ked by events which went far to cancel the
arguments on which Wellington had based his case for a restricted
frontier. Not only the north coast of the Gulf of Corinth but Acarnania
and AEtolia were liberated by the Greek forces under Sir Richard Church
the castle of Vonitza falling on March 17, Karavasara shortly
afterwards, Lepanto on April 30, and Mesolongi on May 17.[97] Meanwhile
the terms agreed upon at Poros had been adopted and further defined by
the conference at London on March 22. It was now provided that the
future hereditary prince was to be chosen by the three powers and the
sultan conjointly, and that the terms were to be offered to the Porte by
the British and French ambassadors in the name of the three powers; any
Turkish objections were to be weighed.[98] It was not till June that
Robert Gordon and Guilleminot, representing Great Britain and France
respectively, were able to lay these proposals before the Porte, and it
was only after a Russian army under Diebitsch had crossed the Balkans
that the Porte on August 15 accepted them, and even then only with
extensive modifications. These limited the new state to the Morea and
the adjacent islands, and left the tribute assigned to the same purposes
as before the revolt; a limit was to be set to the military and naval
forces of Greece, and Greeks were not to be allowed to migrate from
Turkish dominions to the new state.

Wellington was of opinion that these concessions were adequate. He
attached great importance to the consent of the Porte, to dispense with
which seemed to him a sure method of encouraging a general revolt in the
Turkish dominions; and he also advocated a limited frontier in the
interests of the Ionian Islands. He doubted whether it would be found
possible to remove Capodistrias, who had been elected president of
Greece for a period of seven years on April 14, 1827, from his office to
make room for a hereditary prince, and he felt sure that if Capodistrias
were once granted Central Greece he would not hesitate to attempt the
conquest of the Ionian Islands. Capodistrias had in fact refused to
accept any of the arrangements proposed by the London conference, and
was still engaged in the vigorous prosecution of the war. Wellington did
not, however, succeed in inducing France and Russia to remain content
with the Turkish concessions. Diebitsch's successful march through
Rumelia encouraged Russia to demand more, and filled the minds of the
French m