were found equally futile. The very inen who were accused of these crimes, were proved to have been dead long before they were committed, or else a thousand miles away at the moment of their commission. The whole case, in fact, completely broke down; not a vestige of a charge was established. Not one single case of robbery, outrage, or oppression, on the part of the Turks towards the Christians, was so much as proved to have been committed, much less brought home to any perpetrator. Yet, so anxious are the Turkish authorities to prevent the possibility of such charges being trumped up for the future-so desirous are they of proving their eagerness to do all which the Christian powers can request of them-that the Grand Vizier has even now, in face of the triumphant refutation of the Russian slanders, established courts of criminal appeal in these districts of the empire, and, henceforth, prevented even the possibility of such wrongs existing without a remedy. He has also, in his solicitude to remove every pretext for complaint, devised a comprehensive reform in the mode of collecting the taxes; by which the tax payers are relieved from some vexatious forms, and the resources of the country lightened of some incommodious burdens. But this is not all. The inquiry which Prince Gortschakoff was so eager to promote, has, in a certain sense, recoiled upon his own head. It was intended to bless the Christians, and, lo! it has cursed them altogether. It is not the Turks who have been robbing, reiving, and ravishing, but the Greeks. The complaints actually brought before the commissioners were not of Turkish insolence, but of Greek rapacity, violence, and lust. The Greek clergy are shewn to have been the real oppressors of the people, and not the Turkish gentlemen. Not a family which had saved a few piastres that was safe from spoliation; nor a household which boasted a daughter of any personal attractions, that was free from dishonour. The faith of which the Czar is the defender is indeed best, as it is literally, described by the proverbial Græca fides. Yet we can scarce help asking ourselves, what is the use of representing these truths to the English public? We see even now the true fanatical sneer, we listen to the stolid "no," with which these unpalatable facts will be received by that large class of the community to whom Constantinople is a modern Nazareth, out of which no good thing can come. We would only put it to persons of this disposition, whether the interests of our common creed are best consulted by upholding a class of men who cause it to be reviled of unbelievers, and who are guilty. of every vice which even pagan moralists condemn? Christianity, which was once foolishness to the Greeks, has now been made by the Greeks themselves a stumbling-block to the Heathen. The proof of all these remarks is not far to seek; let our readers refer to the published report of the Grand Vizier, and judge for themselves. Analogous to the general falsehood which is so extensively propagated concerning the relations between the Turks and the Christians, is the particular falsehood which prevails upon the subject of the Syrian disturbances. It is commonly supposed that a horde of ruffians belonging to the same faith, though not to the same sect as the Turks, suddenly giving way to the ungovernable ferocity of their natural disposition and their religious creed, had burst like a torrent upon their peaceful Christian neighbours, had been abetted by the Turkish troops sent to chastise them, and had pursued, unmolested, their career of plundering and burning, until our excellent allies the French arrived to re-establish order. The amount of untruth, direct and indirect, which is wrapped up in this supposition, is perfectly astonishing. In the first place, the Druses, so far from, being ferocious, were comparatively humane in their operations., Not a woman or child was voluntarily injured during the whole time that they had the upper hand. In the second place, the insurrection was entirely suppressed long before a single French soldier set foot upon Syrian soil. In the third place—and here we are strongly reminded of the results of the Nyssa inquiryit was not the Druses, but the Maronites, who perpetrated the worst atrocities! We know from eyewitnesses, that upon the arrival of the French the Maronites were "let loose." After the country had been perfectly tranquillized—after the leading Druse chieftains had given themselves up to the Turkish govern ment-then the vengeance and the cupidity of the lately vanquished race were hounded on against their victors. Fearful and disgusting sights were then witnessed among the villages of Lebanon. Villages through which the traveller passed in the early morning, greeted by smiling homesteads and happy families, he resought in the evening, to find his humble entertainers lying murdered on their own threshold, and smoking desolation where but a few short hours before he had left peace and plenty. This was wilful, wanton barbarity, which, had it been perpetrated under Turkish auspices, would have filled every column of every British newspaper with virulent invective; but, being instigated or connived at by our "excellent allies " the French, is deliberately suppressed by the accredited purveyors of public intelligence. We most earnestly assure our readers that we are speaking the unvarnished truth. Some among them may remember the fatal occurrences which happened at one of our great commercial towns nearly thirty years ago, and have gained a melancholy notoriety under the name of the Bristol Riots. While the mob were burning down warehouses and plundering the property of the