through the narrow well-fortified channels of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles. No inconsiderable portion of our trade with Hungary, and in general with the States of Austria, inclines to follow the same direction; and that tendency can hardly fail to be increased by the new and shorter lines of communication, which, as in the recent instance of Kustendjee, promise to facilitate our means of commercial intercourse, whether by rail or by canal.

6

M'Culloch in his celebrated work, the Dictionary of Commerce and Commercial Navigation, remarks that the trade between England and Turkey is of much greater value and importance than is generally supposed, and it appears to be susceptible of an almost indefinite increase.'

He goes on to say that in 1825 we exported direct to Turkey, including what is now the kingdom of Greece, 13,674,000 yards of cotton cloth, and 446,462 lbs. of cotton twist. In 1831, we exported to Turkey (exclusive of the Morea) 24,555,000 yards of cloth, and 1,735,760 lbs. of twist.'

'Plain goods' (speaking of Manchester), he adds, 'now form the half of our investments for Turkey, and it is impossible, seeing the extent to which articles of this sort are made use of in all parts of the Empire, to form any clear idea of the magnitude of this trade.'

Ubicini, in his valuable letters on Turkey, refers to the eventual concession by the Sultan's government to European foreigners of the power to hold land as property in the Ottoman dominions.

Calculez (says he in the pursuit of this idea) l'essor prodigieux que peuvent prendre, en peu d'années, l'agriculture et le commerce de la Turquie, sortie de son mal précaire, dégagée des entraves qui la gênent, maîtresse de ses populations, et fécondée à l'intérieur par l'industrie et les capitaux de l'Europe, dont les armes la défendront contre les attaques du dehors.

In confirmation of these prospects, even under the existing system of Turkish law, we learn from the returns presented officially to Parliament that in the year 1854 our imports from Turkey, Moldavia, Wallachia, Egypt, and Syria amounted in real declared value to 6,131,110l., and from Turkey alone to 2,219,2981.; that four years later, namely in 1858, the former of those two amounts had increased to 9,786,2991., and the latter to 2,632,7167.; that, moreover, taking the account of exports of British and Irish produce to all the countries specified above for the same years respectively, in real declared value, the amount for 1854 was 4,475,483l., for 1858 7,188,5281., and for Turkey alone 2,758,605l. in 1854, 4,256,4067. in 1858.

Experience and conjecture, facts and appearances, thus converge towards the same point, and warrant a steady belief that the interest we take in the welfare of Turkey is not imaginary, but well-grounded, substantial, and progressive. Be it remembered at the same time that

in giving our support to the maintenance of the Ottoman Empire, to the improvement of its administration, and to the expansion of its resources, we promote the interests of a State whose commercial policy is singularly liberal, and from an earlier period in advance of European legislation. M'Culloch, in his work already quoted, observes that in almost all that relates to her commercial regulations Turkey is entitled to read a lesson to the most civilised European powers.' Whatever may have been the cause of it, this superiority in so important a respect is highly to the credit of a government so constituted as that of Turkey. Ascribe it, if you please, to ignorance or to indifference—that ignorance, which steps instinctively before others into the right course, possesses a claim to our goodwill, and that indifference, which opened a great empire to useful intercourse with all friendly countries, had at least the merit of not being repulsive in its character. But on either of these suppositions how are we to explain the positive encouragement given by the Porte to commercial adventurers from abroad, and carried even to the extreme of allowing the ambassador and consuls of their nation to exercise judicial authority within the Turkish dominions?

At all events, in so far as the Porte, however mechanically, acted on the principles of free trade, the advantage which her adoption of them conferred on foreign countries operated to the effect of diminishing that estrangement which mutual fanaticism had long engendered between the Christian and the Mussulman. England and France in particular were not slow to improve the opening afforded by these means to a more cordial understanding between their respective subjects and the inhabitants of Turkey. The British Government appears to have lost no opportunity of cultivating friendly relations with the Sultan. Its endeavours from an early period were directed towards the maintenance or restoration of a state of peace in the Levant, and those endeavours became more frequent and active in proportion as the declining strength of Turkey yielded to the pressure of neighbouring powers. Even the apparent exceptions offered by our policy in 1806, when, in league with the Russians, we sent a squadron to the Bosphorus, and in 1827, when we joined with the Czar and the Bourbon in founding the constitutional monarchy of Greece, were not the results of any unfriendly sentiment. In the former case, which was that of a fearful crisis in European affairs, we had to detach the Porte from a dangerous and unwilling subserviency to France. In the latter we aimed at bringing the Porte into an arrangement which promised to have the effect of closing a breach in her dominions favourable to Russian aggression, and of realising a system of reform required for the recovery of her independence and internal prosperity.

Knolles in his history of the Turks, which was praised so highly by Dr. Johnson, relates that in the year 1621 Sir Thomas Rowe,

a distinguished diplomatist of that time, arrived at Constantinople with the character of ambassador in ordinary from King James the First. Among the important objects which Sir Thomas was instructed to submit to Sultan Osman, there figures an offer of British mediation between His Highness and the King of Poland, who were then at war with each other. In the discharge of this duty the ambassador is stated to have used the following words on his sovereign's behalf:

His Majesty hath commanded me to offer himself as a mediator of peace to accommodate the late breach with the kingdom of Poland, . . . which, if your Majesty shall hearken unto the rather for his sake, as your royal ancestor hath done in the like occasion, His Majesty will accept it as a respect of your love, which will assure and increase the commerce and friendship of your dominions.

The Sultan in his reply to the king declares that—

whensoever on behalf of the Polacks an ambassador shall arrive at our high court, . . . and shall desire our favour and amity, by the mediation of your resident now in our imperial port, all matters shall be pacified and ended, and with a pen we will blot out all former differences, and the peace being so established, your instances and desires for them shall have grateful acceptance with us.

