemnation of the _Lord Collingwood_ for trading with Buenos Ayres, a
place over which Spain had exercised no authority for twelve years. In
the same year the new navigation acts greatly increased the facilities
for trading with Great Britain enjoyed by such places in America as
admitted British ships. In April, 1822, the United States recognised the
independence of Colombia, but Great Britain refrained as yet from
recognising any of the Spanish-American states, partly because of their
unsettled condition and partly because the threat of recognition was a
valuable diplomatic counter in negotiations with Spain.
Instead of a congress being held at Florence it was finally determined
that the Italian questions should be referred to a congress which was to
meet at Verona in September, 1822, and was to be preceded by a
conference at Vienna on the Eastern question; there could, however, be
little doubt that the Spanish question would also be raised.
Castlereagh, or as we should now call him Lord Londonderry, would have
preferred that Great Britain should stand aloof from the Spanish and
Italian questions, but he desired that she should participate in the
discussion of the Eastern question; it was accordingly arranged that he
should represent Great Britain at the conference of Vienna, and he had
actually drawn up instructions in favour of non-intervention in Spain
and of accrediting agents to some of the South American republics, when
his departure was prevented by his death on August 12. He was succeeded
by Wellington as plenipotentiary, and by Canning as foreign secretary.
The change was, however, one of persons rather than of policies. Canning
was less conciliatory in manner, and had less sympathy with the
principle of European congresses, but was prepared to carry on
Castlereagh's policy on the questions which for the time being agitated
the world.
[Pageheading: _THE CONGRESS OF VERONA._]
The Spanish question was, as a fact, the one question which occupied the
attention of the powers at Vienna and Verona. In consequence of the
efforts of Strangford at Constantinople and his own growing
dissatisfaction with the Greeks, the tsar was willing to allow the Greek
question to drop; at the same time the kings of the Two Sicilies and
Sardinia themselves desired the continuance of Austrian occupation, and
thus postponed the Italian question. As in 1820, Austria held the
balance between two rival policies. She had then thrown her weight on
the side of non-intervention, and, had the Spanish question stood by
itself, she would probably have done so again. But in Metternich's
opinion the Spanish question was of less importance than the Eastern,
and it was important that the tsar should not doubt her loyalty to the
principle on which she had persuaded him to refrain from an attack upon
the Porte.
On passing through Paris on his way to Vienna, Wellington found Villèle
desirous of avoiding war, but counting on it as a probability. He
arrived at Vienna too late for the actual conference, but in time to
have some conversation with Metternich and the tsar before leaving for
Verona. So far it appeared that Montmorency, the more active of the
French representatives, though professing to desire a peaceful
termination to the dispute between France and Spain, advocated French
intervention, if intervention should be necessary, but was opposed to
the passage of foreign troops through France. Metternich and the tsar
distrusted French troops when brought face to face with revolutionists,
and Metternich was therefore opposed to intervention, while the tsar
still desired to be allowed to march a Russian army on behalf of the
combined powers through Piedmont and southern France into Spain.
Metternich of course did not wish to see any Russian troops to dispute
Austria's supremacy in Italy. But all three desired the suppression of
the Spanish constitution, if they could find a trustworthy instrument.
Wellington adhered to Castlereagh's policy of non-intervention.[76]
When the congress opened at Verona on October 20, Montmorency proposed
three skilfully drawn questions. Avoiding the direct discussion of
hostilities, he asked whether, if France were compelled to withdraw her
ambassador from Madrid, the other powers would do the same. Then,
assuming their sympathy, he asked what form of moral support they would
give her in event of war. Lastly, he propitiated Russian views of joint
action by asking what form of material support the powers would give
France, if she should require it. Wellington refused to consider
hypothetical cases, but the sovereigns of Austria, Prussia, and Russia
answered the first question in the affirmative, and assured France of
their moral, and, if necessary, of their material support. So far no
power had abandoned its original attitude, but the promises had been
given in a form which lent itself best to the sole interference of
France, as the representative of the congress. Metternich now advocated
British mediation, but this was refused by Montmorency on the ground of
the differences between the policy adopted by Great Britain and that
adopted by the other powers. It was then agreed that Austria, France,
Prussia, and Russia should address notes of the same tenor to their
ambassadors at Madrid, who should make corresponding representations to
the Spanish government, and a _procès verbal_ was concluded between
these four powers defining the causes which would justify the recall of
their ambassadors.
