This, then, is coming to a plain,
practical result. The Grecian revolution has been discouraged,
discountenanced, and denounced, solely because it _is_ a revolution.
Independent of all inquiry into the reasonableness of its causes or the
enormity of the oppression which produced it; regardless of the peculiar
claims which Greece possesses upon the civilized world; and regardless
of what has been their own conduct towards her for a century; regardless
of the interest of the Christian religion,--the sovereigns at Verona
seized upon the case of the Greek revolution as one above all others
calculated to illustrate the fixed principles of their policy. The
abominable rule of the Porte on one side, the value and the sufferings
of the Christian Greeks on the other, furnished a case likely to
convince even an incredulous world of the sincerity of the professions
of the Allied Powers. They embraced the occasion with apparent ardor:
and the world, I trust, is satisfied.
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.
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