nécessaires pour arrêter son abus aussi déplorable leur ayent été envoyées par la Sublime Porte.

A présent j'ai l'honneur de communiquer ci-joint à votre Excellence la copie d'une lettre adressée par le Consul de Sa Majesté la Reine à Djemal Pacha, Gouverneur des Dardanelles. Elle y verra qu'une goëlette Turque est arrivée aux Dardanelles de Tunis, ayant à son bord des esclaves Arabes au nombre de 53.

Je supplie votre Excellence de vouloir bien écrire un moment plutôt à qui de droit pour faire remettre en liberté les individus ainsi réduits à l'esclavage, et punir le capitaine de la goëlette et tout autre sujet de la Porte convaincu de les avoir embarqué.

Fuad Pasha.

Je saisis, &c.

STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE.

No. 612.-The Earl of Clarendon to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. MY LORD, Foreign Office, October 9, 1856.

I HAVE received your Excellency's despatch of the 29th ultimo, inclosing copy of the letter which you addressed to Fuad Pasha on receipt of Consul Calvert's despatch of the 20th of September, stating that a Turkish schooner had arrived at the Dardanelles with 53 slaves on board, and that the Governor of the province had informed him that he had received no instructions from his Government as to how he was to deal with such cases.

I have to inform your Excellency that Her Majesty's Government approve the letter which you addressed to Fuad Pasha, and in answer to your Excellency's request for instructions as to the ulterior course to be pursued in this matter, I have to state that it is to be hoped that, by continuing a course of unceasing remonstrance, and by making every case of slave-trading known to the Ottoman Government, the Porte may be brought to a sense of what is due to humanity, to the earnest wishes of Her Majesty's Government, and to the engagements voluntarily contracted by the Porte on this subject.

H.E. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe.

I am, &c.

CLARENDON.

No. 614.-Lord Stratford de Redcliffe to the Earl of Clarendon. (Received December 18.)

MY LORD,

Therapia, December 8, 1856. I HAVE lately had some conversation with Reshid Pasha on the subject of the Slave Trade, and particularly with reference to the disposal of the slave-vessel lately captured in the Gulf of Persia and consigned to the Pasha of Bagdad, who has referred to his Government for instructions.

On the general subject I had repeatedly urged the late Grand

Vizier and the Minister for Foreign Affairs to adopt some measure calculated to repress in an efficient manner that part of the traffic which proceeds from the Turkish possessions in Africa. I had also brought under their notice, as incidents occurred, the several cases in which the Imperial firmans were violated by the introduction of slaves from that quarter into the ports and islands of European Turkey. Nor had I neglected to solicit their attention to the case of the above-mentioned slave-vessel. Notwithstanding the assurances which I received from Aali Pasha, his Highness went out of office without taking any step whatever in the line of my representations. When I proposed a conference for the purpose of bringing the points in question to some kind of decision, he requested me to suspend my intention, with a promise to take the matter into serious deliberation with his colleagues on an early day.

Though I have not lost sight of this important subject since the change of Ministry, it was necessary to allow time for the new occupants of office to take cognizance of the pending affairs. Mr. Pisani, however, acting under my directions, put Ethem Pasha in possession of the circumstances, which required his attention, and in private conversation with the Grand Vizier I performed a similar duty. The result of these communications is a promise on the part of Reshid Pasha that the questions coming under the head of Slave Trade shall be considered in Council without delay, and in reliance on his Highness's promise I have sent in two official notes to the Porte, of which copies are herewith inclosed. I have entered at some length on the more general question, with the view of impressing its importance and the soundness of our views respecting it on this Government at a time when I have reason to hope that it will be taken into serious and liberal consideration by the Turkish Ministers. I have, &c. The Earl of Clarendon.

STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE.

(Inclosure 1.)-Lord Stratford de Redcliffe to Ethem Pasha. Therapia, December 6, 1856.

THE Undersigned, in the course of his long official residence in Turkey, has frequently had occasion to address the Porte on a subject to which his Government and nation attach the greatest importance. The question however, to which he alludes, is one that concerns them only in common with other Governments and other nations, yet in such manner that barbarous and civilized countries are alike interested in its solution. There is, indeed, no country so plunged in barbarism, but it finds a deeper degradation from partaking in the traffic in slaves. There is none so high in the ranks of civilization as not to derive a moral taint and a social embarrassment from the practice of slavery. Examples would be

superfluous. More than half a century has been devoted to the exposure of evils resulting from the sale of man, and to exertions on the part of every intelligent Government in Europe to remove or to mitigate so fatal a plague.

England has taken a prominent, perhaps it may be said the foremost, part in waging this bloodless war of humanity. Her people, her capital, her possessions, had been long engaged, as is well known, in the trade, and in the use of slaves. Much wealth had flowed into her coffers from that source, and the profits of the traffic prolonged a blindness as to its real character which had originated in ignorance and mistake. No sooner was the matter

seen in its true light than the British Legislature declared by severe enactments against trading in slaves, the sounder convictions which it had acquired. It gradually engaged the co-operation of other enlightened States in the same course of policy; it assisted, at the Congress of Vienna, in fixing the stamp of indelible reprobation on a practice that outrages the best feelings and clearest right of humanity. At length it crowned the evidence of its sincerity by purchasing, at a cost of twenty millions sterling, the right to extinguish slavery throughout its colonies. In accomplishing that great measure of justice, the British Government impoverished for a time its richest dependencies, and exposed their very existence to hazard; but esteemed both the loss and the peril as light in comparison with the advantages accruing to its empire at large, from the practical establishment of a principle fertile in beneficial results to the whole productive world. The real emancipation was not that of the slave, but of him who held his fellow-creatures in bondage. The estates of West Indian slaveowners fell greatly in value, but the commerce of the British Empire took a new spring, and its vast extension is still indefinitely progressive.

