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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 814: CAUSE OF THE GREEKS—PROROGATION OF PARLIAMENT.
By Edward Farr
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The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

CAUSE OF THE GREEKS—PROROGATION OF PARLIAMENT.

The contest which was raging between the Greeks and their oppressors this year came under the notice of parliament. The Mussulmen had everywhere committed the most atrocious cruelties, and the sensations of horror which they produced in England caused Mr. Smith to put a question in the commons, regarding connivance, or at least neglect of remonstrance on the part of our diplomatic agents. Lord Londonderry answered in a flippant manner, that a calamity had occurred in which ten or twelve hostages had been executed, but which was justified by the barbarity of the Greeks. Sir James Mackintosh now took up the question in a strong remonstrance. He asked whether it was mentioned in any of the despatches that the markets of Smyrna and Constantinople were filled with Greek ladies and children? whether ministers could afford the nation any account of the new slave-trade recently established in the East for Christian families? and whether any of those persons who had been murdered at Constantinople had been under the protection of the British minister, or had surrendered themselves to the Turks under any pledge, promise, or assurance of safety from our ambassador? Lord Londonderry now confessed that eighty or ninety individuals had been executed; but he denied that they could be considered at all under the protection of the British government, or in such a situation as to require our interference.

Many questions of minor importance were discussed this session, but none that requires our consideration except the foregoing. Parliament was prorogued on the 6th of August: and then, on the 10th, the king paid a visit to Scotland; to drink “health to its chieftains and clans, and to bless the land of cakes.”