rs to select a prince to whom the new
crown should be offered. This subject engaged their attention from
October, 1829, to January, 1830. Finally, Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg,
widower of the Princess Charlotte, was selected, greatly to the
annoyance of King George IV. On February 3 Prince Leopold was formally
offered the sovereignty of Greece as an independent state, bounded on
the north by a line drawn from the mouth of the Aspropotamo to
Thermopylae. Before accepting the crown he made an effort to obtain a
stronger position for its future prince. He asked for a complete
guarantee of independence from the three powers, some security for the
Greek inhabitants of Crete and Samos, an extension of the boundary to
the north, and financial and military support. The powers on February 20
decided to grant the guarantee and a loan of L2,400,000, and to allow
the French troops to remain in Greece for another year, but refused the
extension of territory and would not recognise the right of the Greek
state to interfere in the affairs of Crete and Samos. Leopold accepted
the crown on these conditions on February 24, and they were accepted by
the Porte on April 24. Capodistrias, who had no desire to make way for
another ruler, invited Leopold to the country, but suggested that he
would not be well received and that he would have to change his
religion.[100] These considerations, combined with other causes, induced
him to renounce the crown on May 21.

[Pageheading: _FRANCE CONQUERS ALGERIA._]

One other foreign event exercised the minds of Wellington's cabinet
during the last months of George IV.'s reign. This was the French
punitive expedition to Algiers, which resulted In the conquest of that
state. The expedition was originally planned in concert with Mehemet Ali
of Egypt, and appeared to Wellington to be prompted by the idea that the
defeat of the Turks by Russia afforded a convenient opportunity for a
partition of Turkish territory. The British government was able by means
of diplomatic pressure to induce Mehemet Ali to refrain from
co-operating, but it could not deny the justice of the French expedition
or prevent it from sailing.

FOOTNOTES:

[93] Stapleton, _Life of Canning_, iii., 220-25, 227-35.

[94] See Lloyd, _Transactions of the Royal Historical Society_, N.S.,
xviii. (1904), 77-105.

[95] Wellington, _Despatches, etc._, iv., 270-79.

[96] _Ibid._, pp. 280-86.

[97] So S. Lane-Poole, writing from Church's p