THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE 1821 TO 1833 BY W.ALISON PHILLIPS 1897

ATTITUDE OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT 273
was peaceful in its intentions, and that only peaceful
means should be used to enforce it. 1
In the King's
speech, in 1828, the action of the admirals was referred
to as { an untoward event/ which, however, it was
hoped would not disturb the harmony of the relations
between His Majesty's Government and that of the
Sultan; 2
and to the Porte itself representations were
made justifying Admiral Codrington's action on the
ground that the Turks had themselves been the
aggressors. When the Ottoman Government very
the allied fleet had
naturally inquired by what right
entered the harbour of Navarino, at all, the reply was
'
by the right which every fleet has to enter a friendly
'
port in time of peace !
The British ministers were in fact bound hand and
foot to a policy which they hated. Even while Goderich
was still at the head of Lord affairs, Dudley had confessed
to the Austrian minister that he considered the
Treaty of London an iniquity, but an iniquity in which
it was unfortunately, for the present, necessary to persevere;
8
and when, in January 1828, the Duke of
"Wellington succeeded Goderich at the head of the
Government, the policy of Canning was committed.
to the hands of a statesman who had hated him as a
i Note of Lord Dudley. Prokesch, Appendix, ix. 3.
2
Hansard, xviii. 3. 3
Mendelssohn,
i. 491.
18