was in no such hurry to acknowledge the Greeks, the
Belgians, and the Spanish-Americans as she has been
to acknowledge the Secessionists. Years elapsed
after the beginning of the struggle in Greece before
the English Government professed to regard the parties
to that memorable conflict even with indifference.
The British historian of the Greek Revolution, writing
of the year 1821, says,—“Among the
European Governments, England was probably, next to
Austria, the one most hostile to Greece at that period,
when her foreign policy was guided by a spirit akin
to that of Metternich; the hired organs of Ministry
were loud in defence of Islam, and gall dropped from
their pens on the Christian cause.” And
when, some years later, England did profess neutrality
between the “parties” to the war, it was
less to prevent the Greeks from falling into the hands
of the Turks than to prevent the Turks from falling
into the hands of the Russians. Another object
she had in view was the suppression of that horrible
piracy which then raged in the Hellenic seas.
She was then as anxious to suppress piracy because
it was injurious to her commerce, as, apparently,
she is now anxious to promote it because its existence
would be injurious to our commerce. The famous
Treaty of London, made in 1827, the parties to which
were Russia, France, and England, was justified on
the ground of “the necessity of putting an end
to the sanguinary contest which, by delivering up the
Greek provinces and the isles of the Archipelago to
the disorders of anarchy, produces daily fresh impediments
to the commerce of the European states, and gives
occasion to piracies which not only expose the subjects
of the contracting powers to considerable losses, but
render necessary burdensome measures of suppression
and protection.” In the autumn of the same
year, an Order in Council decreed that “the
British ships in the Mediterranean should seize every
vessel they saw under the Greek flag, or armed and
fitted out at a Greek port, except such as were under
the immediate orders of the Greek Government.”
The object of this strong measure was the suppression
of piracy. Thus England had to interfere to put
down the Greek pirates; and if she means to insist
upon there being any resemblance between the case of
the Greeks and that of the Secessionists, (President
Lincoln to appear as the Grand Turk, or Sultan Mahmoud
II., the destroyer of the Janizaries,) we should not
object, so far as relates to the finale of the piece,
which is very likely, through her most injudicious
action, to produce a large crop of Selims and Abdallahs,
by whom any amount of sea-roving will be done, but
as much at Britain’s expense as at ours.