At this time I was offered a knighthood, but refused it as being of no military value to me. Another mission was then proposed, which I accepted. Russia and France seemed determined to seize each other by the throat, in their dispute as to which of them had the right to paint the Holy Sepulchre, and to hold the keys of that tomb which the apostles found empty.
Lord Stratford was looking on as arbitrator. His better judgment was with Russia, but his bias against her; his grand intellect swayed to and fro in his efforts to reconcile both. Some of his despatches at this momentous time are the grandest specimens of diplomatic correspondence to be found in the English language. To those who were cognisant of the tortuous intricacies of the Eastern question, the truth, the energy, the flashes of genius amidst obscure renderings that are therein found, are something truly wonderful. Had he willed it, at this time, the war would not have taken place; but his great mind at last wearied, and reeled under the burden of holding the balance aloof in such weighty matters; and from being judge he became advocate, thinking, perhaps, that the shells might remain to Russia and France, whilst England should have the oyster. This could not be right, for the British Government had no perception of the duty that was incumbent on possession. Its actions reminded me of what I had then recently witnessed in the Turkish provinces. There beys or governors were good enough in themselves, and to those of the same creed, but they lived and haughtily prospered on the vices and failings of those whom they governed.
Parents often kept their children, or children their parents, in prison, to satisfy any pique of the moment, or persistent desire to wrong one another. At Silivri, ancient Silymbria, a town of Roumelia, on the Sea of Marmora, containing about 8000 inhabitants, I turned out of prison upwards of sixty persons, who had been kept in durance vile by the governor on the daily payment of so much per head, according to the rank of the incarcerated, for no crime whatever, but simply to satisfy the grudge of persons with whom they were at enmity. A Nicolai Bogdan, a wealthy tradesman of the town, had imprisoned his own mother to gratify the spite of his wife for some supposed family wrongs; and as the poor old woman left the prison, where she had been confined for the last four years, squalid in her filth and rags, Ahmed Bey, the governor, asked me if such a dog of a Christian, as Bogdan was, deserved the attention of Lord Stratford. In this observation lay the gist of all the evil of the time.
The Whig Government, more or less subservient to the Manchester school of politics, wanted, like the governor of Silivri, to prosper in a worldly point of view, but did not wish to assume any moral obligation. So long as goods were sold they did not care anything about the buyer personally, or as to where his money came from, provided he did not become bankrupt. They were equally indifferent as to whom fell the task of paying twelve per cent interest on the loans they so freely offered to the Turk, forcing him to greater and more relentless exactions on the poor Christian taxpayer for the repayment.
Such policy is as selfish as that of a French Communard, whose motto is, “After us the Deluge;” and the deluge did come, sweeping away the prosperity and comfort of thousands and thousands of English families who had trusted to the positive indebtedness of the British Government to supervise and direct those to whom they otherwise would not have trusted their hard-earned savings.
It is useless to speak of hatti-humayoums, irades, or any other devices of ambassadors, signed by a time-serving Sultan for the regeneration of his subjects. Local laws such as these, if applied to the people themselves, may fulfil all their requirements; but foreign suggestions and foreign pressure require foreign subjects, which native subjects who are worthy the name will never become. Neither can you regenerate a nation by the mere force of will, nor by force of arms. The people must have an innate feeling of willing participation to render reforms desirable.
I have had, whilst governor of the district of Bourgas, a sack brought to me by a Bulgarian peasant, which contained the head of his own child, murdered by brigands before his eyes; yet that peasant, who was mayor of his own village, and had ample means of at least making an effort to save it, had never lifted a finger in its behalf, but now came to me for assistance towards payment of the ransom he had promised to save another child he had at home. I ask, what laws could regenerate the conduct of that man? Parental love could not even arouse him to his duty towards his own flesh and blood! What chance would foreign devices have to move him? I do not cite this as a solitary case, but as one of many similar examples of degradation which weigh upon a large portion of the population in Turkey. I have more than once seen a Turk maltreating a Christian. I have had the instrument taken out of the hand of the offender and placed in the hands of the stricken, then, standing over both, have insisted upon retaliation. But this was too abstruse a method for the perception of a Bulgarian. If, thought he, no doubt, I could really help him, why not let him murder the Turk? As for beating, that would still leave his foe alive, and after my departure the Turk would thrash him worse than ever. What the Bulgarian told me in 1854 is applicable now—“Leave the Christian alone in the hands of the Turk, and he will be more despised and ill-governed than ever.”
The clergy in the East, as might be readily supposed, offer no fixed standard of morality to guide the masses, as the following, among many other cases brought to my knowledge, will readily prove. When the Emperor Nicholas of Russia died, I was then in command of Western Roumelia; and the clergy of the district, headed by the Metropolitan of Adrianople, came officially to ask of me, as a Christian Pasha, to be allowed to celebrate a Mass for the repose of the Emperors soul. The ostensible reason given for this act of public gratitude was the many acts of solicitude the dead Emperor had shown for their Church: scarcely an ornament on their altars, even to the very canonical costumes which they then had on their backs, but they were indebted to him for.
This outward demonstration imposed so much upon me that I told the Metropolitan, and the other bishops with him, that if they were so much indebted, why did they not, by some overt act beyond spiritual regard, show their acknowledgments? The successor of him whom they so deeply deplored had ascended the throne. France, England, and Turkey were in the field against him, and he had not a friend in the world—not even Austria, who owed her very existence to his father—that would say a word or lift a finger in his behalf. Now, at this solemn moment for the orthodox Church, a universal display in favour of Alexander might so impress the Allies as to eventually bring about a close of the war without too much sorrow and suffering on the part of Russia.
The Metropolitan replied, “We have nothing to offer Russia alive; when she is dead, all we can do is to offer up prayers for her.”