As the French king was not present at Verona, the sending of the French
note was made conditional on the approval of the French government. The
occupation of Spain by foreign troops was to be discussed when the King
of Spain should have been restored to liberty. The tenor of the notes
agreed on seemed to Wellington more likely to inflame the Spanish
government than to win concessions, and he lost no time in informing
Villèle through Sir Charles Stuart, the British ambassador at Paris, of
the course of negotiations.[77] Although Wellington had been assured at
Verona that Villèle's decision would not affect the transmission of
notes from the other courts, he hoped and Canning believed that it was
still in the power of Villèle to arrest the machinery that Montmorency,
his representative at Verona, had set in motion. On November 30
Wellington left Verona, but the emperors remained. On December 5 Villèle
sent a message to Verona proposing to postpone sending the despatches
till an occasion for breaking off diplomatic relations as defined in the
_procès verbal_ should arise, and suggesting that the ambassadors at
Paris should determine when such an occasion had occurred. This proposal
was rejected. It was inconsistent with Russia's desire for war, while
Austria was anxious to please Russia in the west, so long as she
remained pacific in the east. The three eastern powers therefore
resolved that they would only delay sending their notes till the French
note was ready.
[Pageheading: _THE SPANISH QUESTION._]
While this negotiation was pending, Wellington arrived at Paris, where,
under strong pressure from Canning,[78] he renewed his offer of
mediation with Spain. It was declined. On the arrival of the reply from
Verona, Wellington was informed that even if the other powers sent their
despatches to Madrid, France would withhold hers. In the end, Villèle
dismissed Montmorency for the independent line he had taken, and sent a
milder note than the three eastern powers, but withdrew his ambassador
from Madrid soon after the other ambassadors had departed. Great Britain
was in consequence the only great power which still continued diplomatic
relations with Spain at the end of January, 1823. In the course of the
negotiations two curious suspicions had occurred to Canning and Villèle
respectively. Canning imagined that France would employ the threats of
her allies as a show of force to compel Spain to join her in an attack
on British commerce in the West Indies, while Villèle suspected that the
British defence of the political independence of Spain was to be
recompensed by the cession of some Spanish colonies in America.
Meanwhile, the war party before which Villèle had had to bow, was having
its own way in France. On January 28 Louis XVIII. in opening the
chambers announced the withdrawal of his ambassador, and declared that
100,000 Frenchmen were ready to march to preserve the throne of Spain to
a descendant of Henry IV., and to reconcile that country with Europe.
The sole object of any war that might arise would be to render Ferdinand
VII. free to give his people institutions which they could not hold
except from him, and which, by securing their tranquillity, would
dissipate the unrest in France. Canning protested against the apparent
implication that no valid constitution could rest on any other basis
than that of France did, as also against the apparent claim to interfere
in virtue of the family relation of the dynasties of France and Spain;
but he vainly endeavoured to persuade the Spanish government to come to
some agreement with its king. On March 31, when war seemed imminent,
Canning despatched a note to Paris defining the limits of British
neutrality. The independence of Spain and integrity of its dominions
were to be recognised; it was not to be permanently occupied by a
military force, and France was not to attempt to gain either by conquest
or by cession any of the revolted colonies of Spain in America. At the
same time he disclaimed any intention of acquiring any of those colonies
for Great Britain.[79]
[Pageheading: _PORTUGAL AND BRAZIL._]
War between France and Spain began with the passage of the frontier by
the Duke of Angoulême on April 7. On May 23 he entered Madrid. On
October 1 the Spanish constitutionalists were compelled to set their
king at liberty to join the French, and on November 1 the war was
terminated by the surrender of Barcelona to the royalists. The
restoration of Ferdinand VII. to absolute power was followed by a
furious and vindictive reaction, which Angoulême strove in vain to
moderate. For the next five years French troops occupied the country,
but Angoulême showed his disapproval of the method of government by
refusing the decorations offered him by Ferdinand. The restoration of
absolutism in Spain led to events in Portugal which forced Great Britain
to intervene and strengthened the difference between her policy and that
of the continental powers. The new Portuguese constitution was
unpopular, especially in the army, and as early as February, 1823, there
was a revolt against the constitution, but order was restored in April.
On May 26 another absolutist revolt broke out, and the rebels were
joined next day by the king's second son, Dom Miguel, then twenty years
of age; on the 29th the revolt spread to Lisbon; on the 31st the king
promised a revised constitution, and on June 2 the cortes ceased to sit.
The government resolved itself into an absolute monarchy, which
continued till the following year, in spite of the appointment of a
junta under the presidency of Palmella to draw up a new constitution.
The ambassadors of Austria, Prussia, and Russia opposed the granting of
a new constitution, and Dom Miguel still maintained a threatening
attitude. Palmella accordingly applied to Great Britain for troops to
support his government. This request created no little difficulty. It
was impossible for Great Britain to allow the government of Portugal to
fall into the hands of a party resting for support on the absolutists
in Spain and the French army, and it was equally impossible to employ
British troops to maintain the cause of the King of Portugal against his
ultra-royalist subjects when Great Britain had protested so vigorously
against the kings of Spain and the Two Sicilies receiving foreign
assistance against their liberal subjects; there were moreover no troops
that could well be spared.