well-disposed, the dragoons sat idly in their saddles. When the work was over-when ringleaders and followers, satiated with destruction, had slunk away to their dens-then the word was given to clear the town of the rioters. The horsemen charged furiously through the principal streets, in which the peaceable inhabitants were just beginning to reappear, striking right and left at every one whom they found abroad, and killing, as it is said, some score or more of innocent persons. Such is an exact counterpart of the Syrian civil war, in which the innocent were sacrificed for the guilty, rather than it should be said that Christians had not slaked their vengeance. But the murders and rapine let loose among the unoffending population of the Druse villages, after order had been fully re-established, were not the only iniquities perpetrated in the name of justice. Fourteen Druse chieftains who came down from the hills, and voluntarily surrendered themselves to the authorities upon the promise of a fair trial, were kept languishing in a dungeon for twenty-four days; and, when brought before their judges, VOL. III. I were subjected to all the vexatious cross-examination which is practised by the French courts: a system which, unfair as it is admitted to be to the accused person, even when the latter is a Frenchman, or acquainted with the general character of European procedure, becomes nothing less than an open perversion of justice when applied to Asiatic mountaineers. We call attention to all these facts merely for the purpose of showing that the presence of the French in Syria has not only been utterly superfluous, but even actively mischievous. They did not put down the disturbances, for that was effected before they arrived; they have not acted as mediators between the contending parties, but have exhibited the grossest partiality and unfairness in their treatment of prisoners; nor have they in any way contributed to the confirmation of Turkish authority in these provinces. On the contrary, they have impaired the moral effect of Fuad Pasha's vigour, by pretending to do for the Turks, what the Turks, as they have clearly shown, were quite able to do for themselves. Why, then, are they permitted to linger a single day where their presence can only do harm to the old ally of England, if not to this country itself? Are they there as the representatives of Christianity? Then why permit Christians to disgrace themselves by the atrocities we have enumerated? Are they there as the representatives of justice? Then why pervert its most sacred functions by condemning men practically unheard? Why, moreover, encourage the execution of Turkish officers, for their connivance at the Druse outrages, and allow a traitor like Tubia, whose misdeeds we have already1 pointed out, and arch intriguers like certain foreign consuls, who shall be nameless, to walk abroad with impunity? It is indeed these latter upon whose shoulders a vast amount of responsibility for all the ills of Turkey does in fact reside. Their abuse of the privileges conferred upon them we have noticed upon other occasions, and shall revert to before finishing this article; and, if our allies would but exercise their love of justice upon this class of delinquents, they would indeed earn a title to our gratitude. As it is, we fear they rather connive at than discredit them. 1 "New Quarterly," October, 1860. On the question of Syrian intervention, and the ulterior designs imputed to successive French governments in thrusting their assistance upon Turkey, the same opinion has been entertained by our leading foreign ministers any time during the last thirty years. It is nearly as long ago as that time, since the Duke raised his warning voice against the policy of France towards Egypt. "In the consideration of all questions of Eastern policy," said that illustrious man, "it is necessary to extend our views beyond Turkey. It is well known that the French have never ceased to hope for the establishment of their power in Egypt; and, although they do possess no territory there, yet it is undeniable that, by means of their agents, by means of the many adventurers introduced into the Egyptian army, and surrounding the Egyptian authorities, they have at all times enjoyed considerable influence, and sometimes great power. There can be no doubt but that the French government would avail themselves of any favourable opportunity for prosecuting their designs upon Egypt; and it is equally certain that, whether at peace or at war with England, the object of every French statesman must be to diminish the power of England in Egypt." Lord Palmerston has ever held precisely the same opinions:"What," said he in 1840, "will be the consequence of a French protectorate? Why, that Syria would be placed under the protection of the very power of whose presence in Egypt we have most cause to be jealous. Turkey, weakened in this way, would be at the constant mercy of France, and would be forced for sheer weakness to call in Russia as a counterpoise. We may rely on it, every blow France is permitted to strike will recoil on ourselves; for, instead of promoting peace, the first French soldier who lands in Syria will be the harbinger of intrigues destined never to have an end until England is expelled from the Mediterranean." And, again, "if the French establish themselves in Syria, we shall have the Turkish empire on the one end under the protection of France, and at the other under Russia. Thus would the project of the alliance of Erfurt in 1810 be carried out." The real truth is, that the formation of a maritime power at Alexandria, was a French project in 1840, and is so still. Are |