[Conference of Poros.]

upon the amount of that which the Greek inhabitants of the country to be erected into the new State, formerly paid to His 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 Arariz, 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 beneficial 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

[Conference of Poros.]

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.

[Boundary of Greece.]

for the Continental Boundary shall be near the entrance of the Gulf of Volo; from whence the line ascending to the crown of the Othryx, shall follow its whole range as far as the summit, situated to the east of Agrapha, which forms its point of junction with the chain of Pindus. From this summit it will descend into the valley of the Aspropotamos, by the south of Leontitos, which it will leave to Turkey; crossing afterwards the chain of the Macrinoros, it will include in the Greek Territory the defile of that name, which leads from the plain of Arta, and will terminate in the sea at the Ambraciot Gulf. All the provinces situated to the south of that line shall be comprised in the new Greek State.

The Islands adjoining the Morea, the Island of Euboea, or Negropont, and the Islands commonly called Cyclades, shall form part of that State.

Tribute to the Porte.

It shall be proposed to the Ottoman Porte, in the name of the three Courts, that the Greeks shall pay to it an annual Tribute, amounting in the whole to 1,500,000 Turkish piastres.

To prevent all controversy, the relative value of the Turkish piastre to the Spanish dollar shall be settled, once for all, by common agreement.

Considering the state of penury to which Greece is reduced, it shall be agreed that from the time at which the payment of the Tribute shall commence, Greece shall pay to the Porte for the first year a sum which shall be neither less than a fifth, nor more than a third, of the total of the Tribute; that that sum shall be augmented from year to year, until, in the course of four years, the annual Tribute shall reach the maximum of 1,500,000 piastres, which the State shall continue to pay every year, without any diminution or addition whatsoever.

Indemnity.

It shall be proposed to the Ottoman Porte that the Indemnity mentioned in Article II of the Treaty of 6th July, 1827 (No. 136), shall be regulated in the manner hereinafter pointed out.

The parties who shall be admitted to prove their titles shall be :

1. The individual Mussulman proprietors of real estates situated in the territory which is to constitute Greece.

2. The individual Mussulmans, who, either as usufructuaries, or as hereditary administrators, had a beneficial interest in the Vacoufs-ady, holding of the Mosques situated in the same terri

[Boundary of Greece.]

tory; saving the deduction therefrom of the amount of the fines with which those Vacoufs were burthened.

The individual Mussulmans of these two classes, whose titles shall have been recognised as regular, shall be at liberty themselves to sell their properties in the space of one year, saving the previous payment of the debts hypothecated upon them. If, during that period, this sale should not have been effected, Commissioners shall value the unsold properties, and, as soon as the amount of the sum due to the former proprietors, their heirs or assigns, shall be fixed, the Greek Government, in effecting the liquidation of the claims, shall deliver to the recognised creditors bonds on the State, payable at fixed periods.

The verifying of the titles, as well as the valuation of the properties, shall be confided to a mixed Commission, composed of Greek and Mussulman Commissioners, in equal number on both sides, which shall be charged to receive and examine all the claims with the least possible delay, and to decide upon the validity of the documents which shall be produced to them. The Commission shall besides fix general regulations for cases in which the titles of the claimants may have perished during the Revolution, and those regulations shall be communicated to the parties interested.

In order to solve the difficulties to which these operations may possibly give rise between the Greek and Ottoman Commissioners, and in order to establish at the same time a system calculated to abridge the period of this liquidation, and to lead in each case to a definitive decision, there shall be instituted a Commission of appeal and arbitration, composed of Commissioners of the three Allied Powers, who shall decide in the last instance upon all the claims respecting which the Ottoman and Greek Commissioners shall not have been able to come to an understanding.

Suzerainty of the Porte.

Greece shall enjoy, under the Suzerainty of the Porte, the internal administration best calculated to guarantee the religious and commercial liberty, as well as the prosperity and the repose, which it is desred to assure to it.

With this view, that administration shall be assimilated, as much as possible, to monarchical forms, and shall be confided to a Christian Chief or Prince, whose authority shall be hereditary, in the order of primogeniture.