Page:The European Concert in the Eastern Question.djvu/35

 salt-springs of Coprina shall be left to the Ottoman Porte. Thus the shore of the Gulf of Arta, to the north and west of the point where the boundary line meets its waters, will be retained by the Ottoman Empire, and the shore of this gulf, to the south and west of the line, is assigned to the State of Greece, with the exception of the fort of Punta, which will continue to belong to the Porte, with a radius of territory which shall not be less than half an hour, nor more than an hour.'

2nd. With respect to the indemnity to be paid by Greece, it remains fixed at the sum of forty millions of Turkish piastres.

The Plenipotentiaries of the three Courts declared further, that the Conference of London approve and confirm, without any reservation, all the other points in the arrangement of Constantinople, of the 21st of July of the present year; that the said points would have to be observed and executed according to the tenour of that arrangement, and that for this purpose the present Protocol shall be communicated on the one hand to the Ottoman Porte, through the Representatives of the three Courts at Constantinople, and on the other, to the Royal Greek Regency, through the Plenipotentiary of His Majesty the King of Bavaria.

Proceeding then to the examination of the Protocol hereunto annexed, (B.) which also bears the date of the 21st of July of the present year, and which the Representatives of France, of Great Britain, and of Russia, at the Ottoman Porte, have engaged simply to lay before the Conference of London, the Plenipotentiaries of the three Courts were of opinion that, notwithstanding the readiness with which the Courts willingly yield in general to the wishes expressed to them in the name of the Sultan, they find it utterly impossible to comply with the demands which the said Protocol puts forward on the part of the Ottoman Porte.

In fact, as to the first of these demands, it is sufficient to observe, that the right of maintaining forces by land and by sea, without limiting the number of them, is a right inherent in the independence of a State; that the independence of Greece, and all the rights inherent therein, have been sanctioned by the Protocol of the 3rd of February, 1830; that the Ottoman Porte has fully acceded to that Protocol; and that consequently, neither the Courts which have signed it, nor the Ottoman Porte which has acceded thereto, could now, without violating their engagements, curtail any one of those rights which that same Protocol accords to Greece to their full extent.