British Consular Reports from the Ottoman Levant in an Age Obritish Consular Reports from the Ottoman Levant in an Age Obritish Consular Reports from 9781617191008, 1617191000

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British Consular Reports from the Ottoman Levant in an Age of Upheaval, 1815-1830

Analecta Isisiana: Ottoman and Turkish Studies

A co-publication with The Isis Press, Istanbul, the series consists of collections of thematic essays focused on specific themes of Ottoman and Turkish studies. These scholarly volumes address important issues throughout Turkish history, offering in a single volume the accumulated insights of a single author over a career of research on the subject.

British Consular Reports from the Ottoman Levant in an Age of Upheaval, 1815-1830

Theophilus C. Prousis

1 The Isis Press, Istanbul

gorgiaS preSS 2010

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2010 by The Isis Press, Istanbul Originally published in 2008 All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of The Isis Press, Istanbul. 2010

o

ISBN 978-1-61719-100-8

Printed in the United States of America

To Betty, James, Andrew, Kimberly, and Alexander

Ottoman Empire in Asia after 1792

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface Chapter One : Capitulations, Consulates, and the Eastern Crisis of the 1820s Chapter Two : William Meyer in Prevesa: Pashas and Rebels Chapter Three : John Cartwright in Constantinople: Consular and Commercial Complications Chapter Four : Francis and Nathaniel Werry in Smyrna: Chios, Piracy, and Russophobia Chapter Five : Henry Salt and John Barker: Notes from Cairo, Alexandria, and Aleppo

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Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index

225 229 263 285

Illustrations and map 1. Map: Ottoman Empire in Asia after 1792 2. Sultan Mahmud II, artist unknown 3. Ali Pasha of Ioannina, by Louis Dupré, 1819 4. "Massacre at Chios," by Eugène Delacroix, 1824 5. Henry Salt, by John James Halls, c. 1815 6. Consul Francis Werry (1745-1832) 7. Muhammad Ali Pasha of Egypt, portrait from 1840s, artist unknown Credit for No: 6 and cover: Tom Rees, Merchant Adventurers in the Levant: Two British Families of Privateers, Consuls, and Traders, 1700-1956 (Stawell, Somerset: Talbot, 2003) Cover: View of the Tovn and Bay of Smyrna, 1818.

9 15 51 99 143

6 8 14 50 98 98 142

Sultan Mahmud II, artist unknown

PREFACE

My research on Imperial Russia's contacts and connections with the Greek world and the Ottoman Levant in the early nineteenth century inspired my interest in how Britain, that other edge of Europe, interacted with the Ottoman Empire during this tumultuous era. Traders, travelers, envoys, consuls, and countless others registered their impressions and observations in myriad writings, providing historians with a treasure-trove for probing the Eastern Question, the nineteenth-century European dilemma of what to do with the surprisingly resilient Ottoman Empire, still possessing strategic lands and vital waterways in the Near East. Russian and British archival and printed sources widen our perspective on Eastern Question history, transforming what many scholars have portrayed as a largely one-dimensional military, naval, and diplomatic subject into a multi-faceted and more animated picture. Manuscripts and archives, from Russian and now British collections, have given me vivid stories on trade, piracy, rebellion, and foreign intrigue, allowing me to reconstruct social, commercial, cultural, and religious interactions between the varied peoples who lived, traveled, traded, and served in the Ottoman Levant. This book, based on inquiry at The National Archives, Kew, in particular documents from the Foreign Office (TNA, FO), draws on neglected and largely untapped British consular papers depicting the state of the Ottoman Empire in the early nineteenth century, an epoch fraught with internal and external pressures unleashed by war, revolt, secessionist agitation, the breakdown of effective governing institutions, and European intervention. My investigation of Russian diplomatic, commercial, and travel reports, complemented by my ongoing analysis of British consular records, presents abundant firsthand testimony on the Ottoman realm and on European designs in the Levant. By relating specific incidents, episodes, and situations, consular communiqués offer insight into the human dimension of everyday life in Ottoman society during a time of profound change and chronic unrest. Rich in texture, detail, and nuance, these materials resonate with contemporary relevance, describing commercial rivalry, sectarian tension, smuggling, regional potentates, plundered antiquities, outside interference, and the ambiguity of borders and frontiers in these embattled lands and seas. All these assets explain my fascination with British and Russian consular dispatches, and publications based on these resources enrich our knowledge and understanding of Ottoman, Balkan, and Near Eastern history, with the eastern

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Mediterranean serving as the shared space where the diverse histories, peoples, and cultures of these regions often intersected and sometimes collided. The British consular commentaries selected for this volume illuminate key dimensions of the British-Ottoman relationship at a critical juncture. Discord between the Ottoman Empire and the European great powers over commerce, capitulations, and other issues formed the crucial setting for the reports of consuls appointed by the Levant Company or the Foreign Office. William Meyer, consul-general in Prevesa, compiled extensive accounts of Ali Pasha's rebellion and the Greek War of Independence, events that ultimately transformed Ottoman rule in the Balkans. John Cartwright, consul-general in Constantinople, detailed some of the more pressing commercial and consular complications caused by the Greek rebellion. Francis Werry, consul in Smyrna, and his son Nathaniel Werry, vice-consul in the same bustling port, related topical concerns such as the Chios massacre, the dangers of piracy in the Levant, and the developing Anglo-Russian rivalry in the Near East. Henry Salt, consul-general in Cairo, and John Barker, consul in Aleppo and later in Alexandria, recounted episodes dealing with Muhammad Ali Pasha, the modernizing governor of Egypt who attracted widespread European attention. These selected consular chronicles, with their limitations and advantages, shed light on the messy realities that comprised the core of the Eastern cataclysm of the 1820s and merit scrutiny for the study of such topics as the Greek revolt, Ottoman government and society, eastern Mediterranean commerce, and European influence in the Near East. This book includes several terms that require clarification. Levant refers to the islands and coastal areas of the Ottoman-ruled eastern Mediterranean, encompassing the Aegean Archipelago and such centers as Constantinople, Smyrna, Beirut, Jerusalem, Damascus, Aleppo, Alexandria, Cairo, Athens, and Salonica. I have broadened this geographical concept, however, to embrace mainland Greece, above all Epirus and the Peloponnese, during the Greek War of Independence. Eastern Question, or Western Question from the viewpoint of the Ottoman government, signifies the complex of debates, feuds, and crises in the Near East, precipitated by the interlocking web of three circumstances: the Ottoman Empire's military, financial, and institutional decline; the contending claims and objectives of European great powers, in particular the competition between Britain and Russia; and the stirrings of Ottoman Christians for autonomy and independence. While not unmindful of the wider implications of the term, I use British-Ottoman relations to denote some of the specific points that delineated this connection in the early nineteenth century, such as commercial navigation in the Black Sea and the eastern Mediterranean; piracy in Ottoman waters; jurisdictional rights of

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consuls over British subjects, including Ionian Greeks from the Britishprotected Ionian Islands; and Britain's declared neutrality during the Greek revolt. Sublime Porte, or simply Porte, refers to the Ottoman central government in Constantinople, encompassing not just the grand vizier and other important ministers but also the sultan and the Divan, or Supreme Council of the Empire, which assisted the sultan in an administrative and advisory capacity. Ambassador or envoy, used interchangeably here, indicates a European state's top diplomatic representative at the Sublime Porte. Lastly, Greek revolt or revolution designates the Greek War of Independence of the 1820s, a struggle that signified a political rebellion against the Ottoman government, the Concert of Europe, and the order of legitimacy; this insurrection resulted in an independent Greek kingdom and inspired revolutionary outbreaks in Europe, Russia, and the Balkans. The first chapter frames and contextualizes the consular reports, establishing the essential backdrop for grasping the main issues addressed by Britain's consuls. The next four chapters feature selected dispatches, memoranda, and correspondence from, respectively, Prevesa, Constantinople, Smyrna, Cairo/Alexandria; each of these four chapters opens with an introduction, followed by the relevant writings arranged in chronological order and numerical progression. For each source, I have cited the exact archival reference information, including folio numbers when available, and have also attached a précis in brackets, usually identifying such facts as sender, recipient, date, and place of origin. I have presented entire documents in numerous cases, while in others I have simply provided excerpts and passages. In preparing these accounts for publication, I have attempted to balance authenticity with readability, always a delicate matter when working with multiple texts in different styles and when encountering grammatical mistakes and archaisms as well as vagaries, inconsistencies, and eccentricities of expression. I have aimed to publish these records with as much clarity, coherence, and consistency as possible, while at the same time remaining faithful to the particulars of an author's style and to the fundamental spirit and meaning of the originals. I have thus made slight changes in grammar, syntax, transposition, punctuation, spelling, capitalization, and paragraph structure, all for the purpose of fluidity and cohesiveness, yet without sacrificing the flavor or nuance of an author's word choice and tone. Where an author inconsistently spelled the same word in the same manuscript (such as honor and honour, pasha and pacha, Smyrna and Smirna), I have opted for a systematic approach with consistent spelling in a particular document.

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I have cited geographical locations in the most commonly accepted forms of the period, such as Chios instead of Scio, Smyrna instead of modernday Izmir, Adrianople instead of Edirne, Constantinople instead of Istanbul, and Patras for Patrass. For Turkish, Arabic, and similar non-English terms, such as hospodar, dragoman, berat, and reaya, I have italicized the commonly accepted forms. I have also italicized the French or Latin phrases (such as coup de main, sang froid, onus probandi) that an author placed in quotation marks. If a writer (such as Willam Meyer, consul-general in Prevesa) underlined certain passages for emphasis, including names of towns and provinces, I have retained the underlining. An ellipsis denotes omitted words, phrases, or entire sections that I found extraneous or could not decipher. Any remarks in parenthesis are part of the original work. I have added brackets for my own emendations and supplemental information, such as first names, explanatory details, translations, and modern-day equivalents of lesser known or archaic words. Two of the authors (Francis Werry, consul in Smyrna, and his son Nathaniel Werry, vice-consul in the same city) attached footnotes to a lengthy and especially important memorandum in chapter four, and I have kept these notations at the bottom of the page. I have enriched the reports with occasional endnotes for brief explications and bibliographical references wherever I deemed these comments necessary for a better understanding of a particular topic. Unless otherwise indicated, I have cited all dates according to the new style Gregorian calendar. With sincere gratitude and much appreciation, I acknowledge the help of institutions and individuals whose support, encouragement, and generosity made this project possible. I owe a special debt to the outstanding archival staff at The National Archives where I conducted my research. With unmatched cooperation, professionalism, and kindness, they promptly delivered Foreign Office files to my work shelf in the Main Reading Room, patiently answered my queries, and expertly assisted my efforts to decipher illegible script. And they filled all of my Xerox orders, while I worked in London and after I returned to the United States, allowing me to accumulate a range of excellent materials. I am grateful to my home institution, the University of North Florida, for funding that made possible my study of British consular manuscripts. Moreover, a full-year sabbatical in 2006-07 gave me the time, the most precious asset, for the completion of this book. I thank Alisa Craddock and the entire Inter-Library Loan staff at the University of North Florida for their proficiency in locating, in a timely manner, all the items I ordered for my research.

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Several individuals stand out as exceptionally deserving of my gratefulness for their guidance, inspiration, and counsel. My former teacher and mentor Theofanis G. Stavrou, professor of Russian and Near Eastern history and director of Modern Greek Studies at the University of Minnesota, shaped the overall concept of this book in an abstract way. His influence, over three decades ago, aroused my intellectual curiosity to probe the encounters and exchanges between the various peoples who resided, traded, and traveled in the spacious terrain extending from southern Russia to Egypt and from the Danube to eastern Anatolia. Above all, he urged the necessity of exploring these contacts and interactions mainly through the primary sources left by participants and observers, especially those who chronicled their experiences in a lively, interesting, and generally reliable manner. Over the years, the editors of presses and journals who have accepted my different publications have reinforced this imperative of analyzing and making accessible an assortment of texts on specific aspects of Eastern Question, Black Sea, and Mediterranean history. To all of the scholars who have mined the resources and who have published documentary collections in these fields, such as Richard Clogg, Matthew Anderson, and Charles Issawi, I convey my thanks and appreciation. They paved the way for my own compilation of records on the Ottoman Levant. With love and respect, I thank my wife, historian Elizabeth Lane Furdell, who conducted medical history research at the Wellcome Library and the British Library while I investigated consular files at the TNA. Betty patiently listened to seemingly endless anecdotes from the correspondence of Henry Salt and William Meyer, proffered invaluable assistance, deciphered impossibly illegible script, and answered my questions on British society, commerce, and Empire. In the early stages of my TNA discoveries, it was she who came up with a working title, The Year of Living Dangerously, for a book dealing solely with assorted dispatches from one particularly stressful year in British-Ottoman affairs. I broadened the scope and extended the timeline as I read more commentaries from the various corners of Britain's Levant consular network, but the notion of danger looms large throughout the period covered in this volume, an era when multiple disorders affected virtually every facet of the Eastern Question. Although I altered the title and the contents, I am indeed grateful to my wife for her original suggestion—and for her constant support and devotion.

Ali Pasha of Ionniana, by Louis Dupré

1 CAPITULATIONS, CONSULATES, AND THE EASTERN CRISIS OF THE 1820S

British consuls stationed in the Ottoman Levant in the early nineteenth century, like their counterparts from Russia and other European powers, compiled countless communiqués about their country's commercial and political activities in the region and about the state of the Ottoman Empire. Internal and external crises, triggered by war, revolt, and administrative breakdown, weighed heavily on the sultan's domain, as did the rivalries associated with the Eastern Question. British consular dispatches of the 1820s captured this dissonance in snapshot pictures of particular issues at particular places, such as Prevesa, Constantinople, Smyrna, Cairo, Alexandria, and Aleppo. By relating specific episodes and situations, these eyewitness reports underlined some of the challenges confronting not just the Empire but the consuls themselves. Controversy surrounding the vexing capitulations, rebellion by Ali Pasha of Epirus, fallout from the Greek War of Independence, piracy and other obstacles to commercial navigation, all these disturbances engaged the attention and affected the experience of Britain's consuls as they sought to uphold British commercial and political aims, including the maintenance of the Ottoman Empire. This turbulent epoch framed the essential backdrop for the consular documents highlighted later in this book. Consulates became synonymous with the capitulations, the cause of so much rancor and resentment in Ottoman-European affairs in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. From the start of diplomatic and trade relations between the Ottoman Empire and the governments of France and England in the sixteenth century, treaties between the Sublime Porte and European states often contained "amnesties" or "favors" granting economic, commercial, judicial, and personal liberties to foreign nationals who traveled, traded, and resided in the Ottoman realm.1 These privileges, generally set forth under various treaty articles or chapters (capitula), came to be called "capitulations," or concessions awarded by sultans to friendly governments and their subjects. European and Ottoman representatives periodically renegotiated and renewed these "favors," usually when a new sultan ascended the throne and on other occasions. Capitulatory "amnesties" for European states, including Habsburg Austria and tsarist Russia, encompassed unrestricted commercial navigation and trade in the Ottoman Empire; reduced customs duties on imports and

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exports; exemption from Ottoman taxes, laws, and courts; guarantees of personal safety, freedom of worship, and inviolability of domicile; and diplomatic and legal representation by embassies and consulates. Ambassadors, as the supreme diplomatic agents of their states and with direct access to the Porte, generally exerted sufficient influence and pressure to ensure the implementation of the capitulations in the environs of Constantinople. Outside the Ottoman capital, consular offices became the strategic bases of the capitulatory regime, with consular duties inextricably bound to the exercise and retention of these prerogatives. In addition to supporting their own country's official policy toward the Sublime Porte and communicating with their embassy, consuls promoted trade, interceded with Ottoman officials on behalf of fellow nationals, provided notary services, and adjudicated civil and criminal suits among their own countrymen. 2 Consuls, in short, administered the duties and rights of extraterritoriality, serving as guardians, governors, and judges of their consular districts. Although the capitulations conferred considerable advantages to European traders and residents in the Ottoman Empire, the practical application of these benefits remained precarious. Even if the Porte faithfully administered capitulatory agreements in and around the capital, regional and port authorities across the Empire's far-flung frontiers did not always observe the generous allowances bestowed by sultans, especially in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when the fragmentation of centralized rule and the weakening of effective governing institutions enhanced the powers of governors, military commanders, tax agents, and customs directors in outlying provinces. On many occasions, regional notables or potentates (ayans and derebeys) in the Balkans, Anatolia, Syria, and Egypt obstructed capitulatory contracts by levying excessive duties and fees on European traders, confiscating their merchandise or ships, intimidating consular officers, and committing related breaches. 3 European consuls had to resort to bribes, payments, gifts, and similar stratagems to curry favor with local officials and to request their compliance with the capitulations. These difficulties explained why the capitulations became not just the reference point but the central concern in so many consular records on commerce and related matters. Even with impediments to their implementation, the capitulations served European interests, all the more so when subsequent European-Ottoman accords supplemented these grants with further gains. The capitulations became instruments of European penetration and expansion in the Ottoman world, a well-known story in the scholarly literature. 4 European states exploited their privileges to advance commercial and strategic designs, thereby hastening the Ottoman Empire's vulnerability to European diplomatic

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pressure, military might, economic ascendancy, and commercial clout. Perhaps the most contentious and notorious aspect of the capitulations, the protégé system, gave rise to mistrust and acrimony in Ottoman-European relations. The protégé arrangement constituted the mechanism by which ambassadors and consuls extended capitulatory rights to a portion of the sultan's influential, skilled, and prosperous non-Muslim inhabitants in order to recruit their services in trade, shipping, and diplomacy. For a price that offered the Porte a ready source of revenue, European envoys received and dispensed a certain number of Ottoman berats, patents or deeds of protection; the holders of these coveted berats, called beratlis or protégés, secured diplomatic protection and thus release from Ottoman taxation, including the poll tax, the payment of which freed non-Muslims from military service. Beratlis enjoyed capitulatory benefits as interpreters, traders, brokers, sailors, and ship captains for European states and proved crucial in the transactions of European merchants and consuls in the Ottoman Levant. The vast majority of protégés or beratlis belonged to the reaya, the "flock" or "herd" of Ottoman Muslims and non-Muslims who owed the sultan taxes and dues in return for justice and security; the term reaya, however, increasingly came to be identified with the sultan's tax-paying non-Muslims and almost exclusively with Ottoman Christians. 5 Envoys and consuls distributed patents of protection to dragomans (interpreters and translators) as well as to vice-consuls, agents, guards, household servants, and other members of ambassadorial and consular staffs. Dragomans became pivotal in the conduct of embassy and consular affairs in view of their skills in translating and interpreting. They negotiated with Ottoman and European officials, gathered intelligence for their employers, helped to administer consular business, and drafted reports on legal, commercial, and diplomatic matters. Drawn principally from Italian, French, Greek, and Armenian families with long-standing ties to the Levant, and familiar with the intricacies of Ottoman society and institutions, dragomans supposedly had proficiency in the languages of eastern Mediterranean trade and diplomacy—Turkish, Arabic, Italian, French, Greek. Many dragomans came from the Fonton, Pisani and Franchini families, and it was not uncommon for a translator of one embassy to be the nephew or cousin of an interpreter for another country's diplomatic mission. These dragoman families comprised a social network of sorts, reinforced by intermarriage, longtime residence in the Ottoman capital, and a tradition of serving European embassies and consulates.6

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Maligned as masters of intrigue and treachery, dragomans have been described as "the eyes, ears, and mouth of their employer; and in none of these capacities were they very satisfactory." 7 This overly harsh and general assessment alluded to the critical shortcomings of at least some of these gobetweens, especially those with insufficient linguistic training or competence and those who performed their assignments with doubtful loyalty. Some dragomans faced accusations of disloyalty and duplicity because they served multiple states at the same time and sold their skills (and sometimes secrets) to the highest bidder. Yet what struck European observers as dragoman double-dealing and perfidy often appeared in a much different light to these multi-tasking and adaptable interpreters. More than a few of them felt compelled to display excessive caution or timidity when they had to deliver a strongly worded protest or grievance to an Ottoman authority. Even with the protégé privilege of extraterritoriality, dragomans still endured punishment as subjects of the sultan. They had to be exceedingly careful in what they said, wrote, or negotiated; evasiveness, deception, procrastination, supplication, compromise, and sanitized discourse, all became essential tools and survival skills in the dragoman's craft. And yet these pliable but capable employees became valuable assets, playing an indispensable role as messengers, mediators, interpreters, diplomats, and conduits of intelligence.8 Capitulatory states relied heavily on protégés for commerce and shipping in the Near East. Britain, Russia, and other European powers recruited traders, brokers, agents, middlemen, moneylenders, retailers, sea captains, sailors, and peddlers, most of them from the sultan's Armenian Christian, Greek Orthodox, Jewish, and Arab Christian populations, groups that provided the bulk of the Ottoman merchant marine because of their navigational expertise and commercial know-how. 9 Some of these traders and mariners possessed the means and skills to make the most of the protégé scheme, flying the flag of their European protector state on their merchant vessels in the Mediterranean, the Straits, and the Black Sea. By purchasing or otherwise acquiring patents of European extraterritoriality, they eluded Ottoman taxation and legal jurisdiction and developed mutually beneficial business ties with European merchant companies. As clients of European states and as beneficiaries of the capitulations, beratlis performed any number of useful functions as intermediaries in European-Ottoman commerce. They served as brokers in multi-layered partnerships that connected hinterland and port. 10 With their control of the purchase, collection, and transport of raw materials from Ankara and other inland parts of Anatolia, beratli middlemen supplied Western merchants in Smyrna with silks, cottons, mohair yarn, and other resources; with their

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access to Ottoman markets in the interior, they distributed Western cloth, woolens, and manufactured goods to inland regions and beyond. Protégé traders and shippers participated in Europe's trade exchange with key Levantine ports, such as Constantinople, Salonica, Beirut, Cairo, Alexandria, Aleppo, and most notably Smyrna, the foremost Ottoman emporium by the early nineteenth century and the commercial hub for Mediterranean traffic linking Europe to the Levant and the Black Sea. With their capital, carriers, and connections, these well-placed former reaya capitalized on the capitulations to augment their own ventures, to enlarge the profits of European trade firms, and to cultivate business and kinship ties with entrepreneurial communities of coreligionists dispersed in Britain, France, Austria, Russia, and the Italian peninsula. Clearly, the Mediterranean and Black Sea commercial nexus, stretching from Toulon and Marseilles to Smyrna and Odessa, featured many of these merchant and maritime protégés who expanded European trade throughout the Levant. As the most active merchants in the eastern Mediterranean before 1821, Greeks from the Aegean islands, Smyrna, and elsewhere sailed under the protection of European flags, established merchant houses in the diaspora, and fueled the rapid growth of southern Russia's grain trade with Ottoman and European markets. 11 As the Porte's bargaining leverage decreased vis-à-vis the European powers, the sale of berats metastasized into a chronic source of ambiguity, disorder, and abuse in Ottoman-European relations. 12 In many instances, capitulatory privileges extended to the wife and children of a beratli, constituting a protective shield of sorts, permanent as well as hereditary, and covering individuals with no real connection to an embassy, consulate, or commercial firm. Holders of treasured berats had the status of European nationals; they became "naturalized" without having to dwell, for any length of time, in their "adopted" country. Many Ottomans did not even solicit or obtain berats to allege extraterritorial security, especially those who worked for Russia. Hired as sailors and captains in the burgeoning Russian merchant fleet, these seafaring reaya spent a brief period in southern Russia before returning to the Ottoman world as naturalized Russians with capitulatory exemption. Another form of corruption, "fictitious transfers," involved the fabricated sales of ship titles to European nationals by reaya traders and shippers, who thereby gained the privilege of hoisting the Russian or another European flag on vessels that actually belonged to Ottoman owners and operators, most of them mariners and merchants from the islands of Chios, Hydra, Psara, and Spetsae. 13 Trafficking in counterfeit titles enabled reaya traders, sailors, and captains to simulate protégé status, while their European

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employers received access to more boats for moving goods to and from major harbors in the Black Sea and the Archipelago. Ottoman officials, seeking to curtail irregularities in the capitulatory regime, periodically endeavored to reduce the number of reaya in European service, to scrutinize European-flagged vessels, and to verify that European nationals actually owned and operated these carriers. Ottoman authorities also threatened to confiscate cargoes from ships suspected of flying European flags under false pretense and to apprehend reaya sailors and captains posing as European nationals. Ottoman inspections of crews and occasional seizures of cargoes, along with the imposition of extra customs dues, interfered with the right of unimpeded merchant navigation. In another breach of treaty covenants, the Porte evaded prompt restitution to shippers and traders whose property had suffered damage or fell prey to piracy in Ottoman waters. Moreover, when a European power went to war against Turkey, such as Austria in 1788 and France in 1798, the Porte nullified the berats of the belligerent state. 14 In all these ways, the capitulations and their manipulation complicated consular tasks and compelled European diplomatic officials to become more vigilant in safeguarding the claims of their nationals and protégés. European ambassadors and consuls dispensed berats to an assortment of Ottoman denizens, but the actual numbers of beratlis remain difficult to ascertain with complete accuracy. 1 5 The inflated figures cited in some contemporary sources appear far from the actual mark, but they surely suggest rampant abuse in the protégé system. In the 1790s, over 1500 non-Muslims in the town of Aleppo alone held berats as dragomans, and investigations revealed that only a handful of them actually served as interpreters. 16 Robert Liston, British ambassador to the Porte in 1795, even asserted that some of these protégé dragomans in Aleppo "were unable to read the patent through which they held their privileges." To England's Levant Company, the merchant corporation that organized and managed English trade in the Ottoman Empire since the late sixteenth century, Liston reported one of the more egregious effects of the widespread circulation of berats: "It was natural that a patent which raised a tributary subject from a state of degradation, and procured respect for his person, security for his possessions, and the patronage of an ambassador at the seat of government, should soon become an object of ambition" that corrupted seller and purchaser alike. 17 Liston detested the corrupt practice during his short stint as envoy and tried unsuccessfully to regulate an arrangement that the great powers subverted for their own ends. Habsburg Austria supposedly enlisted 260,000 protégés in the adjacent Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia by the late eighteenth century, while tsarist Russia, uniquely poised to recruit a support

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base from Orthodox coreligionists, allegedly enrolled 120,000 protégés by 1808, nearly all of them Ottoman Greeks, many of whom worked as sailors, shippers, and traders in Russia's southern merchant fleet. By the early nineteenth century, protégés numbered in the thousands throughout the Ottoman realm, including scores of Maronite and Eastern Orthodox Christians in Beirut. 1 8 With the opening of the Black Sea to European mercantile navigation and with the wars of the Napoleonic era, many of these beratlis reaped profits for themselves and their employers through smuggling and blockade-running. The consequences of the capitulatory and protégé regimes certainly contributed to an increasingly unequal relationship in Ottoman-European affairs. "Amnesties" and "favors" conferred by mighty sultans at the zenith of power in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries turned into charters of comprehensive privileges, utilized by the great powers to maximize their sway in the Ottoman Empire. A brisk, lucrative, and often fraudulent traffic in berats brought palpable gains to dispenser and recipient alike. Ottoman nonMuslims with the wherewithal to acquire protégé status circumvented taxes and protected their property in an age when ayans amassed power and ruled in an arbitrary fashion. Given the very real risks of trade in the Levant, including plague, earthquake, fire, piracy, and war, the advantages of significantly lower customs duties allowed beratli merchants to recoup their losses and to raise their profit margin more readily than Ottoman traders who did not benef it from protégé standing. 19 By selling berats, European envoys and consuls not only augmented their own incomes but fostered their country's trade, extended its influence, and solicited clients and supporters among the sultan's reaya. Though Ottoman authorities pocketed fees when they allocated berats to envoys, the capitulations and their misuse fueled some of the graft, extortion, and fraud associated with the malady afflicting "the sick man of Europe." For the Ottoman state treasury, the distribution of protégé certificates obviously meant the loss of potential tax monies, ships, and other assets. The existence of privileged beratli merchants also spawned resentment and enmity from Ottoman traders, both Muslim and non-Muslim, who had no European guardians to call on and thus had to pay a disproportionate share of taxes. In all these ways, the capitulations and their attendant problems undermined the existence of the Ottoman Empire, depriving the sultan of the allegiance, revenue, and service of former reaya and extending Europe's economic and political presence. 20 Sultan Selim III (1789-1807), as part of his institutional reforms, attempted to eradicate the defects in the protégé scheme by restricting the numbers of beratlis attached to European diplomatic missions. Increasingly

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suspicious of the proliferation of berats in Aleppo, he ordered investigations to confirm if the alleged protégés actually performed services for their European employers. Although the Porte complained repeatedly to Russia, in view of her Black Sea connection to the Levant and her religious ties to the sultan's Eastern Orthodox believers, Ottoman officials censured all the European powers for exploiting the capitulations. The Porte threatened to close down shops and stores of illegal protégés and to seize merchandise hauled by sailors and skippers who fraudulently operated under the protective mantle of European flags. 2 1 Selim also sold imperial patents to selected Muslim and non-Muslim merchants, granting them concessions closely approximating the exemptions enjoyed by European nationals and protégés. This program clearly sought to retain the skills and services, not to mention loyalty, of reaya traders, shippers, and middlemen and to foster the growth of a more competitive Ottoman merchant marine. The sultan's imperial patent endeavor experienced initial success in Ottoman Syria, ending the worst abuses in Aleppo and enrolling that town's prominent merchant families who had previously benefited from the capitulations; but Selim's experiment did not foil an increase in the numbers of Ottoman subjects who became European protégés in the nineteenth century. 22 Likewise, his overthrow by the janissaries and their anti-reform cohorts did-not augur well for subsequent Ottoman measures aimed at curbing capitulatory and protégé manipulation through legal, administrative, and economic reform. Efforts by the Sublime Porte to restrict the capitulatory regime, encountering opposition from Ottoman profiteers and European diplomats, became one of the rare occasions in the history of the Eastern Question when representatives of the great powers cooperated to pursue a common goal. 23 European states continued to exploit the capitulations to broaden their economic, commercial, and political influence in the Ottoman Empire, while European consulates remained pivotal points for enlisting Greek, Armenian, Jewish, and Arab Christian protégés as go-betweens in trade and diplomacy. On the eve of the Great War, Turkish nationalists and Ottoman state reformers increasingly denounced the capitulations as an impediment to the Empire's economic sovereignty, a violation of its territorial integrity, and a mark of its subservience to European powers. 24 Abuses in the capitulatory and protégé systems symbolized the larger story of Ottoman imperial decline by the early nineteenth century. Causes and symptoms of the Empire's predicament coincided in a stunning array of external and internal shocks that eroded Ottoman power. The threat from the north loomed especially large as a result of Russia's extensive strategic penetration along the Ottoman frontier, with steady advances in the Danubian

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Principalities, the Caucasus, and the Black Sea during the Russian-Turkish Wars of 1768-74, 1787-92, and 1806-12. Russia won the right of commercial navigation in the Black Sea and the Straits, gained territory along the northern and eastern shores of the Black Sea, annexed the Crimean peninsula and the Danubian region of Bessarabia, received permission to approve Ottoman candidates for the governorships of Moldavia and Wallachia, and garnered full capitulatory privileges, including the appointment of consuls in the Ottoman Empire. Additionally, in the Treaty of Kutchuk-Kainardji of 1774, the landmark agreement that ended the Porte's hegemony in the Black Sea and marked Russia's emergence as a Near Eastern force, the sultan promised to protect Ottoman Christians in the Aegean Archipelago, the Danubian Principalities, and western Georgia, a pledge that Russia speciously declared gave her the leverage to interfere in Ottoman affairs to safeguard Orthodox Christians. 2 5 Russia also stood ready to stir up the bitter antagonisms between Persia and the Ottoman Empire, at the expense of both Islamic states and for Russian advancement in the Transcaucasus, and it no doubt served Russian interests that the Turkish-Persian War of 1821-23 diverted Ottoman troops from the Greek situation. Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798, followed by Britain's brief occupation of that important Ottoman land, enhanced the Western presence in the Ottoman East and created opportunities for Levant Company merchants to replace French commercial dominance. The opening of the Euxine to British trade, and the increased production of the Industrial Revolution, gave Britain the means to penetrate Ottoman markets in the eastern Mediterranean and beyond. Furthermore, with British control of Malta and the Ionian Islands after the Congress of Vienna (1814-15), Britain enjoyed access to added maritime resources, including British-flagged Maltese and Ionian carriers, and expanded her commerce not just in Smyrna and other Levant centers but in the Black Sea and southern Russia. 26 The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars also excited nationalist stirrings for political self-determination and autonomy among the sultan's Balkan Orthodox Christians, in particular the Serbs and the Greeks, both of whom contested Ottoman rule. 27 Military and economic threats from the European powers destabilized the Empire, depriving the sultan's domain of territories, revenues, markets, and manufactures. The secret clause in the Treaty of Kutchuk-Kainardji (1774), requiring the Porte to pay Russia a war indemnity, further weakened Ottoman finances. 2 8 The central government lost or relinquished administrative and financial authority to the provinces, a forced devolution manifested in the defiance of breakaway pashas and provincial notables who assumed greater sway at the expense of the Porte. Entrenched opposition to institutional

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reform brought about the deposition of Selim III in 1807 and the ensuing janissary disorders in the capital. All of these internal and external tremors convulsed the Ottoman Empire during the consequential reign of Sultan Mahmud II (1808-39), an epoch of war, rebellion, secessionist ferment, and great power penetration, yet also a period of concerted reform aspirations, highlighted by the sultan's abolition of the janissary corps in 1826. 29 The legendary Tepedelenli Ali Pasha, a towering figure in Ottoman, Greek, and European history, the "Muslim Bonaparte" according to Lord Byron, who met the pasha while traveling in Greece and Albania, perfectly exemplified the precariousness of Ottoman imperial sovereignty in an age of upheaval. Appointed Ottoman governor of Ioannina in the 1780s, Ali Pasha imposed his control over Epirus and most of the other lands that today encompass Albania and Greece. He improved commerce and the local economy, maintained security and order, and negotiated with European diplomatic representatives. But in the context of Mahmud II's sustained effort to restore absolute centralized rule and to subdue locally entrenched ayans, derebeys, and other regional potentates, both in Anatolia and in the Balkans, Ali Pasha defied the Sublime Porte and rallied disparate groups of Albanians and Greeks to support his anti-Ottoman secessionist movement. He sought out the Russian consul at Patras, hoping for tsarist backing, and courted influential Greeks, the natural protégés of Russia with their shared Eastern Orthodox faith. While Ali Pasha schemed for an imminent Greek rebellion that would divert Ottoman troops from Ioannina, the sultan's military and naval forces converged on Epirus on 1820 to unseat him. Indeed, the rebel pasha's tenacious resistance compelled the Porte to transfer military detachments from the Morea, thereby facilitating the outbreak and spread of a Greek uprising in 1821. The unrest morphed into the prolonged Greek War of Independence, a fight that drained Ottoman recruits and revenues, produced a self-governing Greek state, and inspired breakaway movements for autonomy and independence in other Ottoman lands in the Balkans. Thus, Ali Pasha's revolt against the sultan's armies undermined the Ottoman Empire and partially explained the initial success of Greek insurgents. 30 The Greek revolution, erupting in the Danubian Principalities in March 1821 and extending to the Morea, Attica, Thessaly, Macedonia, and the Aegean Archipelago, spawned a multi-faceted Eastern cataclysm with European-wide repercussions, pitting the established order of legitimacy against the principles of liberty and nationality. 31 British and other European consuls had to deal with the messy realities of sectarian warfare, piracy, disruption of trade, Greek factional discord, and great power intervention, disorders that compounded their already busy workload of upholding

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capitulatory privileges, defending protégés, and carrying out related consular duties. The Eastern crisis in all its permutations thus merits closer scrutiny as the necessary context for grasping the import of British consular commentaries from the Ottoman Levant. The sectarian and nationalistic fervor of the Greek-Ottoman conflict became readily evident as each side perpetrated excesses that escalated the feud into a war of retribution. The prominent Balkan historian Leften Stavrianos has argued effectively that large-scale massacres against the defenseless represented "an inevitable accompaniment, perhaps, of a struggle that pitted, at one and the same time, Greek subjects against Turkish overlords, Greek peasants against Turkish landowners, and Greek Christians against Turkish Moslems." 3 2 In the turbulent spring and summer of 1821, random attacks against Greek churches, shops, and reaya in Constantinople, Smyrna, Salonica, Crete, and Cyprus, often in retaliation for Greek massacres of Turks in the Morea and Moldavia and for Greek confiscations of Turkish properties, not only intensified sectarian animosity but transformed the revolt into a religious war driven by the quest for sacred revenge, a clash in which national identity heightened religious division. 33 Mutual atrocity and reprisal eroded a tradition of tolerance, coexistence, and interaction that had long characterized relationships between the Empire's various sectarian groups at the grass-roots level of society. A mosaic of pluralistic but segmented confessional communities, with separate identities but shared experiences, began to fracture after living together in relative peace and harmony. 34 The nationalism unleashed by the War of Independence gave rise to simmering discontents in a heterogeneous Ottoman realm. The onset of insurrection incited indiscriminate mob violence and janissary rage against Greek residents of Constantinople, as recorded in the eyewitness testimony of Reverend Robert Walsh, chaplain at the British embassy. Crowds of Turkish Muslims "issued forth armed, every man with a brace of pistols and a yatagan; even boys at the age of eight or ten years appeared thus accoutered. Conceive a populace of more than one hundred thousand desperate fellows all armed with some deadly weapon, turned loose upon the unarmed inhabitants, against whom their strongest prejudices were excited! They were given to understand that the object of their enemies was to extirpate Mahomedanism; and they supposed that every person not a Turk was concerned in it. They stopped all the reaya they met in Tophana and Galata, where business continually led them, and insulted and robbed them with impunity, frequently abusing and personally injuring those who had nothing to give.... [I]t was no uncommon thing for a Turk to try his pistol on the first Greek he caught sight of in the street; and every day some unfortunate

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person, wounded or dead, was carried hastily by our palace-gate on men's shoulders." 35 Victims included Greeks of rank and influence suspected of complicity in the revolt, but the most notorious reprisal struck the leadership of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Despite the encyclical of Ecumenical Patriarch Grigorios V denouncing the rebellion and exhorting Orthodox Christians to remain loyal to the sultan, the Porte considered him guilty of treason because he had failed to fulfill his basic duty as head of the Eastern Orthodox community, namely, to ensure that his flock obeyed and submitted to Ottoman rule. The patriarch's public execution, on Easter Sunday in April 1821, together with the persecution of numerous bishops and clergy, provoked widespread attacks against Greek churches and property in Constantinople. 36 Reverend Walsh described the effects of this wanton outrage: "Indeed, it was impossible to conceive a more dismal scene of horror and desolation than the Turkish capital now presented. Every day some new atrocities were committed, and the bodies of the victims were either hanging against doors and walls, or lying without their heads, weltering and trampled on in the middle of the streets." Vultures and other birds of prey, "as if attracted by the scent of carcasses, were seen all day wheeling and hovering about, so as to cover the city like a canopy, wherever a body was exposed. By night the equally numerous and ravenous dogs were heard about some headless body with the most dismal howlings, or snarling and fighting over some skull which they were gnawing and peeling." The wrath of the Turks damaged several churches "in the villages along the shores of the Bosporus and wherever they were unprotected. They then attacked those in the city; of some they tore down the roof and walls—of others they destroyed the seats, pulpits, vestments, and books, and did not desist till they had demolished or injured, in various parts, fourteen places of Christian worship within and without the city. As these were all allied to the Russian church, and were protected by treaty, the ambassador of that nation thought he had a right to make a strong complaint and strict inquiry into their destruction." 37 The turmoil in Smyrna, the most prosperous and vibrant Ottoman commercial center at the time, demonstrated the unraveling of Ottoman imperial authority and the collapse of public order during the initial stage of the Eastern crisis. The alarm and anxiety felt by those residents adversely affected by the situation exemplified the potential for social and political anger that lurked just beneath the surface of Ottoman society, especially when the central government faced critical internal and external pressures. The troubles in Smyrna underscored the need for governmental and administrative reform, an institutional restructuring that would restore effective centralized rule,

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protect private property, maintain public security, and guarantee personal safety. The private diary of Spyridon Destunis, Russia's consul-general, chronicled the confusion and panic that gripped the city's sizable Greek community in 1821. Food shortage, trade disruption, and mob aggression reinforced sectarian tension and drove many Greeks and European consular staff, including Destunis, to seek haven on European ships anchored in the Smyrna harbor. 38 Francis Werry, British consul in Smyrna, complemented and amplified Destunis's observations in a series of dispatches to the Levant Company. With telling detail, Werry captured the commotion and hostility that typified the religious strife in this bustling emporium. In May 1821, he sounded the alarm: "The emigration of the Greek inhabitants, or rather precipitate flight of vast numbers of them for their personal safety from this place, has left a vacuum generally felt by all. Trade, of course, has become entirely paralyzed for the moment." Smyrna's Turks and Greeks, Werry continued, "assiduously endeavor to prevent promulgating reports that might tend to enflame the passions of the lower orders of Turks. The execution and indignity shown to the Greek patriarch's corpse, and the continual decapitation and execution of great numbers of the Greeks in the capital, will certainly create the strongest sensation in the insurgents in the Morea and lead to a retaliation on those Turks who are in their possession. But you are not ignorant of the character of the Turks as of the Greek reaya, this last is a known mass of perfidy." 39 Another Werry note addressed the mutual cycle of fear and reprisal that colored public perceptions: "The most panic apprehensions have seized the greater part of the reaya population. Some murdery has been committed which indicates badly. I trust, however, the local authorities will prevent a general recourse to revenge. The atrocious putting all the Turks to death that fall into the hands of these fanatic Greek cruisers [is] well known to us. We use every precaution to prevent [it] being known." 40 But Smyrna officials, Werry's letter affirmed five days later, failed to forestall retribution: "[KJilling has been the order of the day and night too, the inhabitants of this place and the villages flying where they could for protection.... The Greeks have adopted an additional system of falsehood to mislead the Turks and have without mercy indiscriminately cut the throats or otherwise destroyed all the unfortunate Mussulmen that have fallen into their power—so sure do they make themselves of ultimately securing their independence and liberty."41 This vignette by Werry in June 1821 depicted with chilling clarity the deepening chasm between Smyrna's Greek Orthodox and Turkish Muslim communities. Discontent among "the lower orders of people in the Turk town and their desire of revenge became at times too evident. The imprudence of the

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Greeks, though flying by hundreds at the sight of a Turk with arms in his hand, was such that false reports of the prowess of the rebellious flotilla and its diabolical mode of putting their Turk prisoners to death was the subject of their conversation publicly. We have been several times on the brink of a massacre.... We cannot calculate on personal security, all depends on chance. The pasha who has the wish and inclination to punish has not the force to protect him from the insubordinate Turks." In the same missive, Werry observed that Greek popular belief and Muslim sacred ritual hardly offered a shield against violence: "This day, the festival of the Greek St. Constantine, the founder of Constantinople, has cost the lives of sixteen Greeks shot in the bazaar, so very fanatic are these deluded people. They yesterday openly congratulated each other (the lower orders) on the approach of the morrow, as the day appointed by heaven to liberate them from the Ottoman yoke and to restore their race of princes to the throne and possession of Constantinople. The Turks who entered on their fast of Ramazan yesterday heard this and began their fast in the evening with human sacrifices, and I fear much it will be followed up. May the Almighty avert what I have a presentiment will take place, a general massacre, if not before, at the end of the Ramazan, when the feast of Bairam is celebrated."42 Werry's subsequent correspondence in the summer and autumn of 1821 recounted scenes of horror in a widening war. News that Greek sailors had captured and burned a Turkish ship of war aroused the Turks to take revenge "on the innocent and defenseless Greeks of the towns. It visibly affected the Turks whose ill humor was sufficiently braced without it. The premeditated massacre was again repeated, and their intentions became too visible by the murders committed daily.... Groups of Turks armed with rifles fir[ed] at all the Greeks they saw. Fortunately they are not expert riflemen, and the numbers killed in the town and on the marine [are] not exactly known. [They] cannot be less than 160."43 Although the remaining days of the Islamic sacred feast of Bairam "passed off with less bloodshed" than Werry expected, "the average of Greeks killed to this day is about eight or ten per day and such is the natural consequence we are callous.... The poor, wretched Greeks have drawn this evil on themselves by giving the example and continuing to put all the Turks taken prisoners to death. The place is tranquil, alarms are no more, all the inhabitants are hid in magazines or continue in their abodes afloat. The city, except a part of Frank Street, is wholly abandoned, shops and houses closely shut. All has the appearance of desolation." 44 At sea, claimed Consul Werry, the war showed signs of degenerating into mayhem and ruin: "The time I perceive is approaching fast when these Greeks will commit every act of cruelty on our defenseless merchant ships.

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Piracy will be accompanied with murder and sinking the vessel to avoid discovery. I trust Your Worships [at the Levant Company] are alive to this truth and have taken such measures as will secure trade." 45 As for the fighting in mainland Greece, "[t]he perfidious conduct of the Greeks in the Morea, when publicly known here, will excite a retaliation of a more horrid nature than we have yet known. I allude to the massacre of two thousand Albanians to whom quarter was granted when they laid down their arms at the assault of Tripolitsa. These men exhausted by famine were under escort of three thousand Greeks. Two days after they left Tripolitsa, the escort took them by surprise and murdered all who could not save themselves by flight. Can we be surprised at the Turk who, exasperated to the extreme, vents his rage on a Greek, the declared enemy to his race?" 46 On a visit to Smyrna in 1822, Reverend Walsh graphically portrayed one of the sites near the harbor where this anticipated Turkish rage exploded against local Greeks. As Walsh and his fellow travelers approached, "the first thing that struck us was an intolerable odor, which exhaled from the shore at the base of the hills. We found it to proceed from the remains of different animals which were thrown there and rotting in various stages of putridity. To add to the revolting effect of this, we were told that it had been the spot where the Greeks were generally massacred." During the ferment in Smyrna the year before, avowed Walsh, "nearly eight hundred unfortunate victims were dragged to this place and assassinated in cold blood. Here, as in Constantinople, the Turks had favorite spots for taking away human life, and, as if to show their contempt, they perpetrated the deed among the carcasses of dogs and horses. Through the moldering remains of this Golgotha, we recognized human bones mixed with those of the inferior animals and we hastened to leave a spot rendered frightful by the atrocities committed, as it was dangerous from the foul miasma generated under a burning sun." Upon leaving this awful site, the visitors encountered a group of Turks, "who seemed disposed to be moire than usually rude and ferocious, addressing us in a coarse and boisterous manner, and discharging their pistols close beside us, as if the recollection of their cruelty had rendered them more brutal in the vicinity of the place where it had been indulged." 47 The destruction of Chios in 1822, perhaps the most infamous episode in the cycle of atrocity and reprisal that defined the Greek-Ottoman feud, elicited strong reactions from the British ambassador at the Porte, Lord Strangford, as seen in his correspondence with Foreign Secretary Castlereagh. His communiqué of 25 April 1822, shortly after the Ottoman invasion of this affluent island not far from Smyrna, declared: "It is said that the loss on both sides amounts to fifteen thousand men. No quarter was given after the action.

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Every person taken with arms in his hands was instantly put to death. The women and children have been thrown into slavery." 48 The ambassador's letter of 10 May 1822 evoked the calamity of this intensifying sectarian clash: "The horrors of civil war were never more fearfully displayed than at Chios. The fury of the Turkish troops was not to be restrained, and the greater part of that delightful island, and all its flourishing and interesting establishments, have been converted into a scene of the most appalling desolation. The villages producing the mastic gum (a great source of the imperial revenue) have alone been spared." Lord Strangford refrained from recording "the various horrors which were committed at Chios," opting instead to attach detailed accounts from sources in Smyrna, including Consul Werry, who noted that "previously to the arrival of the Turkish fleet at Chios, the Greeks had insulted and polluted the mosques, by every filthy contrivance which they could devise, and had committed the most dreadful enormities on prisoners, women, and children, in view of the garrison in the castle." 49 Strangford elaborated on the Chios disaster in his letter of 25 May 1822 to Lord Castlereagh: "The transactions at Chios appear to have been of a most horrible description, and the ferocity of the Turks to have been carried to a pitch which makes humanity shudder. The whole of the island, with the exception of the twenty-four mastic villages,, presents one mass of ruin. The unfortunate inhabitants have paid with their lives, the price of their ill-advised rebellion—The only persons who have been spared are the women and children, who have been sold as slaves. Hundreds of them were daily arriving at Smyrna, at the date of my last letters from that place, and some shiploads of these unhappy victims reached this place [Constantinople] during the last week." Strangford surmised, in his note of 25 July 1822, that "the vast numbers of Asiatic Turks...pouring into Chios" corroborated the Porte's supposed intention "to replace the Greek[s]...of that island, which have been banished or destroyed, by Mussulman settlers. A dreadful pestilence is said to prevail at Chios, and even the horrors of famine are beginning to be felt there." 50 Ambassador Strangford's dispatch of 26 August 1822 made reference to his discussion with the reis efendi, or Ottoman foreign minister, "who, in common with many of his colleagues, deplores the conduct of the Turkish troops at Chios and who, I can conscientiously assert, feels ashamed of the disgrace which it has brought upon his country." Yet the reis efendi attempted to justify his government by accentuating "the unremitting cruelties which the Greeks had perpetrated in the Morea—the massacre of the Turkish garrisons at Corinth, Tripolitsa, Navarin, and Athens—the unprovoked murder of the officers sent to Chios by the kapudan pasha [Ottoman commander of

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the fleet] with the proposed amnesty—the insults offered to the mosques in that island—and all the various circumstances of atrocity, which I lament to say [have] been but too abundant in the Greek war." 51 Reverend Walsh, who went to Chios a few months after the disaster, registered his haunting impressions of the gutted island. The well-decorated and splendid private houses in the main town of Chora had been reduced to rubble: "All was now destroyed or defaced—the roofs beaten in, the staircases upturned, the windows and door-cases blackened with smoke. Among the rubbish lay sculls, arms, and half-consumed bodies, amid paper, books, and broken furniture." The adjoining area presented an equally apocalyptic sight: "Everywhere in the streets were what seemed heaps of rags, which we were sometimes obliged to walk through. They were soft, and the pressure of our feet forced out the limbs and ghastly faces of the bodies that were lying weltering under them. The feeling of this was very horrible, and whenever our feet got entangled in such heaps we hastily extricated them, with a shuddering that almost overcame us." On visiting the ruins of houses owned by prominent and respected Chiote entrepreneurs, Walsh recollected: "I had seen the bodies of their partners lying in the streets of Constantinople. Those that remained on the island were hanged out of the fortress, or their limbs were crushed among the disjointed stones of their houses. The Turks had two passions to gratify—malice and avarice. They supposed those rich Greeks must have money concealed in their houses, so, after massacring the men and making slaves of the women and children, they upturned the floors and tore down the stairs and walls of their houses." Landmarks of culture and learning on Chios, renown for its educational and publishing institutions, suffered damage as well. The bishop's palace and the cathedral "were torn to pieces; half the dome of the latter was standing and intimated what it had been." The grounds of the acclaimed college encompassed "large, regular buildings, with ornamented fronts, forming a regular quadrangle like one of our colleges, containing chapel, theatre, halls, and professors' and students' apartments: it had supported twenty-five professors in the different sciences and languages and students from all parts of the Levant. The first objects that presented themselves were the bodies of two of the professors, lying at the entrance of one of the quadrangles." Walsh entered one of the lecture halls, where "the floor was covered with torn pieces of books; I brought one of them away with me—it was part of a Homer, having the original text at one side and on the other a modern Greek commentary and paraphrase, written by the professor, and printed at the college press." Nothing remained of the college "but the scorched walls; the professors were generally and indiscriminately massacred when the Turks burst

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into it, and the students, the rising hopes of the country, carried off as slaves. They are now scattered over Asia and Europe, in the lowest state of degradation as Christians, and forcibly compelled to undergo the Mahomedan [Mohammedan] rite." Walsh bemoaned the magnitude of the tragedy that shattered this once flourishing center of intellectual enlightenment and commercial activity, the wealthiest island in the Aegean. "In effect, my friend, I cannot convey to you an adequate conception of these atrocities. You have yourself seen towns attacked, houses destroyed, and lives wasted, but still you cannot understand it. If you think the ruins of Chios like any other effects of modern war, you are entirely deceived. This is not a house destroyed or a man killed here and there, while the survivors look terrified and melancholy." The woodwork and stonework of Chora's nearly four thousand houses had been burned or damaged; and of the town's twenty-five thousand residents, Walsh did not find "a single individual [or] anything that had life, except a solitary cat and a dog. The ruins are as complete and desolate as those of Teos on the opposite coast, and would appear almost as ancient, if it was not that the numerous bodies lying about the streets and houses indicated that they had been within a few months full of life and inhabitants." Walsh came across "nothing that had life, in the country no more than in the city; the very birds seemed to have been scared away by the carnage—we neither saw nor heard them or any other sound than the dismal yell of a solitary dog, which seemed to be howling over the remains of his master." 52 The island of Psara, like its neighbor Chios, came to symbolize the enormous human sacrifice in Greece's quest for freedom. Captured by Ottoman forces in 1824, Psara succumbed to fire and sword, leaving charred ruins in a desolate landscape. En route to Constantinople to assume ambassadorial duties, Britain's new envoy, Stratford Canning, stopped at Psara in early 1826, and his memoirs poignantly narrated what he encountered. In the main port, "we gathered cruel evidence of what war is when kindled by the antipathies of race and creed. It was little more than dawn when we anchored.... The houses had every appearance of undisturbed repose, and the early hour sufficed to account for the want of movement in the streets. The admiral's steward went ashore with the full expectation of finding a market well stocked with all the objects he required. Imagine his surprise when the truth broke upon him. A death silence indoors as well as without, not a voice, not a footstep, not an inhabitant; the town a mere shell, plausible to the eye, but utterly void of life."

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Later the same day, S. Canning and members of his party landed on the island to hunt for game among the vineyards. "At one spot near the coast, we came upon a piteous sight, the bones of many who had preferred a voluntary death to captivity when their homes became the prey of a Turkish squadron. Mothers in horror and despair had slaughtered their children on the cliff and thrown themselves over on their bodies which had already found a resting place below." Hardly less horrible than this scene of mass death "was the apparition of two survivors from the interior of the island. Worn nearly to skeletons by fear and anguish and famine, the very types of hopeless misery, with haggard eyes and loathsome beards, and tattered rags by way of clothing, they told without language the history of their sufferings. Heavens! How I longed to be the instrument of repairing such calamities by carrying my mission of peace and deliverance to a successful issue!" 53 The indelible images in the writings of Walsh, Werry, Strangford, and S. Canning vividly evoked the very real specter of human carnage, sectarian wrath, and nationalistic ferocity that prolonged, as well as epitomized, the Greek-Ottoman war. Piracy, another aspect of the Eastern cataclysm, preoccupied the attention of envoys and consuls in the Ottoman Levant. Muslim corsairs from the Barbary Coast as well as Christian corsairs from Malta attacked European and Ottoman shipping for centuries, but by the early nineteenth century Greek piracy posed the most pressing peril to European and Ottoman merchant vessels in the eastern Mediterranean. 54 Moreover, Greek corsairs, together with Albanian, Serb, and Bulgarian fighters, served as auxiliaries in Russia's military and naval campaigns against the Ottoman Empire, and some of these warriors fought in Russian operations in the Aegean, including the destruction of the Ottoman navy at Chesme and the siege of Beirut in the RussianTurkish War of 1768-74. 55 As successful privateers, Greek pirates not only imperiled but contributed to commercial exchange, especially since the lines between legal and illegal trafficking remained obscure. Respectable Greek traders often loaned money to finance privateer expeditions; Greek merchants then purchased and resold the stolen goods delivered to them by pirates; and plundered merchandise often found its way to the markets of Smyrna and other emporia. Some privateers, after raising enough money, also participated in legal trade networks as captains or part-owners of vessels. 56 In these and other ways, seafaring Greeks became not just professional pirates but legitimate (or quasi-legitimate) traders, shippers, and sailors for the Ottoman Empire, Russia, Britain, France, and other countries involved in Balkan and Levantine commerce.

