The Sun.
London, England, 1853-06-22 00:00:00

statu quo which it had always been our care to maintain,
nevertheless, it appearing to the Emperor that those docu-
ments satisfied to a certain extent his just solicitude for
the interest and immunities of the Russo-Greek worship
at Jerusalem, a desire of conciliation induced his Majesty
to accept them. They were taken cognizance of in a man-
ner to give them the value of a solemn and definitive
transaction.
" In presence of those categorical documents, officially
communicated after a long and weary negotiation, the Im-
perial Government was surely justified in considering for
ever closed a debate in which ,its moderation, had suc-
ceeded in obviating the dangers, and which left the Latins
in possession of new advantages. You are aware that,
unhappily, it has not been so.
" I should be carried toofar if I was here to relate all the
acts of weakness, tergiversation, and duplicity, which have
signalised the conduct of the Ottoman authorities, when it
was a question of fulfilling the engagement taken towards
us, and of proceeding to Jerusalem, according to the pre-
scribed custom, for the promulgation, enregistra,tion, and
execution of the finnan sent for this purpose to the Holy
City, according to the explicit assurance given to our mis-
sion at Constantinople. The Turkish Commissioner once
insisted
on the spot, dared to declare to our Consul, who
on the reading and enregistration of the firman, that he
had no knowledge of that act, and that it was not men-
tioned in his instructions. Although later, on our recla-
mations, the firman was read and enregistered at Jerusa-
lem, it was done with restrictions insulting to the Eastern
worship. But, as regardsthe act itself, if we except the ac-
complishment of these simple formalities, the principaldis-
rositions have been openly transgressed. The most fla-
grant infraction was the placing in the hands of the Latin
Patriarch the key of the principal door of the Church of
Bethlehem. This act was contrary to the precise terms of
the firman. It deeply wounded the feelings of the clergy,
and of the whole population of the Russo-Greek confes-
sion ; because, according to ideas entertained in Palestine,
the possession of the key seems to imply that of the whole
temple. The Turkish Government thus testified before the
eyes of all, even against its own interests, to the supremacy
it accords to another confession than that to which the ma-
jority of its subjects belong.
" Such a disregard of the most positive promises con-
signed in the letter of the Sultan to the Emperor ; so pa-
tent a breach of faith, aggravated still more by the pro-
ceedings and deriding language of the Councillors of his
Highness, were certainly of a nature to authorise our
august master, wounded in his dignity, in his friendly con-
fidence, in his creed, and in the religious sentiments which
he shares in common with his people, to demand on the in-
sta-, a striking reparation. His Majesty might have done
so if, as he has been accused by an opinion false in its
sources, he only sought a pretext to overthrow the Otto-
man Empire. But he did not wish it. He preferred ob-
taining that satisfaction through the medium of pacific
negotiations. He once more endeavoured to enlighten
the Sovereign of Turkey on his wrongs towards us, as also
against his own interests, and appealed to his wisdom to
correct the faults of his Ministers, and with that object in
view Prince Menschikoff was sent to Constantinople.

" His mission had two objects :
" 1. To negotiate in lieu of the firman which had been
discarded, a new arrangement which, without depriving the
Latins of that which they had latterly obtained (for we were
desirous to avoid placing, in exacting this retraction, the
Ottoman Porte vis-à-vis France precisely in the false posi-
tion in which it was placed towards ourselves), should ex-
plain, at least, those concessions in a manner to take away
the appearance of a victory obtained over the Russo-Greek
faith, and to establish, by means of some legitimate com-
pensations, the equilibrium overthrown at the expense of
the latter.
" 2. The corroboration of such arrangement by an au-
thentic act, which might serve us at once as a reparation
for the past, and a guarantee for the future.
" That first portion of the mission of our ambassador ex-
traordinary, in itself of a most difficult nature, as it implied
establishing an accordance between the reciprocal but con-
tradictory privileges and interests of Russia and France,
was, we think, undertaken in an extreme spirit of conci-
liation ; dispositions to which, we are glad to say, the
French Government responded. After long discussions it
at last bore fruit, and the result was the drawing up of
two new firmans without opposition from the French
Ambassador.
" But, as I have already observed, the question under
negotiation presented another face. To obtain an arrange-
ment was not all. Without au act to make it valid, which
would offer the guarantee that the new firmans should in
future be executed and religiously observed in their prin-
ciples and consequences, it is evident that those docu-
ment, after the flagrant violation of the one that had pre-
ceded them, could not have any more value than it in our
eyes. The Emperor attached the more importance to this
guarantee, because it constituted really the only separa-
tion which he demanded after the outrage done to his
dignity by the breach of faith of the Ottoman Porte,
especially after the circumstances which rendered it the
more patent.
" Prince Menschikoff was charged to endeavour to ob-
tain it by means of a convention, which he would sign
with the Turkish Government. Of a treaty so called there
was never question.
" The form of this convention was loudly declaimed
against as bearing atteinte in principle against the rights
of sovereignty of the Sultan ; as conferring upon us de
facto, in the name of religion, a right of perpetual inter-
ference in the internal affairs of Turkey. We think that a
phantom has been conjured up—that fears are entertained,
the foundation of which is more special than real.
"In principle a convention, or even a similar treaty,
would be nothing unusual, and we do not understand in
what more they would constitute an attack upon the sove-
reign autonomy of the Sultan, than the capitulations and
other acts that France and Austria already possess in Tur-
key. For in principle alone, that is to say as concerns the
independence of the Sultan, it imports little that an act
applies to such or such number greater or lesser of his sub-
jects, in favour of whom a right of foreign protection
should be exercised.

