[Extract.]

Mr. Tuckerman to Mr. Seward.

No. 27.]

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.

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I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,

CHARLES. K. TUCKERMAN.

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.”

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