HC Deb 28 July 1863 vol 172 c1497
MR. DARBY GRIFFITH

said, he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, What will be the nature of the guarantee to be entered into to prevent the future acquisition of the Ionian Islands by any other Power than Greece, and which of the European Powers will be the parties by whom that guarantee will be executed?

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON

Sir, the Representatives of England, France, and Russia, resident in Athens, have made a Protest against the state of affairs at present existing in that city and its neighbourhood, and that Protest will be laid upon the table of the House with the other Papers relating to the recent condition of Greece. I should state, with regard to the disturbances in that country, that there are agents at work for the purpose of preventing the establishment of Prince William of Denmark as King of Greece, and who are therefore desirous of throwing every possible difficulty and embarrassment, both in Greece and elsewhere, in the way of the accomplishment of such an event; but those efforts, I can assure the hon. Gentleman, will be entirely fruitless, and the new King will go to Greece, and will, I trust, establish tranquillity in that country.

MR. DARBY GRIFFITH

said, he believed the noble Lord had mistaken his Question, and had answered instead a Question which the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. C. Bentinck) had placed on the Notice Paper.

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON

said, the treaty by which the territorial limitations of Greece were fixed received the sanction of the different Powers, and no change, therefore, could be made in it without their consent. The treaty by which the Ionian Islands would be ceded to Greece would obtain the sanction of the same Powers; and the transfer of those Islands to any other State could not, he presumed, ake place without their concurrence.