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The War of Independence exacerbated the menace of piracy, all the more so as the Greek navy routinely raided Ottoman and European maritime transport and as the Greek provisional government failed to rein in Greek excesses at sea. The Greek rebel fleet, comprised of merchant boats from Hydra, Spetsae, Psara, and other islands with a nautical tradition, played a major role in the revolution. The Hellenic navy controlled access to strategic ports and passages along the Greek coastline, severed Constantinople's sea communications with insurgent areas, and forced the Ottomans to mount a costly invasion from Rumelia and Macedonia instead of a more direct attack from the Aegean. 5 7 But the Greek flotilla also disrupted commercial navigation in the Levant. Already in the early stages of the Greek struggle, sorties against the Ottoman navy threatened to degenerate into piracy, or so thought Francis Werry, Britain's consul in Smyrna. "All the minor islands in the Archipelago," he presciently reported to the Levant Company in May 1821, "have hoisted their new flag and swear to die or conquer under it. This is all very fine, but as they have no foreign power to assist them, no trade to support them, nor provisions to subsist for any length of time, I see this Grecian affair must end in piracy." 58 Indeed, the Aegean Archipelago, according to a prominent scholar of Ottoman Smyrna and the Levant trade, "became almost impassable," as Greek privateers targeted Ottoman, European, and even American commercial ships. 59 Austrian craft paid a particularly high price for hauling munitions to Ottoman troops, with over a hundred Austrian-flagged carriers captured or sunk by Greek pirates as of 1826. 60 Consul Werry's dispatches from the mid-1820s detailed what he termed the "nefarious traffic" and "depredations" of Greek corsairs, while British traders often petitioned the Smyrna consulate for safety from the "crying evil of Greek piracies" that preyed upon British-flagged boats in the Aegean. 61 John Barker, British consul in Aleppo, anticipating danger on a sea voyage to his new consular posting in Alexandria, complained in May 1826 of "exposing myself and family to the insults of the Greek corsairs and my household effects and property to the depredations of that band of freebooters, who daily commit the most daring acts of piracy, without the English or other flag being any security to those who may be so unfortunate as to fall into their power...." 62 British diplomatic and naval officials stationed in the Levant amply documented the assaults from assorted piracies in the Archipelago, many of them perpetrated from 1825 to 1828 by raiders from Hydra, Psara, Samos, Chios, Mani, and Crete. Captured cargoes, seized ships, and traffic in pirated goods confirmed not just the severity of the risk but the glaring need to suppress piracy and to shield British carriers.63

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Greek corsairs wreaked havoc with British commerce in the Levant largely because of Britain's protectorate over the Ionian Islands. Despite British neutrality in the Greek-Ottoman conflict, Ionian boats sailing under the British flag traded with both sides in the war, supplying the belligerents with vital supplies from the Ionian Islands and other neutral seaports. Though officially prohibited by British neutrality, this exchange proved highly lucrative but unsafe. Merchant ships from Zante, Malta, and elsewhere, conveying merchandise destined for Ottoman troops in the Morea, provoked Greek raids, and corsairs violated British-protected Ionian transport with virtual impunity. These incursions met with little opposition from the Greek provisional government, primarily because Greek naval personnel did not receive payment on a regular basis and thus Greek cruisers relied on plunder for supplies and income, targeting in particular Ionian vessels that delivered provisions to Ottoman armies. 64 Brigands detained British-flagged ships and cargoes in Greek-controlled harbors, such as Lepanto and Patras. In addition, pirates who did not join the Greek navy, from Skiathos, Skopelos, and other lairs, regularly harassed merchant craft. The most notorious of these strongholds, the fortified outpost of Grabusa near the western coast of Crete, mounted frequent raids against British-flagged boats near the adjacent Ionian island of Cerigo. Pirate attacks on British navigation, compounded by the Greek provisional government's inability or reluctance to contain naval forays and to satisfy compensation claims, eventually compelled the Royal Navy to combat Greek piracy. After 1825, Britain's Mediterranean fleet provided occasional convoys to escort merchant vessels leaving Smyrna; organized missions to release captured boats and cargoes; pressured Greek authorities to restrain their navy; and destroyed the hideaway at Grabusa. 65 Not just piracy but Ottoman-imposed restrictions hampered the Levant trade of European capitulatory powers, in particular Russia and Britain. Ships flying the Russian banner had to traverse the Bosporus and the Dardanelles before they reached the Aegean and the Mediterranean, the essential marine roads to Russia's Ottoman and European markets. With the onset of war, Ottoman officials closely inspected these carriers—many of them operated by Greek sailors and captains, both beratlis and reaya—as a precaution against arms and supply shipments to insurgents from Russia's Greek communities in Odessa and elsewhere along the northern shores of the Black Sea. When Greek defections from the Ottoman merchant marine, as well as Greek piracy, endangered food deliveries to Constantinople and the Ottoman army, the Porte closed the Sea of Marmara to grain traffic, and Russian vessels had to sell their merchandise to Ottoman state warehouses. Russia's Black Sea grain trade

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plummeted; shipping and insurance rates soared; and several Odessa firms lost revenues. These commercial consequences of war and rebellion in the Near East jeopardized the continued economic growth not just of Odessa but of the entire region of southern Russia. Understandably, disgruntled merchants and officials in Russia's Black Sea entrepots vigorously objected to the Porte's violations of trade clauses in the Treaty of Kutchuk-Kainardji (1774) and the Treaty of Commerce (1783), both of which guaranteed Russia's unimpeded commercial navigation in the Black Sea, the Straits, and the eastern Mediterranean. Although Russia's wheat exports recovered somewhat after 1823, they remained below pre-1821 levels and Russian ships endured delays of eight to twenty days while waiting for Ottoman permission to sail the Straits.66 Trade in Ottoman waters became risky business for Britain as well. British-flagged carriers, moving grain and other cargoes from Black Sea ports, faced scrutiny and pressure when passing the Straits. The Porte ordered the confiscation of some of these transports to provision the capital and the army, while others had to sell their merchandise at prices at or below market value, thereby undercutting expected Levant Company profits. Ottoman customs authorities also detained British vessels, sometimes for thirty to forty days. British diplomatic and Levant Company officials, echoing Russian protests, complained to the Porte by invoking the Treaty of the Dardanelles (1809) and other agreements that stipulated unobstructed commercial passage. To British and Russian objections, the Porte asserted the prerogative to preempt grain and other foodstuff cargoes deemed indispensable by the government in wartime, regardless of the trade privileges granted to capitulatory states.67 As a result, Ambassador Strangford, together with John Cartwright, British consul-general in Constantinople, approved the stratagem of fictitious manifests, a tactic to evade Ottoman impediments by devising ship declarations that did not accurately identify the merchandise in transit, its place of origin, or its destination. Even with fabricated manifests, British exports and imports dropped in value, in marked contrast to the upsurge in Levant Company exchange before 1821, particularly with Smyrna.68 Company officials and consuls not only lodged complaints with Ottoman customs but sought redress and intervention from the Foreign Office, urging the ambassador to press commerce-related requests—a shorter waiting period for Ottoman transit permission, protection of beratli brokers and middlemen, and release of Greek properties sequestered by Ottoman authorities—in his dealings with the Porte. With the dissolution of the Levant Company in 1825, the Foreign Office assumed control over the company's operations, assets, and consulates in the Ottoman East. Partly as a result of

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the troubles in the Levant, the previously ad hoc nature of Britain's consular service, with consuls owing primary allegiance either to the Levant Company or to the Foreign Office, received more structure, direction, and consistency, advantages that allowed British diplomats to defend capitulatory prerogatives more effectively. The heart of the Eastern crisis in 1821, notwithstanding the seriousness of sectarian frenzy and commercial dislocation, remained the threat of war involving the great powers, in particular Russia, which had to balance her national interests in the Near East with her adherence to the Concert of Europe. Strategic, trade, and religious pursuits in the troubled Levant did not mesh well with the preservation of the political status quo in Europe, and friction between these competing considerations underscored the complexity of the Eastern Question for Russia. Already before the Greek rising, disputes over Russian claims in the Caucasus and the Danubian Principalities strained Russian-Ottoman ties, and the insurrection only exacerbated the tension. 69 In taking measures to crush the Greek mutiny, the Porte infringed upon specific articles in Russian-Ottoman treaties and thus antagonized official relations between the two Empires. Reprisals against the Greeks breached the Porte's promise in the Treaty of Kutchuk-Kainardji (1774) to shelter the faith and churches of Ottoman Christians. Trade obstacles seemingly contravened Russia's right of unimpeded merchant navigation in the Straits, guaranteed by Kutchuk-Kainardji and the Treaty of Commerce (1783). The Porte's dismissal of the hospodars (governors) of Moldavia and Wallachia, accusing them of abetting the revolt, undermined the sultan's imperial decree of 1802, and subsequent stipulations in the Treaty of Bucharest (1812), sanctioning Russian consent in the appointment and deposition of hospodars. Facing strong public clamor for intervention on behalf of persecuted Greeks, and despite urgent calls by high-ranking officials for military action to rectify broken treaties, Alexander I upheld the order of legitimacy. The tsar denounced the rebellion as a menace to Europe's peace and security and to the principles of monarchical solidarity and political stability; he also advocated the Porte's swift suppression of the disorders before they engulfed other regions. At the same time, the tsarist regime demanded the observance of Russian-Ottoman treaties, intent on using them as instruments for exerting pressure on Turkey. The Foreign Ministry's dual approach of censuring the revolt but insisting on complete compliance with treaty accords became the basis for Russian policy in 1821. Russia's ambassador in Constantinople, Grigorii A. Stroganov, rebuked the insurrection but remonstrated for Orthodox brethren, protested violations of trade clauses, and counseled moderation and restraint in

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Ottoman treatment of non-insurgent Greek reaya.10 The Porte, however, suspected Russian complicity in the rebellion for a host of reasons: Russia's past wars against Turkey; her self-proclaimed guardianship of Orthodox Christians under Ottoman rule; her generous support of Greek migration to southern Russia, in particular the distribution of land grants and tax exemptions to Greek settlements in recently annexed Ottoman territories; and her extensive network of Greek protégés in Black Sea and Aegean commerce. Furthermore, Greek merchants in Odessa participated in the national ferment that produced the Philiki Etaireia (Society of Friends), the secret society that launched the insurgence of 1821. Founded in Odessa (1814) and headquartered in Kishinev, the conspiratorial organization recruited members and monies from Greek communities in Russia and came under the leadership of Alexander Ypsilanti, a Greek general in the Russian army and an aide-de-camp of the tsar. 7 1 Russian-Ottoman treaty provisos crumbled not just because of the Porte's plausible, but mistaken, accusations of the Russian government's entanglement in the sedition but because of the outbreak of sectarian violence in Constantinople, Smyrna, and elsewhere. Ironically, treaties that sought to maintain cordial ties between Russia and Turkey and to safeguard Russian activities in the Near East did neither. In an ultimatum delivered to the Porte in July 1821, Russia demanded the evacuation of Ottoman troops from the Danubian Principalities, the restoration of damaged churches and religious properties, the protection of Orthodox Christians, and the guarantee of commercial rights. If the sultan did not accept these terms, Russia would have to offer asylum and assistance to all Christians subjected to "blind fanaticism." 72 The Porte's failure to comply within the prescribed eight-day deadline, followed by Ambassador Stroganov's departure from the Ottoman capital, severed official relations between Russia and Turkey, the two realms most profoundly affected by the uproar of 1821. Thus began a strange twilight period of no war yet no peace. Alexander I proved reluctant to act unilaterally without the sanction of the Concert of Europe and dreaded the prospect of a Russian-Turkish clash that would disrupt the status quo, incite revolts elsewhere, and jeopardize the balance of power in Europe. Firmly committed to the Concert of Europe, the tsar suspected that a Jacobin directing committee in Paris had instigated trouble in the Balkans. Yet the Eastern quagmire thickened, Ottoman-Greek fighting intensified, RussianOttoman affairs festered, and treaty vows shattered amid war and revolution in the Levant. Britain faced her own dilemma over the Eastern Question quandary, an "unsolved problem...pregnant with vital and incalculable consequences." 73 Foreign Secretary Castlereagh sympathized with the Greek cause on moral and

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humanitarian grounds but perceived the Greeks as rebels against the established political order, a status quo that he associated with the Concert of Europe and its defense of geopolitical security in Europe. His mixed reaction reflected the competing currents of philhellenic enthusiasm and noninterventionist sentiment that prevailed in numerous sectors of Eiritish government and society. In a lengthy note of October 1821 to Sir Charles Bagot, Eiritish ambassador in St. Petersburg, Castlereagh clarified Britain's stance. On the one hand, he contemplated the distant end of Ottoman rule in Greece: "Is it fit that such a state of things should continue to exist? Ought the Turkish yoke to be forever riveted upon the necks of their suffering and Christian subjects; and shall the descendants of those, in admiration of whom we have been educated, be doomed in this fine country to drag out, for all time to come, the miserable existence to which circumstances have reduced them?" On the other hand, the foreign secretary declared that "if a statesman were permitted to regulate his conduct by the counsels of his heart instead of the dictates of his understanding, I really see no limits to the impulse, which might be given to his conduct, upon a case so stated. But we must always recollect that his is the grave task of providing for the peace and security of those interests immediately committed to his care [and] that he must not endanger the fate of the present generation in a speculative endeavor to improve the lot of that which is to come." Castlereagh simply could not fathom any project that might benefit the political fortunes of the Greeks "at the hazard of all the destructive confusion and disunion which such an attempt may lead to, not only within Turkey but in Europe." Even if the Turks miraculously withdrew, he doubted "that the Greek population, as it now subsists or is likely to subsist for a course of years, could frame from their own materials a system of government less defective either in its external or internal character, and especially as the question regards Russia, than that which at present unfortunately exists." Moral responsibility "under loose notions of humanity" paled beside "the obligations of existing treaties." Echoing the views of Metternichean conservatives who espoused the Concert of Europe hierarchy, Castlereagh affirmed that aiding "the insurrectionary efforts now in progress in Greece, upon the chance that it may, through war, mold itself into some scheme of government," would in all certainty "open a field for every ardent adventurer and political fanatic in Europe to hazard not only his own fortune but what is our province more anxiously to watch over, the fortune and destiny of that system to the conservation of which our latest solemn transactions with our

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allies have bound us." The Greeks, therefore, must be left to "the hand of time and of providence" to ameliorate their plight. As for Russia, Castlereagh grasped the tsar's contention that treaty rights had been violated in the Porte's response to the crisis. Russian and British merchant enterprise in the Black Sea region, averred the foreign secretary, actually coincided: "our own commercial prosperity must grow with the wealth and prosperity of all other countries or portions of countries, and...if in point of fact the Turkish government imposes any undue restraint upon the vent of Russian productions, they proportionally deprive us of the advantages of a wealthier and more extensive customer." Yet he counseled the tsar to act with the greatest caution in the matter of treaty provisions that secured the protection of the Greeks. Even if war became necessary, Castlereagh solemnly warned against "those extreme measures, which though they may, by the emperor's government and people, be at first view regarded as remedies, are undoubtedly looked upon by the British cabinet as leading directly to consequences infinitely worse than the disease to be removed, being in their nature calculated in their judgment to involve His Imperial Majesty's dominions, as well as the civilized world, in the most awful dangers." 74 Britain remained neutral in the Greek-Ottoman feud yet at the same time pursued her own strategic, political, and commercial ends. In 1821-22, Foreign Secretary Castlereagh resolved to avert a wider war between Russia and Turkey, to maintain the Ottoman Empire as a bulwark against the threat of Russian expansion, to protect British trade in the Levant, and to secure the route to India. After Stroganov's departure from Constantinople, Castlereagh instructed Lord Strangford to defuse Ottoman-Russian tensions and to pacify the Greek dispute in his negotiations with the Porte. In cooperation with other European diplomats, Britain's ambassador pressed the Porte to comply with the major points in Russia's ultimatum, in particular to halt persecutions of Greek Christians, to restore damaged churches, to honor treaty pacts, and to guard the life and property of "innocent" non-combatants, in contrast to "guilty" rebels who deserved punishment. Castlereagh's successor, George Canning, advocated neutrality and sought similar objectives but introduced a new twist in March 1823: Britain recognized the Greeks as belligerents and promoted limited Greek autonomy under Ottoman suzerainty, largely a tactical response to "facts on the ground" in the eastern Mediterranean. Since Greek mutineers had already framed their own provisional government, and since the Ottoman government appeared unable to stop raids against British mercantile navigation, Canning's acknowledgement of Greek belligerency endeavored to defend British shipping against piracy. 75

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British neutrality under Castlereagh and Canning proved exceedingly difficult to sustain when the lines between naval warfare and piracy blurred and when Britain's Ionian protectorate confused British-Ottoman relations. 76 After the Congress of Vienna placed the Ionian Islands under British rule, Ionian Greeks became British subjects and thereby enjoyed full capitulatory coverage when they traded or resided in the Ottoman Empire; British authorities, in particular consuls in the Levant, now had to deal with the problem of Britishprotected Ionian Greeks who abused diplomatic and commercial privileges. Almost from the start of the Greek rebellion in 1821, Britain's Ionian protectorate faced growing pressure from insurrectionists who hoped to embroil the strategically situated Ionians in the conflict. Ionian Greeks volunteered to fight, Ionian ship captains formed their own squadrons in the Greek navy, and Ionian society at large raised supplies, munitions, and money for the rebels. Nearly eleven thousand Ionian residents and expatriates fought with insurgents in the early months of the revolution, and Ionian volunteers comprised as much as one-third of the active rebel force in the Morea. Ionian backing and participation provoked understandable objections from Ottoman authorities in Constantinople, Patras, and Epirus, all of whom suspected the sincerity of British neutrality. Ottoman protests partly accounted for the firm measures enacted by Sir Thomas Maitland, the protectorate's chief executive officer, to curb the insurrectionist actions of Ionian Greeks; his decrees imposed martial law and threatened to banish culprits and to confiscate their property. The policy of British neutrality confronted other challenges from the Ionian Islands. Ottoman officials demanded the extradition of thousands of "rebellious subjects," the Porte's term for Greek and Albanian refugees from embattled lands who found haven in the Ionians. This influx, comprised mostly of widows, orphans, the destitute, and families seeking shelter, also included insurgent agents who solicited Ionian recruits and supplies. The task of settling so many newcomers encumbered the protectorate government with financial and public health obligations, not to mention yet another political dilemma when some of the refugees later returned to join rebel forces. Partly to placate the Porte, Maitland and other protectorate officials instructed British consuls in the Levant to refuse Ionian visa requests from Greek males and from dependents of insurgents. British authorities also had to deal with Ottoman complaints about British philhellenes who used the islands as a stepping stone to Greece and as a temporary retreat. Ottoman officials protested after Lord Byron sailed to Greece from Cephalonia and af ter the London Greek Committee deposited a Greek loan, collected from British public donations, in a Zantiote bank for transfer to the Greek provisional

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government. Aggravating these difficulties, British-flagged Ionian vessels, supposedly neutral, traded with both sides in the Greek-Ottoman war and fell prey to Greek piracy in the Archipelago. 77 As the Eastern Question mess in all its manifestations, from sectarian fury to great power frustration, seemingly reached an impasse by 1824, several events "internationalized" the situation. 78 These developments, both inside and outside the Ottoman Empire, not only broadened the war but paradoxically contributed to its resolution. Unable to subdue the insurrectionists, Sultan Mahmud II requested military assistance from his nominal vassal, Muhammad Ali, the modernizing governor of Ottoman Egypt, and promised to reward Ali's son, Ibrahim Pasha, with a governorship in the Morea. Egypt's reformed army and navy suppressed rebellious Greeks in Cyprus and Crete, and Ibrahim Pasha commanded an invasion force that occupied most of the Morea, an incursion that benefited from factional divisions among Greek insurgents. By 1827, Ibrahim's efficient and disciplined troops had participated in the successful sieges of Greek strongholds at Missolonghi and Athens. But these military exploits precipitated great power intervention on the Greeks' behalf. Egypt's occupation of the Peloponnese, the territorial base of the Greek revolution, fueled the circulation of alarming stories that Ibrahim Pasha intended to uproot the region's Greek population and to repopulate the peninsula with Arabs from Egypt. Foreign Secretary George Canning, who increasingly sympathized with the Greek nationalist struggle, expressed horror at what he called Ibrahim's "barbarization" project," while tsarist Russian officials voiced outrage at what would have constituted another violation of the Porte's pledge to protect Ottoman Orthodox Christians. 79 The memoirs of Britain's envoy in Constantinople, Stratford Canning (the foreign secretary's cousin), alluded to Ibrahim Pasha's purported intent: "Ibrahim Pasha, soon after the fall of Missolonghi, passed from Western Greece into the Morea, striving by sword and torch to subdue its inhabitants and to destroy all kinds of property." 80 Debate exists whether the plan represented fact or fiction. If the sultan or Ibrahim had ever approved the endeavor in the first place, both of them denied its existence by 1826. The Porte had indeed promised the Morea to Ibrahim as a reward for his impressive conquests, and Ibrahim's own troops had devastated parts of the Morea, pillaging grain and livestock supplies and enslaving women and children. Also, the destruction of Chios reminded statesmen and policy-makers of the very real atrocities that accompanied the Greek War of Independence. Yet the daunting logistical task of dispatching tens of thousands of Moreotes to slave markets in Egypt and elsewhere, and then delivering roughly equal numbers of Arabs to the Morea, called into

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question the feasibility of this massive scheme to alter the human geography of the Peloponnese. Britain and Russia, however, rallied around the threat, real or imagined, and rumor alone served its purpose of inducing British and Russian cooperation on the Greek issue. Whereas Foreign Secretary Canning had previously rejected British military involvement to help the Greeks, he now proclaimed Britain's intent to prevent, by force if necessary, the execution of the project imputed to Ibrahim Pasha. Canning also wanted to forestall any possibility of an Ottoman recapture of Greece, and toward this end he coordinated strategy with Russia. The St. Petersburg Protocol of April 1826 stated Britain and Russia's shared vision of a semi-autonomous Greek state that paid annual tribute to its Ottoman suzerain. If the Porte rejected British and Russian intercession, Britain and Russia reserved the right to intervene either jointly or separately. The Protocol formed the basis of the Treaty of London in July 1827, with France joining Britain and Russia in pushing for an armistice between the belligerents and in calling for the creation of a tribute-paying but autonomous Greece, with borders to be determined in future negotiation. When the sultan staunchly refused allied mediation, the combined navies of Britain, Russia, and France, commanded by Sir Edward Codrington, blockaded the Morea to enforce the armistice and to thwart supplies ancl ships from reinforcing Ibrahim's army. A naval confrontation ensued, culminating in the destruction of the Ottoman-Egyptian fleet at the battle of Navarino in October 1827, a turning point of sorts in the Greek contest and in the larger Eastern crisis. 81 A French expeditionary force drove Ibrahim Pasha's troops from the Morea and maintained order in the beleaguered peninsula. Meanwhile, the destruction of the janissary corps in the Ottoman capital in June 1826 not only preoccupied the sultan's attention but escalated the disarray facing the Porte, a predicament wrought from internal as well as external encroachments. Britain's ambassador, Stratford Canning, devoted several pages in his memoirs to this crucial incident and its immediate aftermath. "Much discontent and fermentation had prevailed among the janissaries for some time. They had shown a great reluctance to take the field, and the sultan was in consequence unable to count upon their fidelity. They apprehended a revival of the new [military] organization which they had successfully resisted in the days of Sultan Selim [III], and Mahmud had strengthened their fears by making away in secret, one after another, with many of their number who were suspected of entertaining rebellious designs." When the janissary "conspiracy" or "revolt" failed, the Ottoman government secured its authority with a combination of draconian persecution and reformed military regiments. "The sultan was determined to make the

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most of his victory. From the time of his cousin Selim's death, he had lived in dread of the janissaries. A strong impression must have been made upon his mind by the personal danger which he had then encountered. It was said that he had escaped with his life by getting into an oven when the search for him was hottest. His duty as sovereign gave strength as well as dignity to his private resentment." That celebrated corps, "which in earlier times had extended the bounds of the Empire, and given the title of conqueror to so many of the sultans, which had opened the walls of Constantinople itself to their triumphant leader, the second Mohammed [Sultan Muhammad II], was now to be swept away with an unsparing hand and to make room for a new order of things, for a disciplined army and a charter of reform. From these high claims to honor and confidence, they had sadly declined. They had become the masters of the government, the butchers of their sovereigns, and a source of terror to all but the enemies of their country." Whatever sympathy S. Canning might have felt for individual victims, including the innocent with the guilty, "it could hardly be said that their punishment as a body was untimely or undeserved. There is something so monstrous and unnatural in the assumption of despotic power by a soldiery, the very principle of whose existence is subordination to authority!" Envoy Canning expressed shock "by the amount of bloodshed and suffering.... The complaints of those who were doomed to destruction found no echo in the bosoms of their conquerors.... Many had fallen under the sultan's artillery; many were fugitives and outlaws. The mere name of janissary, compromised or not by an overt act, operated like a sentence of death. A special commission sat for the trial, or rather for the condemnation of crowds. Every victim passed at once from the tribunal into the hands of the executioner. The bowstring and the scimitar were constantly in play. People could not stir from their houses without the risk of falling in with some horrible sight. The Sea of Marmara was mottled with dead bodies." Nor did the tragedy confine itself to Constantinople and its vicinity. "Messengers were sent in haste to every provincial city where any considerable number of janissaries existed, and the slightest tendency to insurrection was so promptly and effectually repressed that no disquieting reports were conveyed to us from any quarter of the Empire." 82 While thousands faced execution, and thousands more arrest and exile, Mahmud II prevailed and "was now the master. Other successes which he had obtained over turbulent governors like Ali of Janina, or landowners too powerful to be always trusted, were only stepping stones to the last victory. He had little henceforward to apprehend from within. But there was no lack of danger from without, and the means of resistance were yet in embryo." Extensive reforms, above all in the army, required not just money and

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technical expertise but time, perhaps the most precious commodity. And with respect to time, "a declining and enfeebled empire is perilously dependent on the forbearance of its neighbors." 83 The Near Eastern standoff persisted, and the sultan had to contend with repeated efforts by the European powers to intercede on the Greeks' behalf, an endeavor that culminated in the battle of Navarino. Russia's army performed the final act, sealing the formation of a Greek state even though Tsar Nicholas I did not share any of the European philhellenic enthusiasm for Greek liberty. Indeed, the reactionary Nicholas, guardian of order and legitimacy, detested the Greeks as rebels against their lawful rulers, announcing to the Austrian envoy in St. Petersburg: "I abhor the Greeks, although they are my coreligionists; they have behaved in a shocking, blamable, even criminal manner; I look upon them as subjects in open revolt against their legitimate sovereign; I do not desire their enfranchisement; they do not deserve it, and it would be a very bad example for all other countries if they succeeded in establishing it." 84 Although the tsar collaborated with Britain and France for an autonomous but tributary Greece under Ottoman suzerainty, a European-wide concern that required collective mediation by the powers, he opted for unilateral action when it came to defending strictly Russian interests in the Near East. Instead of protracted negotiations over broken treaty clauses, as happened under his predecessor Alexander I, Nicholas insisted on the Porte's full and immediate compliance. Diplomatic pressure, and the sultan's need for a respite to reform the army after his violent abolition of the janissary corps in June 1826, compelled the Ottoman government to sign the Akkerman Convention (October 1826). This contract reconfirmed previous accords dealing with contested points in Russian-Ottoman relations, such as Russian commercial navigation in Ottoman waters and Russia's role in the political administration of the Danubian Principalities. 85 Yet Akkerman became a casualty of Navarino. Although Nicholas I tried to isolate Europe's Greek affair from Russia's bilateral ties with Turkey, these matters interlocked. The Greek rising aggravated Russian-Ottoman tensions, and Nicholas's disdain for Greek rebels did not stop him from exploiting their fight to advance Russia's designs. In response to the Navarino debacle, the sultan redoubled his efforts to subjugate Greece, repudiated the short-lived Akkerman Convention, closed the Straits to neutral shipping, and declared holy war against Russia. In the ensuing Russian-Turkish War of 1828-29, the fledgling Greek government received military, naval, and financial help from the allies. Moreover, Russian military penetration in the Balkans and the Caucasus diverted Ottoman troops, thereby enabling the

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Greeks to extend the northern boundary of their future state. Russia's occupation of Adrianople, the former capital of the Ottoman Empire, combined with her blockade of the port of Enos and her capture of key fortresses in eastern Anatolia, culminated in the Treaty of Adrianople (1829), a significant but often overlooked pact that altered not just Russian-Ottoman relations but the geopolitical landscape of the Eastern Question. 86 The Porte granted autonomy to the now Russian-protected Danubian Principalities, recognized Russia's annexation of western Georgia encompassing much of the eastern littoral of the Black Sea, and acknowledged allied provisions for an autonomous Greece. By 1832, after much diplomatic wrangling, a negotiated settlement elevated Greece's political status to an independent kingdom guaranteed by her British, Russian, and French sponsors. 87 The Treaty of Adrianople's trade terms aimed to safeguard commerce in the Black Sea and the Aegean, especially in view of the damages wrought by the Russian-Turkish war. The Porte had levied extra dues on merchant vessels sailing the Straits en route to Russian emporta; the tsarist regime had banned grain consignments from southern Russia to the Ottoman Empire; and Russia's naval blockade of Enos had cut off neutral traffic to Constantinople. 88 The treaty fully guaranteed Russia's unrestricted mercantile navigation in the Black Sea and the Straits and her right to unimpeded trade throughout the Ottoman Empire, provisional on Russian payment of customs. On the related matter of extraterritoriality, the agreement renewed the capitulatory privileges of Russian nationals, protégés, and ships and reaffirmed consular jurisdiction over these resources. Russia received the right to transship merchandise in the Ottoman Empire and to store goods in Ottoman warehouses, while the Porte announced an end to confiscations of grain and other cargoes. Significantly, all these trade stipulations extended to Britain and to other countries that traded with Russia via the Straits and the Black Sea, reminding us of the Eastern Question's increasingly important commercial dimension in the nineteenth century. 89 The treaty's incentives boosted Russia's grain export exchange; sustained Odessa's continued economic growth; drove British and Russian merchants to find new markets in Ottoman Anatolia and along the southern coast of the Black Sea; and convinced British and Russian foreign policy authorities to open consular offices in maritime towns throughout the Ottoman realm. The Eastern Question storm, in conjunction with endemic misuse of the capitulatory and protégé systems, shaped the context in which British consuls discharged their duties, reacted to circumstances in their regions, and recorded their observations. Depending on whether the Foreign Office or the Levant Company appointed them, consuls wrote for a particular audience,

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emphasizing commerce-related happenings for Levant Company officers and discussing political as well as commercial topics for the Foreign Office. At the very time that the Greek insurgency and other Eastern disturbances increasingly preoccupied the attention of consuls, institutional changes altered Britain's consular establishment in the Levant. Several factors combined to dissolve the Levant Company in 1825, resulting in Foreign Office management and administration of all consular appointments in the Ottoman Empire. According to Alfred Wood's analysis of the Levant Company, "the end came, not because of any disaster or through any failure of duty, but simply because the Company had outlived its usefulness." 90 The inefficiency of Levant Company consulates, in particular the absence of a single format for levying charges on the myriad merchants, carriers, and cargoes that required consular services, underscored the imperative for an improved, more cohesive organization with fixed rules and procedures. Equally crucial, company traders compromised British neutrality by delivering war supplies to Greek and Ottoman belligerents, transactions which provoked Ottoman animosity when British merchandise ended up in Greek hands and which incited Greek piracy when British transports trafficked in Ottomancontrolled entrepots. Several Levant Company consuls also distributed passes and visas to vessels that illegally flew the British standard. The troubled times of the early 1820s thus influenced the Foreign Office to devise a more orderly scheme of consular representation in the Levant. Geopolitical calculations also weighed heavily, in view of the widening of British interests in the Near East, in particular the Foreign Office perception of the Ottoman Empire's growing centrality as a strategic bridge and buffer zone for the defense of India. Along the same lines, the convergence of commercial and political objectives in the eastern Mediterranean convinced the Foreign Office to administer not just the embassy in Constantinople and the consulate-general in Cairo but the entire set of British consulates in the Ottoman dominion, a network poised to expand with the extension of commerce in Anatolia and other areas. With Foreign Office control over Levant Company operations and assets, the previously ad hoc nature of Britain's consular service in the Ottoman Levant, with consuls owing primary allegiance either to the company or to the Foreign Office, would receive more structure, direction, and consistency, advantages that would allow diplomatic officials to defend British designs more effectively. Direct supervision of consular business would not only replace a confusing, sometimes untidy dualtrack approach but facilitate the successful performance of key consular tasks, such as adjudicating disputes involving British nationals and protégés, monitoring compliance with the capitulations, collecting intelligence, and

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reporting on political and economic conditions as well as on commercial prospects. 91 Foreign Secretary Castlereagh initiated reform by preparing elaborate instructions for consuls, outlining their various duties including the responsibility of protecting residents of Malta and the Ionians, both of these territories part of the British Empire since the Congress of Vienna. Foreign Secretary Canning accelerated the reform process with a series of regulations, highlighted by the Consular Act of 1825, to reorganize and professionalize the consular service. In addition to creating a separate consular department in the Foreign Office, these changes aimed at standardizing consular fees and upgrading consular efficiency. 92 The enhanced authority of the Foreign Office over consular matters entailed the transfer of Levant Company funds, properties, and personnel to crown control. With the dissolution of the corporation, "the great instrument which the enterprise of Tudor England had forged to traffic with the dominions of the grand seignior ceased to be." 93 The Foreign Office may have assumed direction over all commercial and diplomatic exchanges with the Ottoman Empire, but a restructured consular establishment required time to take hold. This factor explained the gist of G. Canning's memorandum of May 1825 to John Cartwright, British consul-general in Constantinople. Even though the Levant Company had relinquished its charter and no longer managed consulates, company-appointed consuls were to stay at their posts and to continue sending their reports to Cartwright. The foreign secretary determined that "in order to afford time to bring a new consular arrangement to maturity,...the whole of the establishment in the Levant should be continued on its present footing." 94 Cartwright himself researched the existing consular configuration in the Levant and advised the Foreign Office on ways to implement the new regulations. 95 For the rest of the decade, Levant Company appointees, such as John Barker, consul in Aleppo, and Francis Werry, consul in Smyrna, retained their posts; but they recognized the new hierarchy and transmitted their communiqués to Britain's ambassador and consul-general in the Ottoman capital and to the Foreign Office. Before as well as after the structural modifications in Levant consulates, British consuls penned narratives that exhibited all the flaws and limitations of primary sources written by Europeans in the Ottoman world. In many cases, their impressions and observations tended toward exaggeration, generalization, or misperception. By focusing on narrow and localized concerns, consuls usually neglected the larger picture for the particular matter at hand; detailed what they knew firsthand or what their agents and staff relayed to them about specific situations; and omitted relevant, interesting, and important information. Above all, consular commentaries echoed some of the conventional European images and perceptions of the Ottoman Empire in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, a period of imperial weakening and institutional collapse. Freighted with ethnocentrism and cultural bias,

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British writing constituted an early form of Orientalism, stigmatizing the Ottoman other with distortions and conveying a self-righteous, patronizing tone. An undercurrent of doubt, mistrust, and suspicion affected consular testimony on Ionian and Ottoman Greeks, associating them with treachery, fractiousness, and cunning. More notoriously, consuls depicted Ottoman regional officialdom in a mostly negative light, accenting episodes of oppression, extortion, and related abuses of power by pashas, janissaries, and customs officers. Almost all of these authorities, portrayed by consuls as rapacious, corrupt, and arbitrary, interfered in the administration of the capitulations and thus complicated consular and commercial affairs. Through their anecdotes, remarks, and choice of words, consular records alluded to commonly accepted European perspectives on the Ottoman Empire, fast becoming "the sick man of Europe" in Western political vocabulary and popular opinion. 96 Despite these drawbacks and inadequacies, consular dispatches from the early nineteenth century elucidated some of the salient tensions and problems in the Eastern Question during a particularly tumultuous era. Britain's consuls arrived at their posts as outsiders, with pre-conceived ideas shaped by their educational backgrounds, travel experiences, religious beliefs, and cultural sensitivities, and these notions obviously filtered their thoughts and reactions while serving in the Ottoman East. Moreover, the capitulations insulated European diplomats from direct intercourse with most of Ottoman society. Yet most consuls proved adaptable, especially the longer they stayed at their stations. They adjusted to their surroundings, endured uncontrollable natural calamities such as plague, fire, and earthquake, and coped with the unpredictable human disasters of war, rebellion, and piracy. They came to rely on a broad circle of sources in their midst, gleaning information from British merchants, travelers, protégés, consular agents, and dragomans', from local and regional Ottoman authorities, including pashas and customs officials and their interpreters; and from consular representatives of other European states. From unique vantage points situated throughout the Levant—Prevesa (William Meyer), Constantinople (John Cartwright), Smyrna (Francis and Nathaniel Werry), Cairo/Alexandria (Henry Salt), and Aleppo (John Barker)—Britain's consuls astutely observed and diligently chronicled what they deemed the most critical episodes and circumstances in their immediate locales. Collectively, they captured the tenor of the times in their coverage of a range of topics beyond the purely political and diplomatic aspects of the Eastern crisis: revolts, reprisals, raids, disorders, external intrusions, and abuses in the capitulatory and protégé systems. The very specificity and urgency of these consular passages sharpen our focus on the multiple facets that defined an age of upheaval in the Ottoman Levant.

"Massacra at Chios", by Eugène Delacroix, 1824

2 WILLIAM MEYER IN PREVESA: PASHAS AND REBELS

William Meyer, British consul-general in Ioannina from 1820 to 1835, had to reside in Prevesa because of the confusion and commotion near Ioannina, the epicenter of Ali Pasha's fierce revolt against the political authority of the sultan's government and the scene of Greek-Ottoman clashes in the Greek War of Independence. Meyer's copious accounts—to the Foreign Office, to British authorities in the Ionian Islands, and to Britain's ambassador at the Sublime Porte—brilliantly evoked the turmoil and turbulence of a tumultuous era. Pashas who obeyed and opposed the sultan's orders; Greek insurgents who fought against the Porte and among themselves; Albanian military chieftains who joined, then defected from, Ali Pasha and the Ottoman and Greek sides; European philhellenic volunteers who saw action in Greece, among them the celebrated Lord Byron, all these disparate groups found their way into Meyer's animated and abundant consular reports.1 The son of Tubingen native Jeremiah Meyer, a prominent miniaturist and enamellist at the court of King George III and a founding member of the Royal Academy of Arts, William Meyer received his education at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. 2 He served in Constantinople in 1808-09 as part of Robert Adair's diplomatic mission to negotiate peace and friendship with the Porte, culminating in the Treaty of the Dardanelles (1809), which ended the British-Turkish War, restored British capitulations in the Ottoman realm, and pledged British protection of the Ottoman Empire's territorial integrity against Napoleonic France. He later held various positions in the Britishprotected Ionian Islands, including the task of reading intercepted correspondence of Ionian Greeks, such as the Kapodistrias family, who retained close ties to tsarist Russia after the Russian occupation of the Ionians during the Napoleonic era (1799-1807). 3 Meyer's politically conservative views explained his criticism of liberal and national risings against the order of legitimacy and his condemnation of Greek insurrectionists as troublemakers, radicals, and Jacobins; indeed, he referred to "new theoretical constitutions and institutions" as "forced births...subject to all the diseases and difficulties of treatment incidental to all things of such premature or artificial formation." 4 Appointed consul-general in Ottoman Albania and adjacent territories by the Foreign Office, not the Levant Company, Meyer arrived in Prevesa in early 1820 with explicit instructions to protect British subjects in his area of consular jurisdiction, to safeguard British trade,

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shipping, and capitulatory privileges, and to report on the state of affairs and current events in his region, which he interchangeably called Albania and Epirus. 5 In Prevesa, the chief commercial port of Epirus and a key Ottoman administrative center, Meyer encountered a hub of activity and movement, not all of it legal or orderly. Ali Pasha, the longtime Ottoman-appointed governor of Ioannina, not only had revolted against Sultan Mahmud II's endeavor to restore centralized absolute rule in the Balkans but had garnered support from Suliote mountain warriors, Albanian military chiefs, and Greek activists in the Philiki Etaireia (Society of Friends), the Greek secret society busily preparing an uprising for Greek national independence. 6 Armed conflict, open rebellion, regionalist attachments, and nationalist stirrings, all this ferment turned Meyer into a war correspondent of sorts, a writer who diligently and regularly described what he saw, heard, and investigated and what his various sources—consular agents and vice-consuls, Ottoman naval and military officers, Albanian captains and Greek insurgent leaders, and his own instincts and perceptions—conveyed to him. As an eyewitness, as well as a recorder of the impressions and observations of others, Meyer commented with clarity, consistency, and constancy on a variety of issues. Although he generally sided with the Ottoman government and disparaged Albanian duplicity and Greek rebelliousness, his reports probed crucial topics: the prolonged but ultimately successful Ottoman assault against Ali Pasha, led by the capable Khurshid Pasha, former governor of the Morea; the planning and outbreak of the Greek revolution; the military operations of both Greek and Ottoman forces; the defection of Albanian troops; and the problem of enforcing British neutrality, not to mention convincing Ottoman officials of the sincerity of Britain's declared neutrality. Indeed, collaboration between Ionian Greeks, who enjoyed British protection, and rebellious Greeks, who received Ionian Greek support and safe haven, muddied the waters for British diplomatic representatives charged with upholding Britain's neutral stance in the Eastern crisis. Meyer's writings still have a sense of pungency and immediacy, capturing the fluidity of war and revolt in the Greek mainland with suggestive detail on both atmosphere and context; he also provided specificity, citing numbers of Greek and Ottoman troop detachments and of Greek casualty figures at Anatolico and Missolonghi, both of which fell to a joint Ottoman-Egyptian attack in 1826. The nineteen documents presented below, many of them with nearly their entire text, date from 1820 to 1826. 7 Meyer wrote sixteen of them, covering the disorders in Epirus, the Philiki Etaireia, Greek and Turkish military plans, Lord Byron's death, the fall of Missolonghi, the military

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situation in Athens near the Acropolis, and related issues such as the problem of provisioning Ottoman troops stationed in Greece owing to Greek piracy. Three other documents, written by Ottoman and British officials, addressed points directly relevant to the material Meyer discussed: Admiral Ali Bey's announcement of an Ottoman blockade against the Morea; Lord High Commissioner Thomas Maitland's justification of British draconian measures to enforce strict neutrality in the Ionian Islands; and Richard Green's consular report from Patras on the Ottoman triumph at Missolonghi. Even before the outbreak of the Greek revolt, Meyer denounced those Ionian Greeks whom he suspected of abusing their protégé status by fomenting dissent and discord on behalf of Greek independence. Their "political intrigue which has agitated and continues to agitate the minds of the people in the Ionian Islands....those secret and mischievous cabals....these machinations are chiefly carried on by natives of the Ionian Islands who, abusing the protection which has been granted to them by foreign governments in whose service they are publicly employed, are intent only upon exciting discontent and disturbance in those islands by misleading and poisoning the minds of the inhabitants." (Document #1 below) Keenly perceptive to the connection between Ali Pasha's revolt against the sultan and the Greek conspiracy for an uprising, Meyer commented on "the actual very precarious state of affairs in this country....the rising spirit of discontent.... A plot of an extensive nature has been for some time in a state of preparation, and it is now said to be nearly ripe for execution... [I]t is understood that the Albanians and Greeks are now ready to rise en masse the moment they can see a favourable occasion for it and place themselves under a provisional government of their own formation." He chided the "impolitic measures pursued by the pashas who have been employed to act against Ali Pasha. The country has been outraged by the rapacity, the violence, the contempt of all rights with which they have hitherto acted. The present situation of it has become intolerable to the people." And Meyer presciently foreshadowed the resonance of a regional revolt: "A popular insurrection...in this province under the present circumstances would be productive of great evil and would plunge it into a state of anarchy, from which the worst consequences would result and the effect of which would be felt beyond its immediate frontier." (Document

#2)

B y 1821, Meyer had plenty of evidence of an anticipated popular explosion. "[A] crisis in the affairs of Turkey cannot be far off.... [T]he Albanians, who last year felt so desirous for a change of system after the long duration of the violent government of Ali Pasha, found themselves totally disappointed in their calculations when they saw the arbitrary conduct, the

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rapacity, and [the] inefficiency of the new pashas who were sent to reduce Ali Pasha. These officers mistook the character and circumstances of the warlike and wily Albanians." Meanwhile, the Suliotes had "received...the most flattering proposals together with large offers of money and ammunition from Ali Pasha.... By the acceptance of these proposals, they thought they might do much more than secure their own rights. The conjuncture appeared to them most favourable for throwing off the Turkish yoke altogether." (Document #3) Meyer praised the memorandum of the influential Corfiote Ioannis Kapodistrias, tsarist minister of foreign affairs, for its "temper, caution, and political sagacity" in counseling Greek moral and spiritual enlightenment rather than political violence as the preferred path toward national liberation. Yet when moderation failed to stem the tide of insurrection, the consul-general warned of the nature and impact of the fighting: "The struggle...will now become more obstinate, and a character of ferocity will be added to it, which will be extinguished only by the extermination of one or both of the contending parties. It is to be feared indeed that this fatal civil war, if not speedily suppressed, will be prosecuted with all the excesses and atrocities to which the infuriated and long-stifled passions of hatred and revenge, religious fanaticism, and patriotic enthusiasm can give birth. These countries have already suffered most severely by the war with Ali Pasha; but they are now likely to become the sanguinary theatre of indiscriminate havoc and desolation." (Document #6) Tragically, the occasional cases of humane conduct cited by Meyer, when Greeks or Turks released hostages without ransom, did not really allay or diminish the disasters and atrocities of war. As the struggle deepened, Meyer portrayed the clash with detail and incisiveness. He vented his animosity toward Greek and Albanian fighters: Greek insurgents had to deal with "treacherous and cruel plots hatched among the Greeks themselves," while "suspicious and refractory [Albanian] chiefs" displayed "artful machinations.... treacherous.... [and] faithless conduct," including plunder and pillage. (Documents #9, 11, 12) Shortly after the dramatic fall of Missolonghi (1826), Meyer wrote: "Thus after five years of warfare, Missolonghi, which had risen into a place d'armes and become the bulwark of the revolted Greek provinces, has been converted into a heap of ruins." (Document #13) Later, he accurately summed up the results of the conflict as of 1826: "The Greek war...has on the one hand laid waste the country, while on the other it has certainly reduced the Ottoman authority in this part of the Empire to the verge of its dissolution." (Document #18)

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1. FO 78/103, ff. 108-09a [Consul-General William Meyer warned British authorities in the Ionian Islands that numerous Ionian Greeks, in particular those who served as consuls for Russia and other foreign powers in the Ottoman Empire, abused their protégé status, participated in political intrigues, and fomented dissent and discontent, with dire implications for both the Ottoman government and the British protectorate in the Ionian Islands.]

Prevesa 11 th December 1820 To Lieutenant Colonel Sir Frederick Hankey, Secretary to His Excellency His Majesty's Lord High Commissioner for the Ionian Islands Dear Sir, After reflecting on the subject, it has appeared to me that the perusal of the enclosed extracts of letters from a private correspondent of mine at Patras might be interesting to His Excellency His Majesty's lord high commissioner [Sir Thomas Maitland], and I have to request that you will submit them to His Excellency accordingly. They bear chiefly on the political intrigue which has agitated and continues to agitate the minds of the people in the Ionian Islands. They throw some light on the main object which actuates a certain party on this side of the water in keeping up those secret and mischievous cabals. You will perceive with regret that these machinations are chiefly carried on by natives of the Ionian Islands who, abusing the protection which has been granted to them by foreign governments in whose service they are publicly employed, are intent only upon exciting discontent and disturbance in those islands by misleading and poisoning the minds of the inhabitants. 8 The protection and shelter which they are enabled to afford by their public character and situation and by their intimate connection with the Russian and Greek party in the Morea, to their own partisans and refugees indiscriminately from Zante and the other islands, stop the pursuit of justice; and the authority of the Ionian government is thus set at defiance by most of those parties who have already incurred, and who may be hereafter seduced to incur, the highest penalties of the law. So long as these foreign Ionian agents remain in their places unchecked, so long will it be difficult to repress the mischief which they are bent on creating, and a reaction against the Ionian government will continue. A law perhaps might be passed disqualifying all Ionian subjects from being employed as consuls of foreign states in Turkey, without their having previously obtained the sanction of the government of their own country to that effect. I say in Turkey because it is only in that country where this description of persons can be extensively and directly injurious to the interests of the Ionian government. With a view to strengthen the hands of

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government, it would be very desirous that a firman [Ottoman imperial decree issued by the sultan] should be obtained from the Ottoman Porte empowering the government to claim the active assistance of the pashas of the Morea, whenever it might have occasion to pursue and arrest any one of its own subjects who had fled to the Morea for the purpose of evading justice. Copies of the firmans should be sent to the pashas of the Morea with suitable instructions. An instrument of this description has never been refused, and it has been found efficacious in most instances when it has been acted on with address and with a due attention to Turkish usages. It was by these means that four of the most atrocious assassins of Zante were delivered over to the Ionian government a few years ago, notwithstanding the very powerful support given to them by the different parties on both sides of the water. It is not for me to suggest how far His Majesty's ambassador at the Ottoman Porte might deem it proper to give a hint to the foreign embassies there, whose consuls at Patras are natives of the Ionian States, of the highly improper conduct of the latter in reference to those states. The consuls of Russia. Austria. Sweden, and Prussia are natives of the Ionian Islands. If those powers employed as their consuls persons of any other nation than the natives of the Ionian Islands, it is certainly to be presumed that the dangerous intrigues now carried on there by this Ionian junto of foreign consuls with the Ionian Islands would in a great degree, if not totally, cease. I have to add that most of the cancelliers [chief secretaries or chancellors] and clerks in the consular offices in Patras are also Ionians and that corrupt shelter is given by them also to the refugees from the islands. The principles upon which the Porte now appears to act in translating the Greek bishops every two years in their sees [are] grounded, in the actual tendency of affairs in these provinces, in sound policy. The influence of a certain power may to a great degree be counteracted by such a measure.9 I have the honour to be, Sir, William Meyer, Consul-General P.S. In August last, I transmitted to Colonel Sir Patrick Ross at Zante a communication from the same quarter relative to the seditious designs of a certain party in that island, by which the public tranquility was disturbed. W. M.

2. FO 78/96, ff. 120-23a [Consul-General Meyer's letter of 13 December 1820 to Sir Thomas Maitland, Britain's lord high commissioner in the Ionian Islands, depicted the growing unrest in Ottoman Albania and Epirus, a situation fueled not just by Ali Pasha's rebellion against the Sultan Mahmud II's government but by an anticipated uprising of Greek subjects.]

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Prevesa 13 th of December 1820 To His Excellency the Right Honorable Sir Thomas Maitland, His Majesty's Lord High Commissioner in Corfu Sir, Having just heard that His Excellency Lord Strangford, His Majesty's ambassador at the Ottoman Porte, was expected very shortly to touch at Corfu on his way to Constantinople, I beg leave to submit to Your Excellency's consideration whether it might not be expedient that I should repair to that island for a day or two to receive any commands or instructions which His Lordship might think fit to give me for my guidance in the actual very precarious state of affairs in this country. There are various points relating to His Majesty's consular office in Albania which cannot be settled without referring them to the embassy at Constantinople. And the present might be perhaps a favourable opportunity for bringing them under the consideration of His Excellency the ambassador, together with some other points essentially connected with the interests of the Ionian Islands, namely, the exactions and corrupt combinations resorted to for obstructing the export of the usual supplies for the consumption of the islands, merely with a view to throw the monopoly of contraband into the hands of the local authorities; secondly, the difficulties thrown in the way of arresting the banditti and other culprits at large in these parts; thirdly, the important question relating to Ionian property in this place. The two first points might be at once overruled and permanently provided for by obtaining the proper firmans from the Porte, similar in tenor to those which were granted heretofore to other powers in the Ionian Islands, and who certainly had far less claim to the attention of the Ottoman government than Great Britain. But all these matters may be considered perhaps as comparatively unimportant when contrasted with the actual state of this country and the dangers with which it now appears to be menaced; and I beg to remark that my hands cannot be strengthened by the circumstance of His Majesty's ambassador touching at a place so very close to my district, without my repairing there to receive His Lordship's commands, with a view to the better securing of the interests of His Majesty's subjects in these parts at this alarming crisis. I regret to inform Your Excellency that very serious apprehensions are now entertained of a counterrevolution taking place in Albania, unless by any favourable conjuncture of circumstances the present conflict at Ioannina should be speedily decided. In some of my former reports, I had occasion to remark that some elements of discontent existed in this country against the system pursued by the new Ottoman governors. But the voluntary separation of the

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inhabitants at large from the interests of Ali Pasha was then too recent to admit of their including him so immediately in any scheme of measures which they were desirous of adopting for their own general relief and advantage. Ali Pasha, however, having received information of the rising spirit of discontent in the country, has omitted nothing to turn it to his own advantage. He has now a considerable party in it; and generally speaking, the Albanians repent of their late conduct towards Ali Pasha. He has sent out emissaries with addresses to his partisans in all directions, couched in the most seductive language, and has supplied others with money. A very short time ago, four of his spies were taken, and on the persons of two of them, who were hanged, were found large sums in gold coin, larger than these persons could justify in any way short of their being intended as succour to the discontents. A plot of an extensive nature has been for some time in a state of preparation, and it is now said to be nearly ripe for execution. The ability and influence of His Highness Ismael Pasha have hitherto alone kept these parties in check, but it is with the utmost difficulty that he can now meet the crisis. His Highness's government at present is little more than nominal. Most of the individuals in place and in command are the old servants of Ali Pasha, and they are all labouring to effect his release with a view to obtain their own ends in the general confusion. Their service is nevertheless necessary to the pasha; and the abuses which they daily commit are either connived at or inadequately redressed. In the present temper and disposition of the sultan's army at Ioannina, it is difficult to calculate the probable termination of the actual contest. Nothing can surpass the languor and indifference shown by the commanders and by the troops on the occasion. The two principal outworks of the fort, a tower and the fortified height of Litaritsa. have been for some time past nearly dismantled by the besiegers, but they hesitate to occupy these positions from the fear of the explosion of mines, which they are said to contain. They are now making countermines. On the other hand, the pasha's garrison is as strong as at first. The communications on the side of the lake being open, he receives reinforcements of men and supplies of cattle. In the meantime, the demands for the supplies of the sultan's army and the public service continue to press most heavily on the people. They consider themselves as being treated with great injustice and unnecessary rigour. Seeing no probability of a termination of this state of things, and fearing that in the event of the sultan's gaining an absolute ascendancy over their country and their affairs, their condition will become much worse than it now is, when compared with that of the people in most of the other provinces in the Empire, it is understood that the Albanians and Greeks are now ready to rise

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en masse the moment they can see a favourable occasion for it and place themselves under a provisional government of their own formation, until the proper appeals can be made to the sultan on the subject of those causes which may have compelled them for their own preservation to take such a course. Viewing the great probability which exists at this time of some popular movement of this description taking place in the country against the sultan's authorities, I now beg leave to solicit Your Excellency's instructions for my guidance in the event of such an emergency. This state of things has been brought about chiefly by the impolitic measures pursued by the pashas who have been employed to act against Ali Pasha. The country has been outraged by the rapacity, the violence, and the contempt of all rights with which they have hitherto acted. The present situation of it has become intolerable to the people. It is the very reverse of what they were led to expect it would be from the promises and views held out in the firmans of the Porte denouncing the tyranny of Ali Pasha and calling on them to rise up in arms against him. The great difficulty to the execution of their present purpose is the want of a head and leader. At Tepelenli. the birthplace of Ali Pasha, a considerable body of Albanians has assembled. In August last, when Muctar Pasha [Ali Pasha's son] retired from Berat on that place, and at the time of his surrendering himself to the Porte, his second son Mahmud Bey, about twelve years of age, was retained by the independent party there. They have since refused to admit the new local governor appointed by His Highness Ismael Pasha to that district and they continue in a state of resistance to his authority. At Suli. the commandant of Ali Pasha has never deposed his command, but he has only promised to do so when Ali Pasha shall have surrendered himself or be overpowered. The Greeks continue to place their ultimate reliance on the countenance and support of Russia; and if that power should make any hostile demonstrations on the Turkish frontier while this crisis shall last in Albania, it would probably at once decide them to take up arms in their own cause. A popular insurrection, however, in this province under the present circumstances, would be productive of great evil and would plunge it into a state of anarchy, from which the worst consequences would result and the effect of which would be felt beyond its immediate frontier. The principal inhabitants, dreading these results, feel anxious only that the war of the Porte with Ali Pasha should be closed without delay, which would at once tranquillize the whole country.

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The Ottoman government is, I believe, fully apprised of the present state of affairs, as some of the seditious papers circulated by the emissaries of Ali Pasha have been sent to the Porte by His Highness Ismael Pasha. It is also affirmed on good authority that the government at Constantinople had strictly forbidden any person to speak on the affairs of Ali Pasha in the capital. I have the honour to be with perfect respect, Sir, Your Excellency's most obedient and humble servant, William Meyer, Consul-General P.S. Mr. [Hugues] Pouqueville..., consul of France for the Morea, arrived here a few days ago from Corfu, and on the 12th instant, he proceeded overland to Patras. Monsieur de St. André, late French consul at Napoli di Romania, is daily expected here to assume the consular functions in this district. He will fix his residence at Arta. Mr. Pouqueville mentioned to me that the new French ambassador at the Ottoman Porte, the Marquis de LatourMaubourg, would shortly arrive at Constantinople. 10 He described the new ambassador as being very superior in talent and diplomatic enterprise to his predecessor, a character which perfectly answers to the conduct of Monsieur Lautour-Maubourg when I had the honour of being with Mr. Adair's mission in 1809. The immediate object of Monsieur Pouqueville's appointment in a country where hardly any French trade is now carried on is not so immediately apparent. W. M.