Canning accordingly contented himself with despatching a naval squadron
to the Tagus to act as a moral support to the king. As the event proved,
this squadron was sufficient to determine the course of events. At the
same time Canning refused to guarantee any constitution, though when
France joined the eastern powers in threatening the proposed
constitution, he intimated his readiness to resist by force of arms any
foreign intervention in Portugal. On April 30, 1824, Dom Miguel
attempted another _coup d'état_, and was for nine days in possession of
Lisbon, where he made wholesale arrests of his political opponents. John
VI. was, however, supported by all the foreign ambassadors, and on March
9, by their advice, he went on board the British ship of war, _Windsor
Castle_, where he summoned his son to appear before him. Dom Miguel
thought it wisest to obey; the king sent him abroad, and the attempt at
a revolution was over for the present. The junta appointed in the
previous year to frame a constitution now reported in favour of a
revival of the ancient cortes, and this proposal was accepted by the
king. The cortes were not, however, actually assembled; still, the mere
fact of Dom Miguel's absence left the government a little stronger.
Meanwhile, the relations between Portugal and Brazil occasioned
difficulties between the former country and Great Britain. On leaving
Brazil, King John VI. had entrusted the government to his elder son,
Peter, to whom he had given secret instructions to proclaim himself
Emperor of Brazil in case he found it impossible to maintain the union
between Brazil and the mother country. Acting on these instructions,
Peter had proclaimed the independence of Brazil on October 12, 1822,
adopting for himself the style of constitutional emperor. Next month
Lord Cochrane, who had been in the service of Chile, quitted it for that
of Brazil. Neither party in Portugal was prepared for the separation of
Brazil, and it was therefore opposed, but without much effect, by the
home government. By the end of 1823 Cochrane had captured all the
Portuguese posts in Brazil, and in August, 1824, he suppressed a
republican movement in the north of that country. On July 23 of the same
year Great Britain signed a commercial treaty with the new empire. This
irritated the Portuguese government. Meanwhile, Beresford, who had
returned to Portugal in a private capacity, had been requested to resume
the command of the Portuguese army. This he refused to do so long as the
Count of Subsérra, a French partisan, held office at home. There was a
difficulty in forming a ministry without him, and eventually Subsérra
became virtual prime minister, and Beresford was excluded from office.
In order to obtain an excuse for the introduction of French troops into
Portugal, Subsérra sent a request to Great Britain for a force of four
or five thousand, knowing it would be refused. Great Britain's refusal
had not, however, the expected consequence, because the influence of the
other powers at Lisbon was weakened by their anti-constitutional policy.
In July, 1825, the representatives of Austria, Brazil, Great Britain,
and Portugal assembled at London to consider the relations of Portugal
and Brazil. While the conference was sitting it was discovered that
Subsérra was carrying on separate negotiations with Brazil. Canning was
now able to obtain his dismissal, which was followed by the recall of
the French ambassador, De Neuville, who had been the principal opponent
of British influence at Lisbon. As a result of this conference the
Portuguese government on August 29 recognised the independence of
Brazil.[80]
The restoration of absolute government in Spain revived the question of
Spanish America. Ferdinand VII., on recovering his authority, proposed a
congress at Paris for the consideration of South American affairs.
Canning, however, declined his invitation, and it was thought useless to
hold a congress without the participation of Great Britain. The position
in which Great Britain had been placed by the negotiations of Verona, as
diplomatic champion of Spain, had caused her to suspend her complaints
about the treatment of her merchant vessels trading with the revolted
colonies; but disorder continued, and on one occasion the British
admiral was authorised to land in Cuba to extirpate the pirates using
the Spanish flag. Canning was determined that French force should not be
employed to reduce the revolted colonies, and in October, 1823, he
informed the French ambassador, Polignac, that he would acknowledge the
independence of those colonies if France assisted Spain in her attempts
to reduce them[81]--a somewhat empty threat, as the commercial interests
of Great Britain would have compelled him to acknowledge them in any
case as soon as there should be settled governments in existence with
which he could treat. Diplomatic agents were in fact appointed in most
of the revolted colonies before the end of this year.
[Pageheading: _THE MONROE DOCTRINE._]
What, however, rendered French interference hopeless was the attitude of
the United States, as expressed in President Monroe's historic message
to congress on December 2, 1823. In this message occur the words, since
known as the Monroe doctrine: "With the governments who have declared
their independence, and maintained it, and whose independence we have,
on great consideration, and on just principles, acknowledged, we could
not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or
controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power, in
any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition
towards the United States." After this the recognition of the
independence of the Spanish colonies was only a matter of time.[82]
Great Britain recognised the independence of Buenos Ayres, Colombia, and
Mexico, in 1824, and the rest soon after. In spite of the temporary
successes of Canterac, Peru, the last of the mainland provinces, was
lost to Spain in 1825, and the other European powers did not now delay
their recognition of the American republics. In April of that year
France recognised the virtual independence of her own revolted colony of
Hayti.