His Highness's letter concludes with the warmest expressions of goodwill and friendship on his part towards the King of England, and of a confident expectation that, as in times past,' the ancient, perfect, and acceptable course of friendship will be always observed and maintained.'

It is evident from a perusal of these passages that the mediation of England was acceptable to the Porte, that it had been used on previous occasions, and that both parties felt the value of each other's friendship, the one as taking a lively interest in the peace and welfare of Turkey, the other as liking to have an instrument of accommodation on which reliance could be placed in times of emergency.

The Turkish Empire, in proportion as its power declines, is exposed on every side to the encroachment of its neighbours. Even Persia, though a Mohammedan country, yet differing from Turkey on points of religious belief, and greatly inferior with respect to extent and population, is not a rival who can be safely despised. Since the last retreat of the Turks from before Vienna, Austria has succeeded in recovering much of the territory which she had previously lost in her wars with them; and although her habitual policy on that side is far from being aggressive, she would not be wanting in power to share the spoil should Turkey ever be marked by others for dismemberment. Justly or not, few doubt that France has an eye, eventually, to Syria and Egypt; nor can anyone be reasonably surprised when Russia betrays her impatience to possess the golden key of the sick man's chamber-door. For other powers,

who either participate generally in the Levant trade, or have a special share in that of the Black Sea, there would be little satisfaction in the transfer of the whole course of the Danube to Austria, or in that of the Dardanelles and Bosphorus to Russia, whose commercial policy differs so widely from the commercial practice of Turkey. For us, who have strong inducements not to sympathise with such powers, and who, moreover, are bound, in virtue of our East-Indian possessions, to prevent the Isthmus of Suez from falling into other and rival hands, there can be no prospect less attractive than that of a dissolution of the Turkish Empire. Any compensation which we might find it necessary in such case to seek for ourselves on the ground of international equipoise would probably cost us dear, and prove, at the best, inadequate.

Considerations of this kind must surely have weighed with those who successively administered the affairs of England from after the Revolution of 1688. I have already cited an early example of the policy thus recommended to the British Government by circumstances traceable to natural causes, or, at least, to causes independent of our control. Another, on a larger scale, is to be found in the later annals of Europe.

During many years, scarce less than twenty, the Turks had been engaged with Austria, or rather the Emperor of Germany, in hostilities, generally disastrous to themselves, when England in the reign of William and Mary, seconded by the States-General of Holland, mediated a peace between them. The treaty, which was not definitively signed till January 1699, was accompanied with separate treaties between Poland, Russia, Vienna, respectively, and the Porte.

Again, in 1712 it appears from a letter, addressed by Sultan Achmet the Third to Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, and cited in the fifth volume of Russell's Modern Europe, that England, together with the States-General, had offered their mediation to effect a lasting peace between the Porte and Russia, which is described as having received a full ratification from the two contracting parties. England and her colleague in the mediation are styled in this letter the ancient allies' of the Porte.

In 1739 the war, which had commenced between Russia and the Porte three years before, and somewhat later between the Porte and Austria, was brought to a conclusion, not by the mediation of England, but with the assistance of France. The terms of peace were advantageous to the Sultan, whose arms had previously obtained more than one important success in battle over the Austrians. It may be inferred from these circumstances that if the British Government abstained from taking part in the negotiations for peace, they were actuated less by indifference to the interests of Turkey than by a well-grounded reliance on the strength of the Sultan's position.

The war which broke out in 1787 between the Turks and the Russians afforded the British Government an opportunity of displaying a very remarkable consideration for the interests of the former. They mediated between the belligerents, and even went so far as to arm in support of their proposition that the Porte should not be compelled to cede the fortress of Oczakoff to Russia. In the Parliamentary debates of 1791-2 there is evidence of no small difference of opinion on this subject; but the views of the Ministers were supported by decisive majorities, and much of the difference is to be attributed to party spirit, then running high.

In tracing the policy of England towards the Ottoman Empire from early times we now reach a period when the great questions brought into play by the Revolution of 1789 gave their own peculiar character to passing events, and when everything in public life took colour from the passions engaged on the one side or the other. Our expedition to Egypt at the close of the last century originated, no doubt, in our state of war with France. But would not our friendly concern for Turkey and the interest we felt in preventing the transfer of Egypt to another power have alone induced us to oppose the progress of Buonaparte's arms? The Turks, at least, evinced no jealousy of our successes, and the co-operation of their forces with ours appears to have been cordial and effective. A few years later, indeed, the increased necessity of making head against a power which set no bounds to its ambition and hatred of British independence engaged us for Russian objects in a quarrel with our old allies. Yet history shows that no sooner had Russia been forced by the French Emperor to abandon her connection with us than we hastened to open a separate negotiation for peace with them, and that, much as they stood in fear of France, they finally received our plenipotentiary, and concluded a treaty with him. Nor can it be forgotten that, while we were still in a formal state of war with Russia, the Porte requested our mediation for the settlement of her own differences with the Czar, and that, by aid of confidential communications between the British Embassy at Constantinople and the Russian commanders in Wallachia, the treaty of Bucharest was concluded in May 1812.

The events which accompanied the Hellenic war of independence, though often in appearance and effect hostile to Turkey, were certainly not so in spirit on the part of England. The war in its origin was kindled by internal fermentation, fanned, it may well be supposed, by Russian sympathy and something more. Our intervention, though friendly to the Greeks, was yet more friendly to the Turks, inasmuch as it was directed to a pacification calculated to limit sacrifices on their part, which could not be entirely avoided. The Porte, notwithstanding the massacres committed under her authority at Constanti