3. FO 78/103, ff. 79-86a [These excerpts from Consul-General Meyer's letter of 15 March 1821 to Foreign Secretary Castlereagh dealt with Ali Pasha and the Suliotes, the state of affairs in mainland Greece, and the Philiki Etaireia (Society of Friends), the Greek conspiratorial society that planned the revolt for Greek independence.]

.... They [the Suliotes] foresee also that the fall of Ali Pasha must involve their own. At this moment, they consider themselves as the inevitable victims of this final desperate struggle for the rights and liberty of their country. Such are the present fears of the Suliotes and the dangers to which they are now exposed. On the other hand, they feel confident that the Greek people to a man and a large proportion of the Albanians desire their triumph and are anxious to contribute to it in every way which the favour of circumstances may admit of. And here, My Lord, it may be proper for me to say a few words on the subject of the secret society whose object is the liberation of Greece from thfi Turkish yoke. This society is known by the name of the [Philiki] Etaireia. It

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has been in existence for many years. It appears to have been reorganized after the subversion of the late revolutionary government in France in 1814. In that grand event, the Greeks saw the disappointment of all the hopes, which they had so long cherished, of recovering their national independence. At the Congress of Vienna, where they made their real intentions and views known to their friends who were assembled there, they received the plan of the Etaireia on which they have subsequently acted. Previous to this scheme of a national association among the Greeks for ameliorating their political condition, they were a good deal divided in their opinion as to the best means for attaining this great object. They had been disappointed in the connections which they had formed with some foreign powers. The Etaireia, however, which was planned after the most mature deliberation by a few of their countrymen illustrious by their talents, rank, and patriotism, and well known in Europe, gave a fixed and uniform direction to their common efforts. The machinery of the Etaireia is directed by a few powerful agents. The Greek clergy have hitherto been principally charged with the propagation of the doctrines and views of this society. Its funds are said to be very considerable. Ali Pasha discovered some of the members of this society in the year 1819 and obtained a sufficient insight into the general objects to enable him to counteract them within the sphere of his influence. He latterly denounced it to the Ottoman Porte, but under circumstances which greatly lessened the merit of the communication and awakened strong suspicions of the sincerity with which the important disclosure was made. It is difficult to penetrate into the interior movements of this secret society. A member can make another member of the fraternity with a reservation and reference to ulterior communications. But here the relation ends. The members may be thus individually kept insulated in the midst of the general society till they receive further instructions for their guidance. No visible external union exists. Yet in this country [Epirus] and in the Morea, the members are calculated at two hundred thousand persons, 11 all of whom are considered capable of forwarding the objects of the society by the property, talents, connections, or particular qualifications which they respectively possess. There is reason to believe that this society is now in the greatest state of activity, both in its internal and external relations. In the maritime republics of Hydra. Spetsae. [and] Psara. the merchants and commanders of vessels are almost all of them efficient members of this society. The Turkish navy is for the most part manned with Greeks, and the defection of these sailors in any doubtful case might prove fatal to the Turkish fleet. Private communications and supplies of ammunition are obtained through the means of the Greek traders in any quarter where the interests of the society may

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require them. The Etaireia has an active and powerful support in this class of the Greek people. There appears nothing in the Turkish system at this time which is adequate to counteract [the Etaireia's] progress and effects, which are daily sapping [the Empire's] foundations, and in the event of any great disaster befalling the Turks, such as the loss of a battle in this country [or] a foreign war, the dissolution of the sultan's power in these provinces may take place more suddenly than is generally imagined. Nothing can be more favourable to [the Etaireia's] advancement than the recent events and tendency of affairs in this quarter, more especially when coupled with the present revolutionary movements in Italy and in other countries. The Turks have lately shown a great alarm for their own safety and a distrust in their own resources. At Arta, in Prevesa, and in other towns, on the appearance of any danger from the insurgents, they have immediately sheltered themselves and their families in the forts. They have also required hostages in many places in an unusual manner. This conduct has only enabled the other parties to feel more sensibly their own increasing strength. It is the opinion of many well-informed persons that a crisis in the affairs of Turkey cannot be far off. The conduct of the Turks at least in this quarter seems strongly to indicate such an apprehension on their parts. All events which have a tendency to accelerate it are made a subject of anxious speculation. A recent extensive insurrection in Candia: some civil dissensions in the Morea: the preparations of the Turks to render their means of defense in the forts and castles available; meetings held among the Maniotes. who in the Morea are a more formidable body than the Suliotes of Epirus; a war said to have broken out between the Porte and Persia; the restlessness of the Serbians; the civil war in Albania; and the revolutions in Italy and in other countries, are all motives of the liveliest satisfaction to every individual in these regions who is not a Turk. The captains of districts, the former companions in arms of Ali Pasha, are known to have formed a league together, and they are all temporizing and evading as far as possible the execution of the orders sent to them by their superiors; for if the sultan's power should be established, they strongly apprehend that they may fall victims to those measures of policy to which the Porte may resort for ensuring in future the obedience and submission of all parties. Within the last month, many copies of a Greek translation of a paper, originally written in French, purporting to be directions to the Greeks for recovering and securing their national independence, have been partially circulated in the Morea. It is drawn up, I am assured, in the most acute spirit of Greek policy. No foreign government is mentioned, though it is known to

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be the production of an agent of one. I have not yet been able to obtain a copy of this paper. The most admired and affecting patriotic songs of the Greeks are also circulated in print and in some places openly sung by the natives. 12 These are among the circumstances which support the courage of the devoted Suliotes in this crisis of their own fate. It is on the Etaireia and its workings that they now chiefly depend for succour and support. Unless the new Turkish commander in chief, Khurshid Pasha, should succeed in reducing Ali Pasha within a few weeks after his arrival at Ioannina, and in striking terror into the multitude by salutary acts of real power, it is the general opinion that the sultan's authority cannot long be upheld in this province, looking to the military concert existing among the Albanian captains, the present revolutionary dispositions of the people at large, and to the natural strength of the country. Your Lordship will infer from this statement how strong a degree of interest attaches to the future fortunes of the Suliote guerilla[s], now nearly surrounded by the Turkish forces in their almost impenetrable defiles, and that their success, or at least their safety, might be secured if the least effectual support were now given to them, and which they are most earnestly soliciting in every quarter able to afford it. The Turkish vice-admiral, in alluding to their situation, has expressed to me his conviction of the advantages resulting to His Sovereign's cause in this part of his dominions from the good neighbourhood which he has met with in the government of the Ionian Isles, which on former occasions, when entrusted to other hands, fomented and profited by the dissensions and wars in this province. Should the Suliotes entirely fail, I have reason to believe that it is their intention to send deputies to Constantinople to solicit the interposition of the English, French, and Russian ambassadors in their behalf, inasmuch as the extreme hardship of their case is known to these courts, whose ministers and officers respectively afforded succour and protection to them when driven to seek an asylum at Corfu and in the other Ionian islands. Much blame is now attached to His Highness Ismael Pasha for not having conciliated the Suliotes and prevented their revolt. I have alluded to the causes of their defection in my dispatch to Your Lordship of the 25 t h of December last. The fact is, I believe, that the Albanians, who last year felt so desirous for a change of system after the long duration of the violent government of Ali Pasha, found themselves totally disappointed in their calculations when they saw the arbitrary conduct, the rapacity, and [the] inefficiency of the new pashas who were sent to reduce Ali Pasha. These officers mistook the character and circumstances of the warlike and wily

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Albanians. They perceived their mistake too late to prevent all the evil consequences arising from it. It is alone owing to the personal character and talents of Ismael Pasha that the mischievous consequences of it were not greater. He succeeded in reducing many districts to obedience and in conciliating others. But the Suliotes, who from the beginning had formed high pretensions and had felt disgust at some proceedings of Ismael Pasha towards them, were not so easily satisfied. They received at the same time the most flattering proposals together with large offers of money and ammunition from Ali Pasha. His own commandant in the fort at Suli had never deposed his command. By the acceptance of these proposals, they thought they might do much more than secure their own rights. The conjuncture appeared to them most favourable for throwing off the Turkish yoke altogether. Under these circumstances, it is hardly to be expected that His Highness Ismael Pasha, with dissensions and treason in the Ottoman camp, could have prevented their revolt by any concessions. The victory he obtained over the rebel forces on the 25 th of January [1821] amply redeemed the errors which he might have committed. If his measures have been impolitic, his best exertions on the other hand have been counteracted by the revolutionary parties to whom I have before alluded in this dispatch. The Suliotes are anxious to seek a motive of justification for their own conduct in the alleged injustice of Ismael Pasha in not returning to them their property as soon as they wished. But as to this demand, almost every other district lately under the government of Ali Pasha has a similar claim to set forth. It appears indeed that whatever may have been their grievances, they were already an instrument in the hands of a more powerful party whose object is to undermine the basis of the Ottoman Empire. However, from the turn which events have taken, it is supposed that Ismael Pasha will be eventually recalled from motives of general policy, and some reports have been already circulated to this effect, and Vidin is stated as the place to which he will retire. In respect to the siege of Ioannina, which has now lasted near seven months, no progress whatever has been made in it since the date of my last report of the 21 st of February [1821]. The correspondence which I then stated to have been opened between the new commander in chief, Khurshid Pasha, and Ali Pasha, on the approach of the former through Thessaly, with a view of establishing terms of capitulation, is still continued. At the same time, Ali Pasha has strengthened his garrison, which now consists of three thousand men, and has obtained further supplies of provisions. He has also been active in sending his emissaries to different places to encourage his partisans to persevere in the common cause, and it is known that he has very lately

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distributed half a million...gold Egyptian ducats to the captains of districts and others, whose cooperation is found necessary to his objects. Ali Pasha has had too long experience of the extreme venality of the Albanians not to turn it to his advantage on the present occasion. The Ottoman government, on the other hand, with a view to prevent the general spirit of revolt from spreading, has issued the most positive orders and injunctions to the pashas and commanders to treat the reaya [tax-paying Christian subjects of the sultan] on all occasions with lenity and justice and to pay justly and promptly the current expenses incurred by the war, for which sufficient funds have been appropriated. Firmans of the Porte have also been published in some places favourable to the claims of individuals, who had been unjustly deprived of their property; and general assurances have been given that all claims of this description will be eventually adjusted as soon as the events of the war will admit of their being referred to the competent officers to be employed in deciding such cases. Nothing indeed but the faithful execution of these orders can counteract the effects of that strong spirit of sedition and disaffection to the government which has been so generally excited by the present war and by the impolitic measures of those who were chiefly charged with the direction of it. I have the honour to be, My Lord, with perfect respect, Your Lordship's most obedient and humble servant, William Meyer, Consul-General

4. FO 78/103, f. 118 [This announcement (2 May 1821) from Ali Bey, commander in chief of the Ottoman navy in the Ionian Sea, to Consul-General Meyer described the Ottoman naval response to the Greek revolt in the Morea. Written in Greek, the declaration appeared in English, probably the work of a translator at the consular office in Prevesa.]

A rebellion accompanied by all the character of anarchy having broken out in the Morea and my powerful government having ordered forces to reduce the revolted subjects to obedience, the Morea has been and is declared to be under blockade with the exception of Lepanto, Patras, Navarin, Modon, Coron, Napoli di Malvasia, and Napoli di Romania, to and from which ports ships and vessels may go and come for the purposes of commerce. All other ports in the Gulf of Lepanto and in the Morea are blockaded by sea. I have the honour to communicate to you this information and to request that you will have the goodness to notify the same to the British subjects within your jurisdiction in order that they should not approach the blockaded places and that they respect this blockade accordingly.

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5. FO 78/103, ff. 120-26 [These passages from Consul-General Meyer's report of 9 May 1821 to Foreign Secretary Castlereagh detailed the collusion between residents of the Ionian Islands and Greek rebels in the Morea, one of the most problematic issues in Anglo-Ottoman relations during the Greek war.]

[Khurshid Pasha, commander in chief of Ottoman forces in Greece, complained about] abuses which a number of rebellious reaya of the Morea have made of the protection afforded to them in the Ionian Islands, by removing their wives and children from the Morea into the islands and afterwards returning alone with arms and ammunition to wage war against the Grand Seignior [sultan]. These practices have been partly detected by intercepted letters 13 addressed to the refugee reaya by the leaders of the insurgents in the Morea, who distinctly recommend to them to pursue this line of conduct.... I have lost no time in making the proper communication on this subject to His Majesty's lord high commissioner pro tem. at Corfu [Major General Frederick Adam], In answer to His Highness [Khurshid Pasha], I have informed him that with respect to my own district, it is an established rule, well known to all the local Ottoman authorities, not to grant any permission or passport to any person being subject to or connected with the Ottoman government to leave this country, unless the party applying for the same previously exhibits a license to quit the country, signed by the proper Ottoman magistrate, who in his turn observes the same rule in respect to British subjects; that with respect to the admission of these reaya and refugees into the Ionian Islands, I ventured to assure His Highness that the Ionian government, having in its wisdom foreseen the inconveniences which might arise during the actual unfortunate disturbances in these provinces from such a description of persons seeking an asylum in the Ionian states, had by recent proclamations and by special police regulations endeavoured to provide against them; and that by a reference to these acts (copies of which I enclosed), His Highness would perceive that all strangers were liable to exclusion who should not be provided with regular passports and offer the requisite securities for their good conduct.... [For point of emphasis on this issue, Meyer attached a copy of the instructions (20 th April 1821) from Lord Strangford, Britain's ambassador in Constantinople, to British consuls in Greece. Strangford ordered Meyer and other consuls not to grant passports] to the families (being reaya) of Ionian subjects, whom the latter may be desirous of sending away while they themselves remain behind. The departure of these persons under such circumstances creates considerable dissatisfaction at the Porte, where it is believed that the Ionians in thus seeking to disembarrass themselves of their

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families, have no other object than that of being able to engage with less rush and greater facility in the rebellious designs which are imputed by the Greek subjects of this government. [Meyer also enclosed an extract from the letter (6 th May 1821) sent by Khurshid Pasha, who claimed that Greek rebels from the Morea took their wives and children to the British-protected Ionian Islands for safe haven and then] returned to the Morea, armed and loaded with powder and ammunition. Such information is written by the chiefs themselves of the rebels in the Morea, as you will see by an intercepted copy of their writings, [and after reading it], you will agree with me that it is unbecoming [for] the said islands to suffer such things. The friendship which exists between my government and that of Great Britain being known, and also the treason of the Moreotes being known to everyone, they ought not to be permitted to go to the Morea in the above-mentioned manner.

6. FO 78/103, ff. 132-34a [Consul-General Meyer's dispatch of 20 May 1821 to Foreign Secretary Castlereagh summarized the main points of the memorandum written by the Ionian Greek Ioannis Kapodistrias ("Observations..."), Russian minister of foreign affairs and later first president of the modern Greek kingdom; this document argued that moral and spiritual enlightenment, not political violence, represented the correct path toward Greek national rejuvenation and political independence. In his account of the early stages of the Greek rising in the Morea and the Archipelago, Meyer foresaw the ferocity and obstinacy which characterized both sides in the ensuing Greek-Ottoman struggle.]

Prevesa 20 t h May 1821 To the Right Honorable Viscount Castlereagh, His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs My Lord, I have the honour herewith of enclosing [ff. 136-40a] the copy of the paper, which I referred to in my dispatch No.7 of the 15 th March [1821], as having been secretly circulated among the Greeks of the Morea some time previous to their revolt in that province on the 4 t h of April [1821], This paper is entitled "Observations sur les moyens d'améliorer le sort des Grecs," and it bears [the] date Corfu the 6/18 th of April 1819. 14 There is, I believe, little doubt of its being the production of Count John Capo d'lstria of Corfu. This minister, after an absence of many years, visited his family there in the spring of 1819. The general interest which his appearance in the neighbourhood of Greece awakened among all classes of the Greek people at that period is well known, and especially among those who had become members of the Etaireia, or society for liberating Greece from the Turkish yoke. So confident did the Greeks then feel of their own success, and

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of the support of a great power, that they already regarded the arrival of their distinguished fellow countryman in Corfu as the immediate forerunner of a declaration in their favour. So great indeed was their ardour and impatience to accelerate the development of their plan that it was with great difficulty that Count Capo d'Istria could restrain them from prematurely committing themselves in this most hazardous enterprise. He foresaw that any ill-advised movement of this kind would inevitably involve the Greek people and their cause in irreparable ruin. The real object of Count Capo d'Istria's communications with the Greeks at the time referred (and he had personal intercourse with many individuals of the greatest weight and influence in these parts of Greece) was to advise with them and to concert measures for gradually maturing the great scheme of their national emancipation. Finding, however, that a premature explosion was likely to take place, he saw the absolute necessity of immediately adopting measures to repress this over sanguine feeling and to open the eyes of his countrymen as to their real situation. The paper in question, it is believed, was drawn up for this immediate purpose. The aim of the writer is to show to his enslaved countrymen that their national reformation can never be substantially accomplished but by reestablishing a national character and that the latter can only be obtained by zealously pursuing an improved system of education in what more particularly relates to Christian morality, to letters, and to the knowledge and conduct of public affairs. The Greek clergy is pointed out as the primary and fundamental means by which this object can be most beneficially obtained. Every other tendency of the nation, under its peculiar circumstances, is denounced as pernicious in itself and destructive of its best hopes. These unpleasant truths, however uncongenial to the active revolutionary spirit among the Greeks, are qualified by the assurance that the nation has already gained much by having expressed its conviction of these truths and by the course which it has of late years pursued and is now pursuing; and it is remarked that whether Greece be destined to continue in her present situation for a length of time to come, or to undergo a crisis, this moral improvement of the people will prove of the utmost utility to their national welfare and interests. This paper evinces a deep knowledge of the Greek character and of the different causes which are likely to affect the destinies of that people. It is drawn up with the greatest temper, caution, and political sagacity. The writer appears to have borrowed largely from the principles of the Jesuits and the Puritans and to have considered a partial application of them as best calculated to compass the great end in view,

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namely, making Greece work out, by her own internal exertions and means, her own political redemption. This paper was translated into Greek, and it appears to have produced the effect intended, the retarding [of] a premature explosion of this deep-laid conspiracy. It was the ostensible document by which the directors of the Etaireia were enabled to conceal the real objects of their proceedings, especially with respect to the collecting of funds for the endowment of schools; to repress the excessive zeal of some of their members; and to justify the steps which they might take for gradually maturing the plan with which they were charged. Instead of exciting hopes by dwelling on the various resources and advantages which the Greek people already possess, it rather labours to expose their insufficiency and defects; and it closes with an emphatic warning to them to obey implicitly the commands of those who are most respected by the nation for their wisdom and knowledge and to regulate their conduct throughout by such principles as may alone secure them from the renewal of those dreadful national calamities, the remembrance of which is still fresh in their minds. As far as I have been able to inform myself, there appears still reason to believe that the revolt in the Morea took place about two months sooner than was intended. This circumstance alone prevented the insurgents from at once getting possession of that province and of its maritime fortresses by a coup de main, according to the pian which had been originally laid down. This has greatly embarrassed and disconcerted the insurgents, for the success of their plan was considered as mainly depending upon their wresting at once this peninsula from the hands of the Turks and [upon] making it the proper basis as well as rallying point on which to declare and defend their independence. By occupying the Morea, the naval armaments belonging to the islands in the Archipelago would have been immediately available for their ulterior objects, and the command in the Archipelago and over the ports of the western shores of Turkey would have been more easily secured. The design of the revolt in the Morea, however, was detected in time by the Turks to enable them to oppose considerable obstacles to the attack of the Greek insurgents. The struggle therefore will now become more obstinate, and a character of ferocity will be added to it, which will be extinguished only by the extermination of one or both of the contending parties. It is to be feared indeed that this fatal civil war, if not speedily suppressed, will be prosecuted with all the excesses and atrocities to which the infuriated and long-stifled passions of hatred and revenge, religious fanaticism, and patriotic enthusiasm can give birth. These countries have already suffered most severely by the war with Ali Pasha; but they are now likely to become the sanguinary theatre of

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indiscriminate havoc and desolation. This presentiment is general among all classes of the population, and it is the policy of the Turks to obstruct as much as possible those measures of relief which the unoffending part of the inhabitants would otherwise take for their own preservation. I have the honour to be, My Lord, with perfect respect, Your Lordship's most obedient and humble servant, William Meyer, Consul-General

7. FO 78/112, ff. 107-21 [In this communication from Corfu on 1 February 1822 to Robert Gordon, secretary of the British embassy in Vienna, Lord High Commissioner Maitland explained the strict measures taken by British authorities in the Ionian Islands, such as martial law and disarming the population, all part of an effort to enforce British neutrality in the Greek war and to restrain Ionian participation in the Greek cause.]

Sir, I have lately received instructions from Earl Bathurst [Henry Bathurst, secretary of state for war and the colonies] to keep His Majesty's embassy at Vienna informed of what passes here, with a view to enable it to correct misrepresentations which are afloat in Germany, and particularly at Vienna, in regard to the conduct of the Ionian government; and I shall not fail to do so to the utmost of my power, though great difficulty exists in respect to any mode of communication with you on which I can perfectly rely. These misrepresentations are of very old date. They began from the moment these islands fell under our protection and are to be ascribed to persons well known to you who had entertained other wishes and views in respect to their disposal; and from this sort of hostility great difficulties have in fact been thrown on the march and progress of the Ionian constitutional government in consequence of the Treaty of [Paris of] 1815. It would, however, be quite foreign to the intention of the present dispatch to go back to the transactions of any period now far distant, though it would be very easy for me to prove to you that for four years...past, since the constitution was established, as well as for the period which preceded them after the Treaty of Paris, nothing has been left undone by the parties alluded to, by falsehood or misrepresentation, to endeavour to prevent the creation of anything like British interest in these islands. Before the present revolution broke out, you are no doubt aware of the personal visit of a certain person at Corfu, and I am perfectly convinced it was the intention of the original movers to have commenced the work of revolution with the Greeks of the Ionian Islands, to pave the way for which every endeavour had been used to bring into disrepute the British government

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and to misrepresent and distort its conduct and its principles.15 It was in this manner, and in the view I have mentioned, that the insurrection at Santa Maura was prepared, as well as other partial disturbances in other places; but all such plans on the spot were easily defeated, though we did not escape the only vengeance left to these baffled machinators, that of calumniating and abusing the Ionian government and the British authority here. Farther than this it is not my intention to enter into any detail of what happened at so remote a period; and I only now have adverted to it to draw your attention to one of the constant deceptions that are now generally stated, namely, that the feelings lately excited in these islands are not to be ascribed to the revolution in Greece, but that the whole conduct of the British government has led to the present mode of thinking and acting. A greater falsehood than this cannot be stated. The conduct of the people here is now as different from what it was antecedent to the revolution, as light is to darkness. Before that event, every difficulty that occurred arose from the intrigues of the family and retainers of the person I have already alluded to. Since the revolution, every difficulty has arisen from the natural character of the people themselves, from the vicinity to those provinces now in a state of revolution and commotion, and from possibly not an unnatural but certainly a most uncontrollable prepossession in favor of what they termed the Greek cause. Since this revolution broke out in the Morea, which first began at Patras in April last, the Ionian government has naturally been placed in a situation the most arduous and embarrassing; but the line of conduct laid down for it by the British, which is by far the best that could be adopted, of perfect neutrality, has effectually preserved these islands from a participation in those scenes of tumult, confusion, and bloodshed, which are now carried to such an extent in the neighbouring Turkish provinces. In regard to the mode in which we have acted up to this neutrality, on no point has misrepresentation been more openly indulged. In respect to neutrality in general, on any subject whatever, it is a sort of conduct of which the natives in this part of the world have no just conception. If the Ionian government had barely sided with the revolutionists, I am in much doubt whether they would give us credit even for neutrality, unless we had gone to such lengths in their favor as to have violated every principle of neutrality and non-interference. The Ionian government, however, has of course not given way to any wish of either party, but has, I am convinced in the most careful and honest manner, persisted in a system of the most perfect neutrality. At first, it contented itself with notifying that any Ionians who should take part in the insurrection could not pretend to claim the protection of British consuls resident in any part of the Turkish dominions, but finding that this did not

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prevent them from joining in arms against the Turks, the government was constrained to adopt harsher measures; but this was not till a regular manifesto had been published in the Morea by persons stating themselves generals and chiefs of the united Zantiote and Cephaloniote forces. Nothing could be more against the intentions of the prime movers of the revolution in Greece than that these islands should not lend the most active assistance to the insurgents; and when they found that the government here was resolved, as far as lay in its power, to keep the people under its rule from embarking in the revolution and to preserve its own internal peace and tranquillity, nothing was left undone to vilify it and [to] misrepresent its motives, loudly declaring that it inclined in the most decided manner to favor the Turks. On the other hand, for a long time at Constantinople we were accused of favoring the insurgents, of which indeed some things that had passed seemed to afford apparent proof but which, when explained, were easily done away to the satisfaction of the Turkish government. But the most decided act which at once displays the real spirit of this government on the occasion is the measure of not permitting the armed vessels of any of the parties engaged in the present contest, or who may hereafter be engaged in it, to enter the ports of the Ionian Islands. And under this decisive measure (since found necessary by experience for our own tranquillity), a Turkish frigate was forced away from Corfu, as were also two Turkish armed vessels from Zante. Latterly too, another most decisive measure has been adopted, rendered necessary for the maintenance of our neutrality and to defeat the emissaries who were at work within the states to throw us into confusion and to embark the Ionians in the contest, namely, that of disarming the population of the several islands. I was not disposed to proceed to this measure at first; but averse as I was to act in any way so as to interfere with the prejudices and the habits of the people, yet I felt myself, after the most mature consideration, compelled to this decisive act. It was an affair at Zante that first obliged me to adopt the measure in that island, and it was afterwards extended to Cephalonia, Santa Maura, Ithaca, and Cerigo, in consequence of a strong disposition which had shown itself of the general prevailing enthusiasm and which might have produced acts of open rebellion, as was actually the case at Zante. In the enclosed Malta Gazette, you will see an exact statement of what happened in the island of Zante previous to the adoption of the measure; and you will see in the same gazette my proclamation after the operation of disarming had been effected; with equal quiet and success, it was subsequently performed in the other islands abovementioned.

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In Corfu, I am now about to proceed to disarm; and I have meant the delay here of the present measure (in the expediency of which measure the Ionian Senate most perfectly concurred with me) as a compliment deservedly due to the inhabitants of this island for their good conduct under the present circumstances. But though I am really impressed with a full sense of their merit on this point, yet I by no means am disposed to make an exception in their favor by not carrying into effect a general measure resolved on for all the islands, a measure not only called for by the actual situation of things but, I verily believe, more conducive to their ultimate civilization than any other that could have been adopted. I shall not fail, however, to carry it into effect in this island with every observance due to them for the propriety of their conduct heretofore, which has certainly been that of content and obedience. It is my intention then to finish this general measure in all the islands without exception during the course of the present month in order to bring it, and everything connected with the system of neutrality we have preserved, before the Ionian Parliament, which assembles the first of March, and then to ground legislative enactments on the principles which have guided us; and of course immediately to take off the martial law wherever it has been established, and without which in fact you must be aware it was impossible to have proceeded to the disarming of the population. Should anything material occur here before the meeting of Parliament, I shall not fail to keep you informed, and after the Legislative Assembly has met, I will send you an account of our proceedings. In regard to the reports that have been propagated everywhere to discredit the government, it might be well that you should be apprised that from the hour I came here up to the period of the late declaration of martial law, no execution of any kind had taken place, except three in the insurrection at Santa Maura; that from the time I arrived, there has not been an increase of taxation of any kind; that the general population in the islands were perfectly satisfied with their condition; and that all you hear relative to the harshness of the government is equally false and unfounded. Since the declaration of martial law at Zante, five executions have taken place under it, upon the clearest proof that they had actually fired on His Majesty's troops without the smallest provocation. And to show how different the state of things is in that island under martial law from what is represented, in several instances these executions took place without the presence of any of the military and were carried into effect by the civil police alone. The examples in the other islands were [:] in Cephalonia none, in Ithaca none, and in Santa Maura one, this latter for harbouring banditti who passed backwards and forwards from the neighbouring continent and who had committed many

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murders. It may be satisfactory just to state that in all these executions, the unfortunate parties themselves confessed their guilt. In Cerigo, I am not able yet to give you perfect information; but as far as I am aware, only five men have been executed for the perpetration of that unheard of enormity which took place in that island: enclosed I send you an account of it, as it may be possible that you have not yet seen it. 16 You must be better informed than I can be of what passes on the other side of Greece and at Constantinople; but it may not be amiss to inform you that I cannot entertain a doubt of the immediate downfall of Ali Pasha, that it appears the seraskier [Ottoman commander in chief] Khurshid Pasha is already putting troops in motion to proceed through Acarnania to the Morea, and that this force, should it reach its destination, will soon alter the present favorable appearance of the affairs of the Greeks in the peninsula. You will observe in the Malta Gazette enclosed an account of the barbarities practiced by the Greek insurgents on several occasions. The account of what happened at Tripolitsa is taken verbatim from a Mr. Gordon...who is now here, and of whom perhaps you may know something. 17 He gave it when he first quitted the Greeks and was received into the lazaretto of Zante. He was at that time ill and disgusted with the enormities he had so recently witnessed. He leaves this for Naples; but I think from what I have seen of him that he is very likely again to mix in the scenes of this revolution. I shall esteem it a great favor if you will inform me what is the best mode for sending my communications from this place to the embassy at Vienna.. .hoping to have the pleasure of hearing from you. I have the honor to be.... T. Maitland.

8. FO 78/126, ff. 10-12 [Consul-General Meyer's report of 23 February 1824 to Foreign Secretary Canning cited cases of captivity and ransom in the Greek war and detailed some of the reasons why Ottoman authorities mistrusted the British government's declaration of neutrality in the conflict; clearly, the active assistance and interference by British philhellenes, including Lord Byron, fed Ottoman suspicions.]

Prevesa 23 rd February 1824 To the Right Honorable George Canning, His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Sir, I have the honour of transmitting herewith copies of two letters, which I have just received from Prince Alexander Mavrocordato and Lord Byron 1 8 dated Missolonghi the 17th instant, soliciting my mediation towards inducing the Turkish authorities in this place to adopt on their part the same humane

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conduct, of which the two personages in question have afforded a signal example, by sending back free of ransom or expense twenty-one unfortunate Turkish women and children, who have been languishing in captivity at Missolonghi almost from the commencement of the insurrection. These individuals landed here yesterday from an Ionian boat; and I understand that they have expressed themselves to the local authorities as being under the deepest obligations for the humane offices which they experienced from the noble Lord above-mentioned, who at his own expense has succoured them and restored them to their own friends. I am sorry to state that the sentiments of confidence and regard, which the Turks in this quarter have so long manifested towards us, have latterly in a great measure yielded to the stronger feelings of suspicion and distrust in the sincerity of our conduct towards them, though I omit no opportunity in my power of combatting these unfavourable impressions and surmises. The chief source of their grievances arises out of the numerous acts of outrage so daringly committed by the Greek insurgents in this neighbourhood involving violations of our neutrality more or less serious, and which infractions have hitherto for the most part remained unexplained and unredressed. These grounds of mistrust have been of late greatly increased by the very active assistance and cooperation now rendered to the Greek insurgents by bodies of English volunteers under the direction of individuals of high rank and character. Within the last six weeks, the English volunteers at Missolonghi have assumed a leading influence in the management of the affairs of the insurgents; and they have acquired such popularity by their counsels and measures as to have excited the strongest jealousy in what is called the Russian party, which is now at variance with many of the native authorities, their former confederates, for having transferred their confidence, as they express it, to the English. During the last fortnight an English merchantman landed on the coast of Acarnania, at Dragomestro. a valuable cargo of ammunition and artillery, said to have been shipped in England, and considerable sums of money, remitted through the Ionian Islands, have been also recently expended in organizing troops and in equipping the Greek ships. This conduct now so openly pursued in favour of the Greek insurgents, the Turks ascribe to feelings of direct national hostility in the English against them, and they consider sometimes the friendship maintained by the British government with the Ottoman Porte as a mere cloak to accomplish designs, which cannot be avowed. Such is the language now held...by several of the principal Turks in this quarter.

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Under these circumstances, I felt some uncertainty how far the release of the Turkish female captives by the insurgents and their supporters at Missolonghi might be favourably construed by the local authorities and the public in their present temper of mind. But I have the satisfaction to state that I this morning received a visit from the governor, Bekir Aga, who expressed his thanks to those by whose means this humane act has been accomplished, and offering in return to release any Greek captives belonging to Missolonghi who might be in his power. He at the same time handed to me a memorandum concerning a female relative of his family at Anatolico and requesting that I would apply for her release. I am not without hopes, therefore, that these humane proceedings may have the beneficial tendency of mitigating in part the horrors of the actual calamitous warfare, though it is not natural to suppose that any single acts of this kind can materially allay the actual most exasperated state of feeling in both parties, and which the smallest provocation stimulates into frenzy. I beg leave to remark that although Lord Byron arrived in this neighbourhood last August, the enclosed letter is the only communication of any sort which I have received from his Lordship. I avail myself of this occasion to enclose a paper containing a copy of a letter addressed by his Lordship to the Greek provisional government at Missolonghi dated Cephalonia the 12th December last, which was published in the first number of the Missolonghi gazette (Hellenic Chronicle), of the 13th January, and containing several passages of importance. I received yesterday intelligence from His Majesty's lord high commissioner pro tempore from Corfu of the commencement of hostilities by Great Britain against the Regency of Algiers. I merely advert to this subject to remark that this intelligence, when it will be publicly known here, will still more agitate and distress the Turks. They consider the Algerian squadron, though small, as a most efficient part of their naval force to keep the Greek shipping in check; and the obstruction of this force at the present highly critical conjuncture will operate as a great diversion in favour of the insurgents, and their [the Turks'] prejudices will lead them to connect this fresh misfortune with the rest of those causes, which have so strongly excited their mistrust towards us. I may venture, however, to remark, on the other hand, that the pashas themselves frequently overstate the grounds of these unpleasant differences for the object of screening themselves from the odium of their repeated failures against the insurgents. I have the honour to be with perfect respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant, William Meyer, Consul-General

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9. FO 78/126, ff. 40-43a (Consul-General Meyer's account of 1 May 1824 notified Foreign Secretary Canning of Greek and Turkish reactions to the death of Lord Bryon at Missolonghi; infighting and sedition among Greek insurgent forces; and anticipated military plans of attack by both Greek and Turkish armies.]

Prevesa 1 st May 1824 To the Right Honorable George Canning, His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Sir, The information received here on the 27 th ultimo of Lord Byron's death at Missolonghi on the 19th or 20 th ultimo has plunged the Greeks into the deepest despondency, while it has relieved the Turks from a load of apprehension and alarm which of late has grievously pressed on their minds, occasioned by the late extraordinary proceedings of His Lordship in support of the Greek insurrection. 19 The great importance attached to His Lordship's late personal interference in this contest will be best inferred from the extraordinary sensation which his unexpected death has excited in both the contending parties. It is supposed that the fever of which His Lordship died after twelve days illness was brought on by excessive harass of mind and by the violent emotions produced by those treacherous and cruel plots hatched among the Greeks themselves.... Since Lord Byron embarked at Cephalonia on his voyage to Missolonghi at the close of last year, he has undergone the perils and hardships of shipwreck, danger of capture by the Turks, and infection by the plague, but the severest of his mortifications was no doubt the repeated acts of cruel treachery which he was destined to experience at the hands of those insurgents, on whom he most confidently relied for his personal safety and for the success of his plans in their behalf. Soon after he landed at Missolonghi, some of his own followers (who were officers of rank) were murdered in cold blood by the insurgents, who were receiving his pay; an example of barbarous atrocity, which at once disgusted and terrified a company of English artificers and gunners indispensable to his operations, and who immediately after left the service. In the last treacherous attempt by a party of the Greeks, he found himself compelled to fortify his own residence with field pieces, not to fall a victim of the insane passions and seditions of the multitude. In the midst of a chaos which he vainly attempted to vanquish, he has sunk overpowered by his exertions, which have mostly proved unavailing from having been so perfidiously counteracted.

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It is to be feared that the opinion expressed in a former [letter] has been already in part realized, namely, that the recent interference of the philhellenists would probably aggravate the situation of the Greek insurgents unless promptly followed up by some further powerful foreign succour. The intelligence subsequently received of the private loan negotiated in London for the service of the Greeks 20 certainly diffused fresh vigour among them; and in consequence of the means thus placed at their disposal, a general assembly of the chiefs was ordered to be convened at Salona at the beginning of last month for the object of making definitive arrangements for the ensuing campaign, but the foul conspiracy discovered at Missolonghi at the same period and the subsequent death of Lord Byron there will—it is supposed—have frustrated those intentions. The following, I have been informed, is part of the plan of operations for the ensuing campaign, which Lord Byron was anxious to execute, namely, to embody forthwith a regular corps of 8,000 Greeks to be employed as follows: a division of 2,000 men to occupy the strong defiles between Arta and Ioannina. with the view to cut off all the communications of the Turks by that main route and to afford an opportunity to all the Greeks in the adjacent districts to revolt and [to] support the common cause; a second division of 2,000 men to advance and to occupy the great pass of Metsovo commanding the extensive line of communications between Thessaly and Albania; and a third division to occupy the populous Greek district of Zagori. to deprive the Turks of the resources which they draw from that quarter, and to support the division at Metsovo. The whole Greek population to the confines of Macedonia would thus be placed in a favourable situation to revolt and [to] extend the sphere of the insurrection. These movements were to be supported by seventy sail of Greek ships from Hydra and Spetsae and Psara. of which a strong division was to cruise along the Turkish coasts in the Adriatic to harass all the Turkish communications by land and sea on that frontier, more especially those of the pasha of Scutari, who is expected to send convoys of provisions, stores, and troops coastwise to Prevesa to support his army, which is again prepared to advance against Missolonghi by the route of Ioannina and Arta. Such, I have been informed from a good source, was part of the general plan suggested by Lord Byron for the ensuing campaign; but some of those who were immediately connected with it have since expressed their doubts as to its practicability subsequent to the untoward events which have occurred to disconcert those combinations. Amidst the universal anarchy and sedition which prevail throughout the Greek provinces, the insurgents seem to place their chief hope for escaping from the evils of this actual situation on the

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usual presumption that the Turkish commanders will again evince the same incapacity as heretofore in moving the incoherent masses and the unwieldy machinery, which the Ottoman Porte has prepared afresh to be directed against them. As far as the plan of the Turkish campaign against the insurgents is known, it appears that it has been formed with much greater caution and skill than heretofore and that the land forces will consist essentially of the five following corps: first, the Scutarine army, calculated at 20,000 men, to advance direct through Albania and Arta against Missolonghi; second, the army of Omar Pasha, calculated at 10,000 men, to advance from Ioannina into Attica; third, the army of Dervish Pasha, the newly appointed seraskier at Larissa, estimated at 20,000 men, to advance through Zeitun on Salona: fourth, the army of His Highness Yussuf Pasha, to be composed of the forces now under his command on the Patras station and 11,000 janissaries, to be landed in the Morea from the Turkish fleet; fifth, the army of Mahomet [Muhammad] Ali Pasha of Egypt to be disembarked from his fleet on the Morea and to be commanded by Ibrahim Pasha, the son of the viceroy. The whole of these corps are said to have been already put in motion for their respective destinations. By the latest accounts from Missolonghi, affairs there continued in a very distracted state, and it is said that Prince Mavrocordato was in much personal danger from the vindictive feelings of several Greek captains who were connected with the late conspiracy. On the 25 th ultimo, an English brig arrived at Zante from England with specie to the value of two hundred thousand dollars for the service of the Greek insurgents. Of this sum, thirty thousand dollars are said to have been struck with a new national Greek die. A division of the Ottoman fleet is shortly expected to arrive off Patras with a number of flat-bottomed boats for the object of attacking Missolonghi. I have the honour to be with the greatest respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant, William Meyer, Consul-General

10. FO 78/126, ff. 72-74a [Consul-General Meyer continued to update Foreign Secretary Canning on Ottoman Turkish resentment and acrimony toward Britain, especially since the activities of British philhellenes during the Greek struggle seemingly violated the British pledge of neutrality. Meyer noted that Greek loan monies, collected in Britain, had been deposited in the Ionian Islands, prompting the British Ionian protectorate to repeat its declaration of neutrality and thus to reassure the Ottoman government of its official stance.]

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Prevesa 29 th June 1824 To the Right Honorable George Canning, His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Sir, I have the honour of enclosing the copy of a letter dated the 19 th instant addressed to me by His Majesty's lord high commissioner at Corfu, transmitting several copies of a proclamation under the same date, issued by the Ionian government, protesting against certain arbitrary clauses contained in a decree of the insurgent Greek government dated Argos the 27 th of April, whereby the two Ionian islands Zante and Cerigo were declared by the insurgents to be the places of deposit for the proceeds of the Greek loan negotiated in London. I lost no time in complying with the instruction of Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Adam, by transmitting copies of the said proclamation to the several viziers in command at Ioannina. Larissa. Lepanto. Patras. and other places. Although the lamented event which terminated Lord Byron's enterprises in Greece, and the subsequent retirement of the more distinguished English philhellenists who were associated with him, had in a great degree relieved the apprehension and appeased the excessive irritation of the Turks occasioned by such direct interference in their affairs, still the remittances made from England on account of the Greek loan, and especially the fact of such remittances being deposited in the Ionian Islands for the use of the insurgents, kept up the ferment and the angry resentful feelings of the Turks towards us. The Greeks lost no opportunity of still further exciting those feelings by spreading plausible reports as to the receipt and distribution of this English money at Missolonghi. at Hydra, [and other places], reports which remained uncontradicted by any positive evidence. The issuing of the declaration of the Ionian government of the 19th ultimo was, therefore, a most necessary and most salutary measure, ... correcting the evil complained against by asserting the neutrality of the Ionian States. As a proof of the hostile feelings which all this direct interference and cooperation on the part of the English philhellenists has produced on the minds of the Turks, I may state the following curious circumstance. Early last month after the arrival here of several Turkish officers from Constantinople, charged with various commissions, the governor, Bekir Aga, while taunting an Ionian merchant (with whom he has concerns) with the open breaches of neutrality in the Ionian Islands in favour of the Greeks, mentioned to him, with a mysterious air, "that the Turkish government had almost lost all its confidence in the English nation but that it hoped soon to set all matters to right; inasmuch the Americans, having lately applied to stipulate a Treaty of

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Amity and Commerce with the Ottoman Porte, had received for answer that if they would counteract the designs of the English in emancipating the rebellious Greeks and support the interests of the Turkish government, by forcing a strict observance of the neutrality on the part of other powers as to the affairs of the Greeks, they would be admitted by the Porte into relations on the footing of the most favoured nations." 21 During the last two years the Turkish communications by sea between Prevesa and Patras have been exceedingly hazardous, owing to the Greek ships and corsairs. Through this channel the Ottoman Porte has been constrained to send the treasure for the pay of the garrisons and squadron in the Gulf of Lepanto, its dispatches, and its confidential officers and Tartars. I have frequently had representations made to me by Turkish officers employed in these various services of their government as to the rigourous treatment which they allege to have experienced in Ionian ports, when compelled by stress of weather or other unavoidable necessity to put into them for shelter. They have complained of experiencing difficulty in obtaining even small supplies of water. The Turks are certainly little disposed to study or comprehend the principles and practice of sanitary laws and of political neutrality; or they would be able to explain in a less injurious sense the want of hospitality, of which they complain in the Ionian Islands, though it is not to be expected that the Greek population in those islands would ever be too ready to sacrifice their strong national prejudices to such acts of courtesy during the pending hostilities in Greece. These hardships have much indisposed the Turks towards us, though I have generally had the satisfaction of explaining away many wrong impressions and of relieving their acrimonious feelings. The Algerian war is also a subject of their deep regret, but this is altogether an inferior consideration when compared with the late direct hostile cooperation of the British philhellenists in favour of their revolted subjects, the Greeks. The late renewal of the declaration of the neutrality of the Ionian government, combined with other general circumstances of a tranquillizing nature to the Porte, will—it is probable—shortly efface the very unfavourable impressions which the Turks have of late conceived against the English name. By the last accounts from Zante to the 15th of June, the whole sum remitted on account of the Greek loan deposited there amounted to four hundred thousand dollars; and the ultimate disposal of these funds kept the etairists [members of the Philiki Etaireia] in a state of great agitation and ferment. I have the honour to be with perfect respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant, William Meyer, Consul-General

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11. FO 352/11, ff. 261-67 [This dispatch of 30 April 1825 from Consul-General Meyer to Foreign Secretary Canning touched on several key topics relating to military conditions in western Greece: recent Ottoman military successes in the provinces of Acarnania and Aetolia; defections and disorders of Albanian forces in the Ottoman army; that army's anticipated capture of Anatolico and Missolonghi; Greek piracy as a threat to Ottoman supply and provision transports; and violations of British neutrality by Ionian vessels that ferried Greek refugees and fugitives to island safe havens.]

Arta 30 April 1825 Sir, Since I had the honour of transmitting my preceding dispatch dated the 4 t h instant announcing the opening of the campaign in western Greece, His Highness the seraskier pasha [Khurshid Pasha, commander in chief] has been indefatigable in completing his preparations for advancing into Acarnania. and on the 19th instant, he broke up his headquarters here and passed through the Macronoro Pass to Caravaserra. The effective strength of this army is at present estimated at 25,000 men, and another body of 5,000 men actually on their march from Iskiup and Ochrida. and who are expected to join during the next fortnight, will carry the total amount to 30,000 men. In my dispatch No.4 of the 25 th of February, I had the honour to state from the best sources of information which I could then consult that the army intending] to act in western Greece would consist of 30,000 men, an estimate which now appears to have been correctly made. This army is composed essentially of the following description of troops: 10,000 Osmanlis, 10,000 Ghegs, [and] 10,000 Albanians. The rumeli valesi [Ottoman commanding officer] is said to have shown great sagacity in this composition of his forces, inasmuch as the three distinct bodies of troops of which they are composed are calculated to act as mutual checks on the temper and views of each other respectively. But the main consideration has been to constitute the chief mass of its strength of troops having little or no connection whatever with the Albanians or with the insurgent Greeks. The secret intelligence which heretofore was kept up between the two latter nations will be thus in a great degree rendered unavailable to either of the parties during the operations of the present campaign, while the numerical inferiority of the Albanian levies in respect to the whole body of the army will tend to frustrate the success of any new schemes of defection or treachery which they might meditate. The deep sagacity which has been shown in these combinations has been evinced by the results of seraskier pasha's first operations. The Greeks, no longer able to calculate on the secret support of the Albanians, on perceiving the columns of the Turkish forces advancing against them, retired, contrary to the general expectation, from all their positions without offering

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any effectual resistance. It is now several days since the whole of the provinces of Acarnania and Aetolia. up to the walls of Anatolico and Missolonghi. have been in the complete possession of the Turkish forces. In the course of those movements, opportunities were offered to the seraskier pasha to ascertain the real dispositions of several corps of Albanians, whose chiefs, having been active members of the late disaffected league under Omar Pasha Vrioni, required an additional degree of vigilance. Having received orders to advance and [to] occupy certain positions, these suspicious and refractory chiefs immediately conceived that the orders in question were issued by the seraskier pasha for the object of isolating them in order to get them more effectually into his own power. After taking counsel together, they remonstrated against the orders issued to them, assigning several plausible grounds for such demur, and more especially that of the real scarcity of provisions in the camp at the time: and they finally declared that as they had taken the field on the understanding that they were to serve together in one body, they could not consistently, with their engagements among themselves, continue their services if they were to be divided into separate detachments. The seraskier pasha, convinced of their sinister designs, at once adopted the alternative suggested; and he dismissed them in a body from the camp, intimating to them at the same time that when he should want them, they would learn that he knew how to make his orders reach them. In this manner, six or eight chiefs [including] Maxoud Aga, Tzelio Pizari, Selso Mezzo, Hassan Belussi instantly quitted the camp in Acarnania in disgust, with their respective divisions amounting in all to about four thousand men, and today they re-passed the outskirts of this town on their march home. It is considered that the timely dismissal of these refractory corps of disaffected Albanians has consolidated the strength of the seraskier pasha's forces, and the quick manner in which they withdrew evinces that they felt their own relative inferiority, as well as their incapacity any longer to carry on with advantage to themselves the double part which they have hitherto performed. The seraskier pasha thus far appears to have rendered himself independent of the disaffected portion of the Albanians and to have frustrated their artful machinations to counteract his movements at the very commencement of the campaign; and in this manner, His Highness has removed another of the serious difficulties with which he was surrounded. On the other hand, he has omitted nothing in his power to conciliate the confidence of the sounder part of the Albanians by whom he is supported. But notwithstanding all these firm and prudent measures, very little confidence can be placed on them; and their conduct, it is supposed, will be mainly influenced by the fortunes of the Turkish arms in other quarters.

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The entire provinces of Acarnania and Aetolia being now in the possession of the seraskier pasha, and with his forces hitherto untouched, the more important operations for the reduction of Anatolico and of some outworks there and before Missolonghi now occupy the army previous to its investing Missolonghi and commencing the siege of that now important place, on the result of which it is now generally admitted the issue of the actual contest in Greece essentially depends. 22 It is, however, the general opinion that little or no impression will be made on Missolonghi without the vigorous cooperation of the Turkish fleet, the arrival of which on that station cannot, according to advices from Constantinople of the 20 t h instant, be expected before the close of next month. When the Turkish columns advanced from Epirus into Acarnania at the beginning of this month, the Greeks, as I have had the honour before to state, unexpectedly abandoned all their positions, though guarded by several of their best and most experienced captains. They indeed appear to have done little more than cover the retreat of the Greek population en masse, of which from twelve to fourteen thousand souls are said to have taken shelter in the neighbouring islands along the coast. This latter event has caused the Turkish commanding officers to make several very strong representations to the seraskier pasha, more especially as numbers of vessels bearing the Ionian flag were seen by them most actively engaged in transporting the fugitive population into the neighbouring Ionian dependencies. The correspondence which I had the honour to hold with His Majesty's lord high commissioner at Corfu on this subject, in consequence of communications made to me by the seraskier pasha, it will be my duty to transmit in a distinct dispatch. In the meantime, His Highness has apprised me of his intention to send an officer to Corfu charged with a special mission to request the necessary explanations on the subject, which involves, in the view taken of it by the Ottoman authorities, such a flagrant violation of neutrality as to amount to a systematic cooperation in favour of the Greeks, and the effects of which are represented as destructive of the efforts of the Porte (now making...an immense expense) to pacify the revolted provinces. It is indeed distinctly declared by the Ottoman commanders that so long as the insurgent Greeks can procure shelter for the mass of the population with their moveables in the neighbouring Ionian dependencies when pressed by the Ottoman forces,... the Porte cannot expect to restore tranquillity to the country or reduce the insurgents. These occurrences, I regret to add, have irritated afresh the feelings of all classes of Turks and have shaken still more their confidence in the sincerity of our professions.

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In regard to the supplies of provisions requisite for the large army now assembled under the rumeli valesi in western Greece, it appears that this essential branch of the service was to be provided for by the transport board at Constantinople, and a number of ships under neutral flags (and chiefly Austrian) were duly taken up and dispatched by the merchant contractors with the necessary supplies. Only four of these ships (two Austrian, one Russian, and one Ionian) have hitherto arrived at Prevesa, and about a fortnight ago the utmost alarm prevailed owing to the supplies on hand having been exhausted. By great exertions and heavy loss, some supplies were obtained from the markets at Corfu and Zante, and the difficulty was removed for the time. But much uneasiness still exists in this respect, as it appears certain that several of the neutral ships above referred to have been intercepted by the Greek cruisers on their voyage from Constantinople. The scarcity was such that the inhabitants of Prevesa were without bread for above ten days; and thus, for want of the precaution in providing a small reserve magazine of provisions at that port during the winter, the whole Turkish army after its arrival in this quarter was on the very eve of being disorganized by the effects of famine. As the main body of the army has now concentrated before Missolonghi. the supplies wanted will be sent to that coast. For several details connected with the subjects of this dispatch, I have the honour to refer to the annexed extracts of letters addressed by me to His Excellency His Majesty's lord high commissioner at Corfu. I have the honour to be with perfect respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant, William Meyer, Consul-General

12. FO 352/11, ff. 269-75a [Consul-General Meyer's letter of 30 May 1825 to Foreign Secretary Canning recounted Ottoman military operations in the area of Missolonghi and the difficulties of relying on Albanian forces.]

Prevesa 30 May 1825 Sir, In my dispatch No.9 of the 30 th ultimo, I had the honour to inform you that the whole of the provinces of Acarnania and Aetolia. up to the walls of Anatolico and Missolonghi, were in the complete possession of the Turkish army under the command of His Highness the seraskier Reshid Mehmet Pasha. In those movements, the only affair of any importance was the reduction of a redoubt at Kefalo-Vrisi. in front of Anatolico, which the Greeks, after a vigorous defense of three days, were obliged to abandon. The

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Turks are said to have had between two and three hundred men killed and wounded in that attack. On the 3 r d instant, the seraskier moved his headquarters from Caravassera on the Gulf of Arta, and on the 6 th instant, he established them in a position midway between Anatolico and Missolonghi. The communications with Patras were opened at the same time through Lepanto. and the vizier, Yussuf Pasha, crossed over from the Morea castle to give the seraskier pasha the meeting and to concert their operations. On the 12th instant, he returned to the Morea castle, and a body of six hundred cavalry accompanied His Highness to be placed under the command of Delhi Achmet Pasha in command at Patras. Several Turkish corps which had been ordered to advance through the strong and difficult country to the left of the seraskier pasha, having met with no very serious resistance, subsequently concentrated near Missolonghi, where the trenches were forthwith opened, and about the 15 th instant the Turkish lines were within half musket shot of the ramparts of that place. The Greek garrison is stated to consist of from three to five thousand men. The families, after the first shells were fired into the town about the 20 th instant, betook themselves to the boats which they had retained for the occasion, and they are waiting in that situation to effect their escape on the first approach of the Turkish fleet. Many of these families have already taken refuge in the Ionian dependencies of Calamos and [other islands]. The seraskier pasha, having thus early in the season succeeded in closely investing Missolonghi on the land side with an army of twenty thousand men, is now waiting, as it appears, the arrival of the sultan's fleet under the kapudan pasha [admiral and commander of Ottoman navy] to cooperate in the general bombardment and assault of the place. The ordnance for this service is said to be on board the fleet. The few mortars and guns now employed before Missolonghi were brought up from Lepanto. Independent of the approaches made against Missolonghi, the seraskier pasha has also executed some important movements for securing his flank and rear and for opening his communications with the left wing of the army in Livadia under Abas Pasha. This latter object was effected after a severe action with the Greeks at Salona. The official intelligence of the capture of that important position by the kheya bey [lieutenant] was received here on the 24 th instant, and it was announced to the public under a salute from the batteries. The Greeks are stated to have lost in that action about 450 men in killed and prisoners, including three or four of their captains. A detachment of the troops of His Highness Yussuf Pasha cooperated, it is said,

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in that attack by effecting a landing at Galaxidi. The Greeks after this affair are stated to have retired from Phocis in the direction of the Isthmus of Corinth. These movements of the Turkish forces against Salona. although finally successful, were at one time much impeded by the treacherous conduct of some corps of Albanians who, in passing through several districts in the neighbourhood which had previously submitted, did not scruple to pillage them, and they thereby occasioned a reaction which was not put down without much bloodshed. The seraskier pasha felt the utmost indignation at the fresh instance of the faithless conduct of the Albanian troops, and the consequence was that some more Albanian chiefs with about two thousand men were dismissed from the camp. Having secured an ample booty with slaves, they were deaf to all further orders, especially those for restoring the plundered property and enslaved families. The celebrated Ago Vazari (who was at the head of the late league in Albania and is now the kheya [lieutenant] of the pasha of Berat) was immediately summoned to the headquarters to account for these atrocious acts, at which he is supposed to have connived. The Albanians, when they found it their interest to abandon Omar Pasha Vrioni at the close of last autumn and to adjust their affairs to a certain extent with the Ottoman Porte, appear to have adopted those measures merely as temporary expedients to relieve themselves from the immediate pressure of their own domestic factions and dissensions. Having effected this main purpose, they reserved to themselves to forego, as far as circumstances might enable them, all their engagements to cooperate in the war against the Greeks, which it is their special interest to keep alive. They calculated on being able to play off all their former wiles and shifts and, while making great demonstrations for attacking the Greeks, to counteract in reality all the operations of the Ottoman Porte to reduce them. The statements made in my dispatches of the 2 n d and 30 th ultimo show, however, that the real temper and views of the Albanians were well understood by the seraskier pasha and that he had adopted the best measure, which the circumstances admitted of, to provide against the dangerous effects of their bad faith during the present campaign. For once, they appear to have found an overmatch in the sagacity and vigour [and] in the resources and the personal experience of Reshid Mehmet Pasha, whose abilities they now compare to those of the late Ali Pasha. The number of Albanians, who either have been peremptorily dismissed from the camp or have had other motives for returning home since the 25 t h ultimo up to the present time, is estimated at not less than six thousand, being more than a third of the whole levy which was raised.

