Page:The European Concert in the Eastern Question.djvu/36

 The same arguments militate against the second demand of the Ottoman Government. The right to take part in any war which breaks out between third Powers, is also one of the rights inherent in the independence of a State, unless that State shall have been constituted and declared perpetually neutral. Now Greece has not been constituted and declared perpetually neutral. Therefore, not possessing the advantages of a perpetual neutrality, she could not rightly be called upon to fulfil the obligations of neutrality.

With respect to the third demand of the Ottoman Government, the Plenipotentiaries of the three Courts were of opinion that it did not come within the province of the Conference of London, the Conference not having the power of mixing itself up with questions which are connected with the internal legislation of Greece.

The Plenipotentiaries of the three Courts observed finally, with respect to the wishes expressed by the Ottoman Government, that there never was a question, in the late negotiations of Constantinople, of changing the insular limits of Greece; that those limits, which include in the number of Greek Islands, the islands called the Devil's Isles, namely, Skiatho, Skopelo, and Chelidrome, were definitely established by the Protocol of the 3rd of February, 1830, to which the Ottoman Porte acceded; that the position of those three islands presents nothing menacing to the neighbouring Turkish Provinces; and that their cession could not result from a negotiation which was empowered to modify the continental limits only of Greece by means of a pecuniary indemnity.

The Plenipotentiaries of the three Courts have agreed to transmit the present Protocol to the Representatives of France, of Great Britain, and of Russia, at Constantinople, and to the Bavarian Plenipotentiary at the Conference of London, by the despatch and note subjoined (C. D.)

(Signed)

The boundary Commissioners commenced their labours in September 1832, and the territory assigned to the new kingdom was incorporated into it by an act of the Regency, dated 1st February, 1833. The maps prepared by the