Together we rejected the unsatisfactory answer at first and more than once proposed by the Porte; together we accepted what appeared to offer a sufficient guarantee for the accomplishment of our common object.
The terms in which the final declaration of the Porte was conveyed to us on the 21st instant, are recorded in the accompanying paper translated exactly from the Turkish original.
I thought it advisable to acknowledge this communication, and as I was entitled to expect some additional assurances from the Sultan at the public audience which I had demanded of His Majesty according to my instructions, I avoided embarrassing the French Minister by proposing to him to take part in a step which related exclusively to my position. A copy of this acknowledgment is inclosed herewith; and in order to give your Lordship a complete view of the transaction in its full extent, I add the very terms, as translated to me, in which the Sultan was pleased to confirm and to enlarge the engagement of his Government.
I may venture to add that His Majesty's assurances were given in the most gracious form, accompanied with an expression of thanks for the liberal manner in which the millions of Mahomedan subjects in India are treated by the British authorities, and followed by a message, after I had left his presence, to the effect that the sentiments which he had declared to me were not only those of the Monarch but of the individual.
In short, my Lord, I am sanguine enough to hope that Her Majesty's Government have laid the foundation of a more real improvement in the temper and policy of this State than was to have been previously expected; and it is a subject of just congratulation that the counsels of two great nations have united successfully for the attainment of so beneficent an object.
The invitation to Baron de Bourqueney to wait upon the Sultan the day after my audience, and to receive, for the information of his Court, a repetition of the assurances addressed to me, affords another proof of His Majesty's sincerity.
I have, &c.,
(Signed) STRATFORD CANNING.
P.S.—I request that a copy of this despatch and its inclosures may be forwarded immediately to Her Majesty's Government.
Inclosure 2 in No. 38.
Official Declaration of the Sublime Porte, relinquishing the practice of Executions for Apostacy from Islamism.
[See Inclosure l in No. 36.]
Inclosure 3 in No. 38.
Acknowledgment of the Sublime Porte's Official Declaration respecting Executions for Apostacy.
[See Inclosure 2 in No. 36.]
Inclosure 4 in No. 38.
Declaration of His Highness the Sultan to Sir Stratford Canning at his Audience on the 23rd of March, 1844.
"Henceforward neither shall Christianity be insulted in my dominions, nor shall Christians be in any way persecuted for their religion."
No. 39.
The Earl of Aberdeen to Sir Stratford Canning.
(Extract.)Foreign Office, April19, 1844.
I received on the 10th of this month your Excellency's despatch of the 23rd of March conveying the gratifying intelligence that the Porte had given way on the question of the execution of apostates from Islamism. The concession made by the Porte in this respect, entirely consistent as it is with the wishes and intentions of Her Majesty's Government, as expressed in my several instructions of the 16th of January, 19th of March, and 6th of April, has given them the greatest satisfaction; and I have been happy to receive the Queen's commands to signify to your Excellency Her Majesty's gracious approbation of the manner in which you have executed your instructions, and brought to a successful close a question of which the importance cannot be too highly rated.