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After these fresh proofs of bad faith and defection, the Albanians cannot expect to be treated with much forbearance by the Porte in the event of its arms finally triumphing in this campaign by the reduction of Missolonghi. But in the actual state of the siege, both parties are obliged to dissemble their feelings towards each other: the Albanians from being overawed by the actual superior forces of the seraskier, and the Turks from not having it in their power to punish those refractory chiefs so long as Missolonghi remains unreduced. Under these imperious circumstances, the Albanians take scarcely less interest than the Greeks themselves in whatever may conduce to baffle afresh the Turkish power before Missolonghi; and the secret modes by which they are working to cause fresh discomfitures to the Turks in the present campaign furnish the best support to the Greeks during this great crisis of their struggle. The Albanians, in the meantime, perceive with the utmost mortification that the seraskier pasha's army continues as strong as when it first advanced from Arta. for the defection of their own corps has been fully replaced by other divisions of Ghegs and Scutarine troops, including one thousand cavalry, which have passed through Arta during the last three weeks to join the camp before Missolonghi. Convoys with large treasures from Constantinople continue to arrive at Arta for the service of the seraskier, and large supplies of ammunition and stores from the interior are also forwarded through the same route. The provisions for the army continue to be chiefly sent from hence through Caravassera. from which place they are transported across Acarnania upon camels with the commissariat train. It was the seraskier pasha's wish that the provisions which he drew from hence should be sent by sea to Kreo-Neri. a small haven a few miles to the east of Missolonghi, and His Highness addressed to me, and I believe to the other consuls resident at this place, letters to request that vessels might be cleared out for that quarter. But as the navigation in question was not considered safe in consequence of the small Greek privateers which are known to harbour in those waters, I did not deem it consistent with my instructions from the Ionian government to grant the clearances in question. The circuitous route through Caravassera is, therefore, the only sure channel at present open for supplying the large Turkish army in western Greece. In executing this branch of the service, the Turkish commissary general...who resides here has hitherto experienced the utmost embarrassments in consequence of the non-arrival of by far the greater part of the grain and flour shipped at Constantinople for this port. There is now no longer any doubt that above twelve or fifteen foreign ships, chartered at Constantinople to convey provisions to this port, have been intercepted by the Greek cruisers and carried into Napoli di Romania. The ships laden with flour

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have been more especially an object of their capture, and the greatest inconvenience has been occasioned to the seraskier pasha by this unexpected scarcity of bread in his camp, though in other respects it is well supplied. According to all accounts, the success of the Greeks by sea has not been limited to the capture of the provision-ships above named, since it is understood that early this month they effected off Modon by means of their fire vessels the destruction of several ships of war of the Egyptian fleet, together with many transports; and this reported naval success is considered as some set off for the loss of the maritime fortress of Navarin. which is said to have finally surrendered by capitulation to the arms of Ibrahim Pasha after a three-month most obstinate and most destructive siege to both parties. On the whole, though the first movements of this campaign have been attended with considerable success to the Turkish arms, still it cannot be dissembled that the situation of their forces is still one of considerable difficulty and danger, and any want of timely naval cooperation to support the seraskier in the siege of Missolonghi may be productive of signal reverses. Up to this date, no advices have been received of the arrival of the kapudan pasha's fleet off the Morea. I have the honour to be with perfect respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant, William Meyer, Consul-General

13. FO 352/12A, ff. 189-92 [These selections from Consul-General Meyer's l e t t e r (26 April 1826) to John Bidwell, superintendent of the consular service in the Foreign Office, discussed the fall of the fortress at Missolonghi to a combined force of Turkish and Egyptian troops and the resulting casualties.

]

[After detailing the assault against the besieged Greek garrison which, already weakened by famine, refused to surrender its arms, Meyer claimed that] the numbers of killed outside and within the works amounted on the 24 t h [April 1826] to between 2 and 3,000 souls. The number of women and children made captives amounts to between 4 and 5,000. Previous to the Greeks taking the desperate resolution of cutting their way through the enemy's ranks rather than capitulating], they permitted themselves to have recourse to measures for getting rid of the sick, the wounded, and the aged of both sexes, [measures] at which humanity revolts. About a week previous to the failed night of the 22 n d [April], the editor of the Hellenic Chronicle, Dr. Jacob Mayer of Hanover [a Swiss philhellene], together with four or five more Europeans of merit and character who had embarked their fortunes in the [Greek] revolution, are said to have put a period

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to their own existence, being no longer able to witness the scenes of horror which surrounded them!! The bands of Suliotes are chiefly accused of having plunged the innocent population into such an abyss of unspeakable misery by obstinately refusing to listen to any terms of capitulation, though repeatedly renewed to them, after all further resistance was utterly hopeless.... Thus after five years of warfare, Missolonghi, which had risen into a place d'armes and become the bulwark of the revolted Greek provinces, has been converted into a heap of ruins, but from the dispositions already made by the Ottoman commanders in chief, it appears that the works will be speedily repaired and that a permanent garrison of Osmanli troops will be henceforward established in that place. The fall of Missolonghi, it's expected, [will] lead to the speedy suppression of the Greek war. It has already put an end to the ascendancy so long maintained by the disaffected Albanian chiefs in a manner so prejudicial all along to the interests of the Ottoman Porte; and the Albanian troops, full of confusion and alarm, are now marching down in large numbers as volunteers to offer their services to the seraskier pasha....

14. FO 352/12A, ff. 197-98 [This extract from Consul-General Meyer's letter (11 May 1826) to Major General Joseph Rudsdell, secretary to the lord high commissioner on Corfu, mentioned Greek slaves in Prevesa and Arta.]

.... Numbers of the unfortunate Greek slaves from Missolonghi are arriving here [Prevesa] and at Arta daily. Those who have no relations or friends to assist them in collecting the ransom money demanded are publicly sold by auction....

15. FO 352/12B, ff. 160-61a [This dispatch of 16 May 1826 from Richard Green, British consul in Patras, to Ambassador Stratford Canning at the Porte provided details on the fall of Missolonghi.]

.... The subject of the greatest importance that has occurred lately is the taking of Missolonghi by Ibrahim Pasha on the night of the 22 nd [April], The garrison [was] reduced to the last extremity for want of provisions but still refused all offers of capitulation, always depending on the exertions of the fleet for relief. Being, however, disappointed in this, they at last took the resolution of attempting their escape during the night of the 22 n d , but the Turks being informed of their intention took every means to prevent its success. In consequence, on a signal being made from the mountains in the rear of the Turkish camp by the Greeks, the garrison made the sortie by means of a wooden bridge thrown over the ditch, and it is supposed that about one

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thousand of the Suliotes and other troops made their escape; but the bridge giving away and the alarm being spread in the Turkish camp, the rest of the inhabitants were made prisoners or sacrificed. Great numbers of women and children were drowned in the ditches....

16. FO 352/12A, ff. 201-06 [These extracts from Consul-General Meyer's communiqué (30 May 1826) to Major General Joseph Rudsdell, secretary to the lord high commissioner on Corfu, cited British requests to Ottoman authorities for restitution of British and Ionian trade damages in Ioannina, Arta, and Prevesa.]

.... The amount of [the claims] may be considered indeed as trifling, but it is the principle of the claims which it is important to assert. I am aware, however, that if any sinister events should take place to weaken again the supreme authority of the vizier [of Ioannina] in this distracted country, the farmers of the customs will feel no scruple in renewing their habitual extortions.... Illegal duties and charges had, I found, been levied by the Turkish collectors [at Missolonghi] on several Ionian boats which had arrived there.... These abuses I succeeded in checking at the outset, and the duties of customs and the port charges were placed on the same footing as at Prevesa. [Meyer broached the possibility of renewing Britain's vice-consular appointment in Missolonghi in order to represent British commercial interests. The fighting between insurgent and Ottoman troops forced the British to recall their vice-consul, and the new governor of Missolonghi, Veli Aga, pledged to respect capitulatory agreements between Britain and the Sublime Porte and to exert his authority to safeguard British privileges. Nevertheless, Meyer recommended the posting of a suitable consular officer.] [Meyer elaborated the vexing issue of how to protect Ionian subjects of Britain who resided and traveled in Greece, urging the introduction of clear regulations to resolve this matter. He asserted that] the almost daily inconvenience aris[es] from want of a fixed general regulation. It has been my rule never to grant a new passport to Ionian subjects who have not first fully established their title to be furnished with such a document.... I am, however, well aware how anxious a certain interest in the Ionian Islands has all along been to leave the subject in its actual loose way; but the present might be a most favourable conjuncture for laying down the salutary provisions so indispensably necessary for the maintenance of good intercourse on the part of the subjects of the Ionian States with the Ottoman dominions. [To underscore his call for a fixed regulation, Meyer attached an excerpt from his memorandum of 1 December 1820 to Lord High Commissioner Maitland.] Looking at the intimate intercourse which must necessarily be kept

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up between the Ionian Islands and the adjacent provinces of Albania and the Morea, it appears that the interests of neither the Ionian government nor of the people themselves can be duly secured and protected, unless a strong and welldefined regulation be laid down for the direction of those individuals who are continually coming over from the Ionian Islands into this country without any sufficient proof of their nationality or condition. If a regulation were published bearing that all Ionian subjects going from the Ionian States into the Turkish provinces of Albania and the Morea who [are] not furnished with the necessary Ionian passport from the general or local governments (to be exhibited to the British consul or agent nearest to the place of their landing) should be.. .thereby excluded from the advantages of British protection, I conceive that a considerable check would be put to the mischief arising at present from the absence of all regulations on this head; but whatever regulations be laid down, it will be essential that they should be published in a special proclamation of the Ionian government.

17. FO 352/12A, ff. 193-96 [These sections from Consul-General Meyer's dispatch (7 June 1826) to Major General Joseph Rudsdell, secretary to the lord high commissioner on Corfu, described the fate of the inhabitants who resided in Missolonghi and the nearby town of Anatolico.]

.... I have taken much pain to get at the truth by inquiries from the most intelligent and impartial Turkish and Albanian officers, from Greeks of distinction, and information from several foreigners of intelligence serving in the Ottoman camp at the time of these disastrous occurrences. First, as to the Anatolico population, the total number amnestied and liberated amounted to about [3,600], Of this number, 4 to 500 were males, and 3,200 or 3,300 were women and children. The whole number, viz. about 3,600, were sent forthwith to Arta with the exception of about 100 young women and girls, the flower of the whole, who were retained. Of this 100, some were sent as presents to Constantinople, and others were retained for the harems of the superior Turkish officers and ministers. About 30 of the Greek Anatolikiote amnestied men Q[ influence were also detained at the camp, but only with a view to employ their influence in causing other townships and other [groups] of Greeks in the islands of the [nearby] lake to submit, which submission on their parts was subsequently effected, and they all were liberated likewise. The whole number of amnestied Anatolikiote males and females, which arrived at Arta. was therefore about 3,500. For their greater safety and protection on the road from the camp of Missolonghi to Arta. they were

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escorted, by orders of the seraskier pasha, by those distinguished Albanian chiefs....[who] really took a fatherly part in protecting that population. After their arrival in Arta, about the 20 th of March [1826], they received free rations for the first fifteen days. By means of their connections afterwards and the assistance extended to them.. .by Turks, Greeks, and others, the greater number obtained a temporary protection. They were soon afterwards allowed to disperse whither they chose; and many of them withdrew to different places, some also went to the Ionian Islands. Many are now in Prevesa. It may be safely stated that not one of the number of amnestied Anatolikiotes was sold &s a slave, but about 100 of the younger women, as I have above stated, were detained as captives. It was the intention of the seraskier pasha to recall to Anatolico all those who [desired] to return, and several of the men have returned to exercise their usual calling as gardeners, fishermen, salt manufacturers.... [A]ll the reports of the Anatolikiotes having been sold as slaves or otherwise maltreated are untrue. Secondly, in regards to the far more unfortunate population of Missolonghi. the whole number of souls at the time of its fall has been, I believe, fairly stated at between 9 [and] 10,000 and no more. 2 4 Of this number, about 4,000 were men and about 5,000 to 5,500 were women and children. As to the men, 3,000 were combatants, but only 1,500 of them were effective at the time of the place falling, and 1,000 were non-combatants. Of the whole number [of men], viz. 4,000, about 1,800 or 2,000 effected their escape and about 2,000 lost their lives. Of the 2,000 who perished, the details may be stated as follows: 400 killed in the batteries, fort, and old windmill; 300 hundred killed in the houses of the town, which were set on fire or blown up; 400 drowned in the ditches of the lagoon; 300 killed in the streets [upon] the assault of the Arabs in the night of 22 n d to 23 r d April [1826]; 600 killed outside at the Arab battery to the east, in the plain, and at the foot of the heights near Bocchori; 70 prisoners taken, and who were afterwards all shot and interred behind the seraskier's camp. Of the total number of women and children, around 4,530, 30 escaped; 1,000 [were] killed, drowned in the ditches and lagoon, burnt, and blown up in the houses, [and] of this number, by far the greater portion perished inside the town; about 3,500 [were] made captives, sold as slaves, and carried away in the Egyptian and Ottoman fleets. Of these slaves, a very considerable number are now free having been ransomed. It appears, therefore, that out of the whole population of about 9,500 souls at the time of the fall of Missolonghi, about 2,030 escaped, about 3,070 were killed, and about 3,500 were taken captives and slaves.

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There is reason to believe that the unfortunate Greek inhabitants of Missolonghi would have suffered less severely [from] the Arabs, but for some circumstances of singular provocation given by the Greek garrison in the latter part of the siege. At one time, in an attempt of the Arabs to penetrate secretly into the ramparts, some of them were made prisoners, and the next morning one of them was formally hanged on the ramparts in sight of the Egyptian and Ottoman encampments. After the failure on the insulated [fort]..., where in ail the Turks lost 800 killed and wounded, a number of Arab prisoners were left on the [ramparts] and could not be brought off. These, the Turks and Egyptians had the mortification to see afterwards, from their encampments, burnt by the Greeks. But what stung the Arabs to such fury at the last assault was their feeling of grief and vengeance for the death of their most popular leader, the celebrated Hussein Bey, who fell at Clissova. After the carnage inside the town, the dead bodies were afterward mostly collected together in about forty piles in different parts, and burnt by the Albanian soldiers of the governor, Veli Aga. But in the lagoon and in the ditch to the eastward of the place, there are still in many parts great numbers of the drowned [Such are the] mournful details, in the most correct shape that can be obtained, of the direful catastrophe of Missolonghi.

18. FO 352/12A, ff. 183-88 [This passage from Consul-General Meyer's letter (13 June 1826) to Stratford Canning, British envoy at the Porte, briefly mentioned the ongoing Greek revolt.]

.... The Greek war, while zealously supported by the Albanian league acting within its natural sphere and by the active cooperation of philhellenists and etairists from without, has on the one hand laid waste the country, while on the other it has certainly reduced the Ottoman authority in this part of the Empire to the verge of its dissolution....

19. FO 352/12A, ff. 242-44 [In this communiqué from Arta on 19 October 1826, Consul-General Meyer conveyed details of the military situation in eastern Attica, in particular near the Acropolis, to John Bidwell, superintendent of the consular service in the Foreign Office. 25 ]

British Consulate in Albania, Arta 19th October 1826 Sir, By the return of the Turkish courier from Athens in the service of this consulate, as referred to in my preceding dispatch of this date, some further details have been received of the military operations in eastern Greece. The

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courier quitted the headquarters of the seraskier on the 12 th instant, which were at the time established at the country house and garden of the English consulate in the immediate vicinity of Athens. The assault made by the seraskier about the 17 th of September on the Greek battery immediately covering the approaches to the Acropolis, and referred to in my report No. 15 of the 6 t h instant, was of a very sanguinary character. The pasha himself was slightly wounded in the affair; the battery was momentarily carried, but was retaken by the Greeks when three Turkish binbashis (majors) fell in the combat. Since then no movement of consequence has taken place. The town is occupied by the kheya bey's division, and the citadel continues to be closely invested. It does not appear that it is defended by more than from 5 to 600 Greeks. The effective strength of the Ottoman army actually in Attica is calculated at 20,000 men. Huts were being built for sheltering the troops during the ensuing winter. Several fresh corps had arrived to relieve those who were returning home. The seraskier pasha's son, Emin Bey, arrived at Livadia on the 14 th instant with a detachment of 400 Osmanlis, having in his charge a very large treasure from Constantinople to replenish the military chest from the previous exhaustion of which much embarrassment had been occasioned to the service. The supply of provisions continued to be regular; they were shipped at Yolo and sent coastwise to the Euripus, whence they were transported on mules by a route of eight hours to Athens. It does not appear that the smallest impression has been hitherto made upon the citadel of Athens by the fire of four Turkish batteries, although some of the ordnance brought from Negropont is of a very high calibre. Captain Karaiskaki with 4,000 Greeks occupies a position between Thebes and Athens, commanding at the same time all the approaches to the Isthmus of Corinth so as to effectually intercept the seraskier's communications in those directions. The Turkish camp is constantly on the alert, expecting daily to be vigorously attacked by the Greeks, who are only watching a favourable opportunity for relieving, or reinforcing, the defenders of the Acropolis. It is now three months since they were invested, and it would appear that owing [to] the smallness of their number, they stand in need of reinforcements. On the 8 t h instant, a secret debarkation of 200 philhellenists and Greeks was made near the Piraeus, whose object it was to penetrate into the Acropolis to reinforce Colonel Gouras; but the party was discovered in time to frustrate their intent, and after an obstinate defense during their retreat, they succeeded in regaining their boats and a brig in the bay, with the loss of two killed and two prisoners. The latter were both French officers.

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If the seraskier pasha should succeed in reducing the Acropolis before the winter be much advanced, it is understood to be His Highness's intention to move his headquarters to Ioannina and to detach the main body of his army...into the Morea to cooperate with Ibrahim Pasha. In a contrary event, His Highness it is said will nevertheless send a strong corps to cooperate with the Egyptian forces. On the 16th instant, advice was received here that a Turkish man-of-war schooner carrying sixteen guns, while lying in the Bay of Livadostro at the seraskier pasha's orders, had been suddenly boarded and carried in the nighttime by a bold and skillful maneuver of the crews of two small Greek boats, the captain and three men having alone effected their escape through the stern ports. The Turks in the Gulf of Corinth are much alarmed for the consequences of this exploit, which may seriously obstruct for the time their communications and supplies until the arrival of a division from Navarin may again secure them. Early in September, two Tartars of the Porte, with important dispatches for Ibrahim Pasha, were intercepted on crossing the Gulf of Corinth to Patras by a small Greek row boat. Up to the 10th instant, no intelligence of the grand expedition from Egypt, so anxiously expected by Ibrahim Pasha, had been received at Modon. The pasha himself by the latest accounts was stated to have made a movement from Tripolitsa at the close of last month upon Corinth [in order] to profit by the violent dissensions, which were known to exist at the time among two or three Greek factions in that district. The governor of this place, Veli Bey..., has just received most pressing orders from the seraskier pasha to lose no time in advancing with his corps of three thousand Albanians to join him at Athens. I referred more particularly to the orders which the [governor] had received to that effect in my report of the 29 th of September, but he has found himself under the necessity of informing the seraskier pasha that from the absolute want of the funds, which were supposed to be at his disposal, not only to pay off certain arrears of his troops but also to engage the new levies, his departure will be necessarily delayed. The aversion felt throughout Albania and at Scutari to the new military reforms, decreed by the sultan, continues to be expressed in very unmeasured language, while other recent firmans relative to sumptuary laws [and] to the prohibition of fermented liquors give occasion to indulge in still freer strictures. The opponents of the military reforms in this quarter state with a degree of elation that in the Turkish province to the south of the city of Sofia, the determination to resist the introduction of the new organization is general. It is felt throughout Albania that the formation of a body of soldiery, on the

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European principle, to remain segregated from the mass of the nation, is utterly incompatible with the actual condition of society in the country, a feeling which derives also additional support from other considerations at this time. I have the honour to be, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant, William Meyer, Consul-General

Consul Francis Werry (1745-1832)

3 JOHN CARTWRIGHT IN CONSTANTINOPLE: CONSULAR AND COMMERCIAL COMPLICATIONS

John Cartwright, British consul-general in Constantinople for several decades after 1817, found himself in the strategic heart of the Ottoman Empire at a time of commercial, diplomatic, and institutional upheaval. Appointed to the Ottoman capital by the Levant Company after serving as the company's consul in the Greek port of Patras, he faced consular and commercial challenges that compromised Britain's declared neutrality in the war. Ottoman claims to inspect, detain, and seize cargoes in the Straits not only encumbered British exchange with Russia's Black Sea ports but complicated BritishOttoman relations. As the Levant Company's chief consular officer, and confronted with complaints from company merchants, Cartwright increasingly turned to the British Foreign Office for intercession and direction. In some respects, he served as the point person or pivot for the transfer of Levant Company assets and privileges, including its own consular network in the Ottoman realm, to state supervision and control after 1825. The consulgeneral facilitated this structural transition, providing the Foreign Office with details on the consular service and continuing to defend the rights of British commerce in the Near East. 1 As an acute observer of trade troubles triggered by the Eastern crisis of 1821, Cartwright recorded his comments and objections in correspondence with the Levant Company, the Foreign Office, and British envoys at the Porte. 2 In sometimes garbled and awkward prose, but with concrete information and specific cases, he portrayed an anxious mood in the Ottoman capital as the cataclysm of revolution and war deepened. Russian-Turkish tensions mounted. Ottoman restrictions impeded commercial navigation in the Straits. Piracy threatened merchant ships in the Aegean. And strife engulfed the Morea, the Archipelago, and Smyrna. As consul-general, he attempted to safeguard company profits and prospects from Ottoman interference; he also sought to regulate consular affairs in line with British neutrality and recognized the need for reform in the consular system. Cartwright's letters evoked the uncertainty and contingency that accompanied the Empire's predicament. In May 1821, just a few months after the outbreak of the Greek revolution and the onset of reprisals against the capital's Greek Christians, the consul-general observed that Constantinople "has enjoyed a comparative state of tranquillity, and we shall gradually return

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to the former state of things if no other extraordinary event should occur, of a nature to excite fresh ferment in the minds of the populace." He cited "the extraordinary measure of prohibiting the passage of grain through this channel and of taking, at the current price for the use of the government, the cargoes which may arrive from the Black Sea." The seizure of shipments from the Black Sea, "by destroying competition, has prevented the possibility of establishing a fair current price [and] no mode of reimbursement will be equitable." Moreover, as the country most likely to bear the heaviest commercial burden from these obstructions, "Russia has...protested against the measure altogether, declaring that if the Porte perseveres in it, the execution of the measure will be regarded as announcing the cessation of friendly intercourse. Thus, a new cause of disagreement between the two governments has been produced, for the Porte does not yet appear inclined to relinquish the point." (Document #3 below) Not just in Constantinople but in other regions the consul-general described the invariable consequences of a widening conflict, relying on consular correspondence from the afflicted territories. "Turkish armies have entered the Principalities," with one detachment headed for the Russian frontier "to prevent supplies being sent by the Greek partisans to the remnant of the insurgent army.... The cruelties committed by the insurgents upon the Turkish inhabitants of Galatz have been as cruelly revenged. It appears certain that the town has been entirely destroyed by the Turks and that all the Greek inhabitants were put to the sword." As for Smyrna, a "state of alarm" prevailed among the Franks, or Western communities, "in consequence of the violent proceedings of the janissaries and troops who were collecting in the neighbourhood." After Greek insurgents fled Patras, Ottoman troops "set fire to the town, and the greatest part of it has been destroyed." (Document #3) By August 1821, Cartwright continued to have mixed feelings about the situation. He applauded the Ottoman government for having "given proofs of its sincere desire to adopt every conciliation measure likely to be satisfactory to the Russian government and to facilitate the restoration of internal tranquillity." Decrees ordered pashas "to protect the peaceable reaya who had not joined in the rebellion and also those who, having revolted," repented of their actions and resumed their allegiance. A letter to the new ecumenical patriarch, after his predecessor had been publicly hanged in April, at Easter, in reprisal for the Greek rising, urged him "to employ his spiritual influence with the disaffected and rebellious subjects of his nation and [promised] forgiveness to those who immediately lay down their arms and return to their obedience." Yet the benefits of these pacification measures appeared fragile in view of the Russian ambassador's departure after the Porte

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failed to comply with Russia's ultimatum, not to mention "the attitude assumed by Russia toward this country, by encouraging the hopes of the rebels of assistance from that quarter." Cartwright also perceived the threat of island Greeks raiding merchant shipping in the Aegean: "The most desperate of them will then resort to piracy, and I fear that we shall hear of the most horrid acts of cruelty being committed by them. No flag will be respected; and to avoid detection, the crews and vessels which they may meet with will be destroyed. Our flag has already been insulted." Meanwhile, "the corn cargoes...have been so long detained by this government, which has resorted to all the bad faith that is common with the Porte in such transactions." (Document #4) Cartwright's correspondence with Levant Company officers and British envoys complained of myriad commerce-related problems. Already before the revolt, he detailed abuses against the British factory in the capital, including sealed warehouses and confiscated property. (Document #1) After the start of the insurrection, he disparaged Ottoman limits on "our right of carrying certain articles of British and foreign produce to and from Russian ports of the Black Sea," constraints that "are evidently unjust, being contrary to the spirit of our capitulations and to the grant of navigation to the Black Sea, which is free from any exception as to the nature of the cargoes." He elaborated one of the pretenses devised by merchants to get their goods through the Straits: "to evade the operation of those restrictions, a very irregular mode of proceeding was resorted to—that of presenting a fictitious manifest to the Porte...in which the articles objected to were omitted and others inserted in their stead." (Document #5) A detained Ionian vessel raised the larger issue, "the case...of so much importance to the trade of the Ionian Islands with the Russian ports of the Black Sea....cargoes of ships in transit from foreign ports are not to be interfered with.. .under various vexatious pretexts." (Document #6) Cartwright did not confine himself to Ottoman abuses, warning Levant Company consuls not to misuse British flag rights. Many vessels, "chiefly small craft, have been navigating lately in the Archipelago under the British flag without being duly authorized thereto, some of them, as it would appear, not having any sailing papers whatever on board and others carrying merely a pass from some consul or consular agent." (Document #8) Aspiring to instill regularity and organization in a disorderly consular service, he harshly criticized some of the vice-consuls: "They are without exception foreigners, and for the most part unknown to the [Levant Company], and never heard of by them except when favours are solicited. These are the persons whose inefficiency has been complained of by travelers." (Document #10) When an

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Ottoman Greek from the Morea tried to pass himself off as an Ionian Greek, with a British passport distributed by the British consul in Odessa, Cartwright set things right with the help of the Greek language skills he had picked up in Patras. The accent of the accused "seemed to create a suspicion that he was a native of the Morea and not of the Ionian Islands, which was confirmed by the man's own confession.... His accent and appearance indicate that he is a Moreote and not an Ionian." (Document #16) The matter of Ionian sailors who claimed they had been recruited into the Ottoman navy exemplified the fluid and amorphous boundary between an Ottoman Greek and Ionian Greek identity. Cartwright had to deal with Ionian sailors who "complained of having been deluded or forced into Ottoman service." Sometimes "the Ionian complainants had voluntarily received a liberal advance of wages and...their applications were addressed to me in the hope that they might be able to make it appear that they had not received...Turkish pay, or that they had received a smaller sum than that alleged to have been paid to them by the Turkish recruiting officers." But by entering Ottoman service, "they had forfeited their right to British protection and consequently...had no claim to my official assistance." One such Ionian recruiter, who had enjoyed British protection, now feared punishment by British authorities for his irregular activities and thus "has declared himself to be a Turkish subject on the plea that, although his father is a native of Zante, he himself was born in Chios of a Greek woman native of that island." As for the number of Ionians who joined the Ottoman navy, Cartwright asserted that "from the knowledge which I have of the sentiment of the Ionians in general towards the Turkish nation, I am induced to consider that it's very inconsiderable and composed of men of the worst character." (Document #14) The longest and perhaps most significant document, Cartwright's memorandum to Foreign Secretary George Canning in 1825, delineated the contours of Britain's consular service in the Levant and recommended ways to upgrade its efficiency. He proved an especially good source for the Foreign Office, offering a wealth of detail on the placement and jurisdiction of consular districts, on consular functions and forms of remuneration, and on the intricate appeals process for litigants in consular courts. He duly noted the ad hoc nature of the existing system: "The present g e n e r a l c o n s u l a r establishment...consists of officers appointed by the king, the Levant Company, and by His Majesty's representatives at the Porte, and this difference in the source of their authority has no doubt served to produce much inconvenience." In view of "the increase of British trade and navigation in the Levant...and the importance of the Ionian navigation now under British

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protection, it is natural to suppose that the establishment does require revision and reform." (Document #12) Clear-cut guidelines and regulations became all the more essential since the capitulations made the official duties of consuls "more extensive and important than those of consuls in other countries. They have to exercise a police over the crews of vessels of their flag and also over the subjects of their government who may be established and living within their districts." Consuls placed in Ottoman lands had "to settle all differences in commercial and other matters which may arise between the subjects of their government," and they wielded "authority both in civil and criminal matters. It is desirable that the British consuls had the nature and extent of that authority defined to them and that regulations were made for their guidance in judicial proceedings." Cartwright proposed several means to improve the service. For instance, "no vice-consul or agent should be allowed to execute a decision without the express authority of the consul of his district, to whom he should report his proceedings." Another recommendation called for the formation of "a regular general establishment of dragomans by educating young Englishmen.... Those appointed by the company are, with one exception, natives of Turkey, foreigners to England in language, religion, and principles." But "a mixed establishment of interpreters would perhaps be found preferable to one exclusively national." (Document #12) The twenty-five documents presented below, nine of them in their entirety, date from 1819 to 1827 and shed light on the unfolding situation in Constantinople and its environs. Cartwright authored fourteen of them, addressing consular and commercial complications that affected British neutrality and British-Ottoman relations. Six other records, from Levant Company and Foreign Office personnel, including Ambassador Stratford Canning, discussed matters relating to Cartwright's particular concerns or to the wider Eastern crisis. Five additional accounts, written by Pietro Duveluz, British consul in nearby Adrianople, covered topics of a different nature. His observations on the local pasha's mixed reaction to the efforts of the British and Foreign Bible Society, which distributed Bibles to Ottoman Greeks, Armenians, and Jews in their native languages, touched on what many Europeans considered the arbitrary nature of Ottoman authority. The governor initially hindered then helped the Bible Society, apologizing for the disorders he had caused, returning the confiscated books, and not impeding their sale and circulation. "Thus has ended this vexatious affair and turned out through divine providence to the benefit of the good cause, as now the Christians have taken confidence from the authority of the pasha to sell the Holy Scriptures freely and publicly here." (Document #22) The consul also witnessed the fate of

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Adrianople's janissaries shortly after Sultan Mahmud II abolished the corps in 1826, a milestone in the process of Ottoman military, economic, legal, and administrative reform. (Documents #24, 25)

1. FO 78/93, ff. 218-25 [Jacob Bosanquet, deputy governor of the Levant Company, related a specific case of Ottoman abuse of British commercial interests in Constantinople in this letter of 27 December 1819 to Foreign Secretary Castlereagh. Bosanquet objected to Ottoman actions, such as a sealed warehouse and confiscated property, which violated capitulatory agreements between the Ottoman and British governments; he attached a more extensive account of this particular incident, compiled for the Levant Company on 25 October 1819 by John Cartwright, British consul-general in Constantinople.]

Levant Company's Office 27 th December 1819 To the Right Honorable Viscount Castlereagh My Lord, I have no doubt that His Majesty's ambassador at Constantinople has, among other matters, duly reported to Your Lordship the transactions which have taken place at that residence upon the arrest of certain Turkish subjects accused of public delinquency, and that it has appeared that British interests have been deeply involved in the progress of those transactions. I am also persuaded that Sir Robert Liston [British ambassador at the Porte] has resorted to all the measures which he thought necessary for the protection of those interests. Nevertheless, it is incumbent upon me, as deputy governor of the Levant Company, to address Your Lordship upon this subject, and lest Your Lordship should not have been otherwise furnished with details, I have the honour to transmit herewith: 1. Copy of a letter from the consul-general to the Levant Company, dated 25 th October 1819; 2. Copy of the protest of Mr. Smith, a British merchant at Constantinople; 3. Extract from the minutes of the British factory [trading outpost] at Constantinople; 4. Extract from a letter addressed by the consul-general to the deputy governor, dated 10 th November, and a copy of the capitulations with the Ottoman Porte. By which [documents], Your Lordship will perceive that the alleged grievances are substantially these. Firstly, insult to the nation by the sealing up of the warehouse of a British factor [merchant] on slight and, as the event proved, groundless suspicion of one of his servants: contrary to the

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remonstrances of the ambassador, to the general spirit of the capitulations, and, as it is conceived, in violation of the letter of the 42 n d Article, which provides that an Englishman, in his own person, committing manslaughter or other crime, shall not be proceeded against except in the presence and with the concurrence of his ambassador or consul. 3 And secondly, plunder of British subjects by the Turkish government, inasmuch as that government, by insulting evasions, has virtually refused to enter into an examination of the validity of claims to considerable British property seized in the hands of the delinquents. At this distance and upon what, after all, may be considered as in some measure an ex parte statement, too strong or absolute conclusions ought not to be drawn, but consider that more than ample time has elapsed and no offer of redress made—no explanation of the necessity for the violence of their proceedings given—no disposition whatever to conciliate manifested by the Turkish government. [T]hese injuries, induced, as I fear may have been the case, by our too ready acquiescence in repeated previous encroachments and by too mild a conduct on the part of the ambassador, will warrant the Levant Company to feel in common with their factors in Turkey that Britain is no longer there considered as a formidable nation and that she is degraded from her former footing of equality with Russia, France, and Austria. My Lord, the Levant Company [does] not presume to censure the policy which His Majesty's ministers, on a general view of national expediency, have thought proper to adopt toward a government which, like the Chinese, it is well known, [has] ever attributed such policy to fear and not to a spirit of conciliation. But it is no longer to be concealed from Your Lordship that if British trade with Turkey is to be encouraged and supported, both satisfaction and security must be demanded and obtained from its government. Having thus laid the case before Your Lordship, the company [relies] with the fullest confidence on Your Lordship for that assistance which it seems to require. I venture only further to submit that if any new instructions be sent to His Majesty's ambassador, they might be effectually seconded by an official note of similar import addressed to the Turkish resident here [in London]: at least the feeling of His Majesty's government would thereby be more certainly conveyed to the Porte than through the doubtful medium of a dragoman [interpreter or translator], who may not choose, or who may not dare, to deliver it with all its original energy. 4 I have the honour to be, My Lord, Your Lordship's most obedient, humble servant, Jacob Bosanquet, Deputy Governor

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[Bosanquet enclosed a copy of the following letter from John Cartwright, consul-general in Constantinople, to the Levant Company.]

Constantinople 25 th October 1819 My Lord and Right Worshipful Sirs, I have the honor to lay before Your Worships a copy of the minutes of an assembly of this factory held on the 23 rd ultimo, which I have hitherto been induced to defer the transmission of in the hope that I might have been able at the same time to have assured Your Worships that some satisfactory assurance had been given by the Porte that the outrage complained of (the consideration of which was the principal object of the meeting) would not be repeated. No such assurance nor any other satisfaction having been offered to His Majesty's ambassador, it becomes necessary for me to report to Your Worships certain circumstances of the case which are not noted in the minutes of the assembly and to state some particulars of other acts of this government which are equally offensive to our privileges. About the middle of last month, certain Armenians who had been long employed in the Imperial Mint were arrested by order of the government; and many other individuals of that nation, in some way connected with them, though not ostensibly employed by them, were also taken up and their property was at the same time sequestered. The pretext for these arrests was the alleged discovery of a considerable deficit in the capital entrusted to the directors of the Mint. One of the late subaltern agents at the Mint is nearly related by marriage to Mr. Barbaud's principal broker; and it would appear that the ministers of the Porte, suspecting the possibility that some part of his property might have been secreted with his relation, who for its better security might have placed it in the warehouse of his merchant, determined to resort to the unjustifiable measure of sealing up Mr. Barbaud's warehouses with the declared intention of searching the same. The act followed so quickly the intimation of their intentions that hardly sufficient time was left to His Excellency the ambassador to remonstrate against them; and I am sorry to have to add that the warehouses remained three days under seal, during which time they were watched by a Turkish guard, precisely in the same manner as has been observed at the reaya's houses under similar circumstances. It was not until after the sealing up of the warehouses that the Porte made any declaration regarding the nature and amount of the property alleged to be concealed in them, and Your Worships will learn with concern that so harsh a measure (to give it the slightest qualification) was resorted to in search of the comparatively insignificant sum of fifty thousand Turkish piastres. 5

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The propriety of Mr. Barbaud's general conduct and his well-known regularity in commercial transactions had already acquitted him with the public of any participation in the alleged attempt of his broker to secrete his relation's property, and the result of his own inquiries served to satisfy everyone that the accusation against his broker was equally unfounded. No evidence whatever was adduced against the latter on the occasion, and there is no doubt that the whole was a fabricated pretense of the Ottoman ministers. Search had been made in the meantime for the broker himself, who went to the Porte accompanied by Mr. [Frederick] Pisani [dragoman at the British embassy] to answer certain questions which were put to him. 6 He has not been personally molested; but a commission warehouse kept by him in Pera for the sale of goods belonging to Mr. Barbaud and other members of the factory, which was sealed up, still continues under seal notwithstanding the frequent applications of His Excellency the ambassador to the Porte respecting it. The property belonging to Mr. Barbaud and his correspondents thus sequestered is considerable. A shop belonging to a native of Malta, situated in the great street of Pera, has also been under seal since the 18th ultimo. The enclosed copy of a protest entered in our cancellaria [consular chancellery] against the ministers of the Porte regards a very important claim, the particulars of which will most likely be laid before Your Worships by Messrs. Rundell and Bridge, who are interested in it. I shall not for the present attempt to add anything to Mr. Smith's own statement of facts, but I shall endeavour to ascertain before next post the real intentions of the Porte regarding his property, when I will address Your Worships more fully on the subject and submit to your consideration such observations on the conduct of the Porte as I may think the circumstances of the case will authorize. Some of the arrested Armenians have already suffered capital punishment. On the 16 th [instant], Kirkov and Serkis Doguoglu were beheaded; their brother Michael and a cousin of the family were hanged the same day at the windows of one of their country houses. Their aunt and one of their sisters have been strangled for having, as it is said, concealed some rich articles of jewellery. The head of the late Tarap Nana Emeni (director of the Mint) was exposed on the 18th [instant] at the Seraglio gate. 7 He had married the daughter of the late Tchelebi Efendi, whose property he inherited. It is supposed that his property, which has been seized by the Porte, is equal to twice the amount of the alleged deficit at the Mint. I have the honor to be with high respect, My Lord and Right Worshipful Sirs, your faithful and devoted servant, John Cartwright, Consul-General

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2. FO 78/103, ff. 11-lla [Bartholomew Frere, Britain's minister plenipotentiary at the Porte, notified Foreign Secretary Castlereagh on 10 January 1821 of Russian-Ottoman talks on the vexing issue of the Danubian Principalities, the twin provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia. Russia guaranteed their autonomy, while the Ottoman Empire retained suzerainty over these semi-independent provinces. The Russian and Ottoman governments often disagreed on the appointment of hospodars (ruling princes or governors) and on hospodar administration and governance, including taxation and finances. Disputes over the Principalities aggravated Russian-Ottoman relations even before the outbreak of the Greek revolt in 1821. 8 ]

[The Russian ambassador at the Porte, Grigorii A. Stroganov, and Ottoman officials held another conference] in which the negotiation is not believed to have made any progress towards its conclusion. The point under discussion still continues to be the indemnification due from the Porte for confiscations and exactions in the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. And I am given to understand that the reclamations of the Russian negotiator upon this head are not confined to what took place during the war [RussianTurkish War of 1806-12], but comprehend a charge of exorbitant contributions, levied both by order of the Porte and by the arbitrary power of the reigning prince upon the inhabitants, to a very considerable amount beyond what is sanctioned by the constitution of [the Principalities]....

3. FO 78/136, ff. 1-4 [Consul-General John Cartwright's letter of 25 May 1821 to George Liddell, secretary of the Levant Company, covered several facets of the unfolding crisis caused by the recent outbreak of the Greek War of Independence. Russia and other European powers protested Ottoman trade restrictions against Black Sea shipping; Ottoman armies entered the Danubian Principalities in pursuit of Greek rebels; the towns of Galatz and Patras endured the harsh fate of fire and sword; the Turkish and European communities in Smyrna experienced a state of alarm and anxiety; and the British ambassador had to take measures to protect British subjects and the British factory in Smyrna.]

Constantinople 25 May 1821 Sir, I have had the honor to receive the Right Worshipful [Levant] Company dispatch of the 12th ultimo and I shall not fail to guide myself by the instructions which it has conveyed to me. I rejoice to be able to say that since my last letter, this city has enjoyed a comparative state of tranquillity, and we shall gradually return to the former state of things if no other extraordinary event should occur, of a nature to excite fresh ferment in the minds of the populace.

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The Porte delivered on the 14th instant a note to His Excellency the ambassador [Lord Strangford], of which I have the honor to enclose a translation announcing the extraordinary measure of prohibiting the passage of grain through this channel and of taking, at the current price for the use of government, the cargoes which may arrive from the Black Sea. In my representations on this subject, I have not failed to mark the injustice of the principle upon which it is attempted to estimate the value of the cargoes to be seized; and I have declared that as the measure to which the Porte has resorted, by destroying competition, has prevented the possibility of establishing a fair current price, no mode of reimbursement will be equitable which does not issue to the proprietor the profit contemplated by him as the result of his speculation, or at least which does not guard him against positive loss. Similar representations have been made by other missions, and that of Russia has, it is said, protested against the measure altogether, declaring that if the Porte perseveres in it, the execution of the measure will be regarded as announcing the cessation of friendly intercourse. Thus, a new cause of disagreement between the two governments has been produced, for the Porte does not yet appear inclined to relinquish the point. It appears certain that the Turkish armies have entered the Principalities. One body, it is said, will approach the Russian frontiers to prevent supplies being sent by the Greek partisans to the remnant of the insurgent army, which is still headed by [Alexander] Ypsilanti, against whom another body of Ottoman troops is advancing through Wallachia. 9 The cruelties committed by the insurgents upon the Turkish inhabitants of Galatz have been as cruelly revenged. It appears certain that the town has been entirely destroyed by the Turks and that all the Greek inhabitants were put to the sword. Our accounts from Smyrna describe the state of alarm in which the Franks in general of that city had been, in consequence of the violent proceedings of the janissaries and troops who were collecting in the neighbourhood, as there was reason to apprehend that the whole Turkish population on that coast would be thrown into a state likely to be productive of the greatest excesses by the proceedings of the insurgent squadrons in their neighbourhood. 10 Lord Strangford had applied to the Porte for letters to the several governors, recommending strongly the British subjects to their special protection, and I thought it so important that those documents should be sent forward as quickly as possible that I dispatched an express Tartar with them to Smyrna on the 16th instant and I directed the treasurer to pay the charge of the messenger for account of the company. Their Worships will, I trust, think that the extraordinary crisis in which we have found ourselves will authorize

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such extraordinary charges and serve as an excuse for a trifling deviation from the strict tenor of their regulations regarding extraordinary expenses. His Majesty's sloop, the Spey, had arrived at Smyrna, sent up for the protection of the factory by [Admiral] Sir Graham Moore, to whom [Consul Francis] Werry had applied for naval protection. The Race Horse brig was also at Smyrna, and a frigate with another sloop of war was also expected soon. I have received an interesting letter from Consul [Philip] Green dated Patras 1 st May, by which it appears that the insurgents did not occupy the town more than ten days when they fled, being about six thousand strong, before Yussuf Pasha who marched up from the Lepanto castles with a corps of about one thousand Turks. The Turks set fire to the town, and the greatest part of it has been destroyed. The improper conduct of some of the foreign consuls at Patras (natives of the Ionian Islands) during the occupation of the town by the insurgents has been reported to this government by Yussuf Pasha, and it has made a strong impression at the Porte. The Right Worshipful Company will, on the other hand, be glad to hear that the conduct of our agents in general has given satisfaction to the Porte. The reis efendi [Ottoman foreign minister] has, in an official communication, praised the very proper and friendly conduct of Mr. Werry and Mr. Green in their intercourse with the Turkish authorities. Mr. Green appears to have been fully equal to the trying circumstances in which he was placed. 11 It does not appear that the insurgents have yet been able to get possession of any of the castles in the Morea or other parts, and if there is no foreign interference, there is little chance of their being able to resist long the preparations which are making to crush the rebellion. I have the honor to be, Sir, your most obedient, humble servant, John Cartwright

4. FO 78/136, ff. ll-12a [In another communique to George Liddell, secretary of the Levant Company, Consul-General Cartwright commented on the Porte's attempts to pacify the rebellious regions and to restore order, noting in particular Ottoman appeals to regional pashas and to the Greek Orthodox ecumenial patriarch. Yet rebels persisted in hoping that Russia would assist them, and the departure of the Russian envoy, owing to unresolved Russian-Ottoman disputes, only intensified the Eastern crisis. Greek piracy loomed in the Aegean, and the consul-general predicted "horrid acts" against crews and ships flying the British flag. Meanwhile, the Porte restricted grain shipping and commerce by detaining vessels from Black Sea ports and purchasing cargoes at reduced price for the capital.]

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Constantinople 25 August 1821 Sir, I am happy to be able to say that we continue to enjoy tranquillity in the capital and that this government, by some of its late acts, has given proofs of its sincere desire to adopt every conciliation measure likely to be satisfactory to the Russian government and to facilitate the restoration of internal tranquility. Firmans were issued on the 15 th instant, addressed generally to the pashas and other governors, in Europe and Asia, ordering them in the most positive terms to protect the peaceable reaya who had not joined in the rebellion and also those who, having revolted and [then] repent[ed] of their disobedience, were desirous of returning to their allegiance. A letter has also been addressed to the patriarch, desiring him to employ his spiritual influence with the disaffected and rebellious subjects of his nation and promising forgiveness to those who immediately lay down their arms and return to their obedience. An exhortation from the patriarch, to this effect, has in consequence been addressed to his clergy in every part of the Empire; but it is to be apprehended that the departure of the Russian envoy, and the attitude assumed by Russia toward this country, by encouraging the hopes of the rebels of assistance from that quarter, will paralyze the affect which otherwise might have been expected from this measure. 12 The Austrian government having made representations to the Porte in support of those made by Russia, but in a friendly and moderate tone, a reply has been given which is generally acknowledged to contain every assurance which could be expected from this government, and such as ought to satisfy Russia upon every point. If therefore the real desire of the Russian Emperor [Alexander I] be peace, there is wellfounded reason to trust that an amicable arrangement will be concluded. We have not heard anything more of the Turkish fleet after their departure from Rhodes. The Greeks of the islands are disheartened, and any success obtained over them will entirely destroy the little union which now exists among them. The most desperate of them will then resort to piracy, and I fear that we shall hear of the most horrid acts of cruelty being committed by them. No flag will be respected; and to avoid detection, the crews and vessels which they may meet with will be destroyed. Our flag has already been insulted, as the Right Worshipful Company will be pleased to observe by the enclosed correspondence of Consul [Peter] Lee [of Alexandria], which I transmit because I think that the circumstances related, and the strange retaliatory measure with which the Egyptian pasha threatens us, are sufficiently important to require the company's early consideration. After the

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departure of the post, I shall make some representations to His Excellency the ambassador on the subject and endeavour to obtain an order from the Porte for the Egyptian government to respect our rights in the execution of the extraordinary measures which are in contemplation. We have had much and unpleasant occupation since my last [letter] with the corn cargoes which have been so long detained by this government, which has resorted to all the bad faith that is too common with the Porte in such transactions. Many of the vessels have sailed, some of which had been detained a month or forty days. Other cargoes have been purchased at reduced prices, and some cargoes still remain unsettled for. It will, I fear, turn out a most unfortunate affair for the concerned. I have the honor to be, Sir, your most obedient, humble servant, John Cartwright

5. FO 78/136, ff. 56-59 [This letter from Consul-General Cartwright to the Levant Company elaborated on Ottoman claims to interfere with Britain's right of commercial navigation in the Black Sea and to confiscate grain cargoes for the capital. To evade these restrictions, which violated the capitulations, merchants devised the stratagem of fictitious manifests when they applied to the Porte for sailing permits. Cartwright clearly voiced concern over the threat to the company's commercial interests in the Levant and the Black Sea.]

Constantinople 25 May 1822 My Lord, and Right Worshipful Gentlemen, In my dispatch of the 10th instant, I had the honor to bring to the attention of the Right Worshipful Company a pretension made by this government of restricting our right of carrying certain articles of British and foreign produce to and from the Russian ports of the Black Sea; and circumstances have occurred since my last [letter], which render it necessary for me to report further on that subject to the Right Worshipful Company. The refusal of the Porte to permit the passage of particular cargoes through this channel must naturally have occasioned considerable inconvenience to the merchants interested in those cargoes, as well as to those to whom the vessels carrying them were consigned here, for the purpose of facilitating their passage to and from the Mediterranean; and it would appear that to evade the operation of those restrictions, a very irregular mode of proceeding was resorted to—that of presenting a fictitious manifest to the Porte, when a sailing firman was applied for, in which the articles objected to were omitted and others inserted in their stead. I am ignorant when this practice commenced and whether, at its origin, it was known to or authorized by His Excellency the ambassador or the consul-general, but the existence of

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it did not come to my knowledge until last summer, when I attempted, but in vain, to do away with the necessity of its continuance. The Porte.. .pretends that at the passage of cargoes to and from Russia, composed of Russian and English or other produce, not Ottoman, if the capital should be in want of any part of those cargoes, the Porte may take it for the use of the capital at the current price and permit the passage of the remainder; and that no article of Ottoman produce can be carried in British vessels to the Black Sea. I do not know that any official communication regarding these intended restrictions was made to His Majesty's embassy prior to the delivery of the note of the 14th May 1821, but on the occasion of settling the tariff in 1820, the reis efendi attempted to introduce into the preamble of the tariff a clause, the tendency of which was to limit our right of exportation and importation to British and Turkish ports alone. Sir Robert Liston would not permit the insertion of the clause alluded to, and we have not hitherto been able to expedite the necessary firmans for enforcing the observance of the new rates at the out ports because those offered by the Porte have contained the objectionable clause and have consequently been rejected. The Porte now puts forward a pretended agreement said to have been made in 1813 with Sir Robert Liston, by which it would appear that the demands of the Porte regarding the Black Sea navigation had been admitted, but it appears strange that no official reference should have been made to this convention until after Sir Robert's departure from Turkey and that the dragoman, who only delivered to me five months ago a translation of a document relating to it, should also declare that he has never been able to see the original note from Sir Robert Liston, which is alluded to in the registers of the Ottoman Imperial Chancery. These pretensions of the Porte are evidently unjust, being contrary to the spirit of our capitulations and to the grant of navigation to the Black Sea, which is free from any exception as to the nature of the cargoes; and as by a subsequent arrangement the mode of transit has been placed on the footing of that of vessels of the most favored nations, the regulation of it naturally comes within the provisions of the Russian Treaty [of Commerce], which cautiously guard against any interference with the cargoes at their transit. 13 It is certainly to be regretted that the possession of a valuable privilege should have been endangered by any compromise, and I apprehend that to the irregular proceeding adopted in consequence of it, in respect to fictitious manifests, we must attribute much of the inconvenience we have of late experienced in obtaining sailing firmans in general. The question is now officially before His Majesty's embassy, and I trust that the Right Worshipful Company will acknowledge the necessity I was under of releasing myself and

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their cancellier [chief secretary or chancellor] from any further responsibility attending the irregular mode of proceeding I have alluded to—a responsibility which the dragoman Chabert has insidiously attempted to remove from himself and his colleagues, but to whose unauthorized compliance with the desire of the Ottoman ministers we have perhaps to attribute the origin of our present difficulties. 14 The enclosures, of which I annex an explanatory list, will convey the necessary information on the subject of my present dispatch, upon which I shall again have the honor to address the Right Worshipful Company by the next post. I have nothing consolatory to communicate respecting our claims against the sequestered reaya property. His Excellency the ambassador has not received any communication from the Porte on the subject, either favorable or unfavorable. He assures me that the other foreign ministers have made strong representations and that the Porte is fully aware that [it] will have to satisfy those claims, but I have not been informed of the nature of His Excellency's own representations or whether the note which I delivered to His Excellency respecting the claim for Messrs. Lee and Jones has been yet given to the Porte. I have the honor to be, with high respect, My Lord, and Right Worshipful Gentlemen, your faithful and devoted servant, John Cartwright

6. FO 78/112, ff. 347-5la [In this letter of 23 August 1822 to Lord Strangford, British envoy at the Porte, Consul-General Cartwright objected to Ottoman customs interference in the passage of an Ionian merchant vessel, an incident that undermined trade and navigation from the British-protected Ionian Islands and had obvious repercussions for British commerce in the Levant.]

British Consulate 23 rd August 1822 My Lord, I had the honor to address Your Excellency on the 8 th instant respecting the detention of some British vessels bound for the Black Sea, but principally in reference to the Nile laden with wine. Mr. Frederick Pisani [dragoman at the British embassy] called upon Mr. Black, the consignee of the Nile, on the 8 t h and informed him that the customer [customs authority] persisted in his pretension to search the cargo of that vessel and recommended to him in Your Excellency's name to arrange matters with the customer and admit the visit. Upon Mr. Black declining to accede to that proposal, Mr. Pisani said he would make another attempt to

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prevail on the customer to relinquish his pretension, and on the 10 th I was indirectly informed that the necessary document for obtaining the firman had been promised. I am also glad to be able to inform Your Excellency that the firmans for the Nile and three other vessels were delivered on the 16tl1. The first application for that for the Nile was made on the 18th ultimo. But an Ionian vessel, the firman for which was applied for on the 20 th ultimo, is still detained in consequence of an unjust pretension made by the customer, and the case is of so much importance to the trade of the Ionian Islands with the Russian ports of the Black Sea that I beg leave to state the circumstances of it to Your Excellency. The San Nicolo, Captain Giacomo Cuppa, arrived here in July with a cargo of oil, laden part in Cephaloniia and part at Corfu. On his passage up, the captain took in a small quantity of wine at the island of Sira. He has paid the tariff custom on the wine, it being Ottoman produce, and the further irregular duty of four paras per oke has also been exacted from him. 15 Articles 31 and 32 of the Russian Treaty [of Commerce] are those by which the mode of transit through this channel is regulated, and it is clearly stipulated therein that the cargoes of ships in transit from foreign ports are not to be interfered with and that the firman is to be delivered upon the manifest being presented with a note under their minister's seal. But it appears that the note is now sent back to the customer...who [is] required to ascertain and certify the correctness of the official application. This is the first irregularity which has been permitted, the practice being an evident deviation from the letter and spirit of the 31 st and 32 nd Articles of the Russian Treaty. In the case of the San Nicolo, the customer required first to examine the cargo and then to have samples of the oil sent to him, to ascertain, as he pretended, if the oil was produce of the Ottoman or of a foreign territory. The master of the vessel was desired by Mr. F. Pisani to give samples of his cargo. This was also an irregularity, for it was in fact admitting the right to a species of search, and it is also in opposition to the Treaty. A sample was furnished in two small vials, but the oil was taken from the same cask! A few days afterwards another sample was required, which was also given in a common wine bottle from another cask. A third application was made for a sample, and two other small vials were furnished with oil from a third cask. The sample last furnished was immediately returned to the captain. The customer now pretends that the samples having been examined by some of the principal members of the oil company, they have declared that one of the small vials contains foreign oil and the other oil of the Morea. The captain, on the other hand, declares that the oil contained in the two vials was taken from the same cask and, he adds, that as it was left to him to take the

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sample from whatever cask he chose, it is not to be supposed that if he had oil of the Morea on board, he would have given the customer a sample of that quality when it was to serve as proof against himself. The customer therefore insists that the quantity of oil, which he pretends to be the produce of the Morea, be landed and delivered to the oil company at the price fixed by government; and he refuses to give the necessary certificate for obtaining a firman for the passage of the remainder unless his requisition is complied with—and this requisition is made upon the report of a Turkish oil taster! It is true that Mr. F. Pisani asserts that the experienced men of the oil [company] can distinguish the quality of Turkish oil from that of any other country, but he also admits that their taste is not so fine as to enable them to distinguish between the qualities of the produce of different districts of the same territory. He uses, however, another argument in their favor, which is that as the members of the [company] are interested in preventing too great an importation of oil here at once, we may infer that they would if possible have given a report which would tend to prevent the landing of the quantity which the customer requires. I am persuaded that Your Excellency will think that our commercial privileges are not to depend upon the conscience or taste of a Turkish oil seller, and particularly so when his report is known, as in the present case, to be favorable to the views of the Porte in regard to cargoes in transit, as set forth in the pretended arrangement made in 1813, which it is now attemptfing] to carry into effect under various vexatious pretexts. I have the honor to assure Your Excellency that I have examined the accounts and ship's papers of the San Nicolo and that they fully prove the purchase of the cargo to have been made in the islands of Cephalonia and Corfu from Ionian subjects resident in those islands, as is stated in the protest made on the 20 th instant by Captain Cuppa, a copy of which I enclose and which, with Your Excellency's approbation, I would wish to have presented to the Porte. I cannot refrain from recommending the case of the San Nicolo to Your Excellency's consideration and high support, for it involves a question of great importance to the trade and navigation of the Ionian States, on the fair settlement of which it will perhaps depend whether we shall be able or not hereafter to prevent Ionian subjects [from] seeking to obtain under a more favored flag the advantages which [Ottoman customs has] attempted unjustly to withhold from us. I have the honor to be.... John Cartwright

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7. FO 78/112, ff. 314-18 [Jacob Bosanquet, deputy governor of the Levant Company, wrote to Foreign Secretary George Canning on 10 October 1822, relating two cases of Ottoman violation of British trade agreements pertaining to unrestricted commercial navigation in the Black Sea, the Straits, and the eastern Mediterranean. As Bosanquet attested, the consulate-general in Constantinople, directed by John Cartwright in the 1820s, had to intercede with customs, with the Porte, and with the British Foreign Office to protect British commercial interests in these Ottoman waterways.]

