The Sun.
London, England, 1869-07-20 00:00:00

Messina

Lisbon . _
... 51i _. 52
Oporto — ... 511 ... 521
Rio Janeiro — ••• , ..
New York -

A TRUE CONSULAR STORY BY W. J. STILLM AN.—
That gentleman, at ono time Gansu' at Rome, was trans-
ferred to Canea by Mr. Seward to silence his complaints
against au iniquity the Secretary did not choose tc cor-
rect. His income was $l,OOO per annum, which sufficed
for the modest wants of his family during the first year,
one of peace and low prices, but after the war broke out a
material change occurred in the price of living in Crete.
The Viceroy of Egypt offered him any compensation to
get up a petition from the Cretans for the transfer of the
island to Egypt. This ho exposed to Mr. Morris, and he
to the English Ambassador at Constantinople, who quashed
the proj pct. Ms denunciations of the unjust measures to
drive the Cretans into insurrection and remonstrances with
the local authorities excited their hostility, and hewas accused
of being an instigator of the insurrection. Mr. Stillman
says, " I was menaced with the withdrawal of my exequa-
tur ; I was denounced in the Philo-Ottoman journals,
the despatches of the French Consul (the most corrupt
and mendacious Levantine I ever met); bullied and in-
sulted by the '. ;;1 authorities, openly menaced with as-
sassination by the. ~,,ulman mob; a picquet of Zapties
at my front door, an. "I‘.4ther at the back, to examine
everybody who left my ho ;and though the surveillance
of months had found no farz.",;-i.:,which to accuse me, the
charges were no leis viruleu
.;:-.4iiritated wore the Mus-
sulman population against t I received frequent
private warnings not to be outs Say house after sunset,
and not to move without a gutacr- For "two weeks we
were ready for barricading and defe;r4ing the consulate at
any moment, and scarcely crossed its threshold ; and
when, weary of this prison-life, I hired -a house which
had a garden attached, where we and our children
might breathe without danger from the rifle-balls that
more than once had whistled by me, the Governor,
on learning that I had taken it, compelled the owner
to withdraw the lease, though my chattels were partly
in the house. My employes were insulted, beaten,
denied recognition, and, in some cases, compelled to aban-
don my employ. In vain I represented this state of things
at Washington; no notice was deigned to me. Two or
three times men-of-war came to Crete, whose officers
mostly sympathised openly with the Turkish authorities
as against the Cretans, and impliedly against me, and in
one case carried their hostility to me so far that none of
them except the captain and assistant-surgeon paid me a
visit. Add to this, our worthy and time-honoured Secre-
tary of Legation and dragoman at Constantinople joined
in the hue-and-cry against me, attacked me and his chief,
from whom alone I had ever received support and protec-
tion, in the American and European journals, entered into
the conspiracy to drive me from the island, and gave the
local authorities, with whom he was in correspondence, tc
understand that I was not, and would not be, sustained by
the Government." The position being unendurable he asked
for leave of absence, which was denied. His wife refused to go
to Greece with the children, and as a last resource he
hired a little yacht to get out of the polluted air of Crete
for ten days. Famine prices supervened, and meat became
awfully dear, though the other Consuls were aided by the
Government butcher. Nothing but the meetings of the
friends of Crete on the other side of the Atlantic induced
him to hold on, his expenses being double his income.
" Congress will help you," wrote one ; "we will support
you in your difficulties," wrote another, so he continued
till a physician's peremptory orders sent him and his
family to Athens sick. "Even from this asylum," he says,
"our worthy representative at the court of the Bing of the
nellenes endeavoured to drive me, and, failing that, to
diminish ray favour there by representing (as I know
officially) to the Greek Government that my conduct in
Crete had not been approved by my own Government."
We may here observe that Mr. Stillman ought to account
for the very general condemnation his conduct received
from Americans, according to his own showing, for it is
just possible that they may be in the right and he in the
wrong. 'However, we aro only telling his own story, and
a very sad one it undoubtedly is. Eventually, the family
arr:viug in America invalids, and his unfortunate wife so
broken down, so unnerved by three years of unquiet, of
excited sympathy, of harassed days and nights, that her
reason yielded, and in an attack of inseniffshe committed
suicide, her last troubles being for the miseries she. had
witnessed• and could no longer alleviate. With Lis own
nervous system shattered, his working power gone, his
home destroyed, and his debts, amounting to $2,000 gold),
he returns to private life, being dismissed the Consular see-
vice, his greatest regret being that he everentered it, while he
has never heard from any of his sympathizing friends on
the oilier side of the Atlantic sinoe the decline of the in-
surrection. The moral of Mr. Stillman's story evidently
is -do not go into the Consular Service of the United
States ; but if you do, our advice is, do not identify your-
self with an insurrection, nor cJmuienca your career by
fighting the Secretary of State, and continue it by fight-
ing every superior with whom you come in contact.
EXCLUSIVE, VERY IMPORTANT, 1411 E, AND VALUABLE
are the properties of Lamplougu's Pyretic Saline, curing the
worst headaches, sickness, skin, or bilisni affections. Pleasant
palatable, and invigorating. told by all Chemists:--[Advt.)

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