" The guarantee by treaty assured in another state to the
interests of a foreign communion has been at all times usual.
At the period of the Reformation, for instance, states, even
great Catholic states, have concluded treaties or conven-
tions with other states, by which they guaranteed in their
territories to the Protestant communion certain priviligos,
enfranchisements, and immunities, in such manner that
even at the present day the civil position of that comunion
still reposes upon those basis, without the states which
gave such guarantees regarding themselves for such reason
hurt in their sovereign rights or in their political indepen-
dence. With the more reason in principle may such acts
be concluded with a Mussulman state, the Christian sub-
jects of which have suffered, and still suffer so often, not
only in their immunities, but in their properties, and in
their existence.
"As regards the fact, as far as we are concerned, the
thine exists already, and the form of a convention which
wo Ave proposed would offer nothing now in the matter
of religious protection. The treaty of Kaynardji, by which
the Porte engages itself to protect at all times in its states
the Christian religion and its churches, implies sufficiently
for us the right of surveillance and remonstrance. This
right is again established and still more clearly specified in
the treaty of Adrianople, which has confirmed all our an-
terior transactions. Those of Kaynardji date from the
year 1774. We thus de facto possess, since eighty years,
in writing, the right now disputed, and the mention of
which day is regarded as of a nature to cause quite a new
revolution in our relations with the Ottoman Porte, con-
ferring upon us the effective sovereignty over the immense
majority of its subjects. Surely, during this lapse of time,
if we had been disposed to make abuse of it, as incurable
distrusts suppose, occasions were not wanting, especially
of late, when Europe was a Fprey to anarchy—when the
Governments, powerless against internal discord, were ab-
sorbed or distracted by the revolution of the West, and
left open field in the East to the ambitious views attributed
to us. If we entertained the intentions which it is pleased
to give us, would we have waited to carry them out
until peace was re-established in Europe ? Would we
have disposed our forces in such guise as to offer
to our neighbours a moral and material support ?
Would we have worked with zeal, as we did, to reconcile
our allies to put aside all that might be hurtful to the in-
timate union of the Powers? On the contrary; we would
have sought to keep up their discords. We would have
let the European Governments to fight it out between
themselves or with their revolted subjects, and, taking ad-
vantage of their embarrassments, would have marched
without obstacle to the realisation of what is called our
invading policy. Now that social order is, happily, every-
where re-established, and that the States re-seated on their
foundations may dispose more freely of the common action
of their forces, the moment would be strangely chosen to
follow up such a line of policy.
" Once again, in principle and in fact, a convention
with the Porto in the interest of our co-reliesonists is '
nothing new. It would not offer us any advantage which
we have not for a long time possessed, and which we could
have abused if we nurtured the intentions attributed to
us. If we are strong we do not need it. If we are weak,
such an act would not make us feared the more. This is
so true that we never should have dreamt of snaking the
proposition on the special question of the holy places, if
the Porte had not compelled us, by forgetting its former
promises, to endeavour to bind it more strictly to the
maintenance of the statu quo of the sanctuaries of Pales-
tine—if, when we protested against the concessions made
to our detriment, it had not given us for excuse that, as
regards the holy place, France had a treaty and Russia
had none.
"Moreover, wo have never made a so-called convention
the sine qua non condition of our reconciliation with the
Porte. Whilst giving to Prince Menschikoff when sent on
his mission to Constantinople, that form to the minute of
the stipulations he had to negotiate, it left him full lati-
tude to modify them, not only in the terms, but also to
obtain them under any other form which might be less re-
pugnant to the susceptibilities of the Porte, or of foreign
diplomacy. It is after that authorisation that our negotia-
tor arrived on the spot, and having convinced himself of
the obstacle that our project of convention would meet
with, confined himself to demand, under the name of
Sened, an act which better harmonised with Oriental
usages, and was less conformable to the solemn ideas ordi-
narily implied by the word convention in the law of Euro-
pean right. Two extended clauses of that first project of
Sened, by which, we demanded, not, as has been pre-
tended, the right to confirm the election of the Patriarch
of Constantinople, but simply the maintenance of the ec-
clesiastical immunities and temporal advantages accorded
ab antequo by the Porte to the four patriarchs of Con-
stantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem, as well
as to the metropolitan bishops and other spiritual heads of
the Eastern Church, having raised too serious objections,
Prince Monschikoff did not refuse to suppress those two
clauses altogether. A second project was the result, upon
the acceptance of which he for a long time insisted. The
Porte persisting in rejecting every sort of engagement
which bore a bilateral and synallagmatic form, our ambas-
sador finally, at the last moment, in the spirit of his in-
structions, went so far as to declare that if the Porte would
accept and sign immediately a note, such as the subjoined
project, he himself would be satisfied with such document,
and consider it as sufficient reparation and guarantee.
" Such was, then, at the moment Prince Menschikoff
quitted Constantinople, the veritable ultimatum put by
the Imperial Cabinet; and it was in consequence of the
delay shown by the Porte in accepting the document in
question that our negotiator left for Odessa, and broke off
diplomatic relations with the Ottoman Government.
" What he successively conceded on the form and sub-
stance of our propositions, he conceded equally on the
terms originally fixed for their acceptance. He was ordered,
after a long and fruitless waiting, to demand a definitive
reply from the Porto within three days, and although that
reply ought consequently to have been given to him on the
Bth of May, ho did not leave Constantinople till the 21st.
" After three consecutive months of laborious negotia-
tions, having exhausted oven to the last possible conces-
sions, the Emperor finds himself compelled to demand pre-
remptorily the acceptance pure and simple of the project
of note. Nevertheless, moved by the considerations of
patience and long, animily which have hitherto guided him,
he leaves to the Porte another delay of eight days to come
to a decision, after which, whatever effort it may cos.:; his
he will find himself obliged to
tcaoknecilt
miaeaigsniiredsispo
topstiriocournse, by a more pronounced attitude,