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Continental Boundary.

§ IV. No line combining in its whole extent the requisite qualities, and including at the same time the Coast described in the foregoing paragraph, is to be found among those specified in the instructions. On the land side, the ridges of Parnes and Citharon would present a line which would be easy of defence, and would sufficiently separate the population located on either side; but this line would be defective with respect to the sea coast, and would moreover exclude a very considerable portion of the insurgent population. The line which, commencing at Thermopylæ, follows the ridge of Mount Eta and Corax, and ends at Lepanto, although it fulfils the necessary conditions, in the greater part of its extent, would nevertheless not suffice for the purposes of defence, without expensive works; and even then it would, in other respects, still remain imperfect. The line of Mount Eta, continued to the Gulf of Arta, would doubtless present one of the strongest barriers for defence, and for the separation of the inhabitants it would include the provinces which formerly constituted Greece Proper or Hellas; but it would require artificial works more or less expensive, in order to close the Pass of Thermopyla; and would exclude the position of the Gulf of Zeitoun, the occupation of which, by the Turks, would threaten the Greek line of defence, and would expose the communications of the Greeks by sea to continual constraint and collision.

Thessaly and Epirus not to be included in Continental Boundary.

SV. The two lines of Frontier proposed by the Greek Government, independently of their special defects, would include Thessaly and Epirus, a few districts of which alone have taken any share in the Insurrection, and of which several of the chiefs have even borne arms for the Porte; while the Greek population in general has lived peaceably with the Turks settled in those provinces. On this account, these two lines could not be adopted without contravening the principles on which the Representatives are bound by their instructions to found their opinion.

Continental Boundary should include Gulf of Arta to the Pass of Macrinoros, and the chain of Mount Othryx.

§ VI. In order to complete the system of defence, and to give to the system of separation the best guarantee for the fulfilment of the wishes of the great majority of the Greeks; and

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lastly, to satisfy more effectually than could be done by any other of the proposed lines, all the conditions specified in the instructions, the Frontier of Greece should be advanced to the Gulf of Arta, and to the Pass of Macrinoros, on the one side; and, on the other, to the chain of Mount Othryx, near the entrance of the Gulf of Volo; unless considerations of a higher nature should make it necessary to fix the Limits of Greece, by other rules than those which, according to the text of their instructions, ought to guide the opinion of the Representatives.

Steps necessary to be taken to secure proposed Frontier.

§ VII. In order to establish this Frontier, it would be necessary to cause the Turkish garrisons of several forts and positions to withdraw, and it would even be necessary, according to the letter of the Treaty, to oblige the Turkish inhabitants to quit the country, who, according to the information furnished by the Greek Government, amount to upwards of 8,000 souls, domiciled principally in the Negropont, at Zeitoun, and at Patradjick. Considering the actual state of the Greeks, this twofold operation would require the employment of the troops of the Allies.

Insular Boundary.

§ VIII. With respect to the Islands, the parallels of latitude and longitude specified in the instructions will include (with the exception of Samos) all those which, looking to their population, to the state of prosperity, to the share which they have taken in the Insurrection, and to their entire separation from the Turks, possess the most indisputable claims to form a part of the new Greek State. But without those limits are the Islands of Samos and Candia, which although distant from the body of Greece, are associated with it by common interests; and although their respective cases rest on different grounds, they deserve the benevolent consideration of the Courts, with regard to their claims to the application of the Treaty of London in their favour. With respect to the Island of Negropont, it is so closely connected with the adjacent parts of the Greek continent, that in the definition of the Frontier most suitable to the latter, it has already found the place which nature and the wants of Greece assign to it.

Tribute.

SIX. As the Tribute to be paid to the Sultan is calculated

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upon the amount of that which the Greek inhabitants of the country to be erected into the new State, formerly paid to Ilis Highness, in their character of Christian Rayahs, and as it ought therefore to be of the nature of an Indemnity, it is thought that the annual payment of 1,500,000 Turkish piastres, calculated on the receipts of the Haratch and the Avariz, as well as on the amount of the gross Tribute paid formerly by the Islands, will best fulfil the required conditions.

Payment of Tribute.

