FOREIGN RELATIONS.
WILLIAM IV. 1836—1837
The whole Spanish Peninsula was torn with political dissensions. Revolutions and counter revolutions disturbed British relations with Portugal especially, and prevented the execution of a treaty of commerce which was looked for in England, as a benefit to both nations. England sympathised too much with the faithless queens of both the governments of the Iberian Peninsula, which had the effect of protracting the disturbances which prevailed, and of exciting angry feelings against England. The gallant men who as British subjects volunteered to serve the queen ‘of Portugal were refused their pay, and treated with contumely and injury, just as the British legion in Spain had been used.
The relation of the Sublime Porte to England was also a source of embarrassment, especially to the former country. On the one hand, the pressure of Russia, jealous of her predominating influence, and on the other, the efforts of Britain and France to counteract the exclusive character which that influence was assuming, imposed on the divan the necessity of giving satisfaction to all the competitors for favour. During this year an English merchant of Constantinople, of the name of Churchill, while shooting in the neighbourhood of Scutari, accidentally wounded a Turkish boy. He was dragged to the guardhouse of Scutari, where the officer on duty ordered him first to be bastinadoed, and then sent to the governor of Scutari. The governor declined interfering, and caused him to be conveyed to the office of the reis effendi, or foreign minister, by whom he was thrown into prison. Mr. Churchill immediately addressed a letter to the British consul, acquainting him with the accident that had occurred, and the manner in which he had been treated, claiming, as a British subject, the interference in his behalf. The consul sent a dragoman to the Porte to reclaim his countryman, promising to keep him in custody till the accusation brought against him had been inquired into. This application was rejected; and the British ambassador then sent his interpreter to the reis effendi, who promised that the prisoner should be delivered over to his own authorities. Instead of this promise, however, being observed, Mr. Churchill was thrown into the Bagnio, and fettered in iron chains, by virtue of an order granted by the sultan. The British interpreter again waited on the reis effendi, and expressed to him the surprise Lord Ponsonby had experienced on witnessing so direct and intentional an infringement of the treaties existing between the king of England and the sultan; committed, too, by the very individual appointed by the Porte to preside over their strict and scrupulous observance. The reis effendi now desired one of his officers to proceed with the English interpreter to the Bagnio, and cause the detained merchant to be given up; but the governor of the Bagnio refused to comply with the request, pretending that since the prisoner had been placed under his care in virtue of a firman, he could not release him without a written order from the Porte. Lord Ponsonby now addressed an official note, stating that, as the minister of foreign affairs had violated one of the most important stipulations of the treaties existing between Great Britain and Turkey, he was obliged to declare to the government that he would not any longer hold official communication with his excellency, and to submit to the Sublime Porte, and emphatically to declare to the sultan himself, his just complaint against a minister who had dared to violate the laws of his own sovereign, and insult the British nation. This step procured the liberation of Mr. Churchill; but Lord Ponsonby refused to consider this alone as any reparation of the breach of the treaties securing to British subjects the right of being tried and punished only through the agency of their own official representatives. His lordship insisted that the reis effendi should be dismissed from his office. He insisted upon this the more strenuously on account of the predominating influence of Russia; for if the injured party had been a Russian subject, the Turkish government would have hastened to make humble apologies, and would have consented to give any satisfaction which the offended dignity of the czar might have required. The Porte endeavoured to mitigate the demand lay negociation; but Lord Ponsonby refused to accept of any satisfaction which did not include the dismissal of the minister. As the Porte seemed to think it below its dignity to grant such a request when merely made by an ambassador, he said he would refer the matter to his government at home. The British merchants, likewise, resident at Constantinople, transmitted an address to Viscount Palmerston, representing the necessity of supporting the demand made by the ambassador. They remarked:—“We will concede that the first outrage was committed by subordinate local authorities, whose acts might admit of excuse or explanation; but the subsequent imprisonment was deliberately ordered by a high public functionary, the official depositary, in fact, of the treaties existing between the two countries, one who could not be ignorant of the privileges they guaranteed, and who was not ignorant that in the instance in question he was grossly and intentionally violating them. Considering, therefore, that the present is not the only instance, although the most flagrant one, of personal violence offered to British subjects, we cannot but see in their repeated occurrence, more especially of late, an intentional infraction of the treaties, and, indeed, the existence of some fixed design on the part of the Turkish government to assume to itself a power of control in such matters which it would be dangerous ever to concede.” Before the determination of the British cabinet could be known, the divan of Constantinople had resolved to yield: the reis effendi was dismissed, with a monthly pension of 10,000 piastres; but it was on the pretence that bad health disabled him from regularly attending to the duties of his office. It was said afterwards, that the British ministry viewed the matter in a less serious light than that in which it had been viewed by Lord Ponsonby; and that they were not inclined to consider the demand he had made as one on which it was necessary to insist. It is certain, indeed, that the dispatches of the Turkish envoy ill London, subsequent to the dismissal of the reis effendi, assured the divan of the readiness of the British ministry to settle the controversy on conditions much milder than those on which Lord Ponsonby had stated to be the only terms which his majesty’s government could consider proper reparation for the insult offered to its dignity. It is also certain that the credit of the British ambassador, whose successful firmness was neutralised by his government, was greatly diminished at the Porte.
