The Sun. — 1868-05-27 (London, England)

CAPTURE OF AN ENGLISHMAN BY BRIGANDS IN TURKEY.  A telegram has been received from Malta, announcing the capture by brigands of Mr. J. W. Stevens, an English engineer, and Mr. Charles Van Lennep, a Netherlands subject, in the Smyrna district. Mr. Charles David Van Lennep is the Swedish Consul at Smyrna, and has married an English lady allied to one of our first mercantile !amilies in the City. Mr. Van Lennep, in conjunction pith his brothers-in-law, Captain Ogilvie and Captain 3rant (son of the Governor of Malta), has been carrying put an extensive course of agricultural operations with English machinery. For the management of the ma,hinery he had engaged Mr. Stevens, . a mechanical engineer, long settled in the country, and much esteemed. He was formerly engineer of the Smyrna Steam Flour Mill Company, and was for many years in the service of the Ottoman Railway Company. The circumstances under which they were captured are not yet fully known, and the mail hourly expected may not bring full particulars, as they were captured on the 16th, and the .etters will be only to the 18th. It was stated in the telegram that the band consisted of thirty men, and that ;hey had demanded a ransom of £3,000, or £1,500 each, on the threat of sending in their heads if the sum were not sent. Mr. Van Lennep's family, it is stated, were prepared ;o send in the £1,500, but nothing is said as to Mr. Stevens, and, indeed, as he had to bring up a large family, his circumstances do not admit of his paying any such sum, which can only be furnished by advances from her Britannic) Majesty's Consul, or by public subscription. The band must be newly formed, as this is its first exploit, and its existence was only surmised. That district has been undisturbed for many years, and, so little was the existence of a band of brigands known, that a Smyrna picnic had been arranged in the neighbourhood of the Seidekene station. The band is very unlikely to be Turkish, as the Yuruks in the mountains, even if on bad terms for the moment with Mr. Van Lennep, could not safely execute such a plan as this. It is most probably a hand of Greek marauders, Cretan volunteers, and others, landing from the islands, and making their way up from the little peopled lonian coast ; such would receive sympathy from the inhabitants of the Greek villages on the plains. As the brigands are now armed with breech-loaders they will prove a great source of trouble to the local authorities, as they have the range Df thirty miles of mountain, and have the sea-coast to escape by. It is to be hoped that by this time the ransoms have been paid, and that Mr. Stevens and Mr. Van Lennep have been thus rescued, for otherwise the consequences may be serious. Each is about 55 years of age, and although athletic they have been suffering from intermittent fever, and would be ill able to bear the privations of accompanying the brigands in their mountain wanderings, and the bloodthirsty villains into whose hands they have fallen are quite capable of carrying out their threat of murder. The Governor-General is too sagacious to attempt any plan of rescue by force; he can only trust to the chance of acting against them after the return of the captives, but if the brigands succeed in getting a large sum they will make their escape to Syra or some of the neighbouring Greek islands.