A severe charge
has been made against the Congress, and particularly against the
English Plenipotentiaries, for not having sufficiently attended to the
interests and claims of Greece. My Lords, I think you will find,
on reflection, that that charge is utterly unfounded. The English
Government were the first that expressed the desire that Greece should
be heard at the Congress. But, while they expressed that desire, they
communicated confidentially to Greece that it must on no account
associate that desire on the part of the Government with any
engagement for the redistribution of territory. That was repeated,
and not merely once repeated. The Greek inhabitants, apart from the
kingdom of Greece, are a considerable element in the Turkish Empire,
and it is of the greatest importance that their interests should be
sedulously attended to. One of the many evils of that large Slav
State--the Bulgaria of the San Stefano treaty--was, that it would have
absorbed, and made utterly to disappear from the earth, a considerable
Greek population. At the Congress the Greeks were heard, and they were
heard by representatives of considerable eloquence and ability; but it
was quite clear, the moment they put their case before the Congress,
that they had totally misapprehended the reason why the Congress had
met together, and what were its objects and character. The Greek
representatives, evidently, had not in any way relinquished what they
call their great idea--and your Lordships well know that it is one
that has no limit which does not reach as far as Constantinople.
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