Correspondence Relating to Executions in Turkey for Apostacy from Islamism

Nous n'avons pas encore reçu la communication à laquelle nous pouvons nous attendre de la part de Lord Aberdeen, en suite de la demande que Sir Stratford Canning lui a adressée au sujet de l'affaire qui fait l'objet de la présente dépêche. Mais j'envoie une copie de cette dernière à l'Envoyé du Roi à Londres, pour en donner connaissance à M. le Principal Secrétaire d'Etat, et pour informer de cette manière sa Seigneurie que, d'accord avec Sir Stratford Canning sur l'opportunité de la démarche qu'il a proposée, le Cabinet du Roi s'est empressé de vous autoriser à y concourir.

Recevez, &c.,

(Signé) BULOW.

(Translation.)

Sir, Berlin, September 20, 1843.

Your reports to the King, &c. &c.

The account which you have given of the execution of the Armenian Serkiz Papazoghlou could not fail to excite our lively and painful interest. Indeed all the details of this bloody catastrophe are well calculated to deserve the serious attention of the European Powers. They are so many symptoms of a retrograde tendency to which the Sublime Porte appears to have given itself up for some years past, and which, by tolerating, and perhaps even encouraging the excesses of Mahomedan fanaticism, is as contrary to the laws of humanity as to the rules which a wholesome policy should dictate to the Turkish Government.

To judge from the circumstances which preceded, attended, and followed the death of this unhappy victim of Mahomedan severity, should we not be tempted to think that that Government has forgotten what it owes to the united exertions of the Great Powers, to their disinterested advice, and to the salutary influence of European civilization? Does it not appear, by placing in opposition to the milder customs which are the result of that civilization the inexorable letter of the Koran, to intend to make the whole of Europe feel the little importance which it attaches to the benevolent interest and the constant solicitude with which the European Cabinets have regarded it?

Wherefore, the serious consequences, which such a system would entail upon the Porte, by finally alienating from it in reality the interest of those Cabinets, are so evident, that we are fain to believe that an unanimous intimation on their part will suffice to turn it aside from a course equally disastrous in a political and in a moral point of view. I side entirely in this respect with the opinion of Sir Stratford Canning, and after having taken the orders of the King, our august Master, I request you, Sir, to join in the step which I doubt not your colleagues of Austria, France and Russia will be equally authorized to take to this effect towards the Turkish Government, in common with the Ambassador of England. On this occasion when the Representatives of the Five Powers will act in some manner as the organs of European civilization, it will above all things be important to evince their unanimity. For this reason, have the goodness, Sir, to wait until the instructions for which your colleagues have applied, have reached them, and thereupon concert with them as to the best form to be given to the step which those instructions prescribe. If, contrary to all expectation, those instructions should not be such as to demonstrate an entire agreement of the Five Powers on this matter, you will have the goodness, Sir, to inform me of the fact, in order that I may, according to circumstances, transmit to you further instructions. In any case the step in question should be limited to being simultaneous and not collective, and the language which you will hold to the Porte, while it is serious and firm, must not the less be confined within the bounds of friendly counsel, and must avoid everything that could wound the political and religious susceptibility of the Ottoman Government.

We have not yet received the communication which we may expect from Lord Aberdeen, in pursuance of the application made to him by Sir Stratford Canning, on the subject of the matter treated of in this despatch. But I send a copy of this last to the King's Envoy in London, in order that he may communicate it to the Principal Secretary of State, and in this manner acquaint his Lordship that the King's Cabinet, agreeing with Sir Stratford Canning as to the fitness of the step which he has proposed, has hastened to authorize you to concur in it.

Receive, &c.,

(Signed) BULOW.

No. 4

The Earl of Aberdeen to Sir Stratford Canning.

Sir, Foreign Office, October 4, 1843.

The barbarous execution of the Armenian, recorded in your Excellency's despatch of the 27th of August, has excited the attention and interest of Her Majesty's Government in an unusual degree; and they highly approve the line of conduct which you pursued in reference to it.

Her Majesty's Government had hoped that the time had passed away when the perpetration of such acts of atrocity could have been tolerated; and that the law by which they are permitted or enjoined, although it might still disgrace the Mahomedan code, had fallen so completely into disuse as to have become virtually null and of no effect.

It is, therefore, with the most painful feelings, that Her Majesty's Government have seen so cruel a law brought so injudiciously again into operation; and they consider every Christian Government not only justified, but imperatively called upon to raise their voices against such proceedings, whether the law be executed to the prejudice of their own subjects, or of the Christian community in general.

Her Majesty's Government confidently trust that no repetition of so unjustifiable an act as that against which your Excellency so properly remonstrated will ever be suffered, and still less authorized by the Turkish Government; and they earnestly counsel that Government to take immediate measures for effectually preventing the future commission of such atrocities.

Under the full conviction that the Sultan will have the humanity and wisdom to listen to this counsel, which is given with the most friendly feeling, and which will, I doubt not, be equally impressed on His Highness by other Christian Governments, I do not think it necessary to enter further at present into the other points set forth in your Excellency's despatch above referred to.

You will not fall to communicate this despatch to Rifaat Pasha.

I am, &c.,

(Signed) ABERDEEN.

No. 5

The Earl of Westmorland to the Earl of Aberdeen.—(Received October 30.)

My Lord, Berlin, October 23, 1843.

I have communicated to Baron Bülow your Lordship's despatch of the 4th instant to Sir Stratford Canning relative to the late execution of an Armenian at Constantinople, and his Excellency has requested me to express the interest with which he had learnt your Lordship's views on that subject.

I have, &c.,

(Signed) WESTMORLAND.

No. 6

Sir Stratford Canning to the Earl of Aberdeen.—(Received November 2.)

My Lord, Buyukderé, October 11, 1843.

The Prussian Minister has communicated to me an instruction addressed to him by Baron Bülow in reply to his representations on the subject of the Armenian youth, whose execution and its natural consequences were brought under your Lordship's notice in my despatch of August the 27th.

The French Minister has also communicated to me a note, transmitted to him from Paris for presentation to the Porte, with reference to the same deplorable act of the Turkish Government.

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