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much bitterness. The Porte, "though it did not perceive the necessity of a conference, accepted the proposition, provided that the five points of the Turkish ultimatum, above given, should form the basis of the discussion, and the Crete question be not brought forward." The steady and rational temper of the divan was manifested by its adhesion to the project, and its appended stipulation was a natural and simple one.

The Ottoman rule in Europe has against it nature, sentiment, and visible destiny, even though the kingdom of George I. stand in the position of a culprit before the bar of Europe. By a little straining of one's reasoning, both parties might have been deemed, in some sort, amenable to a tribunal, or rather, to a council of arbitration, consisting of the protecting powers of the Greek kingdom and the signataries of the treaty of Paris of 1856. The first were responsible for the good behavior of their charge, the second for the integrity of the Ottoman empire. If the Hellenic kingdom was in the position of a protected state, and therefore of virtual subordination to its protectors, the Porte could not be regarded as exempt from the moral jurisdiction of the signataries of the treaty of Paris. As between the governments of France and Prussia, in the affair of Luxembourg, the Emperor set an example which no other sovereign need be ashamed to follow. France had been accused of clandestinely tampering with the King of Holland, and had raised thereby a menacing question as to the proprietorship of the duchy, which only a war or a conference could settle.

At five o'clock of Saturday, January 9th, under the presidency of the Marquis de la Valette, representing the French government, MM. the Count de Stackelberg, Russia; Djemil Pasha, the Porte; the Chevalier Nigra, Italy; Lord Lyons, England; the Prince de Metternich, Austria; the Count de Solms, Prussia; and Rizo Rangabé, Greece-met at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Paris, and formed themselves into a conference, all parties, excepting M. Rangabé, representing those governments which signed the treaty of Paris in 1856. The representative of Greece present had merely a consultive voice, the avowed object of the conference being how far there was reason to give satisfaction to the demands of the Turkish ulti

matum. The announcement of this restriction pleased all who were apprehensive that Russia, who was now accused of "having been intriguing in every court of Europe to effect the annexation of Crete to Greece," would endeavor to force upon the conference a declaration as to the future relation of Crete to Turkey; or that France, declared to be fickle and uncertain, would serve her own secret purposes, antagonistic to Russia and Prussia, by levying sweeping damages upon Greece. Many were lukewarm as to the productive labors of the conference, and some remained even suspicious of the ultimate result, and hinted at the possibility of France, Russia, Prussia, and Italy forming one voice and one phalanx against Turkey, England, and Austria.

What tended to simplify matters before the conference, or what was so regarded by the outside public, was the intelligence of the surrender of Petropoulakes, the Greek colonel who had so recently reached Crete with a small but well-equipped band of volunteers. The prompt discomfiture of the veteran was considered proof that the Turks had indeed completely mastered even the Greek contingent to the quondam rebellion. For upward of a year past, it was now currently known, "the bloody Cretan insurrection" had been confined to a few small bands, flying from fastness to fastness, denuding and disturbing the native population, while the Turks had been steadily completing their system of cross-roads and block-houses, which Petropoulakes unexpectedly found all prepared to confuse, hector, and envelop him. Joined, from the other side of the island, by his son Leonidas, near Mount Ida, their united forces amounted to nearly 2500 men. They had but five days' provisions with them, and, of the ungrateful Christian peasants whom they had come to save, those who did not flee at their approach, having no thought but for their oil-crops, so far from welcoming the Greek soldiers, gave the Turkish troops information which enabled them to coop up the invaders in the mountains. A series of skirmishes cost the Greeks some 650 men, and chased, harassed, and without rations, they finally reached the seat of the phantom Cretan provisional government at Sphakia, in the hills. But the national government, which had nothing to vouch for its existence but decrees and

despatches announcing splendid victories, could only thank its self-appointed champions, and Petropoulakes rapidly retreated to Askypho, a sort of eagle's nest in the White Mountains. Here a body of 150 tried to desert, demoralization set in, and the three weeks' campaign closed abruptly by a capitulation, the terms of which illustrated Turkish cruelty on the part of Omer Nailé Pasha, to whom the surrender was made. Those terms were: "The lives of the volunteers to be spared, their baggage and arms to be returned to them upon their landing in Greece, and their food and lodging to be furnished by the Turkish authorities until they reached their own shore!"

