Correspondence Relating to Executions in Turkey for Apostacy from Islamism

Receive, &c.,

    (Signed) BULOW.

No. 4

The Earl of Aberdeen to Sir Stratford Canning.

Sir, Foreign Office, October 4, 1843.

The barbarous execution of the Armenian, recorded in your Excellency's despatch of the 27th of August, has excited the attention and interest of Her Majesty's Government in an unusual degree; and they highly approve the line of conduct which you pursued in reference to it.

Her Majesty's Government had hoped that the time had passed away when the perpetration of such acts of atrocity could have been tolerated; and that the law by which they are permitted or enjoined, although it might still disgrace the Mahomedan code, had fallen so completely into disuse as to have become virtually null and of no effect.

It is, therefore, with the most painful feelings, that Her Majesty's Government have seen so cruel a law brought so injudiciously again into operation; and they consider every Christian Government not only justified, but imperatively called upon to raise their voices against such proceedings, whether the law be executed to the prejudice of their own subjects, or of the Christian community in general.

Her Majesty's Government confidently trust that no repetition of so unjustifiable an act as that against which your Excellency so properly remonstrated will ever be suffered, and still less authorized by the Turkish Government; and they earnestly counsel that Government to take immediate measures for effectually preventing the future commission of such atrocities.

Under the full conviction that the Sultan will have the humanity and wisdom to listen to this counsel, which is given with the most friendly feeling, and which will, I doubt not, be equally impressed on His Highness by other Christian Governments, I do not think it necessary to enter further at present into the other points set forth in your Excellency's despatch above referred to.

You will not fall to communicate this despatch to Rifaat Pasha.

I am, &c.,

    (Signed) ABERDEEN.

No. 5

The Earl of Westmorland to the Earl of Aberdeen.—(Received October 30.)

My Lord, Berlin, October 23, 1843.

I have communicated to Baron Bülow your Lordship's despatch of the 4th instant to Sir Stratford Canning relative to the late execution of an Armenian at Constantinople, and his Excellency has requested me to express the interest with which he had learnt your Lordship's views on that subject.

I have, &c.,

    (Signed) WESTMORLAND.

No. 6

Sir Stratford Canning to the Earl of Aberdeen.—(Received November 2.)

My Lord, Buyukderé, October 11, 1843.

The Prussian Minister has communicated to me an instruction addressed to him by Baron Bülow in reply to his representations on the subject of the Armenian youth, whose execution and its natural consequences were brought under your Lordship's notice in my despatch of August the 27th.

The French Minister has also communicated to me a note, transmitted to him from Paris for presentation to the Porte, with reference to the same deplorable act of the Turkish Government.