The Sun.
London, England, 1854-05-17 00:00:00

The cordial union of France and England has
already exercised a beneficial influence over the
Ottoman Government. His Imperial Majesty the
SULTAN has, within this present month of May,
expressly avowed his anxiety to follow out a
career of progress, and in so doing to emulate as
much as possible the proceedings of the Allied
Powers. Such, without any explicit declaration
to that effect from the lips of ABD-UL-MEDJID, is
what alone could have been predicated from the
course long pursued by the Divan. During a
considerable time past the path entered upon by
the Sublime Porte has been a path of systematic,
social, commercial, and political improvement.
This, moreover, in spite of the ever-threatening
and at last openly-declared opposition of the
Northern AUTOCRAT ; in spite of the enervating
tendencies of an Asiatic past, with all its pecu-
liarly adverse associations ; in spite of the re-
tarding effect produced upon the whole order
of things in Turkey by the domination exer-
cised over the popular mind by the eccentric
principles of Mahommedanism. In defiance of
every imaginable obstruction, however, whether '
inborn, internal, or external, the Ottoman Empire
has steadily and appreciably advanced during the
last decade. Its mercantile operations have won-
derfully increased, as may be perceived at a glance
on inquiry into its imports and exports, but more
particularly on a comparison of those imports and
exports with the imports and exports of its colossal
neighbour—Russia. The progress made by Turkey,
moreover, is in no way restricted to one of a material
or industrial character. It has been one social
as well as commercial—a movement in the course
of which the whole mechanism of the state
has been beneficially affected. And this progres-
sive improvement is one which may be declared,
without exaggeration, to have commenced in ear-
nest from the day when the young Sultan-Caliph
ABD-Tm-MEDJin bad the sword of OsMAN first
girded about his loins, namely, on the
11th of July, 1839, during the ceremony of
his imperial installation. So that it is no merely
empty vaunting when his MAJESTY avows his
wish, as he did on the Ist of May, 1854, to
follow out a career of progress—and this simply
because his desire is correctly declared to be a
solicitude to follow out, not to enter upon, but to
follow out, a career of progress ! When the
avowal was made on the Ist inst. to the Prince
NAPOLEON at Constantinople, H.I.H. must have
appreciated the integrity of the Monarch who
avowed those lofty intentions. For the
whole reign of ABD-UL-MEDJID has attested
alike his extraordinary merits as a reformer, and
his raaguanimity as a prince of the most generous
sentiments and of the most indisputable enlighten-
ment. It cannot very soon be forgotten in Ire-
land with whet spontaneous munificence the
contributed young SULTAN towards the mitigation
of the horrors of
fatepestilence,andthatthe
when
the world becameaware
double
scourge was decimating that unfortunate (and,
as far as the SULTAN was ooncerned, remote
and alien) population. Nor
ithsealdrilo
lost to the memory of France
p e
even when the poet-hero
see how chivalrously,
his own compatriots, the edify be
to be ungrate-
fully forgotten by
SULTAN proferred his tribute to the Tsrribunlign
whose sublime courage and matchless eloquence
e
had saved Europe itself from a deluge of
in the February of 1848—how ABD-
u
displayed his sense of the glory of this august act
of civism by presenting an estate in Turkey to
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE. Neither can it very
quickly pass from the remembrance of Hungary,
how nobly the young SULTAN stood between the
northern despots and the intended victims of their
vengeance, when, in despite of the fury of both
Austrian K Admit and Russian AUTOCRAT, he grant-
ed a safe residence at Widdin to the Magyars
• and Polish refugees. to KOSSUTH, BEM, GUYON,
PERCZEL, and DEMBINSKI. These things, we say,
cannot easily be forgotten ; they are attestations
of the personal magnanimity of the Sultan, ABD-Ilfr
MEDJID—as the social, commercial, and political
progress made by Turkey during the period of his
reign demonstrates his activity and integrity as a
s 7 7 Alrowned reformer•—as the stand made by his
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~..._*4.iops during these months which have elapsed
,47.
.;‘,....- TiziceAcie passage of the Pruth are tokens that his
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,isu4itsc are not quite as degenerate as they were
,ti, all' 'ad to be-,--or as the skilful tactics which
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