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

338 THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE
May, accordingly, he formally handed in his resignation
to the representatives of the Powers, stating as
his reason the extreme unwillingness of the Greeks to
accept the protocol of the 3rd of February.
By the Hellenes the news of his resignation was
received with a grief that was akin to despair;
*
in the diplomatic world it excited a ferment of anger
and disgust, which found loud expression. Lord
Aberdeen, in the House of Lords, made a statement
which was construed into an attack on the Prince, and
an arraignment of his motives in resigning the crown. 2
Earl Grey, and other friends of Prince Leopold, took
up the cudgels on his behalf;
and, on the part of the
Whigs, the affair was made the occasion for an elaborate
attack on the whole Tory policy with regard to
Greece. A letter was read from General Church condemning
utterly the frontier fixed by the protocol;
and Lord Palmerston said that he could see no reason
why
Crete and the islands should not have been included,
so as to make Greece a really powerful State. 8
The resignation of Prince Leopold, and the crisis
which almost immediately followed in the affairs
Europe, put a stop to any strenuous endeavour to give
i
Mendelssohn, ii. 211. 2
Hansard, xxiv. 990.
Prokesch, ii. 420. Cf. Hansard, xxii. 558. For the whole
question of Leopold's resignation, see also Mendelssohn, ii.
183-211.
of