Turkey, though it still retains the disease, cannot in justice be reproached with indifference to the advantages of a healthier condition. Among the improvements which have distinguished the reign of Sultan Abdul Medjid, are several measures calculated to restrict the importation of slaves, and to render their sale an object less openly sanctioned by the ruling authorities. The introduction of slaves from Africa is now a clandestine and indeed an illegal act. A firman, issued during the late war, prohibited the purchase of slaves in Circassia, and their sale in His Majesty's dominions. The Slave-market had been previously abolished at Constantinople, and one of the Ottoman dependencies had been allowed to go the full length of improvement by abolishing slavery itself.

Unfortunately the application of principle and the enforcement of law are but too prone to lag behind, when legislative provisions are directed against practices reconciled to national sentiment and

rooted in long usage. Authority may be excused if, in such cases, it shrinks from an abrupt rigour, and vindicates the soundness of its enactments by a more gradual process. Provided its advance be continued, its slowness in the commencement may be overlooked, and even in some degree approved. But if the law be allowed to sleep, if the mischief which it denounces lose nothing of its strength and activity, it is impossible to exempt the magistrate from blame. A heavy responsibility must then of necessity fall on every department concerned in the ministration of the law, and the Supreme Government itself will become liable to the charge of neglect or bad faith. The Undersigned in communicating on this subject with the Sublime Porte has furnished numerous proofs of the open audacious manner in which the Imperial firmans are violated. He has given the particulars of cases which left no doubt as to fact, and offered means both of saving the victims and of punishing the offenders. It is certain that a considerable and increased importation of slaves from Tripoli has taken place within the last two years, nor can it be questioned that cargoes of those unhappy beings have been sold in Turkey with the knowledge, if not with the connivance, of local authorities.

The Undersigned thinks it but just at the same time to acknowledge that such representations and evidences of guilt have been received by the Sultan's Government with attention, and that assurances of a cordial disposition to redress them have been frequently repeated. He cannot, however, enjoy the satisfaction of adding, that to his knowledge any practical result has hitherto ensued, that the imported slaves have been restored in any considerable number to freedom, or that any more stringent measures of repression have been adopted.

In these respects there is undoubtedly much room for regret, and not the less so because the authorities of the empire are discredited, and their relations with friendly Powers impaired, by their want of energy in putting down evils which the united voice of Europe has denounced, and which their own legislature has armed them with the means of repressing. The British Government in particular cannot fail to observe with disappointment and deep concern a state of things which tends to limit the action of their own benevolent policy, and even to frustrate their unrelaxing efforts and unequalled sacrifices in this department of humanity.

The Undersigned is, nevertheless, still prepared to assure his Government that the Porte will not postpone much longer the adoption of adequate measures for the extinction of the Slave Trade within her dominions. Nothing would serve more efficiently to bring her into full accordance with the States of Europe, and place in a stronger light her claims to the character of a wise and equit

able Power, alive to the importance of removing abusive practices, and habituating its subjects to that respect for the rights of others which is the best security for their own.

The Undersigned entertains a sanguine hope that the Porte will justify his reliance on her intentions by at once redeeming the pledges which have been so repeatedly given in her name. persuasion he seizes, &c.

Ethem Pasha.

STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE.

(Inclosure 2.)-Lord Stratford de Redcliffe to Ethem Pasha. Therapia, December 6, 1856. THE Undersigned, referring to his official note of this day's date, on the subject of Slave Trade, begs to remind the Ottoman Minister for Foreign Affairs of the case which he had the honour of submitting to his Excellency's predecessor in office four weeks ago, respecting a vessel with slaves on board, under the Turkish flag, captured by a British cruizer in the Persian Gulf, and consigned to the Pasha of Bagdad.

The papers respecting this affair have been communicated to the Porte, which has also received information on the subject from its own representative.

It is more than time that some decision should be taken with respect to the vessel in question, and the circumstances connected with its voyage and capture. It is, moreover, desirable that the decision should be such as to mark with reprobation the odious traffic in which the vessel, its owners, and its crew were engaged, and to encourage the brave men who displayed their zeal in effecting its capture, and their respect for the local authorities by delivering their prize to the Mushir of Bagdad.

The British Government, desirous that the traffic in slaves should be repressed in the Gulf of Persia, as on the broader waters of the ocean, is prepared to co-operate with the Porte for that purpose; and it is to be hoped that the Turkish Government will not be less disposed than that of Persia to sanction, with respect to vessels navigating under their flag, such acts of inquiry on the part of British cruizers in the Gulf, as may be necessary to carry that very important and salutary object into complete effect.

The Undersigned cannot recommend the early solution of this matter too strongly to his Excellency the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Ethem Pasha.

STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE.

No. 615.-The Earl of Clarendon to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. MY LORD, Foreign Office, December 26, 1856. I HAVE received your Excellency's despatch of the 8th of