be destroyed. The principle of joint
intervention, adopted at Troppau, seemed to require the powers to give
their support to Russia. Great Britain and Austria, however, refused to
treat war with Turkey as a possibility. The Greek revolt seemed to them
to express the principle of revolution, and the tsar himself became
inclined to take this view of the situation when the Greeks established
an advanced republican form of government. They accordingly
distinguished between the treaty rights of Russia, which the four powers
would urge Turkey to respect, and the provision of a more secure state
of order in Turkey, which would be discussed at a European congress. The
Russian ambassador had been withdrawn from Constantinople on August 8,
and the negotiation was conducted mainly by Lord Strangford, the British
ambassador at Constantinople, who was supported by Austria, France, and
Prussia. He succeeded in inducing Turkey to evacuate the principalities
and to open the Dardanelles to ships of all nations, but Turkish
obstinacy deferred the conclusion of a treaty.

[Pageheading: _THE SPANISH QUESTION._]

Meanwhile the Spanish question became more critical. As time went on
Spain grew less instead of more settled, while the ultra-royalist party
gained strength in France. To them the position to which the Bourbon
King of Spain had been reduced seemed at once an insult and a menace to
France. The establishment of Austrian supremacy in Italy made them long
for French supremacy in Spain. In August, 1821, the presence of yellow
fever in Spain was made the occasion for establishing a body of troops,
professing to act as a sanitary cordon, upon the frontier. They were
retained there when the fever had disappeared, and their numbers were
gradually raised to 100,000. In December, 1821, an ultra-royalist
ministry entered on office in France under the leadership of Villele.
Villele, like King Louis XVIII., was opposed to war, but he might easily
be forced to adopt the war policy which was popular with his party.
Fresh evidence was given of the contagious nature of the Spanish
revolution by the adoption, on the 27th of the preceding June, by the
Portuguese cortes, of a constitution modelled on that of Spain. Six days
later the Portuguese king arrived at Lisbon and was induced to sign the
new constitution. This event was the more significant in the eyes of the
powers, because the proclamation of the constitution had been
accompanied by an insult