Levant Company's Office October 10, 1822 Sir, It is always with reluctance that the Levant Company intrude themselves upon the attention of His Majesty's government; but circumstances have recently come to their knowledge which they cannot but deem peculiarly injurious to the commercial relations of this country with Turkey, and these circumstances being altogether beyond their control, they would consider themselves deficient in their duty to the public if they did not make you acquainted with them. In compliance, therefore, with the direction of a general court of the company, I have now the honour to state the circumstances alluded to. They are: first, the restriction by the Porte of our right to navigate and trade freely into the Black Sea; second, the indiscriminate sequestration by the Porte of the property of certain of its Greek subjects indebted to British factors. With regard to the first point, although I doubt not that you, Sir, are in possession of more ample documents than the company can supply, I take the liberty of reminding you for the purpose of present explanation that the navigation of the Black Sea in modern times by any Christian power is but of recent date. Russia was the first to obtain that privilege in the year 1783, and by a Treaty of Commerce then made by her with the Porte, it was stipulated: that the Russian merchant vessels should have free access, by the channel of Constantinople, to and from the Black Sea, that no detention or visit of such vessels should take place, that no duties upon their cargoes should be exacted, [and] that upon the mere exhibition of the list of their cargoes, certified by the Russian ambassador, passports should be granted immediately. It was, however, further stipulated that for a certain purpose of police, the Turkish government should have the right to inspect the crews of the vessels in question. I have the honour to enclose copy of these articles of the Russian Treaty [of Commerce]. In the year 1799, Mr. Spencer Smith being His Majesty's minister at the Porte, the Black Sea was opened to the British flag, and finally it was declared to be upon the conditions of the Russian Treaty, as appears by an

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official note dated 29 July 1802, delivered by the reis efendi to Mr. [Alexander] Straton, His Majesty's minister at the Porte, copy of which is also enclosed. 16 About the same time, or soon after, the other great powers obtained the like privileges. And our merchant ships, taking the Russian Treaty for their guide, have continued to pass freely between the Russian ports on the Black Sea and the Mediterranean until last year, when, from circumstances arising out of the Greek insurrection, the Turkish government stopped our corn ships from Russia, took out the cargoes, and paid for them, after their own manner, at the market price. In the last year too, it came to the knowledge of the consul-general [John Cartwright] that our hitherto free trade had been liable to certain limitations for some years past, founded, as the Turkish government pretend[s], upon concessions made by His Majesty's ambassador in the year 1813. Copy of a minute in the Turkish chancery on this subject is enclosed. But the consul-general states that a sight of the original act by the ambassador cannot be obtained. Mysterious as this matter appears, it is certain that the dragomans employed in obtaining the ship clearances for the Black Sea act under some apprehension; for it appears that they have been in the practice of delivering at the Turkish custom house false lists of cargoes certified by the ambassador as true! Even this subterfuge no longer avails, for the Turkish custom house [has] distinctly declared to us that certain articles can be carried into the Black Sea under the Ottoman, Russian, and Austrian flags only. So that we are actually degraded from our footing of equality with Russia, and our vessels are detained, searched, and surcharged accordingly. Further particulars of this very interesting subject are contained in the enclosed extracts of several of ConsulGeneral Cartwright's letters to the Levant Company. I will only add that the company entirely concur[s] in the apprehension expressed by the consulgeneral in his letter of the 23 rd August to the ambassador that, among other evils, the continuance of these restrictions will induce the Ionian vessels to place themselves under Russian protection—which they will know how to obtain in Turkey. The second point which I have to submit, the indiscriminate sequestration of Greek property, is more easily explained. It appears that many of our factors, at Smyrna chiefly, have well-founded claims upon the property in question. And that upon the representation of His Excellency the ambassador, the Porte has admitted that these claims, so far as they are just, ought to be satisfied and has given orders to the local government of Smyrna accordingly. But so many delays have taken place, and so many characteristic evasions have been practiced, as to furnish too much reason to fear [that]

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unless the subject be taken up more seriously than it has hitherto been, these claims, which may amount to £40,000, will never be satisfied. These, Sir, are the matters which the company [has] charged me to submit for your consideration. And they do so, without comment or suggestion, for they doubt not that you will adopt the most proper measures for the maintenance of our commercial privileges and for the security of our private property in Turkey. I have the honour to be, with the highest respect, Sir, your most obedient humble servant, Jacob Bosanquet, Deputy Governor

8. FO 352/12A, ff. 27-28 [Consul-General Cartwright's directive of 8 May 1824 to British consuls in the Levant warned them of abuses of British flag rights by vessels in the Archipelago and barred the consuls from granting sailing papers to ships not authorized to fly the British flag.]

It's been reported to me that many vessels, chiefly small craft, have been navigating lately in the Archipelago under the British flag without being duly authorized thereto, some of them, as it would appear, not having any sailing papers whatever on board and others carrying merely a pass from some consul or consular agent.... It has therefore become necessary for me to remind you that it is highly irregular to issue sailing papers to any vessel which has not been previously furnished with legal papers for the navigation of her and to forbid you most positively ever to grant such papers to vessels which are not so provided.

9. FO 78/136, f. 316 [Consul-General Cartwright corresponded regularly with British consuls on commercial issues affecting British ships, cargoes, and property rights in the Black Sea and the Levant. Not only did Greek pirates and Ottoman officials occasionally detain or confiscate British-flagged vessels, but numerous ships illegally flew the British standard, a practice that became increasingly common in the Archipelago. Cartwright's circular of 10 May 1824 urged consular officials to uphold strict British neutrality during the war between Greek insurgent and Ottoman forces and to prevent abuses in the use of British flag rights.]

[British consuls in the Levant, stated Cartwright, were forbidden] to grant sailing papers to vessels not authorized by legal papers to navigate under the British flag....

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10. FO 78/136, ff. 414-21 [In a memorandum from late 1824 or early 1825, Consul-General Cartwright examined the purpose, organization, operation, expenses, and consulates of the Levant Company; this excerpt raised concern about the qualifications and activities of British vice-consuls.]

.... Now, the [Levant Company] officers being separated, the consuls are directed by the company to address themselves to the consul-general [in Consple] only, whose duty it is to make the necessary communications to the ambassador.... Persons exercising the functions of British vice-consuls, and so named, are to be found in all the remote places and islands of Turkey. They appear to have been appointed from time to time by His Majesty's ministers at the Porte and in some instances by the company's consuls of the districts. They are without exception foreigners, and for the most part unknown to the company, and never heard of by them except when favours are solicited. These are the persons whose inefficiency has been complained of by travelers. 11. FO 78/135, ff. 158a-59, 148a-49 [These observations from 1825 by Stratford Canning, newly appointed British ambassador in Constantinople, focused on the consular service and the capitulations, two issues that gave this envoy fits during his diplomatic tenure at the Porte. 17 ]

.... As the consuls will probably have to correspond with the Foreign Office, it would be very desirable to establish as a principle that their dispatches should be transcribed, if they want assistance in that respect, by someone of confidence, not a subject of ¿is Porte and, as far as possible, not a foreigner. Subjects of the Porte are indispensable in transacting business with the Turkish authorities; but they ought never to be privy to the communications between His Majesty's government and its officers abroad.... [ff. 158a-59, late May/early June 1825] .... In Christendom, the idea of a state surrendering to another the right of regulating its imports and exports would be treated as an absurdity. It's true that the capitulations with Turkey are of a peculiar character, originally conceded without any return on our side and since placed under the protection of a Treaty of Peace [Peace of the Dardanelles, 1809].... [ff. 148a-49, September 1825]

12. FO 78/135, ff. 36-57a [Consul-General Cartwright prepared this elaborate report of 10 October 1825 for Foreign Secretary George Canning on the British consular establishment in the Levant, explaining the geographical placement and salaries of consulates and vice-consulates; the functions of consuls, dragomans, and consular offices; and the best means to improve the efficiency and service of the consular system now that the Foreign Office had replaced the Levant Company as the supervising authority of these offices.]

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Constantinople 10 October 1825 To the Right Honorable George Canning, His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, London Sir, I beg to refer you to my letter No.2, of the 10th of August last, and I have now the honor of transmitting to you herewith a report on the consular establishment in the Levant, which you were pleased to require from me by your dispatch No.2, of the 1 st July. For my own facility, I have taken the liberty to make my communications on the subject in the form of a memorandum; as I have remarked therein upon every circumstance connected with the consular establishment which has occurred to me, it now only remains for me to beg to be permitted to recommend my observations to an indulgent consideration. I am aware, Sir, that some parts of the memorandum may possibly require further explanation, and on receiving your instructions on the subject, I will not fail to attend to them without delay. I have the honor to be, with high respect, Sir, your most obedient and very humble servant, John Cartwright Memorandum Consular Establishment in the Levant 18 The consular establishment of the Levant Company, by which is understood the officers appointed by a "letter of agreement" with the company, consisted at the time of the company's dissolution of eight consuls and five vice-consuls and consular agents, as per [listed in the attachments]. All the remaining vice-consuls or consular agents were appointed by the consuls of the districts in which they reside or by His Majesty's embassy. Some of them are now acting under warrants issued by former ambassadors when the embassy was in connection with the company. They are, in general, native residents of the places at which they are acting, and in some cases foreigners, not subjects of the Porte. The consul-general and the consuls at Smyrna, Salonica, Aleppo, Acre, and Adrianople, and the consular agent at the Dardanelles, received fixed salaries from the company. The consul at Alexandria in lieu of salary received the consulage levied at that port up to a certain fixed amount and a proportion of the excess when it surpassed that sum. The consul at Patras was allowed the whole of the consulage levied in his district in lieu of salary. The consular agent at Cyprus and the vice-consul at Chios received each a small salary and a proportion of the consulage levied at their ports. The remaining viceconsuls or consular agents received no salaries, but they were allowed to levy

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consulage according to the company's laws and at their rates. They also receive the cancellaria [consular chancellery] emoluments, being viceconsular fees on shipping and for notarial acts. The company's consulage was not levied on shipping, but on the cargoes under the British flag imported into Turkey from Christian countries or exported for them from Turkey. No consulage was levied on the trade under the British flag between Turkish ports. The fees charged at the several cancellarias are moderate, being charges for the bills of health and other documents issued by the consuls to vessels at their sailing and for notarial acts. There was little or no direct trade with England at the ports of the viceconsulates and consular agencies, but the consulage levied at some of those ports on the trade with Malta and the Ionian Islands must have afforded a fair remuneration to the agents for their trouble. Consulage is no longer levied, in consequence of a resolution to that effect published previously to the company's dissolution. The ambassador at the Porte had formerly a warrant from the Levant Company, authorizing him to appoint consuls and vice-consuls wherever it might appear proper to place them. It does not appear that when the connection between His Majesty's embassy and the company ceased, any arrangement was made for the future appointment to the various viceconsulships in the islands of the Archipelago [and elsewhere]. The present general consular establishment therefore consists of officers appointed by the king, the Levant Company, and by His Majesty's representatives at the Porte, and this difference in the source of their authority has no doubt served to produce much inconvenience. The company had particularly attended to only those ports with which their own trade, the direct trade between Turkey and Britain, was carried on; but after the last general peace, more general interests presented themselves to their protection, which were not contemplated in their charters, and they were about to revise and reform the consular establishments by defining the limits of their respective districts and jurisdictions when the Greek rebellion broke out, which event served to arrest their plans. Considering the increase of British trade and navigation in the Levant since the year 1813, and the importance of the Ionian navigation now under British protection, it is natural to suppose that the establishment does require revision and reform. It is therefore respectfully suggested that the consular establishment in the Levant may consist of consulates, vice-consulates, and consular agencies, according to the annexed list in which the consulates are ranked in reference to the importance of British trade and navigation at the ports within their respective districts. The consular districts may comprise not only all the

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places within the jurisdiction of the pasha or governor of the province in which the consul resides, but also those other places in their immediate vicinity where it might be deemed expedient to establish vice-consuls or consular agents. Vice-consuls may be appointed to places within the districts of particular consulates and also at other places so distant from the consulates that it might not be convenient to place them under any particular inspection, and where also it might not be necessary to fix a full consul. Consular agents may be attached to consulates and vice-consulates. They may be appointed by the consuls and vice-consuls, subject to the confirmation of the consulgeneral, at places within their respective districts to assist His Majesty's subjects and to execute the consul's orders. Their functions may be regulated by the consuls on whom they depend, and they may be chosen from among the British and Ionian subjects, or foreigners, established at the places where it might be desirable to appoint such agencies. T h e consul-general would then have under his more immediate inspection, in the particular consulate of Constantinople, the Turkish ports in the Black Sea and those on the European and Asiatic coasts down to Enos on one side and to the coast of Troy on the other, including the islands of Tenedos, Lemnos, [and] Imbros. The consul-general in Egypt [would have under his jurisdiction] the ports in the Red Sea, and he might place those on the Nile under the immediate inspection of the consul at Alexandria. From the increasing importance of the British trade in Egypt, it may be found more than ever necessary to maintain at Alexandria the full establishment of a consul, leaving to the consul-general to fix his residence wherever the general interests confided to him may require. The consul-general in Albania would have in his district and under his immediate inspection the ports from Duleigno to Missolonghi inclusive. The Smyrna consulate would extend from Cape Baba to Boudroun [Bodrum] exclusive, including the islands of Mytilene, Chios, Samos, Nicaria, Patmos, Lero, and Calimno. The consulate of Adrianople would comprise the port of Enos and Lakos Bay, from whence the district of the Salonica consulate would commence and extend to Trichori and the Gulf of Volo inclusive. The pasha of Negroponte having command over Attica, the ports in that island have always been considered as dependencies of the consulate of Athens, to which are also attached the islands of Poros, Hydra, and Spetsae. The consulate of Patras comprises the Morea and the ports on the north shore of the Gulf of Corinth. Aleppo has long ceased to be of any importance as a place of British trade, and the establishment there might be dispensed with. Beirut is now the most flourishing port on the coast of Syria. It is properly a dependency of

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Acre, for which place the berat or exequatur is issued. 19 But it may be necessary to continue vice-consuls or consular agents at the remaining ports on the Syrian coast—Latachia. Tripoli, and Jaffa. At Scanderoon. there is a consular agent for the several nations whose flags frequent that port. The present occupant is a French man, who is settled there for purposes of trade and who receives a small allowance from each consulate. The Levant Company has lately paid him three hundred [piastres] per annum. Candia. Cyprus, and Rhodes might each have a consul or vice-consul, and it would be advantageous to place Englishmen in those situations. The coast from Boudroun [Bodrum] inclusive to Cape Chelidonia and the islands of Cos and Scarpanto would belong to the district of Rhodes, and the consul of Cyprus would have in his district the coast from Chelidonia to the Gulf of Scanderoon exclusive. A British subject might also be appointed at one of the other islands of the Archipelago, [and he] might exercise a degree of control or superintendence over the vice-consuls or consular agents, who may be continued in those islands where they are now acting with the title of viceconsul. The island of Tino, from its central position and importance in the Cyclades, might be the place of his residence. By the division of the consular districts as thus traced, the vice-consuls and agents are placed under the inspection of the chiefs of the districts to which they belong. To [the consuls] they should report on local occurrences which might require their advice or their assistance and support with the local authorities; and [they should report] through [the consuls] (or direct according to the emergency of the case and the means of communicating with one or the other) to the consul-general on matters requiring representations to His Majesty's embassy. Hitherto the agents at some of the most distant ports have considered themselves only connected with, and dependent on, His Majesty's ambassador at the Porte, and much inconvenience has no doubt resulted therefrom both to the embassy and to the public service. The vice-consuls or consular agents at places within the consular or vice-consular districts above specified may be appointed by the consuls or vice-consuls of those districts, with the exception of the vice-consulate at the Dardanelles, which establishment it will be necessary to preserve on its present scale. The persons now occupying the vice-consulates or consular agencies may, with a few exceptions, be continued. The suppression of consulage on goods will have diminished the emoluments of some of those agencies; but the litigious affairs of the Ionians will continue to be productive of notarial fees, and it may be proper to fix a general tariff of fees for sailing papers furnished to British and Ionian vessels.

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The allowance made to the vice-consul at Chios should be continued. Applications will no doubt be made by other vice-consuls for allowances, but they should be received with caution; for though it may be proper to grant allowances at some places, it might not be necessary to do so at others, where some of the principal inhabitants would find a sufficient remuneration for the occasional attention which the office might require in the casual fees it would produce and in the protection and respectability which it would procure to them. The [Levant] Company appointed in the year 1814 a consul at Bucharest, but the appointment was annulled in the year 1817. Since that time, the Austrian consul has protected British interests in the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. The late troubles have no doubt tended to prevent the extension of the trade in British manufactures in those provinces, but on the return of permanent tranquillity, it might be advantageous to place a consul at Bucharest. The Austrian and Russian governments having political interests to attend to in the Principalities, their consular establishments are on a greater scale than it would be necessary to place the British consulate upon. It might perhaps be expedient to avoid any appearance of rivalry in the establishments. A quiet, prudent person, possessing some knowledge of the country, would be fully equal to the duties required of him, and his services would no doubt also be found useful to His Majesty's embassy in forwarding dispatches as well as on other occasions. It may perhaps be considered that the appointment at Adrianople has already produced the benefit which was expected from it—that of introducing the various articles of British cotton manufacture to more general use in the interior of European Turkey. The vicinity of that city to the places at which the great fairs are annually held, in Thrace and Bulgaria, induced the company to select it for the establishment of a consul, to whom they allowed the liberty of trading, in addition to an annual salary granted him for the expenses of his establishment. The constant communication between Adrianople and Bucharest enables it also to supply the latter place occasionally with British manufactures and colonial produce, but Adrianople does not appear likely ever to become so considerable a place of trade as to require the charge of a consular establishment. There is no other British commercial establishment there than that of the consul, and it is to be expected that its trade may hereafter be conducted by agents from the commercial houses of Constantinople and Smyrna. The official establishment might be more generally useful if it were transferred to Bucharest. That consular district would comprise the two Principalities and the Turkish ports on the Danube, which were much

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frequented by Ionian traders previously to the Greek insurrection. The port of Enos and Lakos Bay would then fall into the district of the Constantinople particular consulate. Consular Functions The Porte having granted, to the ministers and consuls of the several nations with which they have treaties, the right of jurisdiction in all cases of differences between the subjects of their respective governments, the official duties of consuls in the Levant are thereby rendered more extensive and important than those of consuls in other countries. They have to exercise a police over the crews of vessels of their flag and also over the subjects of their government who may be established and living within their districts. They have to settle all differences in commercial and other matters which may arise between the subjects of their government, not only by conciliatory adjustment but often by written decisions or sentences, which they are also sometimes required to enforce the execution of. The capitulations give them authority both in civil and criminal matters. It is desirable that the British consuls had the nature and extent of that authority defined to them and that regulations were made for their guidance injudicial proceedings. The Levant Company no doubt considered that they were only competent to make regulations consistent with their charters; and they therefore confined themselves in their bylaws to regulations for their own particular establishment and for the mode of appeal and execution of consular decisions in differences between merchants. The company ordained by the 42 n d bylaw that appeals should be made to the consul-general because, as they were no longer in connection with His Majesty's embassy, their power to direct did not go higher. But on every consideration, the final appeal should be to His Majesty's representative at the Porte. No vice-consul or agent should be allowed to execute a decision without the express authority of the consul of his district, to whom he should report his proceedings. In cases of appeal from decisions of the consuls, they might be authorized to exact from the parties a provisional execution of the sentences, either by the deposit of the amount awarded or by satisfactory security. In such appeals, there are two modes of proceeding to be considered. The appeal may be first made to the consul-general, who alone, or with the assistance of assessors to be chosen by himself, would decide therein. A short term of days might be allowed to the parties to acknowledge or object to his decision. In the latter case, the consul-general would lay the cause before His Majesty's ambassador or minister, together with the objections of the parties, and the ambassador or minister would decide finally thereon. Or the appeal may be transmitted to the consul-general, to be submitted by him to His Majesty's

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ambassador or minister. The consul-general would be the official assessor on such occasions and he would, with other assessors, if required, assist the ambassador or minister in deciding upon it. The latter mode is attended with less delay; but the former provides perhaps more effectually for the obtainment of a satisfactory decision, and would naturally be adopted in cases originating in the particular consulate of Constantinople, in order to provide for a revision of the consul-general's decision in first instance. These suggestions are made on the assumption that consular courts in the Levant are to be regarded as local tribunals, from which there would be no appeal to courts in England. But the French and Russian governments have established courts of appeal in those countries for consular decisions, and the Russian government has by a late decree declared that foreign subjects, not Ottomans, resident in Turkey, are—in their differences with Russian subjects when the latter are defendants—subject to that mode of appeal. French subjects resident in Turkey consider that they possess the same privilege; and it would appear that the French embassy is inclined to support their pretension, since it has insisted upon trying cases between French and other foreign subjects, not Ottomans, according to the forms prescribed by the French ordinances, and not by mixed commissions, as formerly, which were appointed by both the protecting authorities of the parties in dispute. The Austrian consular offices in Turkey are regarded as local tribunals, and the Austrian government has declared that the supreme court of appeal in Austria cannot take cognizance of their decisions, being incompetent to decide upon circumstances connected with the local customs of a foreign country. The final appeal is to the imperial internuncio at the Porte. Mixed commissions are also in disuse with the Austrian mission. The capitulations granted by the Porte allow to each government jurisdiction in the affairs of its own subjects residing in Turkey. The French and Russian are the only capitulations which contain any reference to the mode of settling differences between subjects of different governments. The 52 n d Article of the French capitulations refers the consuls and the parties in such differences to their ambassadors. The mixed commissions, formerly resorted to on such occasions, are analogous in principle to the spirit of that article. If mixed commissions are not now so generally resorted to as they were formerly, it is also certain that the legations are not bound to the observance of any other particular mode of proceeding. It is desirable that a general mode of proceeding in such cases be established, either by the legations or by their governments. The 58 th Article of the Russian [Treaty of Commerce] appears to leave the final decision in differences between Russian and foreign subjects to the Russian minister at the Porte.

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But it is to be considered if the Porte could grant such a privilege to one government, without the consent of the other, whose subjects are affected by it, and who are thereby exposed to the possible inconvenience of having to seek ultimate redress by an appeal to a distant tribunal in Russia. Should the British government consider it expedient to establish a court of appeal for consular decisions, the mode of appeal suggested in the memorandum might still remain available to the parties in dispute, on their consenting to renounce the appeal to the court in England. Dragomans or Interpreters There are at Constantinople five dragomans and four giovani di lingua, or students [of language; student interpreters]. The dragomans are in two classes, senior and junior. There are two of the first class, one of whom is employed at the Porte and is called the head dragoman. He receives, in addition to his salary as senior, an extra amount of pay equal to that of his salary. It might be well that one of the other dragomans were also employed at the Porte, exclusively in commercial affairs. A part of the extra allowance might be allotted to him. Direct reports an current commercial affairs might be addressed by him to the consul-general, who would apply to or through the embassy in cases requiring representations to the Porte. The consul-general would then be able to exercise a due control in the details of affairs, which have hitherto been too often left to the sole management of the dragomans. Smyrna is the only out port at which those officers have been nominated and paid by the Levant Company. There are four dragomans and three students, a greater number than appears necessary. At the other consulates, it was agreed or understood that the charge of them should be borne by the consuls, by whom they were also appointed. It may be advisable to adopt that custom in the several consulates, by estimating the official charges and including the amount of them in the salary to be allowed to the consul as the full amount of his establishment. Interpreters might be officially appointed at Smyrna, Alexandria, and some of the other consulates, if it should appear advisable to His Majesty's government to form a regular general establishment of dragomans by educating young Englishmen for the situation. Those appointed by the company are, with one exception, natives of Turkey, foreigners to England in language, religion, and principles. It is a part of the establishment which is deserving of much consideration, for various opinions have been entertained on the subject. But it must be admitted that although a sudden entire change of the existing system would be productive of considerable inconvenience, still a partial adoption of the French and Austrian systems might be effected without that apprehension;

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and it is probable that the introduction of a few English students would serve as a stimulus to the exertions of those already in the establishment. A mixed establishment of interpreters would perhaps be found preferable to one exclusively national. 20 The students, after making a certain progress in their studies, might be attached for a short time to each of the consulates to which it might be intended to officially appoint interpreters. They would thereby obtain a more general knowledge of affairs than they can do by remaining always at Constantinople, as has been the practice hitherto. This suggestion is applicable to the students already appointed. Cancellarias [Consular Chancelleries! The office of cancellier [chief secretary or chancellor], as a British office, is peculiar to the establishment in the Levant. Chancellors are attached to French consulates in general, perhaps on account of the great extension which the French government has given to the consular jurisdiction. The Levant Company qualified the cancellaria at Constantinople, "merely a public registry or notarial office, principally, if not wholly, for commercial purposes and as such immediately subject to the consul-general's control." The cancelliers receive fees for notarial acts and for the sailing papers issued by the consuls to shipping. In consequence of irregularities detected by the consul-general during the occupation of the office at Constantinople by a former cancellier, the company in the year 1822 required a return of fees from that office and allowed the cancellier a net annual sum of £500, with a proportion of the excess of the amount of fees if any remained, after defraying, the salary and other charges of the office. There generally has been a small advance. The cancelliers receive in deposit sums of money to abide judicial decisions, and on other occasions. By the company's bylaws, they were bound to pay over such deposits to the custody of the company's treasurers, and the company then became responsible to the public for the trust. The company only appointed cancelliers at Constantinople and Smyrna. The remaining consuls appointed their own cancelliers. It is advisable to leave the charge and responsibility of the deposits upon the consuls; and if in regard to the subordinate officers attached to consulates, it be intended to regulate the Levant consulates upon the general consular system, it may be considered that there are no local peculiarities or considerations to be opposed to that intention. Constantinople October 10, 1825 John Cartwright, Consul-General

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[Cartwright included three signed attachments, all of them dated 10 October 1825.]

[1] Consuls, Vice-Consuls, and Consular Agents appointed by the late Levant Company Constantinople John Cartwright Consul-General Smyrna Francis Werry Consul Nathaniel William Werry Vice-Consul vacant Alexandria Consul Philip John Green Patras Consul Richard Lee Green Vice-Consul Francis Charnaud Salónica Consul John Barker Aleppo Consul Peter Abbott Acre and Beirut Consul Peter [?] Duveluz Consul Adrianople Stephen Paulovich Consular Agent Dardanelles Anthony Vondiziano Consular Agent Cyprus Giovanni Guidici Vice-Consul (appointed Chios by Consul Werry and confirmed by the Levant Company) Remarks: The consul-general [at Constantinople] and the consul at Smyrna are forbidden to trade. The remaining consuls and vice-consuls have the liberty of trading, in addition to their salaries or allowances. The consular agents at the Dardanelles and Cyprus are properly viceconsuls. They were styled consular agents, probably because the Levant Company being bound by the charter to appoint British subjects, members of the company, to be consuls in the Levant, they could not appoint foreigners to those situations. Mr. Paulovich is a foreigner who has long resided in England. Mr. Vondiziano is an Ionian subject. He is an old servant of the late company, and his advanced age, it is supposed, prevents him attending so effectually as formerly to the affairs of his office. 21 [2] Vice-Consuls appointed by His Majesty's Ambassadors at the Porte Antonio N. Vitali Tino Nicolo Pangalo Zea Stefano Masse Rhodes [?] Capo Grasso Candia Giovanni Mircovich Enos vacant Athens [?] Damiani Jaffa [?] Catziflis Tripoli Nicolo Frangopulo Naxos Gaspar Delenda Santorini

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Myconos[?] Cambani Vice-Consuls or Consular Agents appointed by Consuls [By the Consul at Smyrna] Mytilene Paolo Conidari Scala Nova Antonio Crassan Samos Theodoro Spathi Cesar de Avegnat Stanchio, or Cos [By the Vice-Consul at Tino] Antonio S. Vitali Sira [By the Consul at Patras] Kalamata A. Pasqualigo [By the Consul at Athens] [?] Clado Hydra Poros Constatino Menaja [By the Consul-General in Egypt] Damietta Surur [By the Consul at Aleppo] Latachia Musse Elias Scanderoon [?] Martin There are no doubt various agents and subagents, whose names have not been reported to the consul-general. [3] Consular Districts in the Levant (proposed in the Memorandum) Constantinople Consul-General Smyrna Consul Egypt Consul-General Alexandria Consul Patras Consul Albania Consul-General Acre and Beirut Consul Salonica Consul Cyprus Consul or Vice-Consul Candia Consul or Vice-Consul Adrianople Consul or Vice-Consul Rhodes Consul or Vice-Consul Athens Consul or Vice-Consul Tino Consul or Vice-Consul The importance of the consulate of Albania is rather to be estimated in reference to Ionian interests than to British trade and navigation. JC

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13. FO 352/59, packet 4, "Levant," 12 October 1825 (unnumbered folios) [Foreign Secretary Canning's note to the British ambassador at the Porte, Stratford Canning, summarized Cartwright's lengthy memorandum on British consulates in the Levant and described various consular duties, such as sending regular reports on trade and political matters to the ambassador. A consul-general in Constantinople would devote itself solely to the protection of British trade and shipping in the eastern Mediterranean.]

.... [According to the foreign secretary], vice-consuls or other subordinate agents should be placed at other ports and places within the Turkish dominions. [He authorized the ambassador to assign vice-consuls or other agents to these desired locations.]

14. FO 352/12A, ff. 17-18 [Consul-General Cartwright's message of 30 March 1826 alerted Stratford Canning, British envoy at the Porte, about irregularities in British and Ionian commercial navigation near Constantinople and about Ionian recruits in the Ottoman navy.]

.... [There are] sailors who have complained of having been deluded or forced into the Ottoman service, [yet Ottoman authorities maintain they have released British subjects who did not enter Ottoman service voluntarily.].... Some cases have also come before me in which it was manifest that the Ionian complainants had voluntarily received a liberal advance of wages and that their applications were addressed to me in the hope that they might be able to make it appear that they had not received...Turkish pay, or that they had received a smaller sum than that alleged to have been paid to them by the Turkish recruiting officers. To these persons I did not hesitate to declare that by the act of entering the Ottoman service, they had forfeited their right to British protection and consequently...had no claim to my official assistance. .... I noticed an Ionian subject, named Raftopulo, as the most active of the recruiters for the Ottoman navy. He has continued occasionally to give annoyance and he has lately been actively assisted by another person, named Demetrio Margari, who had hitherto enjoyed British protection but who, apprehensive perhaps that he might be punished by the British authorities for his irregular practices, has declared himself to be a Turkish subject on the plea that, although his father is a native of Zante, he himself was born in Chios of a Greek woman native of that island. As the ships of war which have been so long fitting out in this harbour are now, it's said, preparing to go to sea, I have considered it to be my duty to report these circumstances to Your Excellency...only two cases of complaint have been brought to my knowledge within the last ten days, in both of which the persons detained were instantly released on my application

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to that effect. It would be difficult to ascertain the number of Ionian subjects who have entered on board these vessels, but from the knowledge which I have of the sentiment of the Ionians in general towards the Turkish nation, I am induced to consider that it's very inconsiderable and composed of men of the worst character....

15. FO 78/147, ff. 171-73 [Consul-General Cartwright sent Ambassador Canning's directive of 15 July 1826 to British consuls in the Levant, urging them to stop British ships from transporting Ottoman property, a violation of British neutrality.]

.... [These consuls] are privy to the furnishing of such vessels with simulated papers in order to cover the property from Greek cruisers. In the examination and adjudication of British vessels detained by Greek cruisers on this pretense, it has appeared that the practice has been more frequently adopted at Salonica, Beirut, and Alexandria. The evils to which such a practice must lead, by prolonging the present state of anarchy in the Archipelago as well as by paralyzing the efforts of His Majesty's cruisers in their endeavors to protect the bona fide trade of British subjects, are of the most serious kind.... [Ambassador Canning proceeded to order Levant consuls to abstain] most scrupulously...not only from encouraging but from in any way permitting, or conniving at, such practices; vice-consuls within your district in like manner [must] abstain therefrom. [The ambassador] will feel it his duty to dismiss [anyone] acting in disobedience of orders from the situation which he may hold as British consul or vice-consul in the Levant.

16. FO 352/12A, ff. 98-99 [Consul-General Cartwright's communiqué of 11 August 1826 to Ambassador Canning recounted a specific example of abuse in British consular protection: an Ottoman Greek from the Morea, with a British passport distributed by the British consul in Odessa, attempted to pass himself off as an Ionian Greek.]

[A person named L. Apostoli] was lately arrested by the Russian authorities in this city [Constantinople] on suspicion of his being engaged in forging Russian bank notes. He had about his person when he was arrested an unsigned passport from Consul [James] Yeames at Odessa, describing him as an Ionian subject, upon the faith of a certificate of baptism which is attached to the passport; but his accent seemed to create a suspicion that he was a native of the Morea and not of the Ionian Islands, which was confirmed by the man's own confession.

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These circumstances having been made known to me, I requested that the prisoner might be sent to me, to be examined on the subject of his nationality before I received communication of the depositions...[and] accusation against him. He appeared before me...when he made a deposition, declaring himself to be a native of...the Morea.... I beg leave to add that having traveled in the district of Vostitsa, I questioned the prisoner [with respect to] the places in the vicinity of that [town], and his answers satisfied me that he was well acquainted with that part of the country. His accent and appearance indicate that he is a Moreote and not an Ionian. I have consequently declined to take cognizance of the accusation and have detained his passport, which I have the honor to transmit herewith to Your Excellency....

17. FO 352/12A, ff. 104-05 [Consul-General Cartwright's instruction of August 1826 warned British consuls about their complicity in British transport of Ottoman cargoes.]

.... [Cartwright admonished consuls in the Levant against] the imputation affecting several...officers of having encouraged, or connived at, the shipment of Turkish property on board British vessels with simulated papers in order to protect it against seizure by Greek [pirates].

18. FO 352/12A, ff. 108-09a [Consul-General Cartwright interceded with Ambassador Canning on behalf of the financial interests of the recently deceased Antonio Crassan, British viceconsul at Scala Nova.]

Constantinople September 12th 1826 To His Excellency, the Right Honorable Stratford Canning, His Majesty's Ambassador Extraordinary Sir, The late Mr. [Antonio] Crassan, British [vice-] consul at Scala Nova, had a claim on the principal members of the Turkish community of that place for the sum of £34,937, which he lent to them about three years ago against their note of hand. Not having obtained payment of the bond, Mr. Crassan applied for a firman to force his debtors to fulfill their engagement toward him, and His Majesty's minister plenipotentiary was pleased to procure a firman in the month of July 1825, addressed to the kadi [Muslim judge] of Scala Nova, directing him to examine Mr. Crassan's claim and, if found just, to cause it to be satisfied in full. The firman appears not to have produced any effect, for neither Mr. Crassan before his death, nor his executor since, has been able to

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recover any part of the amount of the bond. The kadi of Scala Nova has given promises of payment, as Your Excellency may be pleased to observe by the accompanying translation of his letters to Mr. Focca, the executor, which tend to prove that no objection has been made to the justice of the claim. Mr. Focca, being desirous to liquidate the affairs of the deceased, has applied to Consul [Francis] Werry for the obtainment of a new firman, which he requests may be transmitted to Scala Nova with an officer of the Porte, duly authorized to enforce its execution. Mr. Werry represents that the family of the deceased Crassan are left in very reduced circumstances, which consideration as well as the nature of the claim, being for money advanced before the late depreciation of the current coin, and consequently subject to a heavy loss from the delay which has already occurred, induces me in reporting Mr. Focca's application to beg also to be permitted to recommend it to Your Excellency's high support. I have the honor to be with great respect, Sir, Your Excellency's most obedient, humble servant, John Cartwright

19. FO 352/12A, ff. 62-65, 152 [Consul-General Cartwright's note of 24 October 1826 to Ambassador Canning related the case of an Ionian ship captain seized and detained by an Ottoman guard in the Galata quarter of Constantinople.]

Nicolo Mavrocefalo, master of an Ionian vessel now in this port, has complained to me of the irregular conduct of the Turkish guard, stationed near the careening wharf at Galata, by whom he was seized on Saturday evening and taken to the common prison at the [naval] arsenal, where he was put in irons and detained until the next morning, when it appears that he was released upon the interference of one of the dragomans, who will probably have reported to Your Excellency the particulars of his proceedings with the Turkish authorities. I beg leave therefore to transmit the petition of the Ionian captain for Your Excellency's further information....

20. FO 95/8/14, ff. 939-40 [On 8 February 1827, Ambassador Canning responded to Foreign Secretary Canning's request of April 1826 (ff. 931-35a), calling for recommendations on how to upgrade the workings of Britain's consular system in the Levant. With the transfer of Levant Company consulates to the control of the Foreign Office, the foreign secretary wanted input from the embassy in Constantinople on how to regulate and reorganize the consular establishment in order to improve the protection of British interests. Stratford Canning's reply alluded to the turmoil in the region caused by the ongoing conflict over Greek independence and the threat of another Russian-Turkish war.]

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.... [W]ith respect to my report on the consular establishment, to which you particularly directed my attention in your dispatch...of last year, I trust that it will be in my power to forward it in the course of this month, though I much fear that the present very unsettled state of things in a large portion of the Ottoman Empire and the consequent unsteadiness of the Levant trade will prevent my rendering it as complete as I could desire for the advancement of British interests in this quarter.... Pietro Duveluz in Adrianople: Bibles and Janissaries 21. FO 352/12A, f. 487 [Pietro Duveluz, British consul in Adrianople, corresponded with both John Cartwright and Stratford Canning in Constantinople. In this note of 20 March 1826 to Ambassador Canning, the consul described the local government's reaction to the activities of the British and Foreign Bible Society in Adrianople. 22 ]

.... Everything in these parts since my appointment here in 1819 has continued perfectly quiet and satisfactory with respect to the British subjects who reside here and their concerns, and I have always received the most cordial and flattering attentions from the pasha and local authorities of this city. But I'm very sorry to have to inform Your Excellency that yesterday our pasha, from some wrong impressions created in his mind by the distribution of Bibles and New Testaments, in the modern Greek, Armenian, and Hebrew languages, by Reverend Mr. Joseph Wolff during his late stay, has been greatly irritated and has seized all those books in a manner which has created great disturbance here. It appears that it's the pasha's intention to represent to the Porte the conduct of the Rev. Mr. Wolff here, and probably in a manner to impress the government with a belief that that worthy gentleman had come to this city with the intention of spreading principles injurious to this government, whilst nothing certainly was more pure and innocent than his conduct during the ten days he stayed here....

22. FO 352/12A, ff. 493-96a [In this letter of 23 March 1826 to Reverend Joseph Wolff in Constantinople, Consul Duveluz detailed the local pasha's harsh reaction to the efforts of the British and Foreign Bible Society in Adrianople and his subsequent change of heart in this matter. Irritated that Turkish-language Holy Scriptures circulated without his consent, and that rumor suspected Reverend Wolff of trying to convert Turks and Jews to Christianity, the governor later apologized and did not interfere in the Bible Society's activity.]

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Adrianople March 23 rd 1826 Reverend Sir, I sincerely hope this will find you safely arrived at Pera, which Mrs. Duveluz and myself shall be most happy to hear from your good self, as we shall always take the warmest interest in what may regard you and always consider ourselves most happy in the opportunity we have had of making your personal acquaintance [and] recommending ourselves to the continuation of your valuable friendship, which we shall be always ambitious in cultivating. You will no doubt have been informed by the letter I had the pleasure of writing to the Reverend Mr. [Henry] Leeves, under the 16th instant, of the favorable impression you have made here on the minds of the Greeks and Armenians. 2 3 These people are unceasing in their praise of your Christian virtues and respectable character and greatly thankful for the word of God you have so liberally distributed among them. Even the first among the Jews, although stubborn in their errors, have expressed themselves to me highly astonished at your learning and the benevolence of your character. All this just tribute to your character you may be assured gave me the greatest satisfaction; and I enjoyed the pleasing hopes that your short visit to Adrianople would be of lasting benefit to the good cause of the Bible Society in these parts, which I still have every reason to think will be the case, although we have just passed over a moment of storm and tribulation, which threatened serious consequences to the poor Christians of this place and in all appearances a total stop to the circulation of the Holy Scriptures here. On Sunday last, without the least previous notice, our pasha gave orders that all the Bibles and New Testaments that you had distributed and all those on sale should be seized, and this command was put in execution by the aga of the janissaries of this city at the head of all his guards. This created a great disturbance in the town, and alarm among the Christians, for the Greek metropolitan church was entered by the pasha's officers to convey the archbishop before the pasha; but the archbishop, with Christian courage, would not obey the summons before he had finished divine service. The Armenian bishop and [the] hakham bashi [chief rabbi of the Ottoman Jewish community] were also brought before the pasha and reproached with not having informed him of the distribution of these books among their people. 24 The Greek archbishop behaved in a very cool and becoming manner, stating that as these books contained absolutely nothing but what was written in the books of their own church, there was nothing in them that could have induced him to apprise the pasha of their circulation among the Greeks. The Armenian bishop spoke to the same effect, and the hakham bashi merely added that there were among these books [only] one against their belief, which they never read.

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My dragoman was also sent for by the pasha and treated by that violent man in the most unbecoming manner, which indeed rendered his situation for a time perilous; and the pasha, in the most unguarded manner blinded by his passion, spared neither your good self nor me. I was in the country when all these disturbances were going on, but came on the first intimation immediately to town and went at once to the pasha's to require an explanation of all this. However, I could only get to see his kheya bey [lieutenant], as the great man had retired to his harem and was invisible. All I could then learn was that the pasha was greatly irritated at your having spread these books here without his knowledge, and that he was determined to make a formal complaint to his government against you and myself and endeavour to get me removed from my situation of British consul here. It therefore became my imperious duty to apprise the ambassador of this affair and give His Excellency a faithful relation of the facts of the case, which I did on Monday last, stating, as I firmly believe from all the information I have been able to gain on the subject, that the pasha was led to adopt this most extraordinary and outrageous line of conduct from the perfidious insinuations of the Jews of this place, whom it is said accused you of the intention of converting not only them but also the Turks of this place to Christianity. The minds of the janissaries were very much inflamed, and really for a time, people appeared apprehensive of a rebellion against the Christians beginning on myself and family. However, God advised it otherwise, and the whole of this unpleasant affair is now ended in his glory and for the benefit of the poor Christians of these parts. For on the following day, after I had written to the ambassador the account of this affair, say Tuesday, the pasha of his accord requested an interview with me, which I immediately attended. The pasha expressed to me in the politest manner the regret he felt at the proceedings he had taken respecting the books in question; and after making a very friendly apology for all that had passed, [he] begged, I would consider, that he had no other motive [than] that of ascertaining whether none of these books were in the Turkish language, as by your having distributed a number gratis he had been apprehensive that might have been the case, which he had deemed it his duty to investigate. But being now fully convinced that these books consisted merely of Greek, Armenian, and Hebrew, with which he had no authority to meddle, he had given orders that they should be restored to the persons from whom they had been taken and that for the future no impediment should be given to their sale and free circulation here.

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Thus has ended this vexatious affair and turned out through divine providence to the benefit of the good cause, as now the Christians have taken confidence from the authority of the pasha to sell the Holy Scriptures freely and publicly here. A shop facing my house has been stored with them, and the Greeks and Armenians are now constantly flocking to it, whilst before a single individual at a time stopped timorously to inquire for these books. Mr. George Marcello informs me that all the books containing the Bible and the New Testament together have been disposed of, that he has sundry applications for more, and [that he] would be obliged to Mr. Leeves to send him, as soon as convenient, fifty or sixty copies, also as many of the small pamphlets explanatory. He will himself write to Mr. Leeves by Monday's caravan and give him every due and requisite information on these matters. I shall also do myself the pleasure of addressing you again shortly and send you the promised letters for Smyrna and England. Mrs. Duveluz, Mrs. Zimmerman, and all your friends here request to be respectfully remembered to you, and in much haste I must conclude with the sincerest regard. Respectfully, Reverend Sir, yours, P. Duveluz P.S. As I have not had time to give Mr. [John] Cartwright an account of the late affair related in this letter, should that gentleman be desirous of knowing the particulars, I request you will have the goodness to communicate them to him.

23. FO 352/12A, ff. 502-12, 516-18a, 527-27a [These selections from Consul Duveluz's correspondence of May 1826 with Ambassador Canning in Constantinople covered a variety of topics and issues relating to British consular affairs in the Levant.]

[Duveluz supported the posting of a British vice-consul to the port of Enos to protect the] extensive merchant activity of British and Ionian merchants. [He vowed to distribute Ionian passports, which conferred British protection,] only to those persons entitled to them. [To guard against the false assertions made by those who claimed Ionian subject status, he agreed to compile] a complete list of all individuals residing in Adrianople who claim to be Ionian subjects, with particulars [to document and verify] their right to British protection. A British commercial agent at Enos will do the same for those [Ionians who seek British protection]. .... Everything continues perfectly quiet in these parts, although the public mind is much agitated with all the rumors of a war being apprehended between Russia and Turkey. Yet no preparations whatsoever indicating such an opinion, on the part of the government, are [being made] in any part of Rumelia or towards the Danube....

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[Duveluz acknowledged that the property of British merchants, shipped in vessels under British and other European flags, often belonged to one of the belligerents in the war still raging in Greece and throughout the Archipelago. Ordered to prevent such transactions, the consul] endeavored by all the means in my power to prevent British merchants, and other persons within my district who enjoy the British protection, from lending their aid to any such transactions... [N]o application has ever been made to me, by any British merchant, or others under the British protection, for my official assistance for the protection or recovery of goods detained or captured by either of the two parties engaged in the present contest....

24. FO 352/12A, ff. 524-25 [This excerpt from Consul Duveluz's letter of 29 June 1826 to Stratford Canning, envoy at the Porte, described what happened to the janissaries of Adrianople in the immediate aftermath of Sultan Mahmud II's order to abolish the corps. ]

The favorable termination of the disturbances which have recently taken place in the capital, and the important changes that have occurred there, have been publicly known in this city for some days past. Our pasha, having received the commands of his government to adopt similar measures in this district with respect to the abolishing of the militia of the janissaries, has accomplished this arduous task with great prudence and judgement in this city and, I'm happy to say, without the least opposition or disturbance on the part of the chiefs or any individuals of the corps of the janissaries. The residence of the aga of the janissaries in this city is now occupied by the mullah [chief Islamic judge] and henceforth is designed for the court of justice.... [Duveluz identified other towns and areas near Adrianople that adopted the new military system with] quiet submission to the sultan's commands.... Our pasha has directed the chiefs of the reaya inhabitants of the city to see that their people dress in a very plain way and don't ride on horseback in the town. This order has given no offense, as the reaya population of Bulgaria in general [has] always been, since the disturbances in Greece, remarkably quiet and docile....

25. FO 352/12A, ff. 531-32 [Consul Duveluz commented on the janissary corps and the plague in this note of 9 July 1826 to Ambassador Canning in Constantinople.]

[The city of Adrianople, according to the consul, remained] perfectly tranquil with no appearance of resistance on the part of the janissaries to the new military plans.. .the same favorable accounts have been received here from

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all the principal towns in this district. The only public occurrence that has taken place here is the exile of the mullah of the place. .... At Enos, I'm sorry to say, a good deal of plague rages now, particularly among the Greek inhabitants, which has been the cause that much fewer Ionian vessels have frequented that port than usual. In this city and environs, we are, thank God, perfectly free from the plague, which is the case also in all the districts between this city and the Danube and likewise towards Salonica....

