the sympathy of all lovers of antiquity for the Greeks; and
Samuel Gridley Howe, an impetuous young American doctor, crossed
the seas, carrying to the Greeks his services and the gifts of
Boston friends of liberty. A new conflict seemed to be shaping
itself--a struggle of absolutism against democracy, of America
against Europe.

Between the two camps, both in her ideas and in her geographical
situation, stood England. Devoted as she was to law and order,
bulwark against the excesses of the French Terror and the world
dominion that Napoleon sought, she was nevertheless equally
strong in her opposition to Divine Right. Her people and her
government alike were troubled at the repressive measured by
which the Allies put down the Revolution of Naples in 1821 and
that of Spain in 1823. Still more were they disturbed at the hint
given at the Congress of Verona in 1822 that, when Europe was
once quieted, America would engage the attention of Europe's
arbiters. George Canning, the English foreign minister, soon
discovered that this hint foreshadowed a new congress to be
devoted especially to the American problem. Spain was to be
restored to her sovereignty, but was to pay in liberal grants of
American territory to whatever powers helped her. Canning is
regarded as the ablest English foreign minister of the nineteenth
century; at least no one better embodied the fundamental
aspirations of the English people. He realized that liberal
England would be perpetually a minority in a united Europe, as
Europe was then organized. He believed that the best security for
peace was not a union but a balance of powers. He opposed
intervention in the internal affairs of nations and stood for the
right of each to choose its own form of government. Particularly