(Signed) STRATFORD CANNING.
No. 26.
_The Earl of Aberdeen to Sir Stratford Canning_.
Sir, _Foreign Office, March_ 19, 1844.
I have received your Excellency's despatch of the 10th of February,
giving an account of the manner in which you had executed the
instruction of the 16th of January, which I addressed to your
Excellency on receiving your report of the execution of a Greek near
Brussa on the ground of his having renounced his profession of
Islamism and returned to Christianity.
I have to acquaint you that Her Majesty's Government entirely
approve of your having rested your communication to the Turkish
Minister on the terms of my instruction, and of your having steadily
referred his Excellency to that document, while replying in a
considerate and conciliatory manner to the remarks which he
addressed to you.
Nothing, indeed, can be further from the wish of Her Majesty's
Government than that a communication which they have been compelled
by a strong sense of duty, and, I may add, by a sincere regard for
the welfare of Turkey, to make to the Porte, should be rendered more
unpalatable than from its nature it was likely to be, by being
conveyed in harsh or dictatorial terms; and they wish, if the
question is still under discussion when this despatch reaches your
Excellency's hands, that you should constantly bear in mind, that
Her Majesty's Government, although they propose to abide by the
general tenour of the communication which you have been directed to
make to the Porte, have no desire, and would deeply regret, that the
acquiescence of the Porte in the demand which they have addressed to
it, should be attended with unnecessary pain to the feelings of the
Turkish Government.
Her Majesty's Government are persuaded that if the Ministers of the
Porte will dispassionately consider what has been desired of them,
they will find that, without any real sacrifice of national or
religious opinion, they may place themselves in harmony with the
wishes and the feelings of the Christian Powers. Her Majesty's
Government have not urged, and do not propose to urge, them to
abrogate any law, divine or human, but merely to revert to the
system which Her Majesty's Government believe to have been for some
time past constantly acted upon, and to allow the law to remain
practically dormant, and thus silently withdraw from a practice
which cannot be enforced without rousing the feelings of
Christendom, and rendering it impossible for the Turkish Government
to retain the good-will of Christian Powers.
The Ministers of the Porte cannot, on calm reflection, suppose that
if they deliberately deprive their Government of the moral or
physical support of Christendom, the Turkish Empire can long be
preserved from the destruction with which, from numerous causes, it
is continually menaced; neither can they believe that, although the
sentiments of the various Powers of Europe on the question to which
the revival of an obsolete practice has now unfortunately given
rise, may be conveyed to the Porte in terms more or less decided,
there is any real and essential difference between the expectations
and the intentions of all. All must yield to public opinion
universally expressed; and the Porte may rest assured that Christian
States will, with one accord, refuse to tolerate any longer a
practice which, both in the principle on which it rests and the
manner in which it is carried into execution, is designed to
stigmatize the faith which they profess and cherish.