Page:The European Concert in the Eastern Question.djvu/24

Prince de Lieven, &c., his Ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to His Britannic Majesty.

Who having communicated to each other their full powers, found to be in due and proper form, have agreed upon the following articles.

Mediation.Art. 1. The contracting Powers shall offer their mediation to the Ottoman Porte, with the view of effecting a reconciliation between it and the Greeks. This offer of mediation shall be made to that Power immediately after the ratification of the present treaty, by means of a joint declaration, signed by the plenipotentiaries of the Allied Courts at Constantinople; and, at the same time, a demand for an immediate armistice shall be made to the two contending parties, as a preliminary and indispensable condition to the opening of any negotiation.

Bases of arrangement.Art. 2. The arrangement to be proposed to the Ottoman Porte shall rest upon the following bases:—

The Greeks shall hold under the Sultan as under a Lord paramount; and, in consequence thereof, they shall pay to the Ottoman Empire an annual tribute, the amount of which shall be fixed, once for all, by common agreement. They shall be governed by authorities whom they shall choose and appoint themselves, but in the nomination of whom the Porte shall have a defined right. In order to effect a complete separation between the individuals of the two nations, and to prevent the collisions which would be the inevitable consequence of so protracted a struggle, the Greeks shall become possessors of all Turkish property situated either upon the continent, or in the islands of Greece, on condition of indemnifying the former proprietors, either by an annual sum to be added to the tribute which they shall pay to the Porte, or by some other arrangement of the same nature.

Art. 3. The details of this arrangement, as well as the limits of the territory upon the continent, and the designation of the islands of the Archipelago to which it shall be applicable, shall be settled by a negotiation to be afterwards entered into between the High Powers and the two contending parties.

Art. 4. The contracting Powers engage to pursue the salutary work of the pacification of Greece, upon the bases laid down in the preceding articles, and to furnish, without the least delay, their representatives at Constantinople with all the instructions which are required for the execution of the Treaty which they now sign.

Art. 5. The contracting Powers will not seek in these arrange-