§ X. Considering the devastations of the War, and the urgent necessities of the country, it is obvious, that as long as the Porte shall not have subscribed to the proposed conditions, the resources of Greece cannot sufficiently develop themselves to enable it to effect the discharge in full of this Annual Tribute. The payment of this Annuity ought to be graduated in such a manner as to increase from year to year, dating from the moment of the conclusion of Peace, until it attains the maximum of 1,500,000 Turkish piastres, a sum which, from that period, should be paid annually to the Porte without any other addition or diminution.

Indemnity.

§ XI. The Indemnity to be paid, either to the former Mussulman Proprietors of the Lands which devolve to the Greeks, or to those who had a legal and bencficial interest in such properties, shall, on the one hand, be calculated on the real value of the lands, and, on the other, on the means possessed by the Greeks to indemnify the former Proprietors. The Lands shall serve as security for this Indemnity. Public Property shall not share in the Indemnity.

The verification of the Titles, and the liquidation of the admitted Claims, shall be effected by a Mixed Commission, which shall commence its labours so soon as the Porte has acceded to the new state of affairs; and which shall fix the value of the Land, and the periods of payment, subject to appeal to the Arbitration of the Agents of the Allied Courts.

Suzerainty.

§ XII. As the share which the Ottoman Porte is to take in the nomination of the Greek Authorities, is to be confined to the Chief Authority alone; and as its only object is to mark the

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relations of Suzerainty between the Porte and Greece, in such manner, however, as to give to the former such a guarantee as may be compatible with the peace and well-being of the new State; it is necessary that a single individual should be made the depositary of the Central Authority of Greece, and that the Succession should be secured to the Legitimate Heirs of this individual. As soon as the Porte shall have consented to this arrangement, the only mode in which it shall participate in each devolution of this Authority, shall be that of investiture; saving the enjoyment of the right secured to it by the Treaty, whenever Greece shall be necessitated to have recourse to election, in order to supply the want of Heirs in the established line of Succession.

Such are the conclusions at which the Representatives have definitively arrived; and in order the better to elucidate the motives by which they have been guided, and the opinions which they submit to their Courts, they annex to the present Protocol the accompanying explanatory statements (A, B, C, D, E, F).

[Boundary of Greece.]

No. 142.-PROTOCOL of Conference between Great Britain, France, and Russia, relative to the Continental and Insular Boundaries of Greece, &c. London, 22nd March, 1829.*

[The Porte declared its adhesion to this Protocol in its Treaty with Russia of 14th September, 1829, Art. IX.]

TABLE.

Reference to Treaty of 6th July, 1827. Continental and Insular Boundary. Tribute to the Porte. Indemnity. Suzeranity of the Porte. Amnesty. Right of Emigration. Commercial Relations to be defined. Maintenance of Armistice. Great Britain and France not to conclude any Arrangement not conformable to above Bases. Representation of Russia.

(Translation.†)

PRESENT: The Plenipotentiaries of Great Britain, France, and

Russia.

The Plenipotentiaries of the Alliance, after having read and taken into consideration the documents annexed to the Protocol, Litt. A. B. C. D., determined what follows.

Reference to Treaty of 6th July, 1827.

The Ambassadors of France and Great Britain at the Ottoman Porte, shall open at Constantinople, so soon as they shall arrive there, a negotiation with the Turkish Government, in the name of the 3 Courts who signed the Treaty of the 6th July, 1827 (No. 136), respecting the Pacification and future organisation of Greece, in conformity with the bases hereinafter pointed out.

It is, however, fully understood that each of the Allied Courts reserves to itself the right of weighing the merit of the objections which the Ottoman Porte may make to the propositions which shall be communicated to it, in virtue of the present Protocol; and that in the event of such objections being raised, it will be open to the 3 Powers to concert other proposals, founded upon the desire which will always animate them, of terminating speedily the question upon which they are at present engaged.

Continental and Insular Boundary.

It shall be proposed to the Porte that the point of departure * See also Protocols of the 22nd March, 1829, and 3rd February, 1830; Arrangement of 21st July, 1832; and Treaties of 7th May, 1832; 30th April, 1833; 13th July and 14th November, 1863; and 29th March, 1864.

For French Version, see "State Papers," vol. xvi, p. 1095.