Page:The European Concert in the Eastern Question.djvu/40

Protocols of the five Powers.former of which it was agreed that the neutralisation of the islands, effected by Article 2 of the Treaty of 14th November, should be confined to Corfu and Paxo^[1], by the latter an explanation was given of the effect of Article 4 of the Treaty upon treaties of commerce^[2].

The Treaty of 29th March, 1864.On 29th March, 1864, a Treaty was signed at London between the three guaranteeing Powers and the King of the Hellenes, in pursuance of Article 6 of the Treaty of 14th November, with reference to the cession of the islands^[3]; The Protocol of same date.and a Protocol of the same date, signed on behalf of the same parties, recorded the decision of His Hellenic Majesty 'to maintain, in all its integrity, that clause of the Decree concerning his election, in virtue of which his legitimate heirs and successors to the throne of Greece must profess the tenets of the orthodox Church of the East^[4].' On the same day a Convention was also executed between Great Britain and Greece with reference to the claims of officials in the islands^[5]

The accession of the Porte to the Treaty.A Protocol signed at Corfu on 28th May records the cessation of the British Protectorate of the islands^[6]. The Porte acceded to the Treaty of 29th March, 1864, by an Act signed at Constantinople on 28th May, 1865^[7].

The neutrality of Greece during the Russo-Turkish War was ascribed by it to a wish to conform to the desires of the Great Powers, and was accordingly put forward, both at the Conference of Constantinople in 1876^[8] and at the Congress of Berlin in 1878, as a reason for the favourable consideration by those Powers of an extension of the limits of the kingdom.

1. Parl. Papers, 1864, Greece, No. 1; N. R. G. xviii, 60; q. v. infra, Texts, No. VIII.
2. Ibid.
3. Parl. Papers, 1864; N. R. G. xviii, 63; q. v. infra, Texts, No. IX.
4. Parl. Papers, 1864, Greece, No. 1; N. R. G. xviii, 48; q. v. infra, Texts, No. X. Cf. the Protocol of 5th June 1863, Art 1 of the Treaty of 20 November 1852, the Protocol of 5th June 1863, Art 7 of the Treaty of 13th July 1863.
5. Parl. Papers, 1864, Greece, No. 1; N. R. G. xviii, 72.
6. N. R. G. xviii, 68.
7. Parl. Papers, 1865, N. R. G. xx, 86; q. v. infra, Texts, No. XI.
8. Parl. Papers, 1877, Turkey, No. 2, pp. 70, 173.