The Eastern question advanced more slowly. On March 25, 1823, Canning
recognised the Greeks as belligerents. After this step Great Britain
enjoyed the advantage of being able to hold the Greek government
responsible for piracy committed by Greek ships; but, coming as it did
after the isolated action of Great Britain at Verona, it created a
suspicion among the eastern powers of a desire to effect a settlement
of the Eastern question without the co-operation of other states. In
October, 1823, the Tsar Alexander and the Emperor Francis had a meeting
at Czernowitz in Bukowina. Here they discussed joint intervention in
Greece as a means of forestalling the isolated intervention of Great
Britain. During the meeting the news arrived of the Turkish concessions
to the Russian demands of 1821. Before the conference broke up, the tsar
informally suggested a conference at St. Petersburg to arrange joint
intervention on the basis of the erection of three principalities under
Turkish suzerainty in Greece and the Ægean. In January, 1824, the same
proposal was made formally in a Russian circular addressed to the great
powers. Metternich and Canning both opposed the scheme, thinking that
the principalities would fall under Russian influence.
Metternich met it by a counter proposal for the complete independence of
Greece. Canning preferred to adopt neither course, and to watch the
sequence of events. In April, however, he consented that Great Britain
should be represented at the conference at St. Petersburg on condition
that no coercion should be applied to Turkey, and that diplomatic
relations should have been previously restored between Russia and
Turkey; in August the Greek government sent to London its protest
against the Russian proposals, and in November Canning, finding that
neither Greeks nor Turks would accept the decision of the conference,
and being still opposed to violent interference, refused to take part in
it. At the same time he offered British mediation to the Greeks in case
it should be absolutely necessary. Early in 1825 Metternich induced
Charles X., the new King of France, to support his proposal. Russia,
however, would not hear of the independence of Greece, which might mean
the creation of a rival to her influence in the Turkish dominions. The
conference therefore merely resolved that the Porte should grant
satisfaction to its subjects, failing which the powers offered their
mediation.
[Pageheading: _THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER I._]
Turkey refused the offer. She was in fact busily engaged in restoring
order in her own way. In February, 1825, an Egyptian army was landed in
the Morea, and met with rapid successes of such a nature as to arouse a
suspicion that it was the fixed policy of its commander, Ibrahim, the
adopted son of Mehemet Ali, Pasha of Egypt, to depopulate the Morea.
His advance upon Nauplia was checked by an order of the British
commodore, Hamilton, and he retired towards Tripolitza and Navarino. The
Turkish successes induced Canning to make proposals to Russia through
Sir Stratford Canning, the British ambassador at St. Petersburg, for a
joint intervention of the powers on condition that there should be no
coercion of Turkey. The tsar refused to accept the condition and made
preparations for war. Canning meanwhile declined an offer of the Greek
government to place itself under British protection, and on August 18
Alexander declared that he would solve the Eastern question by himself.
He then set out for the south of Russia, where his army had collected.
Canning now dropped his scheme of an united intervention and opened
negotiations for a separate intervention on the part of Great Britain
and Russia alone. Meanwhile he informed the Greek government that he
would allow no power to effect a settlement without British
co-operation, and that if Russia invaded Turkey he would land troops in
Greece. The negotiations with Russia were proceeding favourably when
they were interrupted by the death of Alexander on December 1.
One event of the year 1825 which attracted little attention at the time
was destined to be a cause of friction at a much later date. In 1824 the
boundary between British America and the United States had been
partially delimited, and this was followed early in the following year
by a treaty, which attempted to settle the boundary between British and
Russian America. Unfortunately the words used in this treaty were
somewhat indefinite, and, although no difficulty was experienced for two
generations, the discovery of gold in the north-west of America
subsequently led to a bitter dispute between Canada on the one side and
the United States, which had acquired the rights of Russia, on the
other.
FOOTNOTES:
[75] Metternich, _Memoirs_, § 484, English translation, iii., 446.
[76] Wellington, _Despatches, etc._, i., 343-48.
[77] Wellington, _Despatches, etc._, i., 518-23. For a French account of
the congress see Duvergier de Hauranne, _Gouvernement Parlementaire en
France_, vii., 130-229.
[78] Wellington, _Despatches, etc._, i., 650. Compare pp. 638, 653-57.
[79] Stapleton, _Life of Canning_, ii., 18, 19.
[80] Stapleton, _Life of Canning_, ii., chapters x., xi.
[81] Stapleton, _Life of Canning_, ii., 26-33.
[82] See J. W. Foster, _A Century of American Diplomacy_, pp. 442-50;
Stapleton, _George Canning and his Times_, p. 375.