The Express.
London, England, 1859-10-01 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, SATURDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 1. 1859.

TURKEY.

TIIR CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE SULTAN.

(TION 001 OWN

CONSTANTINOPLE, BCPT. 21.
This telegraph will here already apprised you of

t I the occurrence, last week, of the mat important
political incident which has happened in Turkey
, since In29—the discovery of an organised native
I
I conspiracy against the Sultan and Government. The
effect of the news on Turkish securities abroad will.
t ' doubtless, lave teen already considerable ; bat I
think I ass able to lay before year readers such •
r narrative of the whole affair as should go far to
r allay the panic. From the local journals you need
expect token nothing of importance on the subject,
as, with its usual timid caution, the government
addressed an " invitation " to each of them yester-
I day, forbidding publication of any details of the
affair. lamin a position, however, to give you an
account of the whole matter, in the accuracy of
which you may place every confidence—the sources
of my information, I venture to affirm, being second
in point of authority to those of no other coneepon-
: dent from this capital.
Before detailing the actual circumstances attend-
ing the discovery of the plot, let me say a word in
explanation ea to the clams to which the ostensibly
leading movers in the scheme belong. In the Turkish
clerical hierarchy there is a small but highly
dignified class, called Ders-Ehodins, who are not
priests, in the ministerial sense of the word, but
professors, chosen from all over the empire for their
learning and piety, whose special duty is to expound
the law and theology of the Koran to the seas
(candidates for the priesthood) at Stamboul.
These learned individuals are held in high
honour, and possess an immense social in-
fluence over the native population. Their
whole number generally averages seven or eight,
and their acknowledged authority is inversely pro-
portionate to their fewness. The present head of the
body is one Cliollaby F.lfendi4from Koniah, in Asia
Minor, who belongs to the same tribe as the Sultan,
and who, in failure of all the direct heirs in the pre-
sent imperial line, would be first candidate for the
throne. Thil personage, however, is not at present
known to be in any way implicated in the plot.
Next to him, however, stand Hadji Achmet Effendi
and Lutfullah Effendi—the latter a Kurd from Sala-
mieh, and a Khodja of great renown for him piety.
These two it is who are, ostensibly, the prime movers
in the now discovered conspiracy. Then follows
one Hussein Pacha, a general of division, who lost
the battle of Orahovo, last year, in Montenegro, and
who has been under a cloud ever since. After him
may be ranked Jaffee Pacha, a member of the Gegga
tribe, and also a Jima in the army. Next in
rank is the Mufti of Tophaneb (the grand
artillery depot of the capital), a personage
of nearly the highest clerical rank. After
these come sons fifty other clerical dignita-
ries of secondary grade, and a numerous list
of colonels and liesteaant-colonele of artillery and
engineers, isolative of the chief terbium storekeeper
of the capital.

Briefly catalogsed, those are the principal parties
to the plot, so far as its permute, has yet been dis-
covered. From the list it will be seen that no indi-
vidual of the highest rank is included. But though
Radii Achmet is, as I have said, the ostensible leader
in the enterprise, grave suspicion attaches to a per-
, swage of much higher station, who has been en dis-
poni/Wire for the last three or four years—l mean
Based Pacha, a brother-in-law of the Sultan, and,
when list in office, Governor-General of Syria. Since
his dirVanei some four years ago, for the barbarous
bsetinsdoing to death of a Prussian Jew at Dames-
ma, this personage has been entirely out of public
view' but his notorious faculty for intrigue
has, nevertheless, not been idly rusting. In the days
of the great K bosom Pacha, he was an active agent
of that potentate, and has ever been a sworn adhe-
rent of the old school, pro-Russian, policy the Great
Vizier pursued. Sines his disappearance from active
service he has been a steady friend of the old clerical
party, who walk in the same political way, to the
extent, in feet, of Wag considered their civil leader.
From his known Muscovite sympathies, therefore,
the plot now " blown " has been attributed to
Russian inspiration ; but though this may he, to •
limited degree, the fact—to the extent at least of
Russian cogent's.* of its exietense-1 have good
authority for saying that the primary object in view
was not in any way the direct furtherance of
Russian designs.
Be the nature of Saied's connexion with the
MANY, ►ewever, what it may, the discovery
of its existence was made on the evening
of this day week (the 14th), in the follow-
ing way. Amcept the minor parties to
the affair was a lieutenant of artillery, aide-dc-
camp to Raman Pacha, the commandant of all the
forts along the Bosphorus. Knowing the impor-
ts•os of securing such an ally as this superior
officer, the conspirators set the aide-de-camp to work
to sound, and, if possible, to seduce him over to their
side. The lieutenant, however, appears to have dis-
played but little diplomatic tact in hie advances ;
for, at an early stage in his attempt, Human, to use
a homely phrase, at once " emelt a rat," and set
himself to follow up the trail. By feigning readi-
ness to fall in with his sub's clumsily managed effort
at corruption, he elicited from the latter a full
statement of the scheme and its promoters; and,
thus informed, late on NVednesday evening last re-
vealed the whole to Rita Pasha, the Minister of War.
Startling as was the news, it had not been altogether
unexpected; for, why or wherefore nobody can ex-
plain, for several days previously a sort of intuitive
sense of a screw being loose somewhere pervaded every
department of the Administration. No one cou.d
account for the impression, or trace it to • known
cause ; but Wits existence I am enured by a high
and well-informed functionary. To act, therefore,
when the direction of the danger was at length
known, was the work of an instant. Before mid-
night the w►ole of the implicated parties who lived
la Stamboul—Turkish Constantinople Proper—were
in safe custody, and by sunrise most of those who
lived en campayne along the Bosphorus. As the
clue further unravelled, other arrests continued to
be made during Thursday and Friday, on the night
of which last the whole were conveyed across the
Bosphorus to Konleli, on the Asiatic coast, where
there is a strong military prison, and which will be
remembered as the station of our Owes cavalry during
the war. Oa the passage across, Jaffee Pasha, above
referred to, jumped overboard, and, " in spite of all
efforts to save him," says the official report, was car-
ried away by the curtest.
Such, as concisely grouped together as I can ar.
range them, are the salient circumstances of this very
grave affair. As to the character of the plot, atd
&especial designs of its authors, I think I can in-
tim you with equal confidence. The Press*
'Orient, the organ and creature of the French em-
bassy, asserts (it had done so is a bulletin issued be-
lieve its receipt of yesterday's interdict), that the
scheme has extensive ramifications in the provinces.
I am able to contradict this exaggeration flatly—
so far at !cast as the Porte itself yet knows. Indeed,
all probability is against its being so; for, what

