The Eastern question advanced more slowly. On March 25, 1823, Canning recognised the Greeks as belligerents. After this step Great Britain enjoyed the advantage of being able to hold the Greek government responsible for piracy committed by Greek ships; but, coming as it did after the isolated action of Great Britain at Verona, it created a suspicion among the eastern powers of a desire to effect a settlement of the Eastern question without the co-operation of other states. In October, 1823, the Tsar Alexander and the Emperor Francis had a meeting at Czernowitz in Bukowina. Here they discussed joint intervention in Greece as a means of forestalling the isolated intervention of Great Britain. During the meeting the news arrived of the Turkish concessions to the Russian demands of 1821. Before the conference broke up, the tsar informally suggested a conference at St. Petersburg to arrange joint intervention on the basis of the erection of three principalities under Turkish suzerainty in Greece and the Ægean. In January, 1824, the same proposal was made formally in a Russian circular addressed to the great powers. Metternich and Canning both opposed the scheme, thinking that the principalities would fall under Russian influence. Metternich met it by a counter proposal for the complete independence of Greece. Canning preferred to adopt neither course, and to watch the sequence of events. In April, however, he consented that Great Britain should be represented at the conference at St. Petersburg on condition that no coercion should be applied to Turkey, and that diplomatic relations should have been previously restored between Russia and Turkey; in August the Greek government sent to London its protest against the Russian proposals, and in November Canning, finding that neither Greeks nor Turks would accept the decision of the conference, and being still opposed to violent interference, refused to take part in it. At the same time he offered British mediation to the Greeks in case it should be absolutely necessary. Early in 1825 Metternich induced Charles X., the new King of France, to support his proposal. Russia, however, would not hear of the independence of Greece, which might mean the creation of a rival to her influence in the Turkish dominions. The conference therefore merely resolved that the Porte should grant satisfaction to its subjects, failing which the powers offered their mediation. [Pageheading: _THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER I._]