With this surrender the last pretence of an existing rebellion in Crete has vanished. The captured volunteers were brought back to their country by Hobart Pasha, who confused M. Bulgaris considerably-the damaging moral effect of marching the patriots, as liberated prisoners, through the streets of Athens, presenting itself—by asking him where they should be landed? The band of which these captives formed a part, was intended "to wrest Crete from the Ottomans or die" to revivify the Cretan insurrection as the special envoy of the Athenians.

Simultaneous reports touching the Turkish fleet possessed a certain interest. The Ottoman admiral since the chase of the Enosis had been blockading the port of Syra, as, after promise that judiciary investigation should meet Hobart Pasha's complaints as to the deeds of the blockade-runner, the authorities. had eventually refused to act. Unable then to obtain immediate examination, Hobart Pasha had entrusted his affair to the commander of the French steamer Le Forbyn, lying in the same port, as a superior officer of one of the protecting powers. A protest was addressed under date December 16th by M. Delyanni, Greek minister of foreign affairs, to the three protecting powers, in allusion to the Enosis affair. If not suggestive of Satan rebuking sin, the protest of the Greek foreign minister, addressed to the protecting powers in whose faces the Greek government had just snapped its fingers, when remonstrated with for hostile acts of the same nature as those which were the burden of M. Delyanni's complaint was regarded as inconsistent and even ludicrous on the

part of a cabinet which had repulsed the advice of the powers now taken into confidence and in a certain sense appealed to; and for one who professed himself so superior to the ordinary principles of international law when obedience to them would hinder his own purposes, to invoke them literally in order to stigmatize an adversary, assuming the insignificant rôle of a political Robert Macaire.

Upon the meeting of the Conference, in which, as before remarked, M. Rangabé had but a consultive voice, that gentleman protested at his not having the same authority as Turkey, and, deaf to all persuasion, withdrew from the sitting, (the second, we believe,) and addressed a note to the deliberating body, declining to take any place therein except upon the same level with that granted Turkey. It was pointed out to M. Rangabé that Turkey had her seat as one of the signataries of the treaty of Paris in 1856, which treaty Greece did not sign, but M. Rangabé declared that the conference being called to settle difficulties between Turkey and Greece, if Turkey had a right to be present, Greece certainly had that same and as large a right. M. Rangabé's pretension was most plausible, and confounded for a time the assembled plenipotentiaries; but the reflection that they were met rather to protect Greece from the consequences of her refusal to subscribe to the Turkish ultimatum, to show her that she was wrong and to endeavor to stay the just hand of Turkey, soon restored equilibrium, and the business of the conference proceeded. Some outside supported M. Rangabé's claim-some amongst those who had condemned Greece; others declared that a ward in chancery might as well presume to occupy the judge's seat. But all blamed the advisers of King George, who, knowing before the conference met the position Greece would occupy therein, waited until the meeting to have her representative make his confusing protest.

The plenipotentiaries pursued their work without the presence of the Grecian representative, and it immediately became apparent that they disavowed any authority over the disputants, relying solely on the moral and political influence of the states they represented. The powers might endorse the Turkish ultimatum, but if they did not, it would make no

change in the course of Turkey. They might formally declare that Greece was indisputably in the wrong, but as they were not prepared to say that Athens might be occupied by the Turk, Greece would not mend her ways.

On Saturday, January 16th, the conference, according to the Paris Constitutionnel, really closed its labors, and La France gives the text of the declaration of the plenipotentiaries, whose deliberation had been confined to the five points of the Turkish ultimatum. That declaration states that Turkey had ground to complain of a manifest violation of international law on the part of Greece, and that whatever might be her laws at home she was not to permit attacks against a neighboring state to be prepared on her territory. That her obligation is to prevent the arming in her ports of privateers like the Crete and Enosis. That she has no right to oppose the departure from her domain of Cretan refugees. On the fourth point of the ultimatum, Turkey having agreed to be governed by the decisions of the legal tribunals, and the fifth point being comprised in the other three, the declaration of the conference perfectly sustained the Turkish ultimatum. Turkey, in case Greece accepted the declaration, was to withdraw her ulti

matum.

Greece was admonished by all the great powers, Russia included, that she had alienated from herself the sympathies of Europe by her course toward Turkey, and that in case of rupture she must provide for herself-for the powers among themselves gave sureties of good behavior one to another. The joint note of the conference thus became an express warning to the cabinet of King George, or was so considered by the public, that Turkey in executing reprisals, in the event of Greece refusing to adhere to the protocol of the conference, would be carrying out the deliberate judgment of Europe.

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