We see here, Mr. Chairman, the direct and actual application of that system which I have attempted to describe.  We see it in the very case of Greece.  We learn, authentically and indisputably, that the Allied Powers, holding that all changes in legislation and administration ought to proceed from kings alone, were wholly inexorable to the sufferings of the Greeks, and entirely hostile to their success.  Now it is upon this practical result of the principle of the Continental powers that I wish this House to intimate its opinion.  The great question is a question of principle.  Greece is only the signal instance of the application of that principle.  If the principle be right, if we esteem it conformable to the law of nations, if we have nothing to say against it, or if we deem ourselves unfit to express an opinion on the subject, then, of course, no resolution ought to pass.  If, on the other hand, we see in the declarations of the Allied Powers principles, not only utterly hostile to our own free institutions, but hostile also to the independence of all nations, and altogether opposed to the improvement of the condition of human nature; if, in the instance before us, we see a most striking exposition and application of those principles, and if we deem our opinions to be entitled to any weight in the estimation of mankind,—­then I think it is our duty to adopt some such measure as the proposed resolution.

It is worthy of observation, Sir, that as early as July, 1821, Baron Strogonoff, the Russian minister at Constantinople, represented to the Porte, that, if the undistinguished massacres of the Greeks, both of such as were in open resistance and of those who remained patient in their submission were continued, and should become a settled habit, they would give just cause of war against the Porte to all Christian states.  This was in 1821.[6] It was followed, early in the next year, by that indescribable enormity, that appalling monument of barbarian cruelty, the destruction of Scio; a scene I shall not attempt to describe; a scene from which human nature shrinks shuddering away; a scene having hardly a parallel in the history of fallen man.  This scene, too, was quickly followed by the massacres in Cyprus; and all these things were perfectly known to the Christian powers assembled at Verona.  Yet these powers, instead of acting upon the case supposed by Baron Strogonoff, and which one would think had been then fully made out,—­instead of being moved by any compassion for the sufferings of the Greeks,—­these powers, these Christian powers, rebuke their gallantry and insult their sufferings by accusing them of “throwing a firebrand into the Ottoman empire.”  Such, Sir, appear to me to be the principles on which the Continental powers of Europe have agreed hereafter to act; and this, an eminent instance of the application of those principles.