Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 08.djvu/443

 and check the machinations of the Austrian and Prussian ministers. Much as he deplored the barbarity displayed in the massacre of the Janissaries, from which he contrived to save his own guard, he could not but allow the necessity of strong measures of repression; and deeply as he regretted the attitude of the Porte towards the Greeks, it was impossible to deny that there was little to induce the sultan to agree to terms of dismemberment. The conferences of the three ambassadors under the stipulations of the treaty of London of 1827 were beginning in no very hopeful mood, when a shabby scrap of paper was placed in Canning's hands, just as he was on the point of attending the conference at the French ambassador's. At the close of the interview he laid this document before the ministers. It contained news of heavy firing heard at Navarino, and the effect of the communication was instantaneous. General Guilleminot turned pale, and then quietly remarked, ‘Trois têtes dans un bonnet, n'est-ce pas?’ and the conference broke up. The sultan had heard the news, too, and his indignation was unbounded. The embassies were surrounded by troops, and Canning spent the night in burning his private papers. No violence was offered to the Europeans; but the negotiations came to a dead-lock. Once again Canning took upon himself to initiate a course of action without instructions. He persuaded his French and Russian colleagues to join him in withdrawing the embassies from Constantinople on their own responsibility, and the three ambassadors, with their private and official families, sailed direct to Corfu.

In February 1828 Canning left Corfu for London in some perturbation as to his probable reception. His apprehensions were unfounded; he was exonerated from all blame in the matter of Navarino, and his action in withdrawing the embassy was approved. The government, however, could not make up its mind to any course of action. Canning urged upon Lord Dudley the importance of not permitting Russia to act alone in coercing the Porte, and insisted on the necessity for an immediate pacification of Greece; and when the foreign secretary declined to move, Canning even took the unusual step of carrying the matter higher, to the prime minister himself; but the duke was equally obdurate. When Aberdeen succeeded Dudley at the foreign office, a change came over the British policy: a French army was despatched, at England's request, to drive out Ibrahim Pasha and his Egyptian troops from the Morea, and the three ambassadors were ordered to resume their conferences for the pacification of Greece. They met at Corfu in the autumn, and proceeded together to Poros, where they drew up articles of settlement, framed by Canning, which were forwarded to their respective governments in December 1828. These articles included the establishment of a Greek tributary monarchy, with a northern frontier terminating in the gulfs of Volo and Arta. It was reserved for the treaty of Adrianople, forced upon Mahmud by the triumphant Diebitsch in August 1829, to enforce these and still more trenchant conditions. In the meanwhile, it was only the influence of Canning that restrained Capo d'Istria from employing the French contingent in an attack upon Attica, still held by the Turks, which would have resulted in serious European complications.

The negotiations at Poros mark the termination of the first period of Canning's diplomatic career. For twelve years he was now destined to hold no permanent diplomatic post. A disagreement with Lord Aberdeen on the Greek question—owing, nominally, to Canning's suggestion that Candia should form part of the new kingdom (Correspondence with Prince Leopold, Parl. Papers, 1830, xix.), but really to Aberdeen's mistrust of the ambassador's ‘political inclinations’—had been accentuated by a sharp correspondence, and he conditionally resigned his embassy, in the event of the Poros settlement not being carried into effect, in January 1829. The condition named did not precisely occur, but his resignation was accepted, and Sir R. Gordon succeeded him as ambassador at the Porte.

On his return to England the services of the ex-ambassador were acknowledged by the grand cross of the Bath. Canning now addressed himself to home ambitions. He was elected a member of the House of Commons in 1828, while still an ambassador. His first seat was Old Sarum, ‘the rottenest borough on the list;’ he stood in 1830 unsuccessfully for Leominster, as ‘third man;’ then tried Southampton, but retired before the poll; and was at length elected for Stockbridge, where the canvass was a mere form, and a cheque for 1,000l. to the attorney settled the business. Finally, after a sharp contest, he was returned in 1835 for King's Lynn, with Lord George Bentinck for his colleague, and retained the seat in two subsequent elections, until his return to diplomatic functions removed him from parliament in 1841. His parliamentary career was not remarkable. His opinions, indeed, were respected, and his counsel sought, especially on Eastern questions; but he was no party man, though he acted with Peel and Stanley, and was a