Muhammad Ali Pasha of Egypt, portrait from 1840's, artist unknown

4 FRANCIS AND NATHANIEL WERRY IN SMYRNA: CHIOS, PIRACY, AND RUSSOPHOBIA

Francis Werry had to cope with commercial disruption, sectarian violence, and urban frenzy during his long stint as British consul in Smyrna from 1793 to 1829, yet he had the opportunity to work with his son Nathaniel Werry, vice-consul in this bustling emporium from 1816 to 1834. In their correspondence with the Levant Company and the Foreign Office, the Werrys recorded their observations and impressions on a host of issues that directly affected British commercial and political interests in the eastern Mediterranean. In not always lucid or coherent prose, but citing specific incidents and sharing vivid imagery and telling detail, they provided firsthand glimpses of the crises that rocked the Ottoman Empire in an age of revolution and war. Steeped in seafaring for over three centuries, and with extensive ties to the Levant, the Werry family produced naval officers, privateers, ship captains, merchant marines, businessmen, and consuls, all of them attentive to the maritime dangers of corsair attack, shipwreck, and commercial setback.1 After serving in the British navy during the war against the American colonies, and then as a dispatch courier between London and the embassy at Constantinople, Francis Werry received the Levant Company appointment as consul in Smyrna, the multi-religious seaport that flourished as a mercantile center, with revenues from the export of cotton, silk, mohair yarn, grain, raisins, figs, dyes, and carpets. 2 Four years into his post, Werry witnessed an outburst of anti-Frank urban riots (1797), driven by janissary rage against the property and privileges of Smyrna's European communities, a prelude of sorts to the city's disturbances of 1821. 3 As the critical link in a complex system of relationships during his consular career, Consul Werry defended capitulatory benefits, implemented consular justice, promoted Levant Company commerce, and cultivated good relations with local Ottoman authorities. He increasingly assumed additional tasks, such as informing the British embassy of political events, requesting British naval escort for merchant shipping, and conferring British protection on troublesome Ionian Greeks. Appointed vice-consul in 1816, Nathaniel Werry assisted his father with the extra work at the consulate. After a brief period of relative calm and commercial expansion, father and son had to deal not just with the Greek "perfidy" of 1821 but with the concomitant results of war and revolution. As an eyewitness to the alarm and

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panic in Smyrna right after the eruption of the Greek revolt, Francis Werry described a major Ottoman city on the brink of chaos. His accounts of that first year of revolution, published by Richard Clogg, painted a mostly dark picture of the collapse of effective local government in the face of urban unrest, sectarian strife, social confusion, and trade dislocation.4 Life in Smyrna seemed precarious, having to endure random violence by Turks and Greeks, retribution by unruly janissaries, closed shops and stores, and Greek flight to the harbor and adjacent islands. Consuls and their staff ensconced themselves in safe but floating quarters on board vessels in the marina. These episodes of fear and anguish formed part of the fallout from the widening Greek war, as did massacre, piracy, and great power rivalry, topics that resonated in consular dispatches from Smyrna. The Chios catastrophe epitomized both the folly and the fury of the Greek revolution, eliciting indelible images of fire and sword memorialized in Eugène Delacroix's edgy "Massacre at Chios," the expressive painting that inspired European sympathy and support for the Greek cause. 5 Located only five miles from the Turkish mainland, Ottoman Chios enjoyed relative autonomy, prospered economically, and blossomed into a commercial hub, perhaps the richest island in the Aegean, perfectly situated along the main shipping routes in the Levant. Renowned for its physical beauty, mild climate, fertile soil, and resourceful population, and supposedly the birthplace of Homer, Chios featured merchant-funded schools, hospitals, and a printing press that produced new editions of the ancient Greek classics. When a band of misguided adventurers from nearby Samos landed in March 1822 and raised the flag of liberation, most Chiotes remained skeptical; they understandably feared that Samiote foolhardiness and bravado might jeopardize their coveted autonomy and prosperity. Cautious Chiotes questioned the prospect of successful rebellion, given their island's proximity to Turkey and its distance from the main Greek naval base at Hydra. Fears became reality when an Ottoman fleet approached in April 1822. The Samiote "liberators" fled to the mountains or to their awaiting boats, leaving Chios to a bitter fate of plunder, savagery, and slavery. Ottoman regular and irregular forces exacted a terribly high price in retribution, looting and burning the island, slaughtering unarmed residents, and enslaving thousands. Massacre, captivity, and flight reduced the island's Greek population from nearly 120,000 to some 20,000. 6 Consul Francis Werry chronicled the Chios disaster in his correspondence with the Levant Company and the British embassy in Constantinople. Already before the Ottoman invasion, he depicted the fright and anxiety in Smyrna: "Thus the seat of warfare has approached nearer to us, and the renewal of assassination is the consequence. The Greeks cannot appear

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in the street, they are shot if met by the irritated Turk.... Measures are adopted by the pasha to prevent the rabble from proceedings which we have every reason to apprehend... I have confidence in his ability to manage these savages and hope a greater effusion of blood will be prevented. Thirty-three have been shot." 7 Shortly after the Ottoman fleet landed forces on Chios, the consul recorded that "the carnage has been great. I dare not give the number reported and trust the Turks will be induced to offer a general amnesty. Hitherto only children (males) under twelve years and females have been spared."8 In a more detailed account, Francis Werry vividly portrayed scenes from "the horrors attendant on Turkish warfare." The troublemakers, "insurgent Samiotes, who have been the great promoters of the Chiotes' rebellion, did not all escape; nor have they, nor any of the Chiotes, displayed any courage in opposing the landing of the Turks. Chios is completely subdued, but nothing has subdued the exasperated Mussulman's vengeance.... The city [and port of Chora] is two-thirds destroyed, [and] most of the villages have shared the same fate. The churches and male inhabitants have not been spared. The females of Chios, renowned for their beauty, many of them most respectable, are become the property of the captors, reserved for harems or domestic servitude." Never one to neglect incidents of Greek abuse and violence, the consul criticized the conduct of Chiotes, before the arrival of the Ottoman fleet, as "most inhuman to their Turkish prisoners, who were mutilated and killed in sight of the garrison of the castle. Every wanton and filthy insult was committed in the mosques that could irritate the Mussulmans, [who are] thus excited to acts of retaliation. We are not surprised that there is no stop to their vengeance. The island, the most beautiful in these seas, is a heap of ruins, and the inhabitants that escaped the sword are reduced to beggary." Moreover, "there is but small expectation of a speedy cessation, for from the remote parts of Anatolia fanatics continually arrive and pass on to partake of the plunder of that now miserable place." (Document #1 below) British consuls continued to convey images of destruction and disorder in letters to the Levant Company. Consul Werry declared that "the severe example at Chios has appalled the Greeks, terror has seized them. But they know not to what point to direct their route for refuge. The Morea may resist for a short time, but ultimately it must submit.... This place is perfectly quiet; the spoils made at Chios have apparently satisfied the rabble." 9 John Cartwright, consul-general in Constantinople, bemoaned the harsh lot of captives and hostages: "Chios, with the exception of twenty-five of the mastic villages, was a complete scene of desolation—the air corrupted by the stench of dead bodies had produced an infectious disorder on board the Turkish fleet which was daily carrying off its victims. The fate of the unhappy

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survivors in the Chiote tragedy is miserable indeed—the females and children are doomed to slavery from which there will be but little chance of redemption, as all possible means are taken to prevent the sale of them to Christians. The hostages who were confined in the castle of Chios, as well as those who were here [in Constantinople], have been put to death. The Porte pretends that a new plot laid by them had been discovered, but the accusation is too absurd to be believed and is brought forward to justify the Porte towards the foreign ministers to whom the safety of the hostages had been promised."10 The virtually untouched mastic-growing villages, cited above by Cartwright, did not remain the exception for long. "The devastation of the mastic villages at Chios," assured Consul Werry, "has been carried into effect.... The Turks assaulted and made the females and children captives, the greater number of the villages are reduced to ashes.... In these severe moments, everyone is called on to assist in redeeming the poor children [who] are continually paraded through Frank Street [in Smyrna] for that purpose.... The execution [by public beheading] of the Chiotes at Constantinople...is a very serious injury to the Frank merchants. This factory [has] considerable creditors [and has] taken measures to transmit by this post to the consulgeneral statements of their claims on the property sequestered by the Ottoman government. What may be the result we cannot say, as the value of property is very great." 11 In a subsequent communiqué, Francis Werry elaborated: "The Greek fleet is constantly hovering about Chios, taking off the poor inhabitants that escaped the Turks after the conflagration. Infuriated [by a Psariote fireship attack on the Ottoman navy], these savages, regardless of the orders of the pasha, assaulted the few remaining mastic villages, the male inhabitants they put to death, and made all the females and children captives; this place is full of them, exposed to sale—or redemption," while Smyrna's Turks appeared "satiated with the rich spoils and handsome slaves made at Chios." 12 Consuls immediately had to confront one of the intricate consequences of the Chios massacre, the considerable sums of money owed by Chiote trade firms and Greek emigrants to European creditors. The disaster disrupted commerce in the Aegean, as evinced in the concerns of British merchants for the payment of debts due them by Greek émigrés who, in seeking safe haven on pre-invasion Chios or elsewhere, lost their properties to Ottoman authorities. The Porte considered the Greeks' flight a criminal offense and confiscated their goods, houses, and other assets as retribution. European merchants who had loaned money or extended credit to Greeks could no longer collect their debts, nor could they recoup their expenses by selling or repossessing Greek properties. British and other European creditors thus

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petitioned their consuls for assistance in satisfying debt claims from the sequestered property. Francis Werry announced that "the blow thus struck at Chios will be severely felt by our merchants—these [Chiotes] being the most wealthy of any reaya in this place. The property and effects of the Chiotes in all parts of the dominions of the Grand Turk are under the seal of government—on this subject the factory addressed a letter to me...stating the large claims they have on Chiotes and other Greeks whose property is also under seal.... The application I this day made to the pasha for information" called on the Ottoman government "to make good to the British claimants the money due to them from the above description of people." 13 The calamity on Chios, the death of affluent islanders, and the confiscation of their property compelled Smyrna's British merchants to explain their predicament in a letter to Consul Werry. Shopkeepers, traders, and others who ran off to insurgent areas "irrevocably forfeited" their properties. "All the absentees have thus become considered rebels by the Porte, whether they went to Chios or elsewhere among their countrymen in resistance to the Ottoman government." Creditors, worried about how they would recover debts from the departed, expected the Porte to use a small part of "the immense wealth" reaped from "the fatal insurrection of the Chiotes" to compensate British merchants "for what has virtually been taken from them." "Having taken on itself the entire possession and disposal of all forfeited Greek property," the Porte must recognize with candor "the justice of making a general and national remuneration to the British creditors." 14 Werry echoed this plea, expressing the hope that the Ottoman regime would indemnify "the debts due from the effects of such as have been punished with death" and that "the claims on emigrants must stand over until their return." 15 Subsequent records, from Vice-Consul Nathaniel Werry, indicate that the debt problem remained unresolved as of 1826. He appealed to the Foreign Office on behalf of M. Mavrogordato, a British protégé and wealthy Greek merchant from one of the most distinguished families of Chios, who had served as an honorary dragoman at the Smyrna consulate and who had ardently defended British interests until the Greek revolt forced him to flee with his family. Eventually resettling in London, but having lost his extensive possessions in and around Smyrna, Mavrogordato sought British protection to retrieve his confiscated property, a matter "of much difficulty and delicacy to negotiate, considering the position almost all Greek property is placed in Turkey since the revolution and the claims Europeans have on such sequestered property." (Document #10)

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Similarly, N. Werry interceded with the Foreign Office to defend the petition of several European merchants who had debts due them from Greek drapers in Smyrna, but the latter had fled to Chios, where presumably they had perished, fallen captive, or escaped. "The amount sequestered at Smyrna is amply sufficient to pay the claims of the Europeans made at that place. The Greek emigrants endeavour to obtain the protection of the European ministers resident at the Porte with a view to return and to repossess themselves of their property." While some émigrés proved honest enough to liquidate debts once they recovered their assets, others returned but failed to satisfy creditors. In the "sanguinary scenes which have taken place at Smyrna, Chios, Constantinople, and other places as well as in Greece, the Greek emigrants, debtors to the Europeans, have been destroyed." British merchants looked upon "the tardy measures adopted by our government to obtain indemnification for these claims from the Porte in a suspicious light and as no great earnest of its sincere wish to obtain recovery.... In fine, this negotiation, as well as everything connected with the Greek revolution, is extremely complicated and surrounded with difficulty." (Document #11) With his decades-long experience as consul in Smyrna, not to mention his family's maritime pedigree and his own service at sea, Francis Werry fully grasped the threat of piracy to British merchant shipping in the Levant. With British property "dispersed in all parts of Smyrna..., an attack on this placesuccessful or not, would involve every merchant here in ruin, and the merchant in London in immense loss." [Emphasis original] After pirates raided two British brigs and held the cargoes on the island of Psara, strategically located about one hundred miles south of the entrance to the Dardanelles, the consul lauded a British naval incursion that recovered the goods, "thus impressing the Psariote provisional government with a due sense of the respect required to be given, at all times, to the flag which protects all who have confidence to float under it." (Document #3) This triumph, however, proved an exception to the prevalent tone of alarm and anxiety in Francis Werry's dispatches to Levant Company and British naval officials, sometimes accompanied by requests from Smyrna merchants for naval escort. "The Archipelago is infested with pirates.... Several Ionian vessels have been plundered... It's expected [that] very serious results will occur from these pirates if prompt measures are not adopted with severe and rigid justice." (Document #4) "The depredation committed by the piratical Greeks on the British navigation coming from Britain is of the greatest moment to the welfare of the commerce to and from this place.... The Greek pirates have tasted the superior flavor of English ships' cargoes and obtain without danger a rich booty. All classes of the Greeks in the islands

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partake in the plunder they acquire. Their nefarious traffic will be difficult to suppress while the war continues." Ill-gotten gains from English merchant vessels encouraged "the spirit of depredation," and "every vile Greek is looking forward to enrich himself by plunder of the cargoes from England." (Document #7) Consul Werry cautioned Cartwright of "the increasing acts of piracy committed by the Greeks in the Archipelago...[and o f j the crying evil of Greek piracies." (Document #12) He cited the case of the Enchantress from Plymouth, "boarded by a piratical boat with around [forty armed men]" off the island of Zea. "They plundered the brig of the provisions, ship and cabin stores of all sorts, of every description, [and] beat the master and a boy violently.... These depredations, which continue malgré the activity of the various cruisers, call for the interference of government or [else] the mercantile navigation will be deterred from navigating in these seas without convoy." (Document #13) Both Werry and Cartwright documented pirate attacks in their correspondence with Captains Rowan Hamilton and Charles Sotheby of the Mediterranean fleet in 1827, when British cruisers stepped up their assault against Greek raids. Relying on reports from British consular officials in the Levant, Werry and Cartwright recounted specific incidents and enclosed merchant appeals for naval protection. From James Charnaud, British consul in Salonica, Cartwright discovered the plight of three Ionian vessels at Sitavros in the Gulf of Contessa, robbed by Greek pirates and now detained "for want of the means of putting to sea, their sails and cables having been carried away by the pirates and the crews having taken refuge on the shore in consequence of the ill treatment experienced by them. It would also appear that there were several Ionian vessels blockaded at Orfano by the pirates." Consul Charnaud warned that "the outrages which the pirates commit in this gulf are of a nature beyond description, and I am sorry to say that [as] their number increases daily, their inhumanity will prove very detrimental to our trade in this quarter. The plundered goods are principally deposited at Skiatho and Scopelo where they (the pirates) have also their families." 16 The consular agent at Sira sent Werry a list of recently pillaged Ionian vessels, with the observation that the confiscated items included ship papers, crew rolls, and bills of health. 17 British merchants in Smyrna, in a petition that Werry fully backed, requested the navy "to station small men-of-war in the line of passage, through the Archipelago, to escort such vessels as might be ready" to sail for England with their fruit cargoes. The petition underscored that only a few of the boats had any arms, and "it is but too evident that all are liable to imminent danger from the swarms of pirates in the Levant seas. We therefore on behalf of ourselves as mercantile men interested in the safe

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arrivals of the vessels and their cargoes, on behalf of the underwriters who will have to bear what loss occurs, but more urgently for the sake of the shipmasters and seamen who may be so unfortunate as to meet with these reckless marauders of pirates, and to be stripped to the very shirt off their backs, left to prosecute a winter voyage—on behalf of all these, we earnestly appeal to you, Sir, confident that your good offices will not be wanting to support our application" for British naval protection against the dangers to trade. 18 The British vice-consul at Naxos, Nicolo Frangopulo, informed Consul Werry of "the malpractices of the accomplices of Biciaki, the captain of a band of Candiotes, and the mode in which the cargoes captured are disposed of through their means." The pirate schooner and the Candiote Biciaki endangered British shipping to and from Egypt, and their Ionian accomplice, Captain Coliva, navigated "under false Russian papers.... The Russian flag covers a number of vessels in these seas who sail under simulated papers granted by vice-consuls in the islands." 19 A raid on four British ships prompted Werry's anger at "the enormities committed by Greek pirates who are now become so numerous. The risk of escaping those robbers is incalculable." 20 Pietro Cordia, British consular agent at Myconos, in reporting on forays in his region, provided Werry with the names of pirates residing on Aegina, Andros, and Myconos. Cordia affirmed that "the Greek pirates are doing great harm to trade, and their base is in this island, of which they hold two parts, namely the capes, and no ship can escape without being pillaged.... Piracy is increasing, and many people of this district are leagued with them." When Cordia detained a pirate who had plundered a fishing boat and turned him over to the local government, "in order to indemnify the captain for the property taken from him", the authorities "did not force him to pay, but let him go.... We can do nothing ourselves, when the rulers are in league with the pirates."21 Francis Werry collaborated with his son Nathaniel in compiling the most elaborate and significant work in the Werry documents presented below, a memorandum to Foreign Secretary Canning in 1825 on British political and commercial interests in the Ottoman Empire. The father, consul since 1793, offered seasoned advice and expert opinion to a son who had served as viceconsul since 1816 and who now recommended himself as a replacement to succeed his octogenarian father in this strategic post in the Levant's foremost merchant center. Nathaniel's cover letter praised his father's "long and arduous" experience, esteemed reputation, and "an influence which has been as zealously as undeviatingly exercised in the true and general interests of the British Empire." Alluding to his own vice-consular role in the safety of

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British property and persons, "in a country where fanaticism and religious zeal have now been so outrageously called into play by intriguing political agents," Nathaniel proclaimed that "the general interests both of mankind and of this state seem to require that relations which have now become so intricate, particularly by the claim to British protection of so many Ionian...subjects, should be confided to hands accustomed to unravel and unfold them, with that facility which time and experience, combined with an accurate knowledge of persons, things, and places, can alone insure." (Document #6) With varying degrees of insight and accuracy, the jointly authored memorandum addressed a range of issues directly related to the larger topic of British aims in Asia Minor and the Archipelago. In delineating Britain's commercial and political concerns, the document gave voice to Russophobia, the exaggerated fear and suspicion of tsarist ambitions in the Near East and Central Asia, a viewpoint that sparked fervid debate in parliament, the press, and policy-making in nineteenth-century Britain. 22 Already in 1825, the Werrys projected Russia as a potential menace to British interests in the Levant and Asia Minor, primarily because of Russian expansion in the Balkans, the Black Sea area, and the Caucasus. Indeed, Russia had been particularly active in the Transcaucasus (south Caucasus) at the expense of both Persia and the Ottoman Empire. 23 Tsarist victories against the armies of the sultan and the shah increased British alarm and raised the specter of a Russian threat to British India. The perceived clash between Russian and British objectives, exacerbated by Russia's close ties with Eastern Orthodox coreligionists in the Ottoman Empire, shaped and influenced British imperial strategy. The ensuing Anglo-Russian struggle for ascendancy in the Eastern Question and the Great Game, across a wide swath of territory, became a multi-dimensional contest with geopolitical, commercial, and cultural stakes. 24 In linking the spread of British commerce to the advancement of civilization and moral progress in Asia Minor, the Werrys envisioned the benefits of what some historians have called "informal empire." 25 The British Empire comprised not only regions of formal authority, characterized by territorial conquest, a military and naval presence, and administrative rule, but also regions of informal authority, where trade extended British influence but without the cost and responsibility of direct control. Agents or instruments of informal empire included merchants, missionaries, teachers, travelers, explorers, consuls, antiquity collectors, and protégés, all of whom exported the values and commodities of British culture. The Werrys attached a moral imperative to this notion, associating British interests with those of humanity and expressing full confidence in Britain's ability to exert a benevolent impact

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on non-European lands and peoples. Their view of a realm over which "the sun never sets" signified the British Empire's global reach and imperial hegemony, even after the loss of the American colonies. The Werrys opened their memorandum by arguing that Britain's control of the Ionian Islands after 1815 "secured a suitable basis whence her political and commercial intercourse was to be extended to...European Turkey, for the purpose of neutralizing the influence which the Russians had...been accustomed to exercise in order to facilitate their military...operations on the Danubian frontier." Moreover, as a center for British-sponsored education and learning, the Ionian Islands would "regenerate the modern Greeks and ultimately enable the native population, on the contemplated overthrow of the Ottoman Empire, to occupy that vast peninsula stretching from the Euxine to the Adriatic." Such designs "offered many political and commercial points of coincidence with that more extensive scheme of general civilization in which Great Britain forms so powerful an instrument." The Werrys interpreted Ali Pasha's secessionist movement and the Greek revolution of 1821 as part of a Russian-instigated plot to damage British interests: "The grand object which the Russian cabinet appears to have had in view, in all these complicated embroils, was to destroy that moral influence which in 1815 had become evident that Great Britain would have it in her power to exercise in the Levant on occupying the Seven [Ionian] Islands." (Document #6) The memorandum accurately sketched the nature and extent of tsarist influence, noting the economic and strategic consequences of Catherine the Great's victorious wars against the Ottoman Empire. Territorial gains, including the Crimea, "opened a vent for the raw produce of the southern provinces of her Empire and attracted to the ports of the Black Sea the Greeks of the Archipelago." The Eastern Orthodox faith "formed another connecting link between the modern Greeks and Muscovites," and the Greeks allegedly exploited this bond "principally for the purpose of threatening the Turks with the influence of their northern protectors, whose sword they suspend like that of Damocles over the head of the Ottoman sultans, exposed to rebellious janissaries in their very capital and revolted pashas in the provinces." (Document #6) Greek and Russian manipulation of this religious nexus, fostered by the capitulatory privileges that empowered tsarist consuls in the Ottoman realm with extensive duties, widened the field of Russian-Greek cooperation in the Levant. This multi-faceted connection with the sultan's Greek subjects allowed Russia to apply additional pressure on the Porte as the natural protector of Orthodox Christianity and as the chief benefactor of Greek, Slavic, and other Christians who desired autonomy or independence.

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Drawing on their experience of intractable complications at the Smyrna consulate, the Werrys vilified Ionian Greek abuse of Britain's Ionian protectorate. Numerous Ionian Greeks, claiming British protection, "quit their native islands to seek their fortune; many addict themselves in the seaport towns to smuggling; some coin counterfeit money; and instances are not wanting of theft and even murder being committed by them. Such characters very speedily brought the British protection into disrepute with the Turkish authorities and complicated the relations by multiplying the points of discussion with them." Indeed, the most important and complex aspect of the consul's duty "consists in maintaining order and peace amongst such discordant elements," a task that required "the utmost vigilance and severity and an intimate and good understanding with the pasha, the kadi [Muslim judge], and the chiefs of the janissaries." Even so, Ionian Greek division and antipathy exacerbated this chore: "The Corfiote is proverbially reputed to be dishonest, the Cephaloniote ferocious, the Zantiote crafty, and the Cerigote laborious." The successful consul in Smyrna and other Levantine ports had to "prevent their disputes from endangering the property and persons of the British by involving the English in their quarrels with the Turks." (Document #6) The memorandum trumpeted the triumphant prospects of British commercial expansion in the Near East and beyond. "It is probable that the abolition of the Levant Company will be followed by a still further extension of that commerce." With the end of the company's trade monopoly, "excitement has been produced, and it may be reasonably expected that new channels will be opened by the spirit of enterprise which characterizes the present times." Asia Minor beckoned as "an extensive field for almost every branch of human industry. Its productions are infinitely varied. The Asiatic Greeks and the Armenians are very numerous, and they are eminently endowed with the spirit of trade. They are, moreover, enterprising, subtle, economical, and wealthy. Owing to their intimate connection with the inhabitants of the interior, they have far greater facilities than the Europeans possibly can possess of bringing the varied resources of that rich country into exchange for our growing manufactures and of thus increasing greatly the intercourse between Great Britain and those countries." (Document #6) Connecting the spread of commerce to the march of civilization, the Werrys declared: "It is indeed to commerce mainly that we may look for the civilization and future moral development of the present Mahommedan [Mohammedan] occupants of those fertile regions. In the progressive dissemination of the produce of British industry through those countries, a more easy intercourse will take place with them," which in turn would spawn "a rapid diffusion of the arts and sciences," as the case of a modernizing Egypt

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under Muhammad Ali apparently demonstrated to the Werrys. The "safety of the British Empire in the East Indies," as well as the larger interests of "an Empire through the extent of which the sun never sets," required policymakers "to bestow a far greater degree of attention to the minor springs and wheels of British policy in the Levant than they have hitherto been permitted to do." The intertwined impact of commerce and civilization in Asia Minor must have appeared relevant to the Werrys in light of tsarist expansion in the Transcaucasus and the resultant Anglo-Russian rivalry in Persia. Indeed, "from the line of the Caucasus and the Kuban, the Russians have at all times maintained a communication with the disaffected pashas and agas of the northern parts of Asia Minor, as well as with Persia." In clear anticipation of the struggle for influence in these contested lands of the Great Game, the Werrys asserted that "if the race of real liberality is to be fairly run between the cabinets of St. Petersburg and St. James, it appears to be full time to open the course and to remove all unnecessary obstacles and impediments." (Document #6) Although prescient in its forecast of Anglo-Russian competition in the Near East and Persia, the memorandum did not help Nathaniel Werry succeed his father as consul in Smyrna. He remained vice-consul until 1834, when the Foreign Office transferred him to Syria, where he served for nearly twenty years as consul in Aleppo, Beirut, and Damascus. He continued to view Russian interests with alarm and suspicion, cautioning the Foreign Office in 1826 that Russia stood to gain the most from Greek independence. "It was by the protection of the Greeks that the Russians first found means to advance their ascendancy, which they continue to exert in that country, and to extend a protecting hand to other Christian nations in that Empire. [I]t becomes a question, from the number of Greeks and Armenians" residing in the European and Asian provinces of the Ottoman Empire, "that whenever the Porte is forced to accede to the independence of the Greeks, the fall of that Empire will ensue at no distant period; and it does not require to be possessed of great divination to foresee which power will be most benefited by that event." (Document #9) As for Francis Werry's future successor, Smyrna trader Richard William Brant received high praise in merchant petitions as "a most proper and fit person to be appointed to fill any consulship that may become vacant in any part of Turkey or Greece." Brant had experience with "the customs and commercial usages in the Levant" and possessed additional qualifications: "his mercantile talents...his thorough acquaintance with the languages, manners, and habits of the people of that country...his address and good management in matters of much difficulty which, without that intimate knowledge of the

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character and prejudices of the Turks and considerable local experience and tact, would have baffled all the endeavors of any other agents." (Document #15) Appointed consul in 1829, and remaining in that post until 1856, he received consular instructions from Foreign Secretary Aberdeen, who underscored the political and commercial nature of his duties. Brant had to prevent capitulatory privileges from being infringed; "promote peace and harmony" between British and Ottoman subjects; notify the British ambassador at the Porte of "all occurrences of a political nature which may arise" within his consular district; and obey instructions from the consul-general at Constantinople. Aberdeen cautioned the new consul "not to recommend your private friends for employments of trust or profit under the government of the country in which you'll reside and, I need hardly add, not to ask or accept favors from that government for yourself." (Document #16) The sixteen documents assembled below, six of them in their entirety, date from 1822 to 1829 and cover events in and around Smyrna during a tumultuous time. Francis Werry authored eight of them, addressing such matters as the Chios catastrophe, the dangers of piracy, and the loyalty and diligence of dragomans at the Smyrna consulate. Nathaniel Werry wrote four of them, discussing the qualifications and authority of consuls after the abolition of the Levant Company; the case of an influential former British protégé who hoped to recover his seized property in Smyrna; and the debt claims of European creditors who sought compensation from the Porte's confiscated properties of Greek emigrants. In their jointly composed memorandum on British interests in the Near East, father and son countered the specter of Russia's excessive influence with the prospect of Britain's expanding commerce and civilization in the region. Three other records, by or about Richard William Brant, include merchant petitions recommending this Smyrna merchant as Francis Werry's replacement and Foreign Office instructions outlining his various consular duties.

1. FO 78/112, ff. 190-93 [In this correspondence with Joseph Planta, undersecretary of state in the Foreign Office, George Liddell (secretary of the Levant Company) attached excerpts from a letter written by Francis Werry, consul in Smyrna, describing some of the harsh realities of the Chios massacre.26]

Levant Company Office 9 July 1822 Dear Sir, In compliance with your desire, I have set about the collection of extracts from private letters from Turkey describing acts of cruelty practiced by the Greeks upon Turks, for the purpose of enabling you to account in some

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measure for the greater barbarities of the latter. But I have not yet been able to succeed: some of my men are not to be found immediately, and some seem to be afraid to communicate. Consul [Francis] Werry's letter, however, of the 2 nd May [1822] seems so much to the purpose that I send you an extract from it. The facts therein set forth, if true, and I believe they are not to be doubted, superadded to previous impressions, were quite enough to excite Turkish fanatics from the mountains of Asia [Minor] to indiscriminate vengeance. Although rather out of date, I send you an extract from [Consul-General John] Cartwright of November last [1821], with an original document to which he refers. But the destruction of the Greek hostages [in Constantinople] by the Turkish government is more difficult to account for. 2 7 They say that a treasonable correspondence was detected. Perhaps it was owing to Greek intrigue. A cruel surmise, but I remember to have heard from authority on which you would rely that the princes Callimachi, brothers—one dragoman of the Porte, the other named, but not confirmed, hospodar of Wallachia— perished lately in consequence of information given to the Porte by each against the other! 28 You have heard perhaps that several rich Greek merchants have been established here [in London] for several years past, carrying on beneficial trade as Ottoman subjects. Mr. Green, late treasurer of the [Levant] Company, tells me that conversing with one of them a few days ago upon the affair of Chios, he, the Greek, who is himself of Chios and has suffered in all respects, attributes their misery to the enmity of one, a Greek (I forget his name) who was secretary to the late patriarch [and] who, from hatred of the island of Chios, excited the people of Samos to land among them for the express purpose of bringing Turkish vengeance upon them. 29 So says the Greek, who I understand is a very respectable man. He, I doubt not, could give you many curious details, and unless you are afraid of being annoyed by him afterward, I recommend your sending for him: Mr. Mavrogordato, No.24 Laurence Pountney Lane, or No.4 Billiter Square. 30 As wc here have nothing in common with these people, I have no acquaintance with Mr. M[avrogordato] myself. I will not fail to convey your message to [Consul-General] Cartwright. However told, it cannot but mortify him. He will consider it an unmerited reprimand and he will tell me that he is not conscious of having deserved it. He will say that it is his duty to report facts affecting British lives and property in Turkey and to add his opinions (considered valuable by all who know him) for the assistance of those concerned. Certain it is that he has not made any communication for unworthy purposes—love of money is not Ms

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failing—and I believe it is equally certain that he has not betrayed any of my Lord Strangford's secrets. I am respectful, dear Sir, your much obliged, George Liddell [Liddell attached these extracts of a letter on the Chios massacre from Francis Werry, consul in Smyrna, to the Levant Company.31]

Smyrna 2 n d May 1822 On the 17th ultimo, I had the honour to inform you that the kapudan pasha [admiral and commander of Ottoman navy] anchored at Chios on the 11th and immediately commenced the horrors attendant on Turkish warfare. We have since ascertained that the insurgent Samiotes, who have been the great promoters of the Chiotes' rebellion, did not all escape; nor have they, nor any of the Chiotes, displayed any courage in opposing the landing of the Turks. Chios is completely subdued, but nothing hitherto has subdued the exasperated Mussulman's vengeance. The kapudan pasha and Eleaz Aga, men of humane feeling, have not been able to subdue their ferocity. 32 The city [and port of Chora] is two-thirds destroyed, [and] most of the villages have shared the same fate. The churches and male inhabitants have not been spared. The females of Chios, renowned for their beauty, many of them most respectable, are become the property of the captors, reserved for harems or domestic servitude. Some hundreds of the best families of females, the kapudan pasha protects on board...his ships. Greater numbers have fallen to the lot of common soldiers. The behaviour of the Chiotes, however, before the arrival of the Turkish fleet, must not be unnoticed; it was most inhuman to their Turkish prisoners, who were mutilated and killed in sight of the garrison of the castle. Every wanton and filthy insult was committed in the mosques that could irritate the Mussulmans, [who are] thus excited to acts of retaliation. We are not surprised that there is no stop to their vengeance. The island, the most beautiful in these seas, is a heap of ruins, and the inhabitants that escaped the sword are reduced to beggary. It is supposed [that] the kapudan pasha is only prevented from attacking Samos by the disorders still [being committed] at Chios; and there is but small expectation of a speedy cessation, for from the remote parts of Anatolia fanatics continually arrive and pass on to partake of the plunder of that now miserable place.

2. FO 78/112, ff. 194-94a [These extracts from two letters (22 April and 2 May 1822), written by the Smyrna-based Levant Company merchant Richard William Brant and sent to his mother in London, corroborated Consul Werry's comments on the Chios massacre.]

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.... In the villages, there has been dreadful slaughter, [and] the Turks say that on their part they have lost five thousand men.... [Chios has been completely reduced and most villages burnt]. There are corpses molested lying in all directions, and in a month an epidemic...will close the tragedy.

3. FO 78/119, ff. 80-82 [Consul Werry warned the Levant Company, in this letter of 29 November 1823, of the potential disruption of trade both in Smyrna and in London if Greek insurgents from the island of Psara attacked British commercial transports and cargoes in the Aegean.]

The success attending the last enterprise of the Psariotes has exalted them to a degree to undertake greater. They have a great number of small craft calculated to convey men to make a descent. The object of attack is not known. The local government of this place deputed the Dutch and Prussian consuls to confer with me and to ascertain, if in case of an attack being made by the insurgents on this place, to know how the English ships of war would act. The senior officer, Captain [Rowan] Hamilton in the Cambrian, with the Hind and Rose, sailed on a cruise on the 26 th [instant]. In his absence, it was not my department to give any answer till the return of the senior officer. This question was agitated, [at] the commencement of the rebellion, at a conference at the French consul-general's [with] the captains of several French armed ships...present. Those officers were not instructed by their government to what extent they were to act in protecting French property. In the course of conversation with our naval captains on the station, I collect their orders are to protect the persons and property of the British factory. Those orders, they construe, go only to the warehouses and dwellings in Frank Street. It is well known to Your Worships that British property is dispersed in all parts of Smyrna; an attack on this place, successful oi not, would involve every merchant here in ruin, and the merchant in London in immense loss. In the first Russian war in 1770, when the Turkish fleet was burnt by the Russian fleet, Smyrna was respected as a commercial depot in which all the subjects of the European powers were interested. Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Duckworth, after the return of the fleet from Constantinople, refused to prevent supplies of provisions going to Smyrna, alleging it was a commercial depot and was to be respected. I am clear the protection from His Majesty's captains of men of war is merely as I have stated. Your Worships, from the local knowledge many of you possess, know that British property is diffused over every shop and every bazaar. A communication from the senior officer on this station to. the

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provisional Greek government, that it is expected by Britain that Smyrna and the evils that must result from an attack on it. Captain Hamilton, the senior officer, now on the station, merits and has our fullest confidence and thanks for the services he has rendered to our commercial interests. I cannot omit to mention Captain Askew, who on a very recent occasion during his command as senior officer, on advice received here of the capture and confiscation of the cargoes at Psara, seeing the disrepute it threw upon the British flag in the merchant service, and the certainty of the preference which it had hitherto enjoyed being taken from it, in the most prompt way sailed and recovered the cargoes of the brigs Flora and Lovely Ann\ thus impressing the Psariote provisional government with a due sense of the respect required to be given, at all times, to the flag which protects all who have confidence to float under it.

4. FO 352/11, ff. 63-64 [This passage from Consul Werry's letter of 23 May 1825 to Sir Henry Neale, vice-admiral in Britain's Mediterranean fleet, raised the pressing issue of piracy in the Aegean Archipelago.]

The Archipelago is infested with pirates.... The island of Tino is the arsenal and rendezvous for them. Several Ionian vessels have been plundered.... It's expected [that] very serious results will occur from these pirates if prompt measures are not adopted with severe and rigid justice.

5. FO 78/135, ff. 270-71 [Francis Werry's son, Nathaniel Werry, served as vice-consul in Smyrna from 1816. This excerpt from Vice-Consul Werry's dispatch of 30 May 1825 to Joseph Planta, undersecretary of state in the Foreign Office, noted how the departure of Russian consular personnel right after the outbreak of the Greek revolt affected Russian subjects of Ionian descent in Smyrna: they simply adopted their original Ionian nationality in order to enjoy British protection.]

[After Russian consular officials left Smyrna in 1821, the Austrian vice-consul assumed supervision of Russian consular business, even though] it is pretty well ascertained that the greater part of Russian subjects, on the Russian authorities quitting the country, took advantage of their original nationality, the Ionian, and claimed British protection, which, from the favorable position the British then stood in with the Porte, was not contested.

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6. FO 78/135, ff. 277-98 [Vice-Consul Werry prepared an extensive memorandum on British political and commercial interests in the Ottoman Levant, drawn almost entirely from the input, advice, and experience of his father Francis Werry, consul in Smyrna since 1793. In his cover letter to Foreign Secretary Canning, Nathaniel Werry not only introduced the report but lobbied to succeed his aged father once he retired, recommending himself as the most suitable and deserving candidate based on his own service in this major Levantine port.]

London the 12th July 1825 To the Right Honorable George Canning, His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Sir, I take the liberty of submitting to your enlightened consideration a memoir on the political and commercial relations of the British Empire with Asia Minor and the Archipelago. These relations have been confided to my father Mr. Francis Werry, who has held the post of consul at Smyrna ever since 1793. During this long and arduous period of thirty-two years, he has formed and spread the reputation of his name throughout Anatolia; and acquired and secured in that quarter of the Grand Seignior's dominions an influence which has been as zealously as undeviatingly exercised in the true and general interests of the British Empire. Parts of these relations have been confided to me in the character of vice-consul ever since 1816, and I have resided at Smyrna from the date of 1798. With regard to the manner in which I have fulfilled the duties of that post, I beg leave to refer to the enclosed testimonials, drawn up and given to me by the merchants resident at Smyrna. In the memoir, I have pointed out the difficulty, if not impossibility, of separating the political from the commercial relations in a city and seaport where British property and interests are exposed to the local government, rendered powerful by the combinations and mutual understanding of the chiefs and leaders of the different [regiments] of janissaries, in the rolls of which the commonest class of people are inscribed for the purpose of protecting themselves from the arbitrary power of the sultan's officers. The safety of British property and persons, in a country where fanaticism and religious zeal have now been so outrageously called into play by intriguing political agents, frequently depends exclusively on that personal character and individual influence of the consular agents which the stormy and factious circumstances of the times force them to display in crisis, where delay would prove fatal and when all reference to His Majesty's ambassador at the time becomes impossible. I further beg leave humbly to submit to your comprehensive deliberation and judgement that the system acted on by the enemies of peace and order in general, and of the British Empire in particular, has been long

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studied with attention and calmness by our family and that the general interests both of mankind and of this state seem to require that relations which have now become so intricate, particularly by the claim to British protection of so many Ionian or Septinsular subjects, should be confided to hands accustomed to unravel and unfold them, with that facility which time and experience, combined with an accurate knowledge of persons, things, and places, can alone insure. The great age to which my father has attained (eighty years), although he still enjoys fully his health and faculties, has already tempted others openly to use eveiy influence in their power to obtain the promise of that post. Such steps, threatening to deprive the vice-consul of a meet reward for zeal and services and to shut the door to future promotion, while his salary was, in the original appointment by the Levant Company, virtually acknowledged to be inadequate by the very permission granted to that officer to trade, a permission rendered nugatory by the heavy nature of the service he has to fulfill, such steps have placed me in the necessity of intruding myself on the notice of the king's government. These combined motives prompt me to address myself to that enlightened sense of patriotism which has elevated you to preside over the vast foreign relations of our boundless Empire, in order to crave your powerful support with His Majesty's government in favor of the petition I have felt it my duty to make to succeed to my father in the post of consul at Smyrna. On such public grounds, and on those general principles of benevolence which form the leading features of the duty, service, and profession of a consular agent, living amongst such discordant elements and always called upon to soothe the warring passions of men of different faiths and interests, I rely for your indulgence in permitting me to address myself to your well-known liberality of feeling, in order to obtain your powerful protection and support with the king's government. I have the honor to be, with the greatest respect, Sir, your most obedient, humble servant, Nath[aniel] Wfilliam] Werry [Vice-Consul Nathaniel Werry attached the entire text of the memoir on British political and commercial relations in Asia Minor and the Archipelago. Crafted with the help and insight of his father Francis, this work covered a range of issues in an impressionistic yet prescient manner: Britain's Ionian protectorate and the strong regionalist antagonisms dividing the islanders; Ali Pasha and the outbreak of the Greek revolt; tsarist expansion in the Near East and the burgeoning ties—religious, commercial, consular, political—between Russia and Ottoman Greeks; consulates and the importance of consular agents; British trade interests and prospects in Asia Minor; and the British imperial notion that the growth of commerce hastened the spread of (British) civilization and moral development

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among Muslims in Egypt and elsewhere. The memoir compiled by Werry father and son, an early expression of British Russophobia, anticipated British-Russian rivalries in the Eastern Question (Ottoman Empire] and the Great Game (Persia, Afghanistan, Central Asia). I have retained the footnotes (a, b, c, etc.) from the original document.]

The mutual jealousy of Russia and Austria and the weakness of France were the principal circumstances which contributed, at the Congress of Vienna, to place the Septinsular Republic under the protection of Great Britain. At that period, the vast preponderance of Russia excited the secret fears of all the governments of Europe. Whilst the ambition of the cabinet of St. Petersburg was for a time occupied in regulating the affairs of the Western nations of Europe, it seemed as if divine providence had, by placing the Ionian Islands in the hands of Great Britain, secured a suitable basis whence her political and commercial intercourse was to be extended to the continent of European Turkey, for the purpose of neutralizing the influence which the Russians had there been accustomed to exercise in order to facilitate their military views and operations on the Danubian frontier. Those islands were considered by the Earl of Guilford [Frederick North] and the Philoi Musoi [.Friends of the Muses] as a focus for human knowledge, whence that light was progressively to be spread, which in the course of time should regenerate the modern Greeks and ultimately enable the native population, on the contemplated overthrow of the Ottoman Empire, to occupy that vast peninsula stretching from the Euxine to the Adriatic. 33 Such a plan offered many political and commercial points of coincidence with that more extensive scheme of general civilization in which Great Britain forms so powerful an instrument. In the combined development of any similar project, the chief obstacles to be contended with were the prejudices on the one hand of the Ottoman government itself and on the other the active influence adapted to those very prejudices by the Russian agents. It may be here worthwhile offering as a problem whether one of the great proximate causes of the Greek revolution was not the overthrow by the sultan's forces of the civil and military government exercised over Albania and Greece by Tepedenli Ali Pasha. This event appears to have been brought about by the influence of Baron de Stroganoff [Stroganov] and M[onsieur] de Dashkoff [Dashkov] with Halet Efendi [Mehmed Said], at that time the

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sultan's [Mahmud II's] favorite. a The prejudices in the sultan's mind on which Halet Efendi seems to have operated were those, which he had long cherished, of submitting the European provinces to one uniform system of government, a system which from the period of the Peace [Treaty] of Bucharest [1812J he had aimed at introducing into his dominions of Asia, with the view of concentrating all the resources of the Ottoman Empire in order to oppose with full effect the hostile power of Russia, so recently aggrandized by her triumphs over the French. 35 The difficulty of such an enterprise was purposely underrated, and the confidential agents maintained at Constantinople both by Tepedenli Ali Pasha and Mehmet [Muhammad] Ali Pasha b of Egypt, also an Albanian, were actively opposed in the Seraglio, so that all good understanding was speedily destroyed, and in its place discord sown, between the Porte and its most powerful military chiefs in those extensive provinces. At this critical period, the British influence seems to have required some powerful aid or stimulus. The ex-Venetian districts on the continent would have secured, as positive points of contact and intercourse with the warlike tribes of the mountains, real consideration and influence with the Divan [Ottoman Council of State] at all times; 37 and it might have been permitted, for more liberal and enlightened ends, to have followed that policy which experience taught the Venetians to be capable of affording them weight at Constantinople. In countries where everything is done by intrigue, il s'agit

a

M[onsieur] de Dashkoff, the secretary [at the Russian] embassy, travelled in 1818 and 1819 all over the Ottoman Empire collecting information and reporting the same to Constantinople, where Baron Stroganoff [Russian ambassador at the Porte, 1816-21] exercised an influence in the Seraglio and over the officers of the Divan principally through Mfonsicur] Franchini, who was formerly Bonaparte's chief interpreter and whom the Russians took into their service. The jealousy the Russians entertained of the good understanding existing between the Ionian government and Ali Pasha excited Mfonsieur] de Dashkoff to leave no effort untried to destroy the same, to effect which he remained some time at Patras and Prevesa. 34 b The enemies of Ali Pasha were protected at the Porte by Halet Efendi, whilst through the Mirdite (Catholic) Albanians in the service of the hospodars of Wallachia and Moldavia and [throughj the [Philikt] Etaireia and its agents in Odessa and Moscow, the Russians carried on a confidential intercourse with Ioannina. 36

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d'être le plus finc [it's a matter of being the most shrewd] both for the laudable purpose of preventing bloodshed and to pursue peace, for in the political as in the physical and moral world everything is relatively and not absolutely adjusted. The civil and military power of Ali Pasha being destroyed on the advance of the sultan's forces, no other form of government could be substituted; and the Greek kapetanoi [military captains], with their armatoloi [irregular militias in Ottoman service] being no longer under the control of that chieftain, took the field for their own account. 40 The grand object which the Russian cabinet appears to have had in view, in all these complicated embroils, was to destroy that moral influence which in 1815 had become c

The following extract from Mr. [William] Wilkinson's [An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, London, 1820] affords an edifying proof of the necessity of employing efficient agents in Oriental diplomacy. 38 The truth of the facts therein stated may be relied on, the author having been intimately acquainted with...General Horace Sebastiani. "When the English fleet appeared before Constantinople [in 1806], it naturally occasioned the greatest confusion and alarm. The sultan [Selim III] lost no time in sending on board to offer terms of peace, and negotiations were commenced with Mr. [Charles] Arbuthnot, who was in the flagship, the Royal Sovereign. But they were carried on with much less vigour than it was necessary to give them and left time to the French intrigues to gain the advantage. Bonaparte's active agents, Generals Sebastiani and Franchini, were the more anxious to counteract the operations of the English plenipotentiary, as they were aware that the first result of his success would have been the expulsion of the French embassy from Constantinople. They employed for that purpose every means in their power and they succeeded by the following stratagem. The chief of the janissaries, Pehlivan [Ibrahim] Aga, had formerly been colonel of a regiment, which had acted once as guard of honour, given to a French embassy at the Porte. Having remained some time in that station, he had contracted a lasting connection with the French, to whose party since that period he devoted himself. When General Sebastiani saw that peace with England was on the point of being concluded, he sent Franchini to him to suggest a plan which the Turkish officer carried into immediate execution. He went to the Seraglio, as if in great haste, and having obtained [an] audience [with] the sultan, he thus addressed his imperial chief: 'May God preserve your sacred person and the Ottoman Empire from every possible evil. A pure sense of duty brings me before your royal person, to represent that so strong and general a fermentation has arisen amongst my janissaries since the appearance of the infidel's fleet before your royal palace. They express so great a discontent at the measures pursued by your ministers in negotiating with the English, from a shameful fear that the appearance of that fleet has thrown them into, that a general insurrection is on the point of breaking out, unless the negotiations be laid aside and all offers of peace be rejected with scorn. They declare that it is beneath the dignity and fame of the Ottoman Empire to submit to such an act of humiliation, as to sign a treaty because a few ships have come to bully its capital and dictate their own terms to the Ottoman sovereign. Your brave janissaries will not suffer so disgraceful a stain to tarnish the splendour of the Ottoman arms. They are all ready to sacrifice themselves in defense of your residence and in vindication of the honour and faith of the Ottoman nation. But they can never consent to stand tacit witnesses of a submission so ignominious to the Turkish name.' Sultan Selim [III], a prince naturally timid and credulous, no sooner heard a message of this sort delivered in the name of the janissaries then in good understanding with the chiefs of government, and apparently united with the troops of the Nizam-i Jedid [the "New Order" army and military organization], than he ordered all communications with the English fleet to be suspended and immediate preparations of defense to be made, in the event of its commencing hostilities. This maneuver, unknown at the time, and with which very few persons are yet acquainted, was the true cause of the failure of the negotiations which, at the commencement, bore so sure a prospect of success." The extraordinary and splendid diplomatic talents of my Lord Strangford enabled him, with less efficient means than his antagonists possessed, to bring to a favorable issue the difficult negotiation pending with the Porte on Baron Stroganoff's quitting Constantinople and the events of which may furnish His Majesty's ministers with several similar instances of personal influence and reputation.39

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evident that Great Britain would have it in her power to exercise in the Levant on occupying the Seven [Ionian] Islands. In no quarter of the globe has the collision been more violent between British and Russian interests and agents than in the Mediterranean. For no sooner were the Seven Islands placed under the protection of Great Britain by the Convention [Congress] of Vienna than the British authorities were called upon to protect subjects differing essentially in nature and character from Englishmen. The extensive influence which the Russians found means to exercise in the Turkish Empire so soon as the Empress Catherine [II] had, by wresting Bessarabia d from the Ottoman scepter, opened a vent for the raw produce of the southern provinces of her Empire and attracted to the ports of the Black Sea the Greeks of the Archipelago, e was further increased and strengthened by the cession of the Seven Islands to that colossal power/ The inhabitants of those islands, ill-famed for their subtlety and restlessness,§ soon became under the direction of Russian agents the most penetrating, active, and subservient instruments. The tolerant and comprehensive system followed by the Russian government, in whose vast territory tribes of the most opposite faiths and character reside in peace and brotherhood, had allowed many Greeks to rise to the first dignities of the state; and thus a powerful incitement was offered to the subjects, tributary to the Grand Seignior, to look to Russian protection and to adhere to the Russian consular agents. 44 In her general policy, Russia had imitated that of Rome in granting to conquered provinces greater immunities than those enjoyed by the ancient ones. The religion too of the Russians, having been communicated to them by the Greeks of the Byzantine Empire, formed another connecting link between the modern Greeks and Muscovites; of which the former took every opportunity of ostentatiously making a parade in their church ceremonies and processions, principally for the purpose of threatening the Turks with the influence of their northern protectors, whose sword they suspend like that of

d

Ceded by the Peace [Treaty] of Jassy, 9 f t January 1792 [n.s.]. 41 The number of Greek seamen may be estimated at fifteen thousand. They are very enterprising, hardy, and good sailors, and it may with truth be said that they form the better part of the Greek population engaged in the present contest. They entertain a deep-rooted hatred of their Ottoman rulers, a fanatic jealousy of the maritime European nations, and a blind devotion to Russian counsels. A great number of their vessels navigated up to the period of the revolution under the Russian flag. On the first news of the movement which took place in the Morea, the Russian vice-consul at Chios repaired to Psara and succeeded in instigating the Psariotes to fit out their fleet in opposition to that party amongst them inclined to peace. Their commercial as well as naval seamen are imbued with a strong spirit of democracy which pervades the whole organization of their sea force. 42 First formed into a republic under Turkish protection and Russian guarantee by the Convention of Constantinople, 21 March 1800 [n.s.]. 43 Afterwards ceded by Russia at Tilsit, 25 June 1807 [n.s.], to Bonaparte and occupied by French troops. e

8 Thucydides.

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Damocles over the head of the Ottoman sultans, exposed to rebellious janissaries in their very capital and revolted pashas in the provinces. 45 The executive governments, both of the Russians and Turks, if not those of the several states of Europe respectively, have in point of fact the very same interests at stake, i.e., to keep down the turbulent and disorderly by directing their force to the common good. That these governments have come into collision proceeds from this simple circumstance: that facts have been too frequently reported to them through dense and obscure media [and] by incapable, and on that account evilly-disposed, agents (no allusion is here made to their motives, as their acts alone fall under the eye of the observer), into whose hands the arduous and complicated duties of several of the inferior posts of Eastern diplomacy had fallen through court intrigue or patronage. In a government organized as that of the Turks is, owing to the wide range given to the moral instrumentality of man by the theocratic principle on which all their polity is based, the consular agents'1 have duties of a much more extensive and responsible nature to perform than those which fall to the lot of the consular agents in Christian states, amongst which the similarity of polity and institutions (particularly of a preventive nature) places their respective subjects on a closer footing of analogy. It is this circumstance in particular which renders the instrumentality of the consuls in the Levant, both in the concentric action on the embassies at Constantinople and in the eccentric action on the different points of the spheres of the consulates, so important. Indeed, [for] foreign powers the action or influence of the consular agents does not terminate at Constantinople. The Austrian consul is in general chosen out of the Foreign Office at Vienna, with the clerks of the different sections of which department he divides the large amount of consular dues, and with whom he is otherwise closely connected, whilst the Russian consuls have ties of fully as powerful a nature at St. Petersburg. The welfare of the British Empire renders it highly necessary that these connections should be narrowly watched and duly reported home, because the high protection which many needy and restless adventurers enjoy, especially at the court of St. Petersburg, has frequently occasioned both embarrassment and danger.

h [With] the term "consular agents" occurring frequently in this memoir, it is requisite to observe here that [the term is] meant to convey to the reader an idea of the persons employed under a consul for the purpose of keeping up the requisite intercourse with the Turks; these persons are 1) consul, 2) vice-consul, 3) chancellor, 4) interpreters, 5) janissaries or guard.

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In virtue of the different capitulations,1 by which the relations of His Majesty's subjects in the dominions of the Grand Seignior are regulated, the subjects of Great Britain are placed in all civil and criminal matters occurring between Europeans under the exclusive jurisdiction of the British consuls. Prior to the protectorate of the Seven Islands having been reposed in the hands of Great Britain by the European powers assembled at Vienna, the number of British subjects in the different parts of the Ottoman Empire was but small, and they were of a character and nature to enable the consular agents to command the respect of the Turkish authorities. In 1815, the number of Septinsular Ionian subjects which claimed the protection of the British consul at Smyrna amounted to about 1,500. The greater part of these individuals had alternately passed from the Venetian to the French, thence to the Turkish and the Russian, and back again to the French protection. Most of these persons quit their native islands to seek their fortune; many addict themselves in the seaport towns to smuggling; some coin counterfeit money; and instances are not wanting of theft and even murder being committed by them. Such characters very speedily brought the British protection into disrepute with the Turkish authorities and complicated the relations by multiplying the points of discussion with them. In no state of Europe are such privileges granted to foreign subjects as those which are bestowed upon the European nations by the capitulations of the sultans. It is under these very privileges and immunities that the Septinsular subjects have constantly sought to break through the Turkish internal regulations. The most important and difficult part of the consul's duty consists in maintaining order and peace amongst such discordant elements. To effect this, it requires the utmost vigilance and severity and an intimate and good understanding with the pasha, the kadi [Muslim judge], and the chiefs of the janissaries. The Septinsular subjects are divided amongst themselves by strong national [regionalist] antipathies. The Corfiote is proverbially reputed to be dishonest, the Cephaloniote ferocious, the Zantiote crafty, and the Cerigote laborious. The police by which they are governed at Smyrna is directed entirely by the consul, and its object is to prevent their disputes from endangering the property and persons of the British by involving the English in their quarrels with the Turks; [these] altercations, without the greatest precaution and vigilance, are liable to involve the whole Frank quarter in 1 These capitulations are public instruments given under the sign Manual of the Grand Seigniors, containing concessions of privileges in matters of trade granted at different times by the Porte, at the request and in consequence of presents made by British ambassadors in the name of the sovereign and on condition that the said sovereign should continue in firm peace and perfect friendship with the Grand Seignior. In general, no reciprocity is required by these capitulations.46

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bloodshed and fire, [since] the Turkish populace, the greater part of which is inscribed in the rolls of different ortas [regiments] of janissaries, [is] as irritable and needy as that of most large maritime cities. It may be here expedient briefly to observe that all control over the people and populace thus marshalled is exercised by their own chiefs through the personal and moral influence of energy, character, and knowledge; and that the peace and safety of Smyrna, as well as of every city and town in the Ottoman Empire, depends on the mutual good understanding maintained between those chiefs and the officers nominated at Constantinople. It is with these combined authorities that the consular agents in the seaport towns have to concert all their proceedings, and thus the responsible nature of the consular duty in those ports is evidently of a political as well as commercial and indeed judicial and magisterial nature, for the consuls are called upon to preside at courts or tribunals consisting of a certain number of merchants convened to settle in a summary manner all disputes or differences between their respective subjects.^ The commercial relations of Great Britain in general with the Levant have increased greatly since the breaking out of the Greek revolution. It is probable that the abolition of the Levant Company will be followed by a still further extension of that commerce. As long as the company existed, money holders both in the Ottoman territory and in England were ignorant of the nature of its regulations, and considering it as a monopoly, they were afraid to adventure their capital. Publicity having been given to the abolition, excitement has been produced, and it may be reasonably expected that new channels will be opened by the spirit of enterprise which characterizes the present times. Asia Minor offers an extensive field for almost every branch of human industry. Its productions are infinitely varied. The Asiatic Greeks and the Armenians are very numerous, and they are eminently endowed with the spirit of trade. They are, moreover, enterprising, subtle, economical, and wealthy. Owing to their intimate connection with the inhabitants of the interior, they have far greater facilities than the Europeans possibly can possess of bringing the varied resources of that rich country into exchange for our growing manufacturers and of thus increasing greatly the intercourse between Great Britain and those countries.47 It is indeed to commerce mainly that we may look for the civilization and future moral development of the present Mahommedan [Mohammedan] occupants of those fertile regions. In the progressive dissemination of the J In differences even between a British and Turkish subject, the latter frequently prefers this process on account of the low rate of the costs. From these decisions an appeal may be made to Constantinople and ultimately to the British tribunals.

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produce of British industry through those countries, a more easy intercourse will take place with them; and now that a rapid diffusion of the arts and sciences is flowing back into Egypt, and that such of them as appertain to war are brought into play in this contest between the Greeks and the Turks, the safety of the British Empire in the East Indies may, at no very distant period, call upon those entrusted with the direction of the vast interests of an Empire through the extent of which the sun never sets, to bestow a far greater degree of attention to the minor springs and wheels of British policy in the Levant than they have hitherto been permitted to do. In addition to these considerations, it is also to be borne in mind that from the line of the Caucasus and the Kuban, the Russians have at all times maintained a communication with the disaffected pashas and agas of the northern parts of Asia Minor, as well as with Persia where the Russian minister, by his liberal appointments and engaging comportment, has gained many partisans and adherents. If the race of real liberality is to be fairly run between the cabinets of St. Petersburg and St. James, it appears to be full time to open the course and to remove all unnecessary obstacles and impediments. It is [a] matter of notoriety that the army of General [Alexei] Yermoiloff [Ermolov] 4 8 (composed of about 120,000 men, part of which formed a corps of the army of occupation in France and carried with it the enseignement mutuel [mutual instruction] into those remote parts of Russia) is strongly animated with the liberal principles. 49 The superior intelligence and activity of that general officer thus posted may prove another motive to observe with precaution and deliberation the motions of all individuals passing through his line of government into Asia Minor as well as Persia. These reflections are respectfully, though perhaps somewhat freely, submitted to the enlightened and patriotic consideration of the ministers of the crown, under the full conviction that notwithstanding the great weight of the public affairs with which they are oppressed, the spirit of zeal and practical philanthropy which animates the writer will attract their attention and be duly appreciated by them.

7. FO 352/12B, packet 4, ff. l-157a [Consul Francis Werry's correspondence of 1826 with Stratford Canning, British ambassador at the Porte, included detailed reports on piracy, commerce, local conditions in Smyrna, and significant political and military happenings in the Greek war, such as the fall of Missolonghi and the arrival at Navarino of the Egyptian fleet under Ibrahim Pasha. This passage from the consul's dispatch of 5 January 1826 (ff. 2-2a) dealt with the threat of piracy.]

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The depredation committed by the piratical Greeks on the British navigation coming from Britain is of the greatest moment to the welfare of the commerce to and from this place. [Prompt measures must be taken] to protect our floating interests.... The Greek pirates have tasted the superior flavor of English ships' cargoes and obtain without danger a rich booty. All classes of the Greeks in the islands partake in the plunder they acquire. Their nefarious traffic will be difficult to suppress while the war continues. [Citing cases of British ships plundered and threatened with capture near several ports, Werry declared that] .. .such is the spirit of depredation encouraged by the rich booty acquired from the English merchant vessels; every vile Greek is looking forward to enrich himself by plunder of the cargoes from England. [A subsequent communiqué from Werry to Ambassador Canning in Constantinople enclosed a petition signed by British merchants of Smyrna (ff. 9294a, 10 August 1826), calling for British naval escort and protection of their ships, persons, and cargoes.]

8. FO 78/147, ff. 177-90 [In this letter of 26 January 1826 to Joseph Planta, undersecretary of state in the Foreign Office, Consul Werry interceded on behalf of five dragomans at the Smyrna consulate who requested financial help for their faithful service over the past seven years.-*®]

.... From the increased price of every article of life, the extraordinary rise in exchanges, and the consequent decrease in value of Turkish money, it's impossible for [the] petitioners to support their families on their present salary. The British Levant Company being dissolved, they humbly beg leave to represent through you their situation to His Majesty's government. [They hope that] their zeal and fidelity are well known to you; that there are not in any consulate in the Levant dragomans possessed of more honesty and integrity than those who have the honour to be attached to the British consulate; [and] that you will be pleased to submit this, their humble request to be allowed the same salary as the British dragomans at Constantinople....

9. FO 78/147, ff. 241-52a [On home leave in Chelsea from his vice-consular post in Smyrna, Nathaniel Werry drafted this memorandum (20 February 1826) for the Foreign Office on key consular issues in the aftermath of the Levant Company's dissolution: the qualifications of British consuls in the Levant, the status of British consulates, and the extent of consular authority over British subjects.]

[A consul in Turkey] should be experienced in the commercial and maritime laws not only of his own country but also of the other nations residing there, with whom British subjects frequently are at issue, and [should]

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understand the laws and government of Great Britain. He should have the Capitulations between the Porte and Great Britain at his finger ends; 5 1 speak the Turkish, Greek, French, and Italian languages; be a match for the cunning and intrigue of the Ottomans; and in case of necessity act with decision, energy, and boldness, tempered with prudence, in the protection of British subjects and property [and] in the discussions with the local governments, which are ever prone to overreach and to form pretexts by which [their] officers try to convert official regulations to private advantage. On the consideration that it will be pleasing to Parliament and to the country to show that...the abolition of the [Levant] Company has [saved] expenditure by annulling several consulates, it's necessary to observe that...many British subjects and numerous Ionians, with their property, either will be left to the mercy of the local governments or must be protected by foreign consuls, to the manifest detriment of such subjects and, [from a political point of view], throwing into the hands of the Russians and Austrians means with which they may not only successfully intrigue against the British interests in the Levant but also hasten the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire. It was by the protection of the Greeks that the Russians first found means to advance their ascendancy, which they continue to exert in that country, and to extend a protecting hand to other Christian nations in that Empire. [I]t becomes a question, from the number of Greeks and Armenians with which the Ottoman provinces both in Europe and [in] Asia are interspersed and peopled, that whenever the Porte is forced to accede to the independence of the Greeks, the fall of that Empire will ensue at no distant period; and it does not require to be possessed of great divination to foresee which power will be most benefited by that event. From experience in consulate affairs, I can safely say that I've never known an Ionian who could be left with discretionary power to act as consul in any post of importance, having always found that they gave too much countenance to their fellow subjects in the malpractices which complicate angry discussions with the local authorities and eventually embroil His Majesty's ambassador [in] a multitude of questions with the Porte. In giving way to this economy by the abolition of consulships, it's a consideration which must peculiarly belong to His Majesty's ambassador at the Porte to see that great interests are not abandoned under such a palatable appearance....

