Page:The European Concert in the Eastern Question.djvu/39

 July, 1863, on behalf of the three Powers and of the King of Denmark.

This Treaty was varied, with reference to the title assumed by the new King, and to the mention of the Greek Senate in Article I, by Protocols signed on behalf of the same Powers on 3rd August and 13th October 2.

The cession of the Ionian Islands required the consent of the signatories of the Treaty of Paris of 5th November, 1815, and a Conference of the representatives of Austria and Prussia, as well as of France, Great Britain, and Russia, accordingly met in London to consider the question.

By a Convention signed at Constantinople, 21st March, 1800, between Russia and the Porte, it had been agreed that these islands, which were originally subject to Venice, but had recently been seized by the French, should form a self-governing tributary republic under the suzerainty of the Porte. By the Treaty of Paris of 5th November, 1815, the islands mentioned in the Convention of 1800 were to be 'an independent State, under the denomination of the United States of the Ionian Islands, under the immediate and exclusive protection of the King of Great Britain and Ireland.' This arrangement had been recognised by the Porte in a firman dated 34th April, 1819.

The Conference now resolved, 1st August, 1863, that the islands should be united to Greece 'under the sanction of a European Act ;' and the Ionian Parliament having, on 19th October, voted for annexation, the representatives of the five Powers executed at London, on 14th November, 1863, a Treaty in accordance with this resolution.

In the following Spring a Conference of the five Powers signed, at London, on 25th January, two Protocols, by the