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.