Paris, January 9, 1844.
Notwithstanding the formal promises of the Porte, and the measures which it had declared that it had taken to prevent the repetition of the mournful scandal to which a few months ago the execution of an Armenian who was punished for having returned to Christianity after having embraced Islamism, gave rise, a Greek of the neighbourhood of Brussa, has now been put to death, under circumstances precisely similar. On being questioned on this subject by M. de Bourqueney, the Porte could only allege in its justification misunderstandings and mistakes the very allegations with regard to which are contradictory. Such a transaction is no longer only an outrage to humanity, it is an insult cast upon civilized Europe, by the fanaticism of a party which the Ottoman Government has not the courage to keep within bounds and repress, supposing that it is not itself to a certain degree an accomplice in the measure. This courage must be given to it by causing it to apprehend that it will incur the serious displeasure of the Powers whose benevolent support is so necessary to it.
I am about to instruct M. de Bourqueney to take an energetic step for this purpose towards the Porte, and I doubt not that Lord Aberdeen will furnish Sir Stratford Canning with corresponding instructions. The British Government will likewise assuredly think fit to unite with us in demanding the concurrence of the other Great Powers.
No. 15.
The Earl of Aberdeen to Sir Stratford Canning.
Sir, Foreign Office, January 16, 1844.
I have received your Excellency's despatch of the 17th of December, reporting that a Greek had been executed near Brussa as an apostate from Islamism, and inclosing a copy of the communication which you had directed Mr. Dragoman Frederick Pisani to make to the Porte in consequence of that transaction.
I have to state to your Excellency that Her Majesty's Government entirely approve the promptitude with which you acted on this occasion. But the repetition of a scene of this revolting kind so soon after that which had, in the course of last summer, excited the horror and indignation of Europe, evinces such total disregard, on the part of the Porte, for the feelings and remonstrances of the Christian Powers, that it is incumbent upon Her Majesty's Government without loss of time to convey their sentiments on the matter still more explicitly to the knowledge of the Porte. They take this course singly, and without waiting for the co-operation of the other Christian Powers, because they desire to announce to the Porte a determination which, though it doubtless will be concurred in by all, Great Britain is prepared to act upon alone. Her Majesty's Government feel too that they have an especial right to require to be listened to by the Porte on a matter of this nature, for they can appeal to the justice and to the favour with which the vast body of Mahomedans subject to the British rule are treated in India, in support of their demand that all persons, subjects of the Porte and professing Christianity, shall be exempt from cruel and arbitrary persecution on account of their religion, and shall not be made the victims of a barbarous law, which it may be sought to enforce for their destruction.
Whatever may have been tolerated in former times by the weakness or indifference of Christian Powers, those Powers will now require from the Porte due consideration for their feelings as members of a religious community, and interested as such in the fate of all who, notwithstanding shades of difference, unite in a common belief in the essential doctrines of Christianity; and they will not endure that the Porte should insult and trample on their faith by treating as a criminal any person who embraces it.
Her Majesty's Government require the Porte to abandon, once for all, so revolting a principle. They have no wish to humble the Porte by imposing upon it an unreasonable obligation; but as a Christian Government, the protection of those who profess a common belief with themselves, from persecution and oppression, on that account alone, by their Mahomedan rulers, is a paramount duty with them, and one from which they cannot recede.