► with the difficulty of communication with the in-
terior, and the extensive system of espionage which
exists over every province in the empire, it is almost
impossible that a plot of the kind could attain to
such organised maturity as ramifications in the
interior would indicate. Such an extension, there-
fore, may be confidently scouted. Nor had the con-
spirators, as it has also been said, any hostile inten-
tion whatever towards the Christians. This is a
bugbear on which the changes are ever and anon
rung throughout Europe by the enemies of the
country; bat, though I may pretend to as much
knowledge of the people and their character as most
who write sod speak on the subject, I have no hesi-
tation whatever in expressing utter disbelief in any
such animus amongst even a considerable minority
of the population. That there are many individual
bigots who still see their direetest path to Heaven
through " unbelievers' blood " I grant; but that the
feeling is at all general I utterly deny. I am no
philo-Turk, Heaven knows; but I prefer truth to
ignorant and bigotted misrepresentation. So far,
therefore, as your readers may hear this interpreta-
tion put upon the plot whose machinery I have now
endeavoured to expose, they may treat it with
titter disbelief. Nor is it true that the diedgn of
the conspirators extended to any action spinet the
life of the Sultan, as has ales been industriously
adverted. Their object was to coerce him into an
entire change of policy, especially in the financial
administration of the country, and more particularly
in the matter of his own enormous civil list. He
was also to be forced into the acceptance of a num-
ber of other executive reforms of a radical character,
and which, had the plan succeeded, would have done
infinite good to the country, and have vastly
strengthened the hold of the government upon it.
In a future letter I may be able to give you in
greater detail an idea of the exact nature of the
changes so contemplated; but in the meantime you
may accept this as a true statement of their general
character and tendency. The movement, in fact, was
in no bad sense revolutionary, but highly coneerva.
tire ; and I do not hesitate to repeat the avowal of
my belief that had it succeeded much substantial good
would have been the result. Even in its Ware,
however, it will bear good fruits. The fact, which
nobody before thought possible, now stands revealed,
that beneath all the crust of seemingly sluggish
apathy which characterises the Turkish popular
mind there is not only a capacity but a disposition
to reflect upon the governmental mismanagement
and abuse which have hung, unquestioned and un-
disturbed, like a ups tree over the country ever
since the vigorous days of Mabmoud. The dis-
covery of this grave reality has come like an
electric shock on the attenuated shadow of a sove-
reign who nominally fills the throne, and roused
him into (possibly only selfish) anxiety as to the be-
fore unsuspected reality of the danger which it por-
tend.. But both on Sultan and ministers the effect
will be beneficial; and if this, as I believe, be the re-
sult, the event should gratify instead of alarming all
who have a stake in the stability of the present
dynasty and government. In the meantime no im-
mediate change is expected in the cabinet.
lam forgetting to add that a oesunision, pre-
sided over by the Grand Vizier, and composed of the
Sheikh-ul-Islam, the minister of war, the presidents
of the high councils of justice and Tanzimat, and the
minister of police, has been appointed to investigate
the whole facts and relations of the plot ; and with
this duty these dignitaries are now busily employed.
ffi.

&Ito intelligent&

INSOLVENT DEBTORS COURT.—Sm. M.
(Belau Mr. Dopey comainicesr Dowse.)
111 RI JOIN 1111•111.11.

The insolent, who had kept the Goldsmiths' Arms, fa
Chanted", appeared fur adjadicati.n. The case was re-
ported os a former day.
Mr. Bicker Comte= opposed for Mr. Bowden, • brewer ;
Mr. &mood supported.
This was • long case, and on the present occasion occupied
about four hour.. The complaint tree that the insolvent,
when he parted with hie hours &Wised to pep Mr. Bowden,
but had paid other persons to whom he was indebted.
Mr. Commis& nee Dowse said the insolvent had no doubt
felt hurt at being obliged to give up his pubic-house. The
mosey he had received would have paid • very fit
dividend, tut he had thought proper to pay certain persons,
and Mr. Bowden was not paid.
The wort me a judgment of au menthe from the vesting
order.

Ifieu.siddritss IN MAKING AFFIDAVITS.
In • tail me, the parties did not
Mr. Sergood, who opposed, said thaiMwould not appear.
One cabs bell had edinitted Ast he had made a talee affidavit
in swearing that be had 6004 of stock, when in feet be bad
no stook at all, he bin as spat to a wholesale home. TM
affidavit the other proposed surety was very questionable.
The court, after some remarks es the way ist which affi-
davits for bail wore ands, struck out the came.