10. FO 78/147, ff. 263-69 [In this letter of 17 April 1826 to John Bidwell, superintendent of the consular service in the Foreign Office, Nathaniel Werry offered a case study of a prominent and influential Greek merchant who, as a British protege, served as honorary dragoman at the British consulate in Smyrna and rendered useful services to British interests until the outbreak of the Greek revolution. Michele

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Mavrogordato, from a powerful and distinguished family, headed the Greek community in Smyrna and had close ties to local Ottoman notables. Although he disparaged the Greek revolt and the Greeks themselves, and although he believed Ottoman power would crush the uprising, Mavrogordato became a political victim, forced to endure lost and confiscated properties and to seek haven abroad where he suffered from paralysis. Werry now interceded on his behalf, requesting the Foreign Office to grant Mavrogordato personal protection at Smyrna so he could attempt to recover his sequestered property.] Chelsea April 17 th 1826 My dear Sir, In answer to the verbal communication you made to me on Saturday respecting a Mr. Michele Mavrogordato, I can conscientiously to the best of my recollection make the following statement. The Greek name of Mavrogordato is extremely common in Greece and Turkey, and if Michele is the same person I knew at Smyrna, he certainly has acted at several important periods as an honorary dragoman to the British consulate at Smyrna. For instance, on war breaking out between Great Britain and the Porte in 1807, M. Mavrogordato was actively useful in giving information to the consul and afforded mediation with the local government and the governor for the embarkation of British subjects and property without molestation. He was then one of the most opulent Greek merchants at Smyrna, allied to the powerful family of the Mavrogordatos at Constantinople, at the head of the Greek community or deputation at Smyrna, and banker or saraf to the governor and to one of the chief derebeys [regional notables] in Anatolia residing at Magnessia, the chief of the family of the Karaosmanoglus. 5 2 [He] consequently possessed considerable influence at Smyrna. (M. Mavrogordato's houses both in Smyrna and at the village of Bornabat were always assigned as residences to the kapudan pasha and his suite when that officer visited Smyrna.) As he continued to enjoy to the period of the Greek revolution the same influence, he has uniformly acted favorable to the British interests (whenever an appeal was made to the Greek community or deputies by the local government, which continually occurred in disputed cases when the origin of Ionian subjects was contested with the British consulate.) The consulate always experienced through his intervention very great facility in such delicate and difficult dissensions, which necessarily arise from the contiguous situation of the Ionian Islands to Greece, the continual flux and reflux of the population to the Turkish provinces, and the change of masters the Ionian Islands have been subjected to during the war between Great Britain and France.

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I am not positive to the fact, but I believe M. Mavrogordato was at one period an English firmanli or beratli, that is [he] held the British protection in virtue of a patent [berat or firman1 from the sultan. [This and] all other similar European patents were abolished, it was said, at the instigation of Sir Robert Liston, and the Porte created a highly privileged and perfected commercial body for its own reaya on the same footing as Europeans residing in Turkey. 53 It is questionable if the abolition of the European beratlis and firmanlis was good policy; it certainly gave a decided advantage to the Russians (before we acquired the Ionian Islands) from the proximity of their southern provinces, and in virtue of their treaties, to naturalize Greek subjects at their pleasure, while the other European powers were excluded from any interference with the Grand Seignior's Christian subjects. As an act of integrity, in destroying the venal traffic which existed with these protected, if it was not Sir R. Liston's, it certainly bore the strong characteristic of his policy; but unfortunately when opposing the political measures of the European nations, integrity does not always go hand in hand with political advantage. M. Mavrogordato has invariably acted in the most friendly manner to the British interests. Of his political tenets, I believe I can say with justice that he was one of the few Greeks who deprecated at least the precipitancy of the present Greek revolution and who foresaw the jealousy which might spring up between the European powers on this subject. And that however well disposed the mass of the Greek population was to the Russians, many sharp-sighted Greeks thought a party in Russia existed opposed to the Greek faction, which might be alternately influenced as well from internal causes as by external politics and causes, and not among the least the influence of the courts of Austria and Great Britain. And that if the Porte upon acknowledged general political principles had the right of putting down the Greek revolution, in the meantime the great mass of power which the Porte could bring against the Greeks from the hitherto constant practice of Eastern warfare would ultimately, as M. Mavrogordato emphatically said in vulgar Greek, "extinguish the Greek nation." While opposed to it, that spirit which pervades the Greeks and which is a national and a constitutional defect inherent in those people..., the ancient defects of the Greeks, jealousy, personal hatred among their chiefs, and an avidity for individual dominion, joined to the rapacity and all the vices they have acquired from Turkish rule, must conduct them again under the yoke of the Ottoman government. These observations I recollect having heard from M. Mavrogordato, thus he may be considered as a victim to the Greek revolution, and unfortunate indeed has he been, poor man! He had acquired large property in the trade

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between Turkey and Holland, which he has lost; his considerable landed and real property in and about Smyrna has been sequestered by the Porte after having paid considerable contributions, exacted by the Porte to face the ordinary and extraordinary expenses incident on the present contest. He [together] with a numerous family fled, on the massacre taking place at Smyrna, 54 first I believe to one of the Ionian Islands; from thence to Trieste, where he was visited with the heavy affliction of paralysy; from thence I heard he went to Odessa, since which I have not heard of him. It will I am sure be agreeable to the generous and kind feelings of both Mr. [George] Canning and Mr. Stratford Canning, from the claim this unfortunate man has of honorary dragoman and good acts towards the British, to transmit instructions to Mr. Consul [Francis] Werry to grant him personal protection at Smyrna (which will, among other numerous humane and philanthropic acts, be perfectly in the spirit of and common to the duties of his office). M. Mavrogordato's object is ultimately the recovery of his sequestered property, which is one necessarily of much difficulty and delicacy to negotiate, considering the position almost all Greek property is placed in Turkey since the revolution and the claims Europeans have on such sequestered property. I however dare say, from the rank M. Mavrogordato before held, [that] he best understands the most eligible mode of arrangement, which I think he may succeed in should he be so happy as to acquire the countenance and protection of Mr. [George] Canning and His Majesty's ambassador at Constantinople. I however take the liberty of observing, as well to absolve myself from responsibility as to guide you in the nature of this claim, that there is a marked difference between a positive right of demand on the Porte in a case of this nature and what it fairly may be considered a matter of privilege and courtesy, [so] that Mr. S. Canning may not be embarked in an application of which there may be numerous others, at the close of this revolution, equally forcible in appealing to the sympathy and fine feelings of Mr. Canning. It is equally just to observe that it is a good arising out of an arbitrary government that no government has it more in its power and more so frequently accedes to grant acts of courtesy and favor as the Turkish government, at the instigation of the European ministers; and when managed with ascendancy of judgement by the European ministers, [the Turkish government] has proved, and will prove in the present position of affairs, of the greatest benefit to all interests connected with the population of the Ottoman dominions. I have the honor to be, my dear Sir, with truth and regard, yours most faithfully, N[athaniel] Wplliam] Werry

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11. FO 78/147, ff. 271-75 [In another letter to Foreign Office official John Bidwell, Nathaniel Werry shared details from a property claims petition submitted to Ambassador Stratford Canning by several European merchants who had not received payment of debts due them by Greek drapers in Smyrna, who had fled to Chios and had subsequently been massacred. The larger point, according to Werry, remained the complicated issue confronting many foreign subjects—British, Austrian, French, Dutch, and others—who had conducted business in the Ottoman Empire and who found themselves in the same situation as the petitioners cited above. They sought compensation or reimbursement for debts owed them by Greek property-owners, who had emigrated during the Greek revolt and whose properties and merchandise had been confiscated, and in some cases sold, by Ottoman officials. While some Greek emigrant debtors may have sought to recover their sequestered property in order to liquidate their European debts, the issue remained unresolved.]

Chelsea April 21 st 1826 My dear Sir, I return enclosed the petition addressed to Mr. [Stratford] Canning by Messrs. Peltzer and others from Aix-la-Chapelle. The petitioners are Belgians or Prussians. They claim on the Ottoman government for debts due for woolen cloths sold to divers Greek woolen drapers at Smyrna, who fled to Chios at the commencement of the Greek revolution and are represented to have been massacred at the taking of that island by the Ottoman forces under the kapudan pasha and Vahet Pasha, in consequence of its having joined the Greek revolution at the instigation of the Samiotes who landed there a considerable force. It appears [that] Messrs. Lee and Jens, British merchants at Smyrna, have not been able to obtain payment from the Porte of this claim. The petition does not state who sold the goods. Messrs. Lee and Jens may have sold these goods to the Greeks on account of Messrs. Peltzer [and others], or they may be representatives for this claim, the sale having been effected by some foreign commercial house at Smyrna. In either case, I make no doubt the claim is enclosed in the schedule which I transmitted to the consul-general [of Constantinople] and to Mr. [William] Turner 55 before I left Smyrna, and His Majesty's minister must [before] this have acquainted Mr. [S.] Canning if there is any prospect of the Porte acceding to the claims of this nature. The consuls transmitted, at three different periods, to their respective ministers at Constantinople very ample detailed accounts respecting these claims, together with minute information respecting the conduct of the pasha and the commissioner dispatched by the Porte to Smyrna. [They and several other Ottoman officials] sequestered all the property of the Greek emigrants, also their merchandise, effects, and landed and real property, the first of which was sold and the amount remitted to the Imperial Treasury at Constantinople.

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All these transactions, from the beginning of the Greek revolution up to the date I left Smyrna, I narrated and explained in a note to Mr. Turner. I understood that Mr. Turner had taken the business up very warmly, and when I left, great expectations were formed in consequence. Messrs. Peltzer [and others] are placed in the same position [as] the British, Austrian, French, Dutch, and other subjects and consequently must necessarily await the result of the joint negotiation of the ministers at Constantinople on this subject. It is one, however, which admits of discussion and which the Turks know how to discuss, being particularly sensitive when they are called on to refund. I can only say that the circumstances set forth in the petition, being so similar to transactions which occurred to my knowledge at that period, bear every appearance of being correct. If the Turkish government is permitted to give up only the amount sequestered of those Greeks who are debtors to the Europeans, to be divided amongst them pro rata, it will be found from several causes to be very small and to fall very short of the claims made. If, on the other hand, the Porte is called on to make good the claims in full, in consequence of the manner in which the government possessed itself of the property and the sales it has effected, it may plead the right of total confiscation or postpone the settlement indefinitely, or until the revolution closes, when a set off or balance may be struck between the losses the Turk population met with in Greece and the amount the Porte possessed itself of, belonging to Greek emigrants and the disaffected, in the Turkish Asiatic and European provinces. But there can be no doubt that the amount sequestered at Smyrna is amply sufficient to pay the claims of the Europeans made at that place. The Greek emigrants endeavour to obtain the protection of the European ministers resident at the Porte with a view to return and to repossess themselves of their property. In some cases, this has been productive of good, and what these merchants having claims on them have wished for, when the emigrants have subsequently been honest enough to liquidate their debts. The Porte has also in some few cases permitted them (when emigrants have made it appear that they only emigrated to Egypt) to be reinstated in their property; and in some cases, the emigrants have returned and collected their debts, disposed of their effects, and again fled the country without satisfying their creditors. It requires nice discrimination to decide in what cases protection may be granted to advance the British interests. To grant generally or indiscriminately protection to the Greek emigrants, should even the Porte consent to such a measure, would for the most part have the effect of giving the Greek emigrant debtors an opportunity of evading the payment of their debts and would destroy the claim the European merchants at present have on the Ottoman government.

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The Greek emigrants, tired of the revolution, would return to their property could any guarantee for their security be given in the form of a general amnesty, which amnesty has been frequently proclaimed to them, but without the guarantee of the European powers, an act which the Greeks look for; such a measure, which would reinstate the Greeks in their property, would go far to satisfy individually the European merchants for the claims they have on the Ottoman government and on the Greek emigrants. Though as in Messrs. Peltzer and company's claim and innumerable others, in the sanguinary scenes which have taken place at Smyrna, Chios, Constantinople, and other places as well as in Greece, the Greek emigrants, debtors to the Europeans, have been destroyed. I am enabled to communicate to you confidentially, from the intercourse I have had with our merchants, that they look upon the tardy measures adopted by our government to obtain indemnification for these claims from the Porte in a suspicious light and as no great earnest of its sincere wish to obtain recovery. They cannot be convinced of the difficulties which present themselves in this negotiation. In fine, this negotiation, as well as everything connected with the Greek revolution, is extremely complicated and surrounded with difficulty. I have the pleasure to be, my dear Sir, with great truth and regard, your obedient and humble servant, N[athaniel] Wfilliam] Werry

12. FO 352/12A, ff. 32-36, 39-40, 43-49 [These extracts from Consul Francis Werry's correspondence of June 1826 with John Cartwright, consul-general in Constantinople, underscored the danger of piracy to British shipping and relayed a Turkish action on the nearby island of Chios.]

[Numerous British merchant vessels requested naval escort] in consequence of the increasing acts of piracy committed by the Greeks in the Archipelago.... [Turkish authorities on Chios suspected a small boat's crew of being Greeks and] put all of them to death, among them a Corfiote.... Acts of this barbarous ferocity are repeated by [Turkish officials].... In this instance, there could be no plea of being an armed force as the number of the poor men was...three, two of which were Genovese and the other a Corfiote.... [A petition from British merchants to Werry, calling for naval protection against the threat of plunder in the Aegean, condemned] the crying evil of Greek piracies [which sold captured cargoes in Smyrna's markets.]

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13. FO 352/12A, ff. 122-24 [Consul Werry's dispatch of 18 September 1826 to Consul-General Cartwright in Constantinople recounted the fate of a British merchant ship looted by pirates.]

[The brig Enchantress of Plymouth], off the island of Zea, was boarded by a piratical boat with around [forty armed men]. They plundered the brig of the provisions, ship and cabin stores of all sorts, of every description, [and] beat the master and a boy violently. [The list of plundered items included] biscuit, salt beef, butter, cheese, tea, sugar, peas, all the furniture of the cabin and table linen, nails, rope, canvas, compasses, spyglass, telescope, captain's watch, carpenter's tools, medicine chest, all the cooking utensils, royals, running rigging, all the captain's apparel, signal lantern, beds and bedding. They left nothing but the [yard-sails], cables, and anchors. These depredations, which continue malgré the activity of the various cruisers, call for the interference of government or [else] the mercantile navigation will be deterred from navigating in these seas without convoy. The first fruit ships will be ready in a few days, [and] some of them have determined to proceed without escort; if they fall in with such [a] vessel as described by the master of the Enchantress, the loss of provisions and stores will disable them from prosecuting their voyage. I shall write the vice-admiral to urge escort be given, as three or four ships may be ready for sailing. The disadvantage to the merchant arising from detention is too obvious when a cargo is for the market.

14. FO 78/171, ff. 49-49a [This excerpt from Francis Werry's report of 18 January 1828 to John Bidwell, superintendent of British consuls in the Foreign Office, briefly depicted the naval and military situation in the Smyrna region at this stage of the Greek war.]

.... The most perfect tranquillity prevails here and in every part of Asia Minor. The siege of Chios continues, [and] reinforcements by sea and from Chesme are ready to succour the Turkish garrison. But the Greek squadron, superior to the Turkish naval force, renders it difficult to succeed....

15. FO 78/171, ff. 251, 257 [Two merchant petitions, received by Foreign Secretary Aberdeen in December 1828, supported Richard William Brant as successor to Francis Werry as consul in Smyrna.]

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We, the undersigned [twenty-two merchants signed the petition], having had, as leading members of the late Levant Company, opportunities of judging the qualifications of Mr. Richard William Brant, strongly recommend him as a most proper and fit person to be appointed to fill any consulship that may become vacant in any part of Turkey and Greece. And we feel convinced that if so employed, Mr. Brant would, from the experience he has acquired of the customs and commercial usages in the Levant, fulfill the duties of his office with credit to himself and to the entire satisfaction of His Majesty's government. [A second petition on behalf of Brant offered this testimonial.] We have great pleasure in certifying that we have known Mr. Richard Brant more than twelve years, both as a merchant at Smyrna to whom we entrusted our affairs of considerable magnitude and as one of the members of the Levant Company, and have reason to think very highly of his mercantile talents [and] of his thorough acquaintance with the languages, manners, and habits of the people of that country.... [A]nd we have known instances of his address and good management in matters of much difficulty which, without that intimate knowledge of the character and prejudices of the Turks and considerable local experience and tact, would have baffled all the endeavors of any other agents.

16. FO 78/185, ff. 143-58, 191-96 [With the retirement of Francis Werry, consul at Smyrna since 1793, Foreign Secretary Aberdeen selected Richard William Brant as the new consul. Brant's instructions from Aberdeen and the Foreign Office (25 May 1829) emphasized key consular duties, such as the defense of the capitulations granted to British subjects in the Ottoman Empire, and implied the existence of problems or abuses in Britain's consular service in the Levant.]

Your duty [is] to do all in your power to prevent those privileges from being infringed at Smyrna. The British trade in that port will be placed under your protection; and [since dragomans are] necessary in all communications with the authorities and the people [of Turkey], you will not refuse to British merchants permission to avail themselves of the service of the dragomans or [language] students attached to the consulate in all cases wherein reference is to be made to the Turkish authorities. It will likewise be your duty to promote peace and harmony between British subjects and the subjects of the country in which you reside. Should any serious disturbance be caused by the indiscreet zeal of British missionaries 56 or by the imprudence of any other subjects of His Majesty, you'll use your best exertions to quiet and allay the angry feelings which may be excited. You'll seriously admonish those British subjects whose conduct may have led to such disturbances; and if you find your authority not

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sufficient to restore tranquillity and to maintain peace and good will, you will represent the case to His Majesty's representative at the Porte and request his instructions for your guidance. You'll report to His Majesty's representative at the Sublime Porte all occurrences of a political nature which may arise within your consulate and you'll apply to His Excellency on all occasions wherein you may require his assistance and instructions. You'll keep His Majesty's consul-general at Constantinople informed of all matters relating to your consulate and you'll obey the directions which you may officially receive from him for the guidance of your conduct in your official station. The Levant Company thought fit to restrict their consul at Smyrna from engaging either directly or indirectly in commerce, and His Majesty's government considers it indispensable that this restriction should be continued. I have further to caution you not to recommend your private friends for employments of trust or profit under the government of the country in which you'll reside and, I need hardly add, not to ask or accept favors from that government for yourself. You'll reside in the British consular house in Smyrna, and your salary will be at the rate of £800 a year, to commence from the 5 t h of April last [1829]. You'll take especial care that the tariff of fees to be collected in the consular office at Smyrna be in strict conformity with the schedules [enclosed].. .for the better regulation of the consular service. I annex for your information the copy of a letter which I have addressed to Mr. Werry respecting your appointment. He will put you in possession of the British consular residence and he'll make over to you all the property belonging to the public, together with the originals of the official correspondence and the archives of the consulate.

5 HENRY SALT AND JOHN BARKER: NOTES FROM CAIRO, ALEXANDRIA, AND ALEPPO Henry Salt and John Barker, during their extensive consular experiences in Cairo, Alexandria, and Aleppo, witnessed many of the seminal events that made the Near East such a turbulent region in the early nineteenth century. Warfare, rebellion, piracy, plague, captivity, and provincial potentates often dominated the narratives in the reports and letters penned by Consuls Salt and Barker. Both had audiences with Muhammad Ali, the modernizing governor of Egypt, with whom they maintained good relations during their consular stints in that strategically located country. Both took advantage of their surroundings to pursue interests beyond the commercial and diplomatic expectations of their assignments—antiquities for Salt, horticulture for Barker—and both died and remain buried in the countries where they served, Salt in Egypt (1827) and Barker in Syria (1833). Both consuls also left a rich legacy of communiques and correspondence, a significant resource for scholarship on British interests in the Ottoman Levant. No one today can visit the ancient Egyptian collections in the British Museum and the Louvre without coming across the name of Henry Salt, British artist, traveler, and consul-general in Cairo from 1815 to 1827.1 Born in Lichfield, the son of a doctor, and the youngest of eight children, Salt studied portrait painting in London and traveled extensively when he accompanied Lord Valentia (George Annesley) as secretary and sketch artist on a lengthy tour of India, Ceylon, the Red Sea, and Egypt in 1802-06. Valentia dispatched Salt on his first diplomatic mission of sorts, albeit in an unofficial capacity, to the ras of Tigre, the prince of the northern province of Abyssinia, to open up commercial relations with Britain. Salt's description of his special expedition appeared in Valentia's published travelogue in 1803, a threevolume compendium illustrated with Salt's sketches and drawings. 2 Valentia's patronage and Salt's Abyssinian venture served the future consul well when the Foreign Office commissioned him to undertake another voyage to Abyssinia, where he chronicled his impressions of that country's geography, economy, commerce, customs, and ecology. 3 After returning to London in 1812, Salt became a member of the Royal Society and of the African Association (The Society for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa), thanks to his own voyages and to the sponsorship of such influential public figures as Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society and trustee of the British Museum.

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Banks, among others, interceded with Foreign Secretary Castlereagh in 1815, recommending Salt as consul-general in Cairo after illness forced Colonel Ernest Missett to resign from that post. Salt's travels in Egypt and adjacent lands and his government mission to Abyssinia made him qualified, or so thought the Foreign Office, to head the Cairo office, strategically located in a country of heightened importance for Britain's imperial defense of India in the post-Napoleonic age. Along with his commercial and diplomatic responsibilities as consul-general, Salt received guidance and encouragement— from the Foreign Office, the trustees of the British Museum, and the Society of Antiquaries—to amass ancient Egyptian artifacts. Arriving in Egypt in 1816, Salt successfully performed his various tasks until his death in 1827. He defended and extended British interests, overcoming numerous obstacles, such as chronic outbreaks of plague and insufficient monies for basic consular expenses, a problem exacerbated by salary arrears and frequent visits from British travelers and naval-military personnel who expected generous hospitality from their country's chief diplomatic representative in Egypt. Salt interceded for British merchants when they complained of violations of capitulatory trade privileges; reported regularly to the Foreign Office on commercial, naval, and regional affairs; upheld British neutrality during the Greek war; and gathered Egyptian antiquities that enriched the collections of London and Paris. In virtually all his endeavors, Salt cultivated and maintained good ties with Egypt's domineering governor, Muhammad Ali Pasha, the most vital force and influence in this strategic part of the Ottoman Empire in the first half of the nineteenth century. 4 Egypt under Muhammad Ali provided the setting and catalyst for much of Salt's consular correspondence. Salt admired and respected, albeit through the prism of Orientalist condescension, the ambitious and independent-minded pasha who transformed Egypt into a centralized and modernizing state that played a significant role in the Eastern Question during his long reign as governor (1805-48). This shrewd and skillful Ottoman officer of Albanian origin, who came to Egypt as part of a joint Ottoman-British military expedition against the French, crushed rival factions for power and imposed sweeping reforms that made Egypt a virtually independent country, ruled until 1952 by the dynasty he founded. His vast projects renovated agriculture, industry, commerce, education, the armed forces, and other facets of life, although largely at the expense of the peasantry who had to serve in the army, pay taxes, grow crops, build roads, and dig canals. The pasha rebuilt Egypt's army and created a formidable navy along European lines with the help of European, mainly French, instructors, officers, and technical experts. To mobilize resources, he centralized the

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administrative system, making it responsible for conscription, taxation, security, public works, and economic management, and he founded specialized schools to train officers, administrators, accountants, translators, and medical personnel. To generate more revenues, the pasha's government nationalized a substantial portion of agricultural lands and productivity. The state enlarged the area under cultivation, repaired canals and dikes, extended irrigation networks, and increased the cultivation of such cash crops as rice, sugar, indigo, and, above all, cotton, which eventually dominated Egypt's foreign trade. The pasha's system of monopolies, with fixed prices and regulated markets, augmented state profits in agriculture, manufacturing, and commerce. The value of exports rose dramatically, and Europe came to play a larger role in Egypt's commercial exchange, with most of this trade controlled by the government. Growing trade revenues financed the pasha's comprehensive educational, industrial, and military endeavors, with schools, hospitals, textile factories, dockyards, and munitions plants meeting the needs of his army and navy. Muhammad Ali carved an indelible niche not just as a pioneer in Westernizing but as a powerful presence in Near Eastern affairs. He answered Sultan Mahmud II's request to defeat the Wahhabi threat, the militant and puritanical Sunni sect which, allied with the Saudi tribe, attacked Ottoman Iraq and Syria and imposed a fundamentalist regime in the Hijaz. The governor's army, commanded by his son Ibrahim Pasha, recovered the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina in 1813 and five years later defeated the Saudibacked Wahhabis. The sultan rewarded the victorious Ibrahim with the prestigious governorship of the Hijaz. In quest of gold, slaves, and control of the Red Sea coastline, Muhammad Ali ordered military expeditions against spacious Sudan in 1820, a campaign that dragged on for several years. Inspired by a vision of commercial expansion in the Aegean and responding to the sultan's call for help in the Greek war, the pasha dispatched his army and navy to Greece. These forces subdued rebels in Cyprus and Crete, invaded and occupied the Morea, and participated in the successful siege of Missolonghi; but Egypt's involvement created tension with Britain and France when those governments allied with Russia to support Greek independence. Egyptian troops had to withdraw from the Peloponnese after the Ottoman-Egyptian naval debacle at Navarino (1827). Ostensibly prompted at the behest of the Sublime Porte, Egypt's military intervention in the Arabian peninsula, the Archipelago, and Greece reinforced Muhammad Ali's aggressive plans not just in nearby Sudan and the Red Sea but in Syria and Anatolia, core Ottoman lands where Ibrahim Pasha's attacks in 1831-32 threatened the territorial integrity of the sultan's fragile realm and triggered yet another Eastern crisis.5

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Already upon arrival in Egypt to assume his consular position, Henry Salt, who had met the pasha in 1806 on his travels with Lord Valentia, expected difficulties "such as must necessarily arise from the arbitrary manner in which the affairs of the country are at present carried on and from [Muhammad Ali] Pasha's daily becoming, as I understand, more difficult to treat with and less inclined to pay attention to the rights of European nations." (Document #3 below) The consul-general had to handle complaints from British merchants in Alexandria that the pasha's officials displayed, according to Salt, "a constant desire to encroach on the privileges hitherto enjoyed by British subjects. They have attempted since my arrival to deny the usual privileges of our Ionian subjects—to withhold provisions from the captains of our merchant vessels—to levy duties on wines and spirits imported for the private use of individuals, which had never been attempted before—and even, about six weeks ago, to force the European inhabitants to pay for their daily supply of water." After remonstrating against these restrictions, Salt claimed that he "obtained satisfactory redress from the pasha, who upon the whole appears to entertain a very anxious wish to stand on good terms with the British nation." Indeed, during the consul-general's first audience to present credentials, the pasha pledged that "he would make it a point to come to a fair understanding upon all subjects liable to dispute and...to arrange them in such a manner as to prevent if possible, for the future, all kinds of unpleasant discussion." (Document #4) Yet in subsequent reports, Salt vented his frustration over commercial difficulties, hardly surprising in view of the set prices and regulated markets imposed by Muhammad Ali in violation of Ottoman capitulations with European states, agreements which the pasha evaded and rejected. Although he provided most foreign merchants with the protection and safety often lacking in Ottoman regions suffering from misrule and insecurity, Egypt's monopolies excluded cash crops from Ottoman-European commercial arrangements and thus prompted merchant vexation and consular protest. 6 "The affairs of this country," Salt objected, "continue to change for the worse, the pasha every day becoming more eager in his commercial pursuits and consequently rendering it more difficult for the European merchants to obtain their due share of trade." Salt specified the main abuses in commerce: Muhammad Ali's exclusive monopoly on exports, "in direct contradiction to the spirit of our treaty with the Porte;" "the mixing of bad produce with the good, as is too often practiced with the cottons and flax, whence it happens that the article sold to the merchant fetches a less price than that exported on His Highness's account in the markets of Europe;" and "the uncertain and arbitrary mode of fixing prices, this depending entirely on the caprice of His

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Highness, who, being surrounded by men of unprincipled character who never hesitate to fill his ears with a thousand falsehoods, seldom or ever knows the real state of the market." To these troubles Salt added "the uncertain value of our specie and its alarming depreciation," attributed entirely "to the maladministration of the pasha's affairs." Salt voiced regret "that it is vain to urge to His Highness how inimical such proceedings are to the liberty of trade accorded to us by the capitulations, as well as to his true interests. A Turk [Muhammad Ali was actually Albanian] is never at a loss for an evasive reply." (Document #8) Another Salt communique complained that "the affairs of our merchants...are not, as in Europe, regulated by any fixed law, but all is decided by the caprice and often according to the...malice of the local authorities, which in Alexandria, I am sorry to state, are directed by a monster of inequity and cruelty, I can give him no better name, one Belal Aga, whose great activity and energy of character render him, unfortunately, of too great use to the pasha of Egypt for his speedy dismissal." This official interfered in "almost every branch of internal traffic [and] monopolizes all the wool imported into the country." Hardly a ship "can enter the harbour without having serious difficulties, to encounter from his rapacity and injustice, while scarcely a single person in Alexandria dares speak publicly a word in his disfavor out of fear of his extortions." (Document #16) In a similar vein, Salt declared that "every day becomes more difficult, not only on account of the obstinacy and perverse spirit of our merchant captains and sailors, over whom our authority is very limited and undefined, but more especially on account of the odious system of monopoly carried on here and of the constant attempts at oppression, the low chicanery, [and the] intrigue practiced by every office in His Highness's employ, so that the consulate has scarcely left to it one moment of tranquility." (Document #20) Salt often commented on Muhammad Ali's designs in neighboring regions. Economic profit drove the pasha's interest in renewed commercial exchange with India via the port of Suez and the Red Sea. He "has lately sent several vessels from Suez with a considerable quantity of European goods for India under the charge of two agents, who have likewise been entrusted with a million dollars to purchase different commodities." After militant Wahhabis attacked one of his smaller vessels in the Red Sea, Muhammad Ali "urged the necessity of having some kind of naval force there to repel their insults, since otherwise it would be no longer safe for even his sons to pass to and from the Hijaz." Salt did not disagree, suggesting to the Foreign Office that it "undoubtedly would be far better that His Highness should have a preponderating influence there than that such pirates as the Wahhabis should

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have possession of the sea." Moreover, "the pasha has become so complete a merchant [in Egypt] that he has placed himself entirely at our mercy, his revenue now so vitally depending on commerce since he has taken the whole produce of the country into his own hands that he could not support his government many months without it." In the event of friction or hostility, Britain's Mediterranean fleet could apply pressure "by simply anchoring at Aboukir and blockading the coast. The same thing might be done in the Red Sea, as two frigates stationed between Jedda and Suez would cut off all their communications by sea and soon reduce [the pasha] to terms, and I imagine the Porte itself would very readily consent to see its own capitulations thus enforced." But Salt thought that such extreme measures remained "happily far distant, especially if a conciliating plan be pursued." (Document #4) Wahhabi aggression against the Ottoman-controlled Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina compelled the sultan to solicit Muhammad Ali's military assistance against the threat posed by this Sunni fundamentalist sect. In 1818, after a long conflict, Salt recorded Egypt's ultimate triumph under the command of the governor's son, Ibrahim Pasha, who captured two of the most important enemy sheiks and then "ordered with his characteristic severity to have their beards cut off and their teeth extracted." The victory "has occasioned great joy at the pasha's court and has given much pleasure generally throughout Egypt, as it promises to put a speedy end to a war that has...drained the country of its specie and proved a heavy burden on its resources. It may likewise, in a general point of view, be deemed an event favorable to the interests of humanity," as it brought to a close the excesses perpetrated by a group who, according to Salt, resembled a band of robbers and whose intolerance made them "enemies to the progress of civilization." In a follow-up dispatch, Salt confirmed "the destruction of that sect which threatened at one time to have overspread not only Arabia but some of the finest provinces of the Ottoman Empire and to have restored by its baneful influence the darkness of the first ages of Islamism." (Document #6) Muhammad Ali ordered military action of a much different sort in 1820, preparing "a formidable expedition for the interior of Africa." The professed objectives of this aggression included collecting black slaves to be domesticated in Egypt, taking possession of Sudan's gold mines, and opening "a free intercourse for the trading.. .from the interior!" (Document #8) Repercussions from Muhammad Ali's invasion of the Peloponnese in 1825 at the behest of the sultan echoed in Salt's consular narratives. The consul-general feared that a Greek naval blockade of Alexandria's harbor would not only sever trade with Europe but endanger British relations with Egypt, especially if Admiral Thomas Cochrane, heavily recruited by the Greek

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provisional government, were to command Greek ships. Acting on his own and not on behalf of "neutral Britain," Lord Cochrane volunteered his maritime combat experience and renowned bravery to help the Greeks, just as he had previously assisted the rebel navies of Chile, Peru, and Brazil in their independence struggles. 7 A retaliatory Greek assault led by Cochrane would not only prevent reinforcements from reaching Ibrahim's troops but would also jeopardize Britain's declared neutrality and create a "very precarious situation [for] merchants and other British subjects resident in Egypt." Cochrane's attack against the pasha's ships in port would constitute "a rash act likely to produce a ferment among the populace that might place in danger not only the English but all the Europeans resident in the place." The British admiral's "presence in the Levant must prove hurtful to British interests," especially since the pasha "will, I am sure from the various conversations I've have had with him, attribute all his acts to the secret agency of the British government and shape his conduct accordingly." Despite Salt's best efforts "to convince His Highness that our government is resolved to adhere to a strict neutrality," the appearance of Lord Cochrane "in these seas will be considered by the Turks in general as a decided proof to the contrary." (Document #17) In a lengthy dispatch to Ambassador Stratford Canning in August 1826, Salt touched on a range of issues, including Muhammad Ali's frenzied construction activities in Cairo, his well-honed leadership skills, and the situation of Greek prisoners held captive. The pasha, according to Salt, regretted his decision to intervene in the Greek war, "but his honour is now at stake and he will make every possible effort to get out of it with success. His means, it's certain, are not equal to what he had calculated upon owing to the two last bad seasons of the Nile." The governor's greatest resources, however, "rest on his own superior talents. Fertile in means, and singularly skilled in the art of leading men, he has always hitherto been seen to rise greater for the obstacles he has had to encounter." For instance, "His Highness is busy preparing his fleet for sea and has already several ships manned with his new disciplined Arab sailors, who are not...in my opinion [able] to make so good a figure by sea as his troops by land. He has also about fifteen thousand new troops ready to send if required to Ibrahim Pasha." Salt went on to elaborate the main topic of this particular memorandum, the fate of Greek prisoners enslaved by Ibrahim Pasha's forces in the Morea. By Ottoman law, Salt maintained, "all prisoners become slaves, not of the chief in command, but of their actual captors. This is a distinction very necessary to be held in view— they are not prisoners to the state as in Europe, but slaves of those into whose hands they fall. Every soldier that takes a Christian prisoner does with him or

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her as he pleases. Thus the disposition of the slaves sent here has depended upon the caprice of the captors." (Document #19) Many captives had already been sold before their arrival, "the greater part, I suspect, to persons who bring them over to Egypt on speculation." Salt estimated that about three thousand boys, women, and children had been shipped, nearly half of whom had been "purchased and provided for by the European Levantine and Greek Christians established in Egypt, the greatest facility having been given to us at all time in their purchase." In some cases, the governor himself "contributed money for their ransom." Many slaves "have been liberated also by the Turkish grandees out of a compassionate motive to render a service to their workmen or gardeners, who in general are Greeks and who may have discovered or pretended to discover relatives among the unfortunate prisoners; and in these cases, the Turks have invariably paid the owners their value." Others who generously participated in "this laudable project" of emancipating captives included Albanian builders, Britain's Ionian subjects, and "all classes of Europeans." The persons thus delivered "remain with their own consent as domestics in the different families and may have been sent back to their friends." (Document #19) Salt addressed the fate of the less fortunate. All those who converted to Islam "remain as slaves with the Turks." The bey in Alexandria "may have about twenty in his harem," while the assistant governor had two. "Some of those who are not easy to dispose of, from age or ugliness, suffer of course great hardships." If not immediately sold, "they are sent about to the different fairs for sale, and some...have been forced away so far as to Dongola and thence doubtless to the more interior provinces of Africa, as well as by the way of the Red Sea to Jedda." Salt's closing thoughts disparaged Islam and its supposed sanction of slavery, a widespread misconception in much Western writing on the Ottoman Empire in the early nineteenth century. "While the faith of Mahomet flourishes, the greatest delight of a [Muslim] must be, when he has the power, to insult, vilify, and trample upon a Christian." Even the strong-willed pasha of Egypt lacked the power to effect change in the practice of Muslim enslavement of Christians. "It has only been by strict conformity with certain of these deeply rooted prejudices of his subjects that he has been able to accomplish so much. Were he to attempt any changes [with] respect to the right of property in Christian prisoners, it would only, I fear, produce the massacre of those who are now saved." (Document #19) Another consular task—collecting ancient Egyptian antiquities—drew Salt's interest and attention, as well as his own money. The French and British successive occupations, along with Muhammad Ali's Westernizing reforms, opened Egypt to a growing European presence: not just merchants,

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officers, and technical experts but tourists, pilgrims, scholars, and myriad others. Inspired by Britain's possession of the Rosetta Stone marvel, an impressive imperial prize confiscated from French forces in 1801, British private and public collectors became increasingly fascinated with the monuments and other remnants of Egypt's distant past. The inscribed granite stele from Rosetta, arguably the single most important Egyptian artifact in the British Museum and the essential key for deciphering ancient Egyptian writing, prompted antiquity enthusiasts to visit the Nile Valley. Popular fervor and government initiative fueled a scramble for ancient Egyptian antiquities, a contest waged largely between Britain and France, with imperial influence, national honor, social prestige, and economic profit at stake. The players in the field, who had to win favor from Muhammad Ali's government for their excavations and acquisitions, comprised an assorted lot of travelers, explorers, archeologists, adventurers, dealers, traders, and consuls. Collectively, they coveted, discovered, purchased, plundered, traded, shipped, and preserved many of the treasures today housed in the Egyptian galleries of Europe's top museums. 8 Salt competed in the antiquity arena, motivated not just by a quest for money, fame, social status, and national distinction but by artistic sensibility and consular duty. Salt contributed to the living legacy of Egypt's ancient past in numerous ways, devoting time, energy, and his own resources to the antiquarian portion of his consular mission. Stirred by British custody of the Rosetta Stone, "justly regarded as one of the proudest trophies of the British arms," the Society of Antiquaries and the Foreign Office urged Salt to find fragments of other inscribed stones from Egyptian antiquity and to make either drawings or plaster casts of them. The study of the writing on such artifacts "would in all probability serve as a sufficient foundation for a complete knowledge of almost all the hieroglyphic inscriptions and manuscripts in existence. And there is no doubt that whatever might be the expense of the undertaking, whether successful or otherwise, it would be most cheerfully supported by an enlightened nation, eager to anticipate its rivals in the prosecution of the best interests of literature and science." (Document #2) In pursuing this assignment, Salt gathered inscribed artifacts and papyri; sketched and copied inscriptions; published an essay on the phonetics of hieroglyphics; discovered three additional hieroglyphs; and studied the ancient script in the context of Egypt's well-preserved monuments. These efforts earned Salt high praise from French scholar Jean-François Champollion, the founding father of Egyptology who successfully deciphered hieroglyphic writing. 9 Moreover, Salt's original and copied inscriptions, on display at the British Museum and the Louvre, made ancient Egyptian culture known to a wider public and

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provided Egyptologists with a treasure-trove of materials for scholarly analysis. He also sponsored excavations, conducted archeological research, and amassed a variety of artifacts. As an antiquarian, Salt became best known for the colossal granite bust of Ramses II, nearly nine feet high and over seven tons, that dominates the Egyptian Gallery in the British Museum. Salt must have taken pride in announcing to Lord Castlereagh in 1817 that he had just shipped from Alexandria the broad-shouldered torso and massive head of Ramses II, commonly but erroneously referred to as the Young Memnon, one of the most celebrated and hauntingly beautiful examples of ancient Egyptian monumental sculpture. 1 0 The arrival of Ramses in London marked the successful culmination of Salt's collaboration with John Lewis Burckhardt, the Lausanne-born British explorer, scholar, and Arabist. Acquaintances from London and fellow members of the African Association, Salt and Burckhardt pooled their resources and hired the Padua-born adventurer, circus performer, and antiquity aficionado Giovanni Battista Belzoni, whose expertise in hydraulics and engineering proved essential in removing the gigantic monument from the Ramses funerary temple in Thebes and transporting the oversized cargo down the Nile to Cairo and Alexandria. 1 1 The joint undertaking of Salt and Burckhardt, at their own expense, drew inspiration from their "anxious desire to add so invaluable a piece of sculpture to our national collection," and they took "the liberty of forwarding it to Your Lordship as a joint present to the British Museum." (Document #5) With Muhammad Ali's permission to excavate and to export artifacts, Salt set about gathering antiquities for himself, for patrons such as Lord Valentia, and for the British Museum. By 1818, two years after his arrival, and using monies inherited from his father, Salt acquired over one hundred cases filled with sculptures, mummies, sarcophagi, papyri, statues, fragments, and other objects. When he wrote to the Foreign Office, voicing his intention to donate this assortment to the British Museum for modest recompense and suggesting estimated prices for his various pieces, Salt inadvertently provoked uproar from "gentlemen collectors" who branded him "a dealer" and "a second Lord Elgin." 12 Stung by the outrage, Salt retracted his price list and offered the entire collection, without conditions, to the British Museum; but he continued to seek at least partial compensation for his own significant expenditures, over three thousand pounds he claimed. In a plaintive note of 1822, he solicited the favor of Foreign Secretary Castlereagh "towards obtaining for me such a remuneration as Your Lordship may conceive I am justly entitled to" on this occasion. (Document #11) Only in 1823 did the

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British Museum come up with a payment of two thousand pounds, roughly half of what Salt had spent to obtain, ship, and insure his collection. In a separate transaction in 1824, Salt sold the spacious alabaster sarcophagus of Seti I, the joint possession of Salt and Belzoni, to architect Sir John Soane for two thousand pounds, one of the eclectic wonders still on display in the Soane Museum at Lincoln's Inn Fields. A second Salt collection of antiquities, purchased by the French government in 1826 and destined for the Louvre, brought the consul-general nearly ten thousand piounds (250,000 francs), thanks to the intercession of Champollion, who urged his country to buy what he considered a historically valuable array of mummies, papyri, bronzes, paintings, gold and porcelain artifacts, musical instruments, tools, and other objects Salt had obtained. At a posthumous auction at Sotheby's in 1835, the British Museum spent over four thousand pounds to acquire remainders from Salt's last collection of Egyptian antiquities. 13 Salt's example encouraged British and other European collectors to amass not just tombs, monuments, and works of art but artifacts that illustrated the life and culture of ancient Egyptian civilization. In much of his consular correspondence, dealing with either contemporary Egypt or her distant past, Salt made reference to the rich bounty and destructive fury of nature. His bittersweet tone captured the duality of the Nile's untrammeled power: "As a circumstance connected with the welfare of the country, I have to mention that the Nile has this year [1818] risen to a very uncommon height and inundated tracts of land which for thirty years before had not partaken of its bounty. The immediate consequence, however, has been to occasion great distress among the [peasants] of the country by having carried away whole villages and entirely destroyed the rising crop of Indian corn." (Document #6) Eight years later, on a brighter note, Salt observed that the Nile "promises to be a plentiful [season], and this will do much to heal the reigning disquietude. [The pasha] will soon have grain to export, and that will again employ the merchants; and when trade shall flourish, all the other branches of the population will gradually partake of its advantages." (Document #19) As for Egypt's persistent bouts of plague, with loss of life and rigorous quarantine measures, Salt immediately took notice when he arrived in Alexandria to begin his official duties. "We've had a few instances of plague both here and at Cairo since my arrival, but the malady has not yet assumed its usually formidable aspect." (Document #3) A plague attack of 1816 claimed the lives of at least two of Muhammad Ali's officers, the Austrian vice-consul, and several other European residents in Egypt. At Rosetta, plague "still rages with unceasing violence;" at Alexandria, "it continues to make

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great ravages among the troops, a circumstance little regretted by the European inhabitants." (Document #4) Outbreaks in Alexandria in 1818 took the lives of two persons at the British consulate home, "a clerk in the chancellor's office and a female servant." But at Cairo, "the Franks have entirely escaped its ravages, and a few accidents only have occurred among the natives, a very extraordinary fact, when the constant communications and...commerce between the two places be taken into consideration, and which can only be attributed to some peculiar state of the atmosphere which renders it averse from receiving the contagion." (Document #6) Salt experienced firsthand the devastating affects of residing "in a country so subject to plague and other fatal diseases" when two of his infant children and his wife perished from plague and when his friend and colleague Peter Lee, consul in Alexandria, died after a ten-day illness. (Document #14) These personal tragedies, exacerbated by his own periodic ill health, partly explained the tone of ennui, strain, and sadness in some of Salt's reports in the last few years before his own death, from disease of the spleen, in 1827. The twenty-eight documents presented below, eight in their entirety, date from 1815 to 1826, with Salt authoring eighteen of them on Egypt's internal and external situation, on Muhammad Ali, and on consular activities, including the acquisition of Egyptian antiquities. Seven of the documents, by or about John Barker, complement and amplify issues raised in Salt's work. The Smyrna-born Baker, educated in England, served over three decades as consul in Aleppo (1799-1825), consul in Alexandria (1825-27), and consulgeneral in Egypt (1827-33). His sustained experience and long-standing knowledge of the Near East deepened the observations and impressions he recorded in countless letters and dispatches covering a host of topics on Syria and Egypt, such as topography, climate, commerce, agriculture, silk cultivation, consular functions, great power influence, and relationships between the region's various religious and ethnic groups. 14 Along with vignettes of notable personages like Muhammad Ali, Barker detailed some of the pressing problems in the administration and government of Ottoman Syria, in particular the extortion and rapacity associated with local potentates such as Abdallah Pasha. 15 From Aleppo in Ottoman Syria, John Barker commented on the ramifications of the Greek war, such as an unsuccessful corsair attack on the port of Beirut in March 1826 and the tragic aftermath. When a Greek squadron attempted to capture the town, "in the absence of all regular military force, the citizens were immediately called to arms, and the night was passed in great disorder and preparations for the defense of the place." The town possessed "a very scanty supply of firearms and ammunition, and the fort, which defends

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the town from an invasion by sea, was as ill provided as the inhabitants." When the invaders approached the ramparts and as the battle raged, "ships cannonaded the town..., and the fort fired upon them occasionally. Some damage was suffered by the town from five hundred balls, of which two struck the French consular house and three that of the Austrian agent." (Document #21) The besiegers sustained forty to fifty casualties, while the besieged suffered fourteen killed and twenty wounded. After the Greeks retreated and the entire flotilla vanished, a lieutenant of regional despot Abdallah Pasha arrived with a militia force that exacted revenge on Beirut's Christian communities. The inhabitants "suffered more in their property from these undisciplined troops than the invasion of the Greeks had inflicted upon them; and the Christian part of the population, without distinction of Latin, Maronite, or Greek, was pursued and persecuted in a most merciless manner by the established authorities, while the Europeans themselves were not secure as well from the effects of the insolence and rapacity of the soldiery as from the arrogant prepotency of the governor." A French merchant and an American missionary, together with their families, "were put in fear of their lives, maltreated, and robbed." Officers of the government, "in their eager pursuit of the helpless Christian natives, violated the French convent and some Frank houses, and it was with great difficulty the consuls themselves were enabled to repel their insolent attempts to carry their search into the interior of their own dwellings and to protect the reaya in their service from sharing the fate of the other Christians, whose houses and silk plantations were confiscated, and all that could be seized were reduced to beggary, after having been tortured for the purpose of extorting from them sums, which it was impossible for them to raise by the immediate sale of all their effects." (Document #21) Barker himself experienced the direct impact of Greek piracy when, in May 1826, he could not transfer to his new assignment as consul in Alexandria. Since an overland journey from Aleppo appeared impracticable, Barker pondered "a passage on board a merchant vessel casually sailing from Scanderoon for Alexandria; but I deem it highly probable, when I may wish to embark, that the insecurity in that mode of travelling which now prevails will still be such as to prevent me from exposing myself and family to the insults of the Greek corsairs and my household effects and property to the depredations of that band of freebooters, who daily commit the most daring acts of piracy." Clearly, the British flag did not offer "any security to those who may be so unfortunate as to fall into their power." (Document #22)

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Like other British consuls in the Levant, Barker confronted various complications in consular affairs. In particular, "British merchants continue [as of 1826] to lend their names as a cover to property embarked under the English or other Christian flags and really belonging to one or other of the parties engaged in the war, which still unhappily rages in Greece and throughout the Archipelago." This fraudulent practice, which directly contravened "the spirit and meaning of His Majesty's declaration of neutrality, is further attended with the mischief of bringing the British name under suspicion and greatly increases the difficulties to which our trade, in common with that of other nations, is necessarily exposed during the present contest." (Document #23) Pressure from regional Ottoman authorities, especially their interference with consular personnel in Aleppo, greatly aggravated Barker, as evinced in his spirited dispatch of 1826. Levantine protégés, with spotless records of diligent service as dragomans at the British consulate, lost their protected status and, "thrown into the den of lions," found themselves "abandoned to the rapacity and cruelty of the Turkish government." If the British government had not accepted their services in the first place, these Ottoman subjects "would have remained in the obscurity which is the only refuge of native Christians in this country and not have been now thus dragged into the notice of the government, which will gratify its hatred to the British name by chastising them for having contravened the laws of their country by being the agents of a European power." (Document #25) Barker blamed "the horrible tyranny of Ali Pasha of Tripoli, a vizier ... [with] very little credit or influence at the Porte," for the plight of these protégés. The pasha confiscated merchandise from warehouses on the pretext that "merchant reaya had committed a capital crime in pretending to be, as dependants of the Franks, entitled to immunities" that the governor himself had acknowledged eight times. As for the repression of reaya merchants and protégés employed by British officials, Barker's longtime tenure as consul in Aleppo allowed him to speak credibly "of at least twelve pashas who have successively governed this province and who all uniformly respected the privilege, which this...vizier of Tripoli has dared to openly attack and violate." The loyal service of dragomans and others, Barker insisted, required remuneration "either by a salary or by the advantages of the usual immunities of the Frank protection, which is of course only useful to them inasmuch as it enables them to carry on the traffic by which they live." Barker simply could not "conceive how any European government can expect" skilled protégés to serve "with zeal and fidelity without either pay or protection." (Document #25)

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When he finally did arrive in Alexandria for his new assignment, Barker's first audience with Muhammad Ali prompted him to compose this snapshot of Egyptian affairs for the Foreign Office in November 1826. A sizable fleet, with provisions and ammunition, had recently sailed for the Peloponnese. "The news of Lord Cochrane's return to England has just been received here with very great and general satisfaction. The rumours that prevailed here of that adventurer's coming to aid the Greeks, and the probability of his first operation being to blockade this port, had made an impression very unfavorable to the British interests in this country." As for the pasha's discourse with Barker, the consul learned that four frigates, being built for him in Marseilles and Leghorn, would arrive in Egypt in the spring. Moreover, Barker discovered that his deceased predecessor, Peter Lee, had never opposed the governor's will or disputed any of his opinions, "which [Muhammad Ali] observed was very easily done because they were always founded on reason and justice." The pasha's utter confidence and swagger, and patronizing tone, found expression in this recollection of his many accomplishments in Egypt: "'I came to this country an obscure adventurer.... And I advanced step by step, as it pleased God to ordain; and now, here I am.... I never had a master,' glancing his eye on the roll which contained the imperial firman" with Barker's credentials and which the pasha did not even deign to open. (Document #28) Clearly, the powerful pasha, governor since 1805, did not need to examine a firman issued by the Ottoman sultan, his nominal sovereign who had lost mastery over Egypt.

1. FO 24/6, ff. 59-62 [The Foreign Office issued these instructions in July 1815 to Henry Salt, newly appointed consul-general in Cairo, explaining his commercial and political duties.]

[The Foreign Office charged Salt with various consular duties, such as presenting his credentials to the Ottoman viceroy in Egypt, upholding all the privileges and rights of the Levant Company, and preserving inviolate the capitulations granted to British subjects.] In doing [so], you are always to keep in mind the policy of uniting a conciliatory manner with the firmness necessary to obtain the desired end. [Levant Company agents and British subjects trading and residing within the territorial limits of the consulate's jurisdiction must have free access to the consul at all times.] You'll afford them every proper protection in carrying on their lawful trade and pay all due respect to persons in authority of the government [and] to the national prejudices of the natives in general.

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[The consul must maintain a good understanding with agents of other powers and] endeavor to penetrate into any designs that may be entertained by their employers prejudicial to the interests of His Majesty. [The consul must provide the Foreign Office with] intelligence of every interesting event that may come to your knowledge. [He should send to the Foreign Office commercial reports on Egypt and other countries, including annual lists of imports/exports to/from Egypt and suggestions of ways to increase trade, and conduct regular correspondence with the British envoy at the Porte, with British ruling authorities on the Ionian Islands and Malta, and with the commanding officer of the British fleet in the Mediterranean.] With regard to any incidental or extraordinary expenses, no specific allowances can be granted to you upon this head, but your reimbursement must depend on a consideration of the nature of the service on which the expense may have been incurred. In such case, you will not fail to send a detailed account, accompanied with vouchers of any expense so incurred, enclosed in a dispatch to this department.

2. FO 24/6, ff. 64-66 [Henry Salt, consul-general in Cairo, forwarded to the Foreign Office the following memorandum he had just received from the Society of Antiquaries, requesting him to find fragments of the Rosetta Stone and other inscribed objects and to make copies or drawings of these inscriptions. Endorsed ardently by William Richard Hamilton, antiquity enthusiast and undersecretary of state for foreign affairs, this request regarding ancient Egyptian antiquities became part of Salt's consular mission in Egypt. 16 ]

Memorandum [August 1815] The Stone of Rosetta is justly regarded as one of the proudest trophies of the British arms, and its trilingual inscription appears to the first discoverers' pleasure to afford the only possible chance of recovering the long lost knowledge of the ancient Egyptian literature, so interesting for its relations to history both sacred and profane. It has, however, remained for thirteen years almost entirely unnoticed and uninterpreted; and it is only very lately that its unrivalled importance has been fully demonstrated by an explanation of a considerable portion of the hieroglyphic characters which remain. [The] same investigation has unexpectedly proved, with a degree of evidence which has been deemed amply satisfactory by many competent judges, the inestimable value of the pieces which have been lost, since it has shown that they must necessarily have contained about twice as much of the hieroglyphic part as is left on the stone deposited in the [British] Museum.

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According to the account communicated to the Society of Antiquaries by Major General Tomkyns Hilgrove Turner, the remaining fragments of this stone are supposed to have been left in the ruins of Fort St. Julian, near the mouth of the Nile, where it was found; 17 a piece of another similar stone is said to have been used in the French fortifications of Alexandria, and a third stone to have been observed at Menouf, near the water, with the characters almost obliterated by having earthen jugs placed on it. The inscription itself expresses that one of these repetitions was ordered to be erected in each of the principal temples of Egypt. And if either the original stones, or a cast in plaster, or a drawing of the traces of the inscription still remaining visible could be obtained, there is little doubt that instead of fifty characters which have been interpreted from the fragment that is left, by means of which one little inscription has been already deciphered, we should be in possession of several hundreds, which would in all probability serve as a sufficient foundation for a complete knowledge of almost all the hieroglyphic inscriptions and manuscripts in existence. And there is no doubt that whatever might be the expense of the undertaking, whether successful or otherwise, it would be most cheerfully supported by an enlightened nation, eager to anticipate its rivals in the prosecution of the best interests of literature and science. [William Richard Hamilton at the Foreign Office replied to this memorandum, directing Salt] to use every means in your power to obtain either the original stones, or a drawing or a cast of these inscriptions with the salutary view of affording an [assistance so valuable to literature and science.]

3. FO 24/6, ff. 107-08 [Consul-General Salt's note of 25 March 1816 informed the Foreign Office of his arrival in Alexandria on the 20 th and his extremely satisfactory reception by local officials.]

... Colonel [Ernest] Missett [British consul-general in Cairo], though dreadfully reduced by the severe attack of disease under which he has labored, still retains extraordinary vigour of mind and, with the assistance of his secretary..., has arranged all the affairs of the consulate in so able and regular a manner as to leave me but few difficulties to encounter in entering upon the duties of my office, excepting such as must necessarily arise from the arbitrary manner in which the affairs of the country are at present carried on and from [Muhammad Ali] Pasha's daily becoming, as I understand, more difficult to treat with and less inclined to pay attention to the rights of European nations.... [Salt stated that he intended to travel to Cairo in a few days to pay personal respects to Muhammad Ali Pasha, whom he had already apprised by letter of his arrival, and that he would soon become better acquainted with the

198 B R I T I S H C O N S U L A R R E P O R T S F R O M T H E L E V A N T existing state of affairs.] We've had a few instances of plague both here and at Cairo since my arrival, but the malady has not yet assumed its usually formidable aspect.. .. 18

4. FO 24/6, ff. 109-13 [Consul-General Salt's letter to William Richard Hamilton, undersecretary of state for foreign affairs, summarized his first audience with Muhammad Ali Pasha and the various issues they discussed, including the Wahhabi uprising and the viceroy's strategic designs in the Red Sea.]

