58 Notes for the Month. [JAN. 



them to depart from it. We can maintain no set of principles, no system, 

 without the pains, from time to time, of enforcing the observance of it. We 

 entertain (personally) noparticular affection for the Greeks as a nation ; their 

 cause has a worse odour with the public than it deserves, because it is 

 mixed up, to a certain point, with the absurd or corrupt conduct of a great 

 many quacks, and some knaves, who have obtruded themselves into the 

 advocacy of it : but the mere state of feeling, and tone of policy, which, 

 has for years been gaining ground in Europe, made an interference on 

 their behalf with the conduct of the Porte unavoidable. The Turks were 

 passing that limit of tyranny, which it was commonly decent for free 

 surrounding nations to look on upon and tolerate. Europe, collectively, 

 could not, and would not, stand by, and sanction the project of exter- 

 mhi alhig a whole people. If England had refused interference, France 

 would perhapshave interfered Russia would undoubtedly have interfered : 

 and any one European power (the last especially) would have been more 

 than equal to the accomplishment of the desired object. In a merely 

 interested point of view therefore, our course of alliance was a wise and 

 a necessary one. If we proceeded with France and Russia, it was possible 

 that such a unity of declaration would produce peace. We think that 

 it will yet have that effect a little more demonstration may be necessary, 

 but we still believe that the Turks will give way in time. But at all 

 events the course of alliance, gave us some voice in the extent and 

 management of a war if one occurred : while, if we held back, our 

 powers of mediation, in case of war, were cramped to nothing ; and the 

 mere fact of that holding back, made the resistance of the Turks a matter 

 of certainty. Our alliance placed us in a position incomparably more 

 favourable for any event, than we could have held, if we had avoided or 

 declined it. No man apprehends any difficulty from our contest with 

 Turkey : but a contest with Russia (after Turkey is destroyed) is thought 

 possible about the partition. Now no man can doubt, that, if we had 

 refused to interfere, Russia might have beaten Turkey single handed ; 

 and then if we had contrived to remain neutral during the contest the 

 same source of dissension arose at the end, with ourselves in an incompa- 

 rably less advantageous situation, for regulating or arranging it. 



The short question remaining, then, seems to be this Could the 

 Turks be allowed to go on massacreing and carrying into slavery the 

 Greeks, to the scandal and offence of all Christendom ? we apprehend 

 that, at the present day, they could not. Extermination rvas an admi- 

 rable recipe for differences ; but modern policy (the belief upon which 

 we are generally acting) rejects it. If we (England) were to proceed 

 to-morrow to exterminate the Irish (repeopling the country from our own 

 surplus population), no course could be more convenient than such an 

 one, or, perhaps, as regards the interests of all parties, advantageous : 

 but France rvovld interfere therefore, instead of " exterminating," we 

 must " emancipate" them. We may put down rebellion with a very 

 strong hand, and even punish it by very severe and bloody execu- 

 tions; but there is a line beyond which cruelty becomes unpleasant 

 to those who witness it : and that line the Turks have passed. The case 

 is one that comes before our police tribunals at Bow-street or the 

 Mansion-house every day. A master gives his parish apprentice twenty 

 stripes, and the magistrate puts on a grave face, and perceives the ne- 

 cessity of enforcing discipline, and of wholesome correction, in case of 

 need. But the man comes up again, for having given fifty blows, and 



