Page:The European Concert in the Eastern Question.djvu/37

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THE CHANGE OF DYNASTY.
21

missioners were presented by the representatives of the three Powers to the Porte, and its approval of them was brought to the cognisance of the Conference of London on 30th January, 1836[1].

The guaranteed loan.The Greek Government failing to comply with the provisions of the Convention of 7th May, 1832, with reference to the loan guaranteed by the Powers, meetings of the Conference were held in 1836 and afterwards upon the subject[2]. In 1857 a Commission of representatives of the three Powers sat at Athens to enquire into the state of the finances of the country, and reported, on 24th May, 1859, demanding an annual payment by the Greeks of £36000[3]. An 'Arrangement' in this sense was made in June of the following year[4].

The change of dynasty.In October, 1862, King Otho was deposed, and the vacant throne was eventually offered, by a vote of the National Assembly, on 30th March, 1863, to Prince William, second son of the King of Denmark[5]. Conference of the three Powers.A Conference of the three guaranteeing Powers, held in London from 16th May to 26th June[6], confirmed the choice.

The Protocol of the first sitting of the Conference records the regret of the Plenipotentiaries that, after an experience of thirty years, the order of things established in 1832 had not consolidated itself in Greece under the dynasty which the Convention of 7th May called to the throne, in virtue of the power then delegated by the Greek nation to the courts of France, Great Britain and Russia; 'whose mandate is therefore now at an end.'

At the sitting of 27th May, the King of Bavaria not having accepted the invitation of the Conference to be repre-

  1. Prot. No. 58.
  2. Prot. Nos. 60-97.
  3. Parl. Papers, 1860.
  4. Parl. Papers, 1864, Greece, No. 2.
  5. A previous choice of Prince Alfred of England was maintained by the Three Powers to be excluded by the Protocol of 3rd February, 1830. See Parl Papers, 1863; and Hansard, clxix. p. 1470.
  6. Parl. Papers, 1863, Greece, Nos. 2 and 4; N. R. G. xvii, P. 2, p. 73.