Colonel Charles Henry Churchill—Sir Austen Henry Layard—“The Key to the East”—European Consuls in Palestine—The Hatti Sheerif of Gulharch—Lord Palmerston’s Circular of April, 1841—Mr. James Finn.
The theory of Great Britain’s mission in the East has been put forward by representatives of different classes of English people in different epochs and from various points of view. The idea existed in greater or less degree wherever Englishmen thought seriously about the Eastern problem; it was a flame which was never extinguished.
Colonel Charles Henry Churchill (1814–1877), a grandson of the fifth Duke of Marlborough (1766–1840), was a staff officer in the British Expedition to Syria, and wrote one of the best works in English about The Lebanon and its inhabitants. In the “Preface” to which he writes:—
“The genius of England, which seems so peculiarly fitted to lead and govern the populations of the East, has, by the happily-combined influence of arms, commerce, and legislation, established in that quarter of the globe, a dominion which no purely military conqueror could ever have consolidated, much less upheld and sustained.”
“The development of the capabilities and resources of that unparalleled empire in the East, over which England presides—and that without a rival or compeer—has thus become essentially necessary to her national prosperity, it may be to her national existence, and must ever possess imperative, though not exclusive claims upon her national feelings and sympathies.”
“I say not exclusive and advisedly; for the East, to an important portion of which I now invite public attention,—the East, whose shores are washed by the Mediterranean Sea,—the East of rock-hewn cities and colossal tombs, of heavenly poesy and gigantic art, of Jacob’s (2108–2255 a.m.) might and Ishmael’s (b. 2034 a.m.) wandering power, of David’s lyre and of Isaiah’s (fl. 3140 a.m.) strain, of Abraham’s faith and Immanuel’s love,—where God’s mysterious ways with man begun, and where in the fulness of time they are to be accomplished,—this East, which may yet become the seat and centre of the Universal Reign!—it also has claims on England’s watchful vigilance and sympathizing care....”
After having so forcibly expounded the sentimental side, the author strikes another note, in addition to that so eloquently struck by Disraeli and others:—
“Whatever part England may take in the temporary complication of affairs which will probably ensue on that mighty consummation, which the timid dictates of diplomacy would defer, but which the urgent demands of humanity and civilization would fain accelerate, it must, for obvious reasons, be clear to every English mind, that if England’s Oriental supremacy is to be upheld, Syria and Egypt must be made to fall more or less under her sway or influence.”
He argues then as a military expert:—
“Napoleon declared Acre to be the key to the East, and most correctly did his military genius appreciate the importance of that land into which he vainly sought to enter, as a basis of operations against our Indian Empire.... I call upon my countrymen, therefore, to adopt this political doctrine, and nail it to the National Colours:—That when Palestine ceases to be Turkish, it must either become English, or else form part of a new independent State, which without the incentives to territorial aggrandizement, or the means of military aggression, shall yet be able to maintain its own honour and dignity, and more especially to promote the great object for which it will be called into existence, for which indeed, by its geographical position it will be so eminently qualified; that of creating, developing and upholding a commercial intercourse in the East, which shall draw together and unite the hitherto divergent races of mankind in the humanizing relations of fraternity and peace....”