[Extract.]
Mr. Tuckerman to Mr. Seward.
No. 27.]
Legation of the United States,
Athens,
December 5, 1868.
Sir: The recent departure of Greek volunteers
for Crete, together with the delivery to them of two guns (Armstrong’s,
40-pounders) known to have belonged to the national arsenal, threaten
for the moment the
[Page 145]
peaceful
relations of the Porte and the Greek government. I am of opinion that
the present views of the Turkish embassador, as expressed by him to me,
will be modified. The Greek government denies, of course, any official
knowledge of the delivery of these guns to the Cretan agents, and it
would be a difficult matter in the present juncture of affairs to fix
responsibility upon the authorities. Photiades Bey is apparently waiting
to obtain the views of his government in the matter.
This “volunteer movement,” be the numbers great or small, has given a
less hopeless view to Cretan affairs, although the last news from the
island was to the effect that an encounter between the Christians and
Turks at Sphakia had resulted disastrously for the insurgents.
After a long reticence on the part of the British ministry with regard to
eastern affairs, Lord Stanley, in his recent speech to the electors of
Lynn, has broken silence by declaring that “the dangers which menace the
Turkish empire to-day are internal,” and that neither foreign alliance
nor European guarantee can protect a government against financial
collapse or rebellion within its own provinces. In those matters every
country must be left to work out its own destiny. His lordship goes on
to express his “sincere sympathies with the Christians of the East,”
whose aspirations he admits “may be natural,” but he reminds them that
“anarchy is not progress, and that it is not wise to pull down that for
which they have not provided any substitute.” Lord Stanley then
addresses himself to Greece in a few phrases, which I imbody in a note
to this dispatch, together with the comments of the Greek press thereon,
that you may see exactly how the English view of the “hellenic idea” is
met and refuted by the Greek people. It is the current topic of the
hour. The Chamber, since the opening of the new session, has
accomplished nothing but the election of a presiding officer, Mr.
Drossor, which, owing to divisions in the opposition, enabled the
ministerial party to show a strong vote. The budget for 1869 has been
submitted to the Chamber; its estimate is 34,423,973 drachmas expenses,
against 37,620,200 receipts.
* * * * * * * *
I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward,
Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.
NOTE.
Extract from Lord Stanley’s speech at
Lynn.
More particularly I would say to Greece—that little state, about
which our grandfathers were so enthusiastic, and which we in the
present day are inclined, I think, rather unduly to depreciate—you
might be the model state of the east; you might exercise over the
Christian races there an almost incalculable influence, if, instead
of indulging in vague dreams of agrandizement, you would make your
internal government more worthy of those destinies which you believe
to be yours in the future. [Hear.] And I would also say, if you
adopt a policy of fostering disturbance abroad, you are throwing
away the substance for the shadow; you are losing that which you
might command, and, after all, it is very doubtful whether you will
obtain that which you seek. Gentlemen, that is advice which,
tendered in a friendly spirit, may not be wholly useless, and we
have interests enough in the east to make that advice worth
giving.
[Page 146]
[Translation.]
Remarks of “La Grèce,” (Greek
Journal.)
It is easy for the minister of foreign affairs of Great Britain to
speak thus, and for the English people to applaud; but these
counsels lose much of their force by being addressed by a people
whose nationality is respected by the whole world to a people who
suffer under outrages of which they themselves are the object. These
outrages are the cause of insurrections breaking out at all times in
the Greek provinces of the Ottoman empire. The insurrection in Crete
is neither the first nor the last example. Lord Stanley has a heart
too elevated to counsel the Greeks to plant cabbages, while their
brothers are exposed to all the vicissitudes of a barbarous and
unequal war. Diplomacy has been able to trace upon a map the
arbitrary limits of the kingdom of Greece, but it has not been able
to extinguish the national and fraternal sentiment of the Greeks of
the kingdom towards those who are excluded. * * * If, instead of a
truncated Greece, the kingdom included all the Greek provinces, then
would the diplomatists have the right, and then only, to ask her to
show herself capable of the art of government. “If you cannot govern
what you possess, how can you hope to persuade Europe that you are
capable of governing a larger kingdom.” This is the cheval de bataille of the English diplomats.
This reasoning, which is the measure of their intelligence, produces
the same effect on us as if they said to a lame man, “Since you
cannot walk with the leg which you have still left to you, do not
regret the loss of the other. You would not know how to use it, if
you had it.”
* * * * * * * * * *