Bulaq 15th June 1816 Sir, A few days after my last letter was forwarded from Alexandria, I proceeded up the Nile on my way to this place, hoping to arrive in time to pay my first visit to Mahomet Ali Pasha previous to the plague becoming so general as to prevent communication. In this I was disappointed, for before I could reach Bulaq the pasha himself as well as all the Europeans had shut themselves up in quarantine. Tussun Pasha was encamped at this time with a considerable body of troops in the neighbourhood of Rosetta, and at his earnest desire I consented to pay him a visit. 19 Wishing to do honour to the British nation, which still I am happy to state is looked up to with great respect in Egypt, he drew up his troops in a double line from the water's edge to his tent to receive me, and on my entering it a salute of cannon was fired and every other attention paid that is usual on similar occasions. I have since presented to him a double-barreled fowling piece out of the presents with which I was charged [and] with which he was highly gratified. At the recommendation of Colonel Missett, I have continued Mr. Asis in the situation of interpreter at the salary, as directed, of one hundred and fifty pounds per annum. He is not a very active man but has the character, which is much more rare, of being an honest interpreter. The chief business in which I have been since engaged has been in urging continued remonstrances to the pasha on complaints forwarded by Mr. [Peter] Lee, the Levant Company's consul, from Alexandria, the pasha's agents at that place appearing to entertain a constant desire to encroach on the privileges hitherto enjoyed by British subjects. They have attempted since my arrival to deny the usual privileges of our Ionian subjects—to withhold provisions from the captains of our merchant vessels—to levy duties on wines and spirits imported for the private use of individuals, which had never been attempted before—and even, about six weeks ago, to force the European inhabitants to pay for their daily supply of water. These innovations, in compliance with my instructions, I

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remonstrated against in the strongest way and by persisting in opposing them, at length obtained satisfactory redress from the pasha, who upon the whole appears to entertain a very anxious wish to stand on good terms with the British nation. On the 10th of this month, the plague having in some degree subsided, I paid my first visit to His Highness [Muhammad Ali], he having expressed a strong wish to that effect. In a long conference which I had with him on this occasion, he expressed in strong terms his anxious wish to keep up the amicable relations which exist between the two countries. He regretted that I should have been under the necessity of preferring so many complaints against his agents at Alexandria, but urged as an apology that the continual frauds practiced upon the revenue compelled them to extraordinary strictness. At the same time, he assured me that on his first visit to Alexandria, where he hoped I would accompany him, he would make it a point to come to a fair understanding upon all subjects liable to dispute and promised to arrange them in such a manner as to prevent if possible, for the future, all kinds of unpleasant discussion. He then turned the subject on India and conversed with much interest respecting the intercourse which he has lately undertaken to carry on with that country, in conjunction with the house of Messrs. Briggs and Lee of Alexandria, which is connected with a private convention entered into by His Highness and the house of Forbes and Co. at Bombay, for the particulars of which I take the liberty of referring you to a dispatch of my predecessors...dated the 4 t h of December 1815. 20 1 have to inform you that in consequence of this renewal of the intercourse with India, His Highness has lately sent several vessels from Suez with a considerable quantity of European goods for India under the charge of two agents, who have likewise been entrusted with a million dollars to purchase different commodities with which he is anxious to be furnished from that country. 21 This speculation has of course turned his mind very intently upon his interests in the Red Sea. He informed me that of late the Wahhabis have become more daring in their incursions there than ever and that very lately they attacked and took one of his smaller vessels. Under such circumstances, he urged the necessity of having some kind of naval force there to repel their insults, since otherwise it would be no longer safe for even his sons to pass to and from the Hijaz. He then brought forward again his anxious wish that the British government would give up its opposition to his sending one of his corvettes round the Cape of Good Hope into that sea and dwelt upon it with so much earnestness that I am satisfied it [has] become a favorite object in his mind. On my representing the dangers it would have to encounter, he smiled and said

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his captains were anxious to brave them, and for his own part he declared that he was chiefly anxious about it from the honour such a voyage would confer upon him, from no Mussulman ship having before accomplished it. As it is now strongly advisable that some permanent arrangement on different points should be made with His Highness, with respect to the rights of our merchants and more attention being paid to the capitulations, I take the liberty of suggesting that it might prove a very favorable opportunity for granting him this favour, since it cannot in fact prove of the slightest detriment to our interests and yet might be made use of very advantageously in gaining from His Highness the concessions required. In a political point of view, I formerly expressed some objections to his aggrandizement in the Red Sea; but the state of affairs there as well as in this country have entirely altered my opinions on the subject. It undoubtedly would be far better that His Highness should have a preponderating influence there than that such pirates as the Wahhabis should have possession of the sea. With respect to Egypt, the pasha has become so complete a merchant that he has placed himself entirely at our mercy, his revenue now so vitally depending on commerce since he has taken the whole produce of the country into his own hands that he could not support his government many months without it. The admiral commanding in the Mediterranean might, in my opinion, at any time bring him to our terms in the event of a rupture, without any additional force than that always under his command, by simply anchoring at Aboukir and blockading the coast. The same thing might be done in the Red Sea, as two frigates stationed between Jedda and Suez would cut off all their communications by sea and soon reduce him to terms, and I imagine the Porte itself would very readily consent to see its own capitulations thus enforced. I have taken the liberty of offering these suggestions in reference only to a period when it might be necessary to have recourse to extremities; at present, I consider it as happily far distant, especially if a conciliating plan be pursued. Under these considerations, I trust that His Majesty's secretary of state will have no objection to the permission being granted under such stipulations as he may be pleased to instruct me to require. I am glad to inform you that the plague has ceased at about the usual period at Cairo.. .and then the Europeans will venture abroad without fear. His Highness the pasha has lost this year by the malady one of his best commanders, Mustafa Bey,...commander of the cavalry. The commandant of Giza died of the same. Among the Europeans we have had to regret the loss of Signor Godard and his wife who had resided nearly fifty years at Alexandria without catching the malady, and what is perhaps still more extraordinary without having ever visited Cairo. Signor Alberti, Austrian vice-consul at

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Rosetta, also fell a victim to it but a few days ago. At the latter place, it still rages with unceasing violence, and at Alexandria it continues to make great ravages among the troops, a _!.cumstance little regretted by the European inhabitants. I have the honour to be, Sir, with great truth your very obedient and humble servant, Henry Salt

5. FO 78/89, ff. 64-65 [Consul-General Salt wrote to Foreign Secretary Castlereagh from Cairo on 12 October 1817, notifying him that the colossal bust of Ramses II (widely but inaccurately known as the Young Memnon), destined for the Egyptian Gallery of the British Museum, had just embarked from Alexandria for Malta.]

I have the honor to inform you that the head of the Young Memnon, a celebrated fragment of Egyptian sculpture, has been safely embarked at Alexandria on board the [Neachus | transport.... This head was removed from Thebes, carried down the Nile, and shipped from Alexandria under the direction and at the joint expense of Mr. [John] Lewis Burckhardt...and myself, who, with an anxious desire to add so invaluable a piece of sculpture to our national collection, take the liberty of forwarding it to Your Lordship as a joint present to the British Museum. Respecting its merits, it will be sufficient to cite the testimony of the author of the Aegyptiaca, whose remarks upon it first prompted us to the undertaking: "the most beautiful and perfect piece of Egyptian sculpture that can be seen throughout the whole country. We were struck with its extraordinary delicacy, the very uncommon expression visible in its features...." 22 With an anxious hope that the head so admirably described may arrive in safety....

6. FO 78/91, ff. 1-21 [Consul-General Salt dispatched a series of letters from Cairo in 1818 to Joseph Planta, undersecretary of state for foreign affairs, on trade and various other pertinent topics in contemporary Egypt.]

[Salt's note of 6 June 1818, ff. 8a-9, discussed the strained circumstances of British merchants when faced with the monopolistic commercial practices of Muhammad Ali Pasha and pointed out that it was almost impossible for consuls to rescue troublesome merchants from] the practices in which they have voluntarily entangled themselves.... Some few there are who possess a more independent and more honorable course, and the pasha, I'm glad to say, has the good sense to distinguish them from the herd [of Greek, Armenian, Jewish, and European merchants who conduct business in Egypt.]

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[Salt's letter of 23 August 1818, ff. 14a-15a, dealt with trade and plague, common themes in consular correspondence from Egypt.] The distresses among the merchants, which I alluded to in my last [letter], have been much alleviated by the kind and judicious forbearance of the pasha in giving ample time to those indebted to him to fulfill their engagements and in his having lately granted, to all those who had suffered, fresh firmans for grain at a price which offers considerable profit to the holders. [Outbreaks of plague] almost daily occur at Alexandria notwithstanding the advanced season of the year. Two persons this year have fallen victims to it in the consulate home at Alexandria, a clerk in the chancellor's office and a female servant. At Cairo, the Franks have entirely escaped its ravages, and a few accidents only have occurred among the natives, a very extraordinary fact, when the constant communications and...commerce between the two places be taken into consideration, and which can only be attributed to some peculiar state of the atmosphere which renders it averse from receiving the contagion.... [Salt's report of 8 October 1818, ff. 17-18, returned to a matter touched on in previous communiqués, Ibrahim Pasha's military exploits against the fundamentalist Wahhabi threat in Arabia.] I have the honor to communicate the gratifying intelligence of the final success of His Excellency Ibrahim Pasha in the campaign against the Wahhabis. 23 [Salt related details on the military conquest of the Wahhabi stronghold and on the ensuing reprisals and massacres. When Ibrahim Pasha's forces captured two of the principal enemy sheiks, he] ordered with his characteristic severity to have their beards cut off and their teeth extracted.... This intelligence has occasioned great joy at the pasha's court and has given much pleasure generally throughout Egypt, as it promises to put a speedy end to a war that has...drained the country of its specie and proved a heavy burden on its resources. It may likewise, in a general point of view, be deemed an event favorable to the interests of humanity, as it puts an end to those evils [from a group that Salt compared to a band of robbers, who] had incontestably proved themselves more... intolerant and far greater enemies to the progress of civilization than the very followers of that [religion] whom it was their object to applaud. [Salt's dispatch of 18 October 1818, ff. 19-21, confirmed the defeat of the militant Wahhabi movement and described local conditions.] .... Thus may be said to be completed the destruction of that sect which threatened at one time to have overspread not only Arabia but some of the finest provinces of the Ottoman Empire and to have restored by its baneful influence the darkness of the first ages of Islamism....

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[Salt remarked on the revival of trade, owing to the rising demand for grain and to the pasha's new firmans.] .... As a circumstance connected with the welfare of the country, I have to mention that the Nile has this year risen to a very uncommon height and inundated tracts of land which for thirty years before had not partaken of its bounty. The immediate consequence, however, has been to occasion great distress among the fellahs, or peasants, of the country by having carried away whole villages and entirely destroyed the rising crop of Indian corn. An unusual incident has likewise occurred in the neighborhood of Damietta, a hippopotamus having been killed there, measuring upwards of eleven feet long, the skin of which is now preparing to be sent to the emperor of Austria... , 2 4

7. FO 78/93, ff. 80-80a [This extract from Consul-General Salt's letter of 19 August 1819 to Joseph Planta, undersecretary of state for foreign affairs, briefly mentioned Muhammad Ali's trade monopoly and the appointment of a new Russian consulgeneral in Alexandria.]

.... [The pasha's] agents in different ports of Europe think more in general of enriching themselves than of forwarding his interests...[and] no effectual remedy will ever be found for the evils attending the present system until His Highness renounces the monopoly of all the produce of the country which he at present holds in his hands. A Russian consul-general, Signor Civini [Civigny], has lately arrived. 25 This gentleman formerly acted as consul in Alexandria for the Ionian Islands. His residence here [Alexandria] is likely to be of benefit in keeping up the character of that nation which had hitherto been insufficiently represented by the choice of improper agents....

8. FO 78/96, ff. 17-19 [Consul-General Salt's report from Cairo on 30 June 1820 to Joseph Planta in the Foreign Office specified some of the commercial obstacles facing European merchants in Egypt and discussed the reasons for Muhammad Ali's military expedition against Sudan.]

The affairs of this country continue to change for the worse, the pasha every day becoming more eager in his commercial pursuits and consequently rendering it more difficult for the European merchants to obtain their due share of the trade. The chief points of which we have to complain are as follows. The monopoly and exporting on his own account of all such articles as offer any advantage in the foreign markets, of which I may mention this year the whole of the safflower, which the pasha reserves for himself, and a great

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part of the linseed, which he will only sell for bills at Constantinople—both of which proceedings are, I conceive, in direct contradiction to the spirit of our treaty with the Porte. A second abuse is the mixing of bad produce with the good, as is too often practiced with the cottons and flax, whence it happens that the article sold to the merchant fetches a less price than that exported on His Highness's account in the markets of Europe. A third and very grievous abuse is that of selling largely to the officers engaged in administration at the ports, who thence become naturally interested in thwarting the interests of our merchants. This frequently gives rise to delay in consignment, undue partiality, and unauthorized charges; though sometimes redressed on application to the pasha, [this problem] always occasions delay and enables his own officers to take the first advantage of the markets. Another great evil is the uncertain and arbitrary mode of fixing prices, this depending entirely on the caprice of His Highness, who, being surrounded by men of unprincipled character who never hesitate to fill his ears with a thousand falsehoods, seldom or ever knows the real state of the market. To these I may add the uncertain value of our specie and its alarming depreciation—the dollar being now worth eleven and a half piastres, Egyptian currency, which is entirely owing to the maladministration of the pasha's affairs. I am sorry to say that it is vain to urge to His Highness how inimical such proceedings are to the liberty of trade accorded to us by the capitulations, as well as to his true interests. A Turk [Muhammad Ali was actually Albanian] is never at a loss for an evasive reply. In fact, there is no hope of effecting any change unless some direct and strong remonstrance be sent to him from home, or from the Porte, which latter, under existing circumstances, is scarcely to be expected. After these statements, you will not be surprised to learn that all those who have been trading without capital are reduced to a state of bankruptcy, their books being now under revision of a private commission, appointed by the pasha, whilst even those who had capital have great reason to fear, without a great change of system, impending ruin. His Highness, at this moment, is preparing a formidable expedition for the interior of Africa—five thousand troops have been already assembled at the second cataract, where they wait for the arrival of Ismael Pasha who is to command the principal body. This division is destined to follow the course of the river and to conquer Sennaar, while a second detachment, under [Muhammad Bey] Defterdar, is to march across the desert to Darfur. 26 The troops, it is said, are then to meet in Kordofan and to march up to the gold mines in the mountains of Dair and Tugla.

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The professed objects of this expedition are to [reverse] an insult offered some years ago to the pasha by the sultan of Sennaar—to collect a body of black slaves to be domiciliated in Egypt—to take possession of the gold mines—and to open a free intercourse for the trading...from the interior! 27 The ulterior object may be intended against Abyssinia, but of this I have not sufficient grounds to be able to make any official objection which, should he venture on such an unprincipled enterprise, I should think it my duty to do, on the part of our government. [As] soon as I may be better informed, I will not fail to make you the necessary communication.

9. FO 78/103, ff. 236-37a [Consul-General Salt's dispatch from Alexandria on 6 November 1821 conveyed to the Marquess of Londonderry (Lord Castlereagh) Muhammad Ali's request for naval assistance. The pasha hoped to purchase two frigates from the British government, especially in view of current circumstances: his armed forces were already serving with the Ottoman fleet, and the Porte had confided to his care the island of Crete and other dependencies in the Archipelago. Taking advantage of British-French competition in the Levant, Muhammad Ali submitted a similar request to the French government, which lately had endeavored to conciliate the pasha. In recommending British compliance with Muhammad Ali's petition, Salt paid tribute to the pasha for providing order and security in Egypt, in marked contrast to the unrest and misrule in most other provinces of the Ottoman Empire.]

Alexandria 6 November 1821 My Lord, I have the honour to enclose a note from His Highness the pasha's first and confidential interpreter which contains a request from His Highness that the British government will do him the favour to furnish him with two frigates, either of the new American construction or of the higher class, which His Highness promises to pay for either by arrangement with the Maltese government or by remittances in the produce of the country to be realized and paid by the respectable house of Messrs. Briggs and Co. In the conversation I had with His Highness on this subject, he urged his request with great earnestness, expressing ardently his wishes that the British government would not refuse to accord him this favour as existing circumstances had rendered it necessary for him to add three or four frigates to his armed force already serving with the Turkish fleet, more especially as the Sublime Porte had confided to his care the island of Candia and other dependencies in the Archipelago. His Highness has made a similar request to the French government through the commander of a French frigate that lately visited this port, and I am informed by the consul-general of France that a vessel has been expedited expressly by their admiral to communicate his wish to the French

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government, which I can readily believe from the circumstance that every possible means have been lately resorted to by the French government to conciliate His Highness's good will. I beg leave to express a hope that, if possible, this request of His Highness the pasha may be complied with, as a refusal would, I am sure, much hurt His Highness and be likely in some degree to disturb that good understanding which has so long existed and at present happily continues, a circumstance that would be peculiarly to be regretted at this moment, when we owe so much to His Highness for the extraordinary tranquillity and security of person that prevails throughout Egypt at a time when most of the other provinces of the Turkish Empire are so greatly suffering from the weakness or misconduct of their several rulers. I have the honour to be, My Lord, with the highest respect, Your Lordship's very obedient and very humble servant, Henry Salt

10. FO 78/112, ff. 21-23 [This excerpt from Consul-General Salt's letter of 10 May 1822 to Joseph Planta in the Foreign Office referred to some of the tax measures imposed by Muhammad Ali to pay for his army, navy, and military campaigns.]

Every date tree is taxed at from one to two piastres per annum, and an imposition has been laid on each home of from twenty to eighty piastres. Besides the troops sent into Nubia (about 10,000 in number), the pasha has lately sent 3,000 to Cyprus, now under his command, and has just embarked at Alexandria 5,000 more on an expedition to Candia under the command of Hassan Pasha, one of his most faithful adherents. His fleet, which is daily expected to sail, having been joined by the Tunisian and Algerian squadrons, amounts together with the armed transports to ninety in number, the whole under the command of Ismael Gibraltar, appointed to that station by the pasha. The country, I'm happy to state, remains perfectly tranquil. There was, in March last, an attempt at insurrection in Cairo on account of the house-tax, but as it originated with the natives of the country, and not with the troops, it was speedily quelled....

11. FO 78/112, ff. 25-28 [In this note of 20 May 1822 from Cairo to the Marquess of Londonderry (Lord Castlereagh), Consul-General Salt sought remuneration for his own expenses in collecting and shipping Egyptian antiquities; he enclosed a copy of his letter on this matter to the trustees of the British Museum.]

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... I hope you will have the goodness to excuse my soliciting your favour and interest, on this occasion, towards obtaining for me such a remuneration as Your Lordship may conceive I am justly entitled to.... [Salt's attached letter to British Museum trustees elaborated his expenses for the worthy project of gathering ancient Egyptian antiquities on behalf of the British public.] I feel it necessary for my interest to state that this collection has been made by me at great expense, upwards of three thousand pounds, at the imminent risk of funds employed, out of private property left me by my father, to which, alone, in case of any disaster occurring to me, and my health has been for some years and continues to be very precarious, my family has to look for support. I have therefore to throw myself entirely on your liberality and shall be perfectly satisfied with whatever you may determine in my favour.

12. FO 78/112, ff. 29-29a [Consul-General Salt's letter of 12 September 1822 from Alexandria, addressed to the Marquess of Londonderry (Lord Castlereagh, recently deceased), mentioned in passing Egypt's response to the Greek war.]

.... I'm happy to state that the most perfect tranquility reigns in Egypt and that the pasha, in everything that concerns the Greeks, has evinced a degree of humanity and consideration that does honour to this government....

13. FO 78/112, ff. 48-49 [In this communiqué from Cairo on 14 December 1822, Consul-General Salt notified Joseph Planta, undersecretary of state for foreign affairs, of an incident involving British protégés near Suez.]

.... A caravan on its way from Suez was a few days ago attacked by the Arabs of the mountains of Tor, a circumstance that has not happened for many years before. Two Abyssinians under my protection were on this occasion taken prisoners, but on a remonstrance from my agent at Suez, they were, together with the whole of their effects, in value about five hundred dollars, sent back by the sheik of the tribe with an assurance of his friendship and esteem for the British nation. The cause of seizing the caravan appears to have been the hope of saving two persons of consequence belonging to the tribe who have been for some time in confinement at Suez, as the Arabs have since offered to restore the whole of the coffee, merchandise, and camels, which are supposed to amount in value to 250,000 dollars, on condition of their tribesmen being released.

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The pasha has not as yet conceded to the terms proposed, though it's hoped, as he's answerable for the amount of the merchandise in their hands, that he may be ultimately induced to agree to them.... 14. FO 78/126, ff. 250-5la [Consul-General Salt's letter to the deputy governor of the Levant Company announced the death and funeral of Peter Lee, British consul in Alexandria; interceded on behalf of Lee's family; and suggested a few of the necessary qualifications for Lee's replacement.]

Alexandria 16th September 1824 To Jacob Bosanquet, Deputy Governor of the Worshipful Levant Company Sir, It is my duty to communicate for your information and that of the Worshipful Company the painful intelligence of the death of my excellent friend and colleague Mr. Consul [Peter] Lee, who expired this morning after an illness of only ten days, universally regretted by all classes of Europeans resident in Egypt. His funeral was performed at the Greek church with the honors usually paid in this country on such occasions and was attended by all the consuls of different nations residing in Alexandria, who demonstrated in the strongest manner their grief for his loss. The body was borne to the grave by the captains of such ships as happened to be in port, who voluntarily proffered their good offices, and the service was read by myself in consequence of there being no Protestant clergyman in the country. I have thought it right for the good of the service to take upon myself the duties of Mr. Lee's office as consul in Alexandria until the appointment of his successor be known, up to which time I shall not fail to pay every attention in my power to the concerns of the Worshipful Company. As the family of Mr. Lee is likely to be left, from what I know of his affairs, in distressed circumstances, I beg leave to recommend them in the strongest manner to the Worshipful Company's protection, feeling assured that Mr. Lee's faithful and zealous discharge of his duties for eleven years in the service, in a country so subject to plague and other fatal diseases, gives them a just claim upon its liberality and bounty. 28 Before I conclude, I hope you will excuse my taking the liberty, with all due deference, to suggest that it is of great importance that the person appointed to this consulate should (like your late worthy consul) be of a conciliatory disposition and somewhat acquainted with Eastern manners and usages, since it would be hardly possible otherwise for him to avoid embroiling us with the local government, with which it is become at present extremely difficult to transact even the ordinary business of the consulate.

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I have the honor to be, Sir, with great respect, your very obedient and very humble servant, Henry Salt

15. FO 78/126, ff. 252-53 [Consul-General Salt forwarded to Foreign Secretary Canning a letter from British merchants in Alexandria that recommended the appointment of a consul who would not actively engage in commerce; Salt added his own suggestion that the government, not the Levant Company, should have authority over the consulate.]

Alexandria October 11, 1824 To the Right Honorable George Canning, His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Sir, I have the honor to enclose you a letter from several merchants established here to solicit that you will have the goodness so far to interfere in the appointment of a consul in Alexandria as to prevent his being a person engaged in commerce. It is not in my power to offer any additional arguments to the forcible reasoning contained in their petition. I hope only to be excused in observing that it would be of great advantage to the service could the consulate in Alexandria be placed under His Majesty's government, as even during the time that the office was held by my friend and colleague Mr. Peter Lee, it was difficult, with the equivocal orders issued by the [Levant] Company for his guidance, for our consulates to rest in accord; and I fear that with a person of less conciliating disposition, who might hold it under the company, considerable difficulties and embarrassments might under the present system arise to the prejudice of the service. I may also be permitted to observe that as the trade of Egypt is rising into considerable importance, which the enclosed general abstract of last year's exports and imports will evince, the present consular charges are found to bear heavily on the merchant, [and] it is a fact generally admitted that no advantage whatsoever accrues from the consulate remaining in the hands of the company. 29 It is with great humility and from a sense of duty only that I venture to offer these observations to your superior judgment and have the honor to be, Sir, with great respect, your very obedient [and] very humble servant, Henry Salt

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16. FO 78/135, ff. 153a-54a [Consul-General Salt's memorandum of 21 May 1825 for Foreign Secretary Canning criticized local authorities in Egypt for interfering with trade and other consular functions and for violating the capitulations.]

The affairs of our merchants and shipping too are not, as in Europe, regulated by any fixed law, but all is decided by the caprice and often according to the...malice of the local authorities, which in Alexandria, I am sorry to state, are directed by a monster of inequity and cruelty, I can give him no better name, one Belal Aga, whose great activity and energy of character render him, unfortunately, of too great use to the pasha of Egypt for his speedy dismissal. This man,...sub-governor of the town, is concerned largely in trade and interferes in almost every branch of internal traffic, monopolizes all the wool imported into the country, and is possessor of most of the...lighters employed in the port, so that scarcely a vessel can enter the harbour without having serious difficulties to encounter from his rapacity and injustice, while scarcely a single person in Alexandria dares speak publicly a word in his disfavor out of fear of his extortions. [Problems with merchant affairs and other consular business represented] an exception to the usual charges and duties of European consulates, which consequently under the situation of consul in Alexandria, a post of expense and difficulty,...[are] every day likely to increase with the extending commerce of the country, more especially when it be considered that it is a commerce entirely directed by the caprice of one individual, His Highness the pasha. [He] interferes with everything, fixes the price himself of every article of his monopoly, is not always very attentive to his engagements,...becomes every day more despotic and unmanageable, and.. .pays little or no respect to the capitulations....

17. FO 78/147, ff. 83-84a [Consul-General Salt's dispatch from Alexandria on 4 August 1826 to Joseph Planta, undersecretary of state for foreign affairs, alluded to the difficult task of pledging and maintaining British neutrality in the Greek war, especially in view of Admiral Cochrane's expected leadership of Greek naval forces.]

.... [Salt confirmed that an anticipated Greek naval expedition, led by British philhellene Lord Cochrane, had caused a] very precarious situation [for] merchants and other British subjects resident in Egypt, [especially] should His Lordship carry on any direct system of hostilities against this port.... If the force placed under His Lordship's order be in any way equal to what's stated in the public papers, it's certain that neither the Turkish nor Egyptian fleets will be able long to resist it; and if he should attack the pasha's ships in this

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port with the means with which he's said to be furnished, there is little doubt but that he might easily destroy them at the same time that there is nothing to prevent his burning the palaces of His Highness the pasha,...a rash act likely to produce a ferment among the populace that might place in danger not only the English but all the Europeans resident in the place. In every way, His Lordship's presence in the Levant must prove hurtful to British interests but especially to those of British subjects resident in Egypt, as His Lordship's letter evidently evinces that he has taken up the gauntlet chiefly against the pasha, who will, I am sure from the various conversations I've had with him, attribute all his acts to the secret agency of the British government and shape his conduct accordingly. I have done everything in my power throughout the contest to convince His Highness that our government is resolved to adhere to a strict neutrality, but the appearance of His Lordship in these seas will be considered by the Turks in general as a decided proof to the contrary....

18. FO 352/12A, ff. 253-54 [Consul-General Salt's report from Alexandria on 10 August 1826 to Stratford Canning, ambassador at the Porte, made reference to abuses in consular protection and supported the Foreign Office decision to regulate British consular affairs in the Levant.]

[Salt asserted that] some measure of this kind had become absolutely necessary to enable us to get rid of a number of individuals who have, by various means, without any right to it, crept into our protection. I have particularly to point out the facility of obtaining passports from some of the vice-consuls in the Archipelago, especially from [Antonio] Vitali [in Tino], whose passports I have frequently been obliged to disregard from finding them in the hands of known reaya.... I have also to lament the possibility of obtaining, without right, certificates of baptism from the islands, which have deceived even the constituted authorities there. One of [the certificates] I know to be in the hands of a reaya who is so well known as to be ashamed to produce it at our office. In cases where passports have been lost and sworn certificates have been produced of the party being our protégé, I have been in usage of giving a passport direct to the islands with the clause "good for this voyage only," which mode of providing may, I hope, meet with Your Excellency's approbation.

19. FO 78/147, ff. 87-9la [Consul-General Salt's account from Alexandria on 12 August 1826, for Ambassador Canning in Constantinople, discussed several topical issues-, social and economic conditions in Egypt, Muhammad Ali's building activities and leadership skills, and the fate of Greek Christians taken captive by Ibrahim Pasha's forces in the Morea.]

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.... [Salt claimed that Muhammad Ali regretted his decision to intervene in the Greek war], but his honour is now at stake and he will make every possible effort to get out of it with success. 30 His means, it's certain, are not equal to what he had calculated upon owing to the two last bad seasons of the Nile; but this will, in some degree, be made up for by the voluntary contributions, as [they are] called, of his great men who...contributed large sums toward his current expenses. .... His Highness would also have done well to have delayed at least the erecting of new fabrics and palaces, whilst on the contrary he seems more than ever anxious to have splendid buildings, which are every day rising up both here and at Cairo at an enormous cost.... The new palace at Cairo within the citadel is one of the finest edifices that has ever been built in Egypt and when finished will vie with, if not surpass, in appearance at least, the magnificent buildings of the caliphs. His Highness would also have done well to have conciliated a little more all classes of his people. On the contrary, he's continually vexing them with new impositions, which...they are absolutely unable to pay. 31 [Several villages have] on this account lately broken out into rebellion, and a regiment of the new troops has been sent to keep them in subjection. The grandees, whom it's now his policy to keep stationed out in the different provinces, are by no means pleased with this arrangement; and in fact, the troops not being paid and the merchants having no trade, a very general discontent prevails throughout the country. The pasha's greatest resources rest on his own superior talents. Fertile in means, and singularly skilled in the art of leading men, he has always hitherto been seen to rise greater for the obstacles he has had to encounter. The Nile too promises to be a plentiful [season], and this will do much to heal the reigning disquietude. He will soon have grain to export, and that will again employ the merchants; and when trade shall flourish, all the other branches of the population will gradually partake of its advantages. Meantime, His Highness is busy preparing his fleet for sea and has already several ships manned with his new disciplined Arab sailors, who are not, however, in my opinion, [able] to make so good a figure by sea as his troops by land. He has also about fifteen thousand new troops ready to send if required to Ibrahim Pasha. Your Excellency writes to know what number of prisoners [has] been sent over by Ibrahim Pasha and how they have been disposed of. I have first to observe that the slaves brought back here are not sent over by Ibrahim Pasha, not in any way is it a traffic in which our pasha or his son interferes. By the Turkish law, all prisoners become slaves, not of the chief in command, but of

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their actual captors. This is a distinction very necessary to be held in view— they are not prisoners to the state as in Europe, but slaves of those into whose hands they fall. Every soldier that takes a Christian prisoner does with him or her as he pleases. Thus the disposition of the slaves sent here has depended upon the caprice of the captors. Many of them have been sold before their arrival here and the greater part, I suspect, to persons who bring them over to Egypt on speculation. The whole number that has been brought over during the war may amount to about three thousand—boys, women, and children. Of them I should say that nearly one half has been purchased and provided for by the European Levantine and Greek Christians established in Egypt, the greatest facility having been given to us at all time in their purchase. In some cases, the pasha has himself contributed money for their ransom. This happened particularly in the case of a number brought over about three years back, before the prohibitory regulations were well known, by our Ionian captain. At my request, the dervish who brought them over was compelled to sell them to us, and as the sum he asked was greater than what we could conveniently raise at the time, the pasha himself, rather than force the man to lower his demand, generously paid the difference. Many have been liberated also by the Turkish grandees out of a compassionate motive to render a service to their workmen or gardeners, who in general are Greeks and who may have discovered or pretended to discover relatives among the unfortunate prisoners; and in these cases, the Turks have invariably paid the owners their value. The Albanian builders employed here have liberated a great many whom they have in general married. Our Ionian subjects...as well as all classes of Europeans have been extremely generous in their contributions towards this laudable project. The persons thus liberated remain with their own consent as domestics in the different families and may have been sent back to their friends. Those that are sold to Christians are such as obstinately persevere in their native faith. Many noble examples have been given of even children offering their heads to be cut off rather than change their faith. All those who consent to become Mahometan [Mohammedan] remain as slaves with the Turks. The bey here may have about twenty in his harem, and the subgovernor Belal Aga has two. Ibrahim Pasha has not, to my knowledge, sent over a prisoner. Some of those who are not easy to dispose of, from age or ugliness, suffer of course great hardships. If not speedily sold, they are sent about to the different fairs for sale, and some I know have been forced away so far as to Dongola and thence doubtless to the more interior provinces of Africa, as well as by the way of the Red Sea to Jedda.

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It must still be remembered that this is not a particular feature of the present contest. It's the same course that has been practiced by the Turks in every war they have carried on with Christians since the time of Mahomet. People who submit become reaya, those who resist become slaves. Nor let it be supposed that it has been in the power yet of the pasha to effect in this respect a change. It has only been by strict conformity with certain of these deeply rooted prejudices of his subjects that he has been able to accomplish so much. Were he to attempt any changes [with] respect to the right of property in Christian prisoners, it would only, I fear, produce the massacre of those who are now saved. Whilst the Catholic religion exists, there will remain a rancour against heretics. While the faith of Mahomet flourishes, the greatest delight of a Mussulman must be, when he has the power, to insult, vilify, and trample upon a Christian....

20. FO 78/147, ff. 113-16a [Consul-General Salt vented his frustration over consular affairs to Joseph Planta, undersecretary of state for foreign affairs, in this communication from Alexandria on 1 October 1826. John Barker, consul in Aleppo, had been appointed to the consulship in Alexandria but had yet to assume his new post.]

.... I am sorry to state that Mr. Barker has not yet arrived. 32 He's waiting in anxiety on the coast of Syria for a vessel of war to convey him here, but as I know that he has written...to the naval officer on the Smyrna station, I should hope he would not be long delayed. I shall attend strictly to your orders in making over the archives and correspondence to Mr. Consul Barker and shall be most happy to give him such information as I possess to facilitate the duties of his office; but I can assure you that every day becomes more difficult, not only on account of the obstinacy and perverse spirit of our own merchant captains and sailors, over whom our authority is very limited and undefined, but more especially on account of the odious system of monopoly carried on here and of the constant attempts at oppression, the low chicanery, [and the] intrigue practiced by every office in His Highness's employ, so that the consulate has scarcely left to it one moment of tranquility....

John Barker in Aleppo and Alexandria 21. FO 352/12A, ff. 413-14a [John Barker, British consul in Aleppo, described an unsuccessful Greek pirate attack on Beirut in this report of 9 April 1826 to Stratford Canning, ambassador in Constantinople. Beirut's hastily arranged defense repulsed the Greek naval assault; the invaders tried but failed to incite Christians and Druzes to join their cause; and the militia forces of regional governor Abdallah Pasha exacted reprisals against Beirut's Christian communities after the pirates had fled.33]

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Aleppo the 9 t h Apri l 1826 To His Excellency [the] Right Honorable Stratford Canning, His Majesty's Ambassador Extraordinary at the Sublime Porte Sir, On the 29 th past [MarchJ I had the honor to inform Your Excellency that a Greek squadron, composed of twelve or eighteen ships, had attempted to take Beirut. That troops, to the number of 1000 or 1500, had been landed; that they had penetrated into the heart of the city, had been compelled to retreat, and were, at the time of the reporters' quitting Beirut, in possession of some small towers and houses in the suburbs. The substance of this intelligence was fully confirmed last night by letters addressed by the foreign European agents at Beirut to their superiors here, the French, the Austrian, Spanish and Neapolitan consul-generals; and by a great number of private letters, dated the 30 th and 31 st March. The points, in which all accounts pretty nearly agree, are that on the evening of the 18 th March, a Greek squadron of eleven ships (afterwards joined by four others) was perceived and recognized by the inhabitants of Beirut. No doubt being entertained of the meditated attack, in the absence of all regular military force, the citizens were immediately called to arms, and the night was passed in great disorder and preparations for the defense of the place. There was a very scanty supply of firearms and ammunition, and the fort, which defends the town from an invasion by sea, was as ill provided as the inhabitants. The mufti [judge or interpreter of Islamic law] is the chief person who is represented as having distinguished himself in instructing and animating the townspeople. At 3 o'clock in the morning of the 19 th [March], a body of five hundred men in a uniform resembling the Albanian costume 34 was landed and was marched directly upon a part of the walls that the assailants had no difficulty in scaling. But they had scarcely got a footing within the ramparts and taken possession of one house, when they were compelled to retreat, leaving the dead bodies of three or four of their companions on the spot. One of the vice-consuls' reports states that the number of Turks opposed to them at this point did not exceed eight and consequently that the invaders were repulsed by that handful of volunteers. The ships cannonaded the town at the time it was attempted to be taken by assault, and the fort fired upon them occasionally. Some damage was suffered by the town from five hundred balls, of which two struck the French consular house and three that of the Austrian agent. It was ascertained, through an Ionian captain, that one ball from the fort killed thirteen men on board one of the ships and that the loss sustained by the besiegers was in all forty or fifty. That of the besieged is represented to be fourteen killed and twenty wounded.

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Upon their repulse, the Greeks did not immediately take to their boats, but established themselves in a little ruined tower near the seashore; and it appears [they] were masters of a number of detached houses in the silk grounds, but that being chiefly inhabited by Christians, they did not injure them. It is even stated in one account that they exhorted them to rise and join them. If so, they must have entertained a most erroneous idea of the number and power of the Christians of Beirut. It is also said they sent an invitation to the chief of the Druzes to unite his forces to the Christian standard; but however that may be, it is certain some thousand armed mountaineers were put in motion by the Emir Beshir, 3 5 in aid of the Turks, and that notwithstanding a report prevailed [that] His Excellency had severely bastinadoed the bearer of a letter to him from the Greeks, the proffered assistance was peremptorily refused, and not a Druze was permitted to enter the town. After the Greeks had taken up their position at the tower on the beach, the firing of the musketry continued, but it seems with very little effect on either side. Early on the 23 rd [March], the Greeks embarked, and the whole squadron disappeared. In the afternoon of the same day, the kheya bey [lieutenant] of Abdallah Pasha of Acre arrived with five hundred Arnouts, 36 when the inhabitants suffered more in their property from these undisciplined troops than the invasion of the Greeks had inflicted upon them; and the Christian part of the population, without distinction of Latin, Maronite, or Greek, was pursued and persecuted in a most merciless manner by the established authorities, while the Europeans themselves were not secure as well from the effects of the insolence and rapacity of the soldiery as from the arrogant prepotency of the governor. A party of Arnouts entered forcibly the dwelling houses of Monsieur Pourrière, a French merchant, and Mr. Goodell, an American missionary under British protection. These gentlemen and their families were put in fear of their lives, maltreated, and robbed. Their habitations were without the walls of the city. The officers of the government, in their eager pursuit of the helpless Christian natives, violated the French convent 37 and some Frank houses, and it was with great difficulty the consuls themselves were enabled to repel their insolent attempts to carry their search into the interior of their own dwellings and to protect the reaya in their service from sharing the fate of the other Christians, whose houses and silk plantations were confiscated, and all that could be seized were reduced to beggary, after having been tortured for the purpose of extorting from them sums, which it was impossible for them to raise by the immediate sale of all their effects.

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Monsieur Henri Guys, 38 the French consul at Beirut, positively states that three of those unhappy people were carried out of the presence of their inhuman tormentors in a dying state, and one had been tortured till he embraced the religion professed by his atrocious oppressors. I have the honor to be with the highest respect, Sir, your most obedient humble servant, John Barker

22. FO 352/12A, ff. 418-19 [This letter of 6 May 1826 from John Barker, consul in Aleppo, to Ambassador Canning cited Greek piracy as the primary obstacle preventing his transfer to his new assignment as consul in Alexandria.]

[These obstacles], I foresee, will prevent my repairing to my new post without delay, when I may be required to quit this city and go to Alexandria. A journey from Aleppo to Egypt by land is impracticable. I might take a passage on board a merchant vessel casually sailing from Scanderoon for Alexandria; but I deem it highly probable, when I may wish to embark, that the insecurity in that mode of travelling which now prevails will still be such as to prevent me from exposing myself and family to the insults of the Greek corsairs and my household effects and property to the depredations of that band of freebooters, who daily commit the most daring acts of piracy, without the English or other flag being any security to those who may be so unfortunate as to fall into their power....

23. FO 352/12A, ff. 423-24a [In this dispatch of 23 May 1826 to Ambassador Canning, Consul Barker pledged to abide by the envoy's instructions on British neutrality and to guard against violations by British merchants, in particular residents of the Ionian Islands, who shipped Greek and Ottoman cargoes on British-flagged vessels during the ongoing Greek war, thereby bringing the British name under suspicion and implicating British trade in the current conflict. Barker vowed to verify actual British ownership of merchandise whenever British traders applied for the protection and assistance of convoys.]

I have the honor to acknowledge the due receipt yesterday of the dispatch dated the 24 th April, by which Your Excellency was pleased to inform me that it has come to the knowledge of His Majesty's embassy at the Porte that British merchants continue to lend their names as a cover to property embarked under the English or other Christian flags and really belonging to one or other of the parties engaged in the war, which still unhappily rages m Greece and throughout the Archipelago. [This] practice, besides that it's in direct contravention to the spirit and meaning of His Majesty's declaration of

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neutrality, is further attended with the mischief of bringing the British name under suspicion and greatly increases the difficulties to which our trade, in common with that of other nations, is necessarily exposed during the present contest. .... [A]nd whenever application is made to me by any British merchant with a view to obtaining the assistance of His Majesty's cruisers for the protection or recovery of goods detained or exposed to capture, I will be careful to inquire minutely into the facts of the case and by no means apply for the assistance required until I am satisfied that the ownership is bona fide British. And in any case in which I have reason to suppose that the name of a British merchant is lent to cover belligerent property, especially when convoy is to be given, I will take every means in my power to give immediate information of the same to His Majesty's cruisers in these seas....

24. FO 352/12A, ff. 425-27a [Consul Barker responded to Ambassador Canning's directive of 22 May 1826 (ff. 421-22) with this note of 6 July 1826, stating that he would comply with the envoy's order to monitor closely Britain's Ionian subjects who traveled to Aleppo. Within three days of arrival, Ionian residents had to present documents, above all certificates of baptism, at the consular office; and for all Ionian subjects who resided or did business in the consular district, Barker had to compile a record of basic information: place of birth, date of arrival, length of stay, etc.]

I shall not deliver passes for the use of vessels purchased in this country by Ionian subjects and not supplied with regular sailing papers, except such as may be necessary to enable any vessel really and substantially so purchased to make a direct voyage to the Ionian Islands for procuring the necessary sailing papers. And in every case, I shall not fail to duly apprise such purchaser that his vessel will not be protected in any deviation from a direct course before the regular sailing papers are procured. [In regard to] Dimitrio Focca, master of the Ionian brig called the San Michelle, having lost his vessel in the port of Latachia, but being duly provided with regular sailing papers, and having purchased another wherewith to carry away what was saved from the wreck and to afford a passage to himself and crew, I delivered [to] him, on his demand and on the fullest conviction of the truth of his representations..., the pass, of which the enclosed is an exact transcript.

25. FO 352/12A, ff. 437-46 [The re is efendi (Ottoman foreign minister), in a complaint to Stratford Canning, declared that Georgio Catziflis, a British vice-consul in Syria, remained a reaya of the sultan; this indeed meant that Catziflis should not enjoy the privilege of British protection, not to mention the other benefits associated with the

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protégé system in the Ottoman Levant and that system's abuse by European officials. When Canning requested John Barker, consul in Aleppo, to provide proof of Catziflis's status and whether or not his father had been a reaya, Barker's lengthy reply of 7 July 1826 detailed some of the messy realities and fluid boundaries that so many of the Levantine protégés who found employment in European consulates, such as Moussé Elias, had to negotiate.] Your Excellency will have long ago seen a patent or passport, sent to the [Austrian] internuncio, in which John G. Catziflis [father of Georgio Catziflis] is declared to be a Venetian subject; and it being, to my knowledge, the only document that can be brought forward in opposition to the bare assertion of the pasha [of Tripoli and Latcahia], Your Excellency may without further delay proceed to decide the question as to Signor Georgio Catziflis's nationality. But I presume to think Your Excellency will agree with me that whatever may be the validity of such a paper, it's better than a pasha's bare assertion and effectually throws the onus probandi on the Porte. If, on further investigation, it should be proved that Georgio Catziflis is a reaya, I shall not be able to execute Your Excellency's instructions in naming another person in his room because I know no European residing at Tripoli who is fit to be appointed British vice-consul.... [Barker claimed that he had no role in the provisional nomination of Georgio Catziflis after the death of the latter's father], who had served the nation with zeal and fidelity, without any stipend, and with the most trifling emoluments during almost half a century. The latter circumstance will, I'm persuaded, induce Your Excellency to resolve to support the son, who has had the honor to serve for six years without any pecuniary advantage, except such as may be thought to arise from the respectability of the public situation he holds. Signor Georgio Catziflis, as well as Signor Mousse Elias of Latachia, cannot now be set down where we found them. In being dismissed from the service, they do not suffer the ordinary pains and penalties which are inflicted on delinquents by the mere disgrace of such dismission; they are, although innocent, thrown into the den of lions. It is evident that if they were abandoned to the rapacity and cruelty of the Turkish government, they will justly complain that they have not only faithfully served the British government for a number of years without remuneration but have also been reduced to beggary and dishonor in consequence of their quality of British agents. [Bjecause if their services had not in the first instance been accepted, they would have remained in the obscurity which is the only refuge of native Christians in this country and not have been now thus dragged into the notice of the government, which will gratify its hatred to the British name by chastising them for having contravened the laws of their country by being the agents of a European power.

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I have already said that I was in no ways concerned in the temporary appointment of Signor Georgio Catziflis in 1820; and I will now show it is by no fault of mine that His Majesty's mission has the present disagreeable addition to its other important discussions with the Porte with respect to Moussé Elias. In 1807, while I was residing in Castravan on account of the war between the English and the Turks, Nicholas Ducci, the then British agent or vice-consul at Latachia, made a public profession of the Mahommedan [Mohammedan] religion. On my return the following year to my post in Aleppo through Latachia, I informed the ambassador of that incident, and no European, except two or three French subjects, being resident there, I submitted to His Excellency to appoint Signor Moussé Elias, the most respectable of the natives, to be pro interim employed in the capacity of agent for this consulate without salary or any kind of emolument whatever, Signor Moussé Elias considering the honor of serving the British nation, and the advantages arising from our protection, as a competent remuneration. His quality of reaya was never disavowed, and the Porte acknowledged him in that quality by a vizierial letter to be, not "British vice-consul" as the pasha now improperly calls him, but "wakeel" of the English consul in Aleppo, which does not properly signify agent but rather homme d'affaires; and in our defense of him, a strong ground may be maintained by producing the vizierial letter by which the Porte acknowledged him, knowing him to be one of its subjects, as a person deserving protection and regard in consequence of his being employed by me for the affairs of this consulship. I will if possible enclose you herewith a legalized copy of that paper. Your Excellency will have seen from my report of the 11th April last to Mr. [John] Cartwright that Signor Moussé Elias had already suffered an avania39 of seven thousand piastres] and the strong claims that I think he has acquired to the protection of His Majesty's government by his long, zealous, and faithful services. I ardently hope Your Excellency will graciously be pleased to look upon this poor man as a meritorious public servant, whom we are bound in honor and conscience to effectually protect against the horrible tyranny of Ali Pasha of Tripoli, a vizier of two tails only, who has very little credit or influence at the Porte. 40 In availing of Your Excellency's permission to enter into further explanation of the case of the three reaya dragomans of Tripoli, I wish my feeble powers of eloquence could effectually advance the cause I am called upon to plead and touch Your Excellency's sensibility as mine has been affected by the distressing view of the unceasing tears and supplications of our dependant Giorgios Yani. This man, with his unfortunate companions, had taken asylum in the mountains of the Druzes, but finding himself insecure there, he took the resolution of quitting that refuge and is come here to implore in person my intercession with Your Excellency.

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My last letter dated the 26 th June past to the consul-general will have informed you that the pasha had taken off his own seals that he had affixed to two warehouses belonging to Giorgios Yani and confiscated the property they contained to the amount of 37,000 piastres]. The pasha attempts to justify this spoliation, not to give it its proper appellation, by the three following accusations. Firstly, that Giorgios Yani is incapable of performing the functions of dragoman by his ignorance of any foreign language. Secondly, that he is not bona fide an interpreter, but named for the purpose of avoiding the payment of taxes to the Turkish government. Thirdly,... that he carries on trade, which is, according to the capitulations, incompatible with the character of an interpreter. The first of these counts is totally unfounded, as our dependant speaks Italian fluently; and in refutation of the second, it may be adduced that Giorgios Yani has been for twenty years back in the continued exercise of the duties of British dragoman and recognized in that capacity by almost as many governors of Tripoli, his (the present pasha's) predecessors. Nay he has himself granted him two solemn written declarations similar in every respect to the six that are in the hands of the internuncio, by which he recognizes him, Isaac Halet, and Nasrulla Treik as English and Austrian dragomans, and as such entitled to the privilege of paying only 3% on the merchandise with which they may traffic, which he formally promises to abide by; and it is difficult to conceive a more barefaced instance of perfidy than that transaction exhibits. The natural consequences of such a patent of immunity were that these deluded people, confiding in the word of the pasha [and] thus solemnly engaged, dispatched to their correspondents in Damascus and Egypt copies of the valued grant and thereby persuaded them to launch out into speculations, the effect of which the pasha was watching; and when he finds their warehouses are full, he lays hold of the goods upon the pretext that merchant reaya had committed a capital crime in pretending to be, as dependants of the Franks, entitled to immunities, both of which points he had himself eight times acknowledged! In regard to the third count, it may be observed that although it is contrary to the express tenor of the capitulations that a dragoman should be allowed to trade, the important privilege of doing so has been maintained for upwards of two centuries by adet or custom, which has often in this country greater force than law. 41 [A]nd even when the great number of honorary dragomans, as they are called, had become so glaring an abuse of that privilege that the Porte succeeded twenty years ago in abolishing berats, the reaya merchants who were actually employed by the consuls and vice-consuls as interpreters continued to enjoy the same privilege. 42 Here the Austrian,

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Russian, Prussian, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, Neapolitan, and English consuls have all, since the abolition of the berats, each protected two native merchants as being their interpreters; and I can speak of at least twelve pashas who have successively governed this province and who all uniformly respected the privilege, which this two-tailed vizier of Tripoli has dared to openly attack and violate. In short, the services of these people must be remunerated either by a salary or by the advantages of the usual immunities of the Frank protection, which is of course only useful to them inasmuch as it enables them to carry on the traffic by which they live. Nor can I conceive how any European government can expect that they should serve them with zeal and fidelity without either pay or protection. I have the honor to be with the greatest truth, and the highest respect, Sir, Your Excellency's most obedient and humble servant, John Barker 26. FO 352/12A, ff. 462-66 [In this communiqué of 31 July 1826 from Aleppo to Ambassador Canning, Consul Barker rebuked the Austrian and Russian consul in Syria for excessive subservience to the regional governor, the despotic Abdallah Pasha. Barker's note relied partly on information from Peter Abbott, British consul in Beirut and Acre, who corresponded regularly with the British consulate-general and embassy in Constantinople. 43 ]

.... [The Austrian and Russian consul in Syria, according to what Barker had gleaned from Peter Abbott, belonged to the] reaya of Aleppo. He [Consul Catafago] is a Genoese subject born here, but in the description of [the consul's] base compliances with [Abdallah] Pasha's will, Mr. Abbott has said less than the truth; for, in everything but the privileges of a Frank, Catafago is a true reaya and is a disgrace to the corps of European public agents in Turkey. I have been assured he never enters the pasha's presence without degrading the nations, whose governments he represents, by kissing the hem of [the pasha's] garment. [Barker continued on a different topic.] I am sorry to say the scarcity of corn, owing to the insufficient quantity of rain last winter, is more or less felt from Egypt to Baghdad. We have just learnt that the pasha of Mosul has been driven out of his pashalik by an insurrection of the people, in consequence, as it's said, of the high prices of provisions in Mesopotamia....

27. FO 95/8/14, ff. 937-38 [Stratford Canning, ambassador at the Porte, notified Foreign Secretary George Canning on 30 September 1826 of John Barker's difficult voyage to Egypt. Currently on the Syrian coast, near Antioch, Barker awaited safe transport to assume his new post as consul in Alexandria.]

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[A British ship] has by this time been sent to convey my dispatches to [John Barker] and also to protect him in his passage from Syria to Egypt, either by taking him on board or giving convoy to the vessel in which he sails with his family. Without such protection, he can't perform the voyage in the present state of the Archipelago and neighboring seas with a tolerable degree of security. On quitting Aleppo, Mr. Barker provided, by a temporary arrangement, for what little interest we have in the place, requesting the aid of the French consul-general on behalf of the few British subjects residing there and depositing the archives of his office with a Mr. Magi, a Dutchman, who had been acting as chancellor to the British consulate....

28. FO 352/12A, ff. 482-85 [Barker's dispatch of 25 November 1826 to the Foreign Office, one month after his arrival in Alexandria, touched on several topics, including Muhammad Ali's naval armada that had just set sail for the Morea and Lord Cochrane's return to England instead of commanding the Greek fleet in an anticipated expedition against Egypt. In recounting his first audience with the governor to present credentials, Barker gave the Foreign Office (and readers today) a memorable vignette of the pasha's bravado and his disregard of the sultan's imperial firman. Indeed, the pasha could justifiably declare, "I never had a master."]

Alexandria the 25th November 1826 To Joseph Planta, His Majesty's Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs Sir, I have the honor to inform you that His Majesty's consul-general, Henry Salt, left this place for Cairo on the 14 th instant and reached his destination on the 22 nd . The viceroy protracted his departure for Cairo till yesterday, in consequence of the delays attendant on the equipment of his fleet, which finally set sail on the 20 th instant for the Morea under the command of His Highness's son-in-law, Muharram Bey. 4 4 It was composed of 78 sail, of. which [there were] about 30 ships of war, 4 fireships, 16 Turkish transports, and 28 European transports, chiefly under the Austrian flag, a few Neapolitans, and one Ionian under simulated papers. It carried money and provisions, and ammunition, but no troops. The amount of the specie on board is said to be 800 to 900,000 Spanish dollars. The news of Lord Cochrane's return to England has just been received here with very great and general satisfaction. The rumours that prevailed here of that adventurer's coming to aid the Greeks, and the probability of his first operation being to blockade this port, had made an impression very unfavorable to the British interests in this country, and the failure of his projects is considered a very happy circumstance in many points of view. 45

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I am happy to say that on paying the viceroy my first visit to deliver my credentials, His Highness was pleased to receive me very graciously, and politely obviated the necessity of not rising at my entrance, by coming into the hall of audience an instant after I had been ushered into it: a mark of distinction, which was not given to the Sardinian consul-general, nor even to the consul-general of the emperor of Austria, whose installation took place not long ago, and who were received by His Highness while sitting on his divan. After having informed him that the king of England had been graciously pleased to appoint me to be His Majesty's consul at Alexandria, and paid His Highness the usual compliments, my dragoman remitted to Boghos Yusuf, His Highness's interpreter, 46 the roll containing my berat or imperial command, recognizing me as British consul in Alexandria, which, without deigning even to cause to be opened, he with a sign ordered to be returned to my dragoman. His Highness condescended to enter into very familiar discourse. He talked of four frigates, which he said were [being built] for him in Marseilles and Leghorn and would be sent out to him in the spring. 47 He said the Greeks had never attacked any of his ships, but it was not clear whether he meant to say because they feared to do so or for some other cause 4 8 His Highness spoke in general terms of praise of my predecessor, Mr. [Peter] Lee; he mentioned particularly his prudence and the proofs he gave of his understanding by never making any opposition to his will, or disputing any of his opinions, which he observed was very easily done because they were always founded on reason and justice; and [he] finished by expressing his desire and conviction that the same harmony which always subsisted between him and Mr. Lee would subsist between His Highness and myself. In one part of the conversation, which lasted more than half an hour, His Highness spoke nearly in the following terms. "I will tell you a story: I was born in a village in Albania, and my father had ten children, besides me, who are all dead; but while living not one ever contradicted me. Although I left my native mountains before I attained to manhood, the principal people in the town never took any step in the business of the parish without previously inquiring what was my pleasure. I came to this country an obscure adventurer, and when I was yet but a binbashi [major], it happened one day the keeper of the tents had to give to each of the binbashis a tent. They were all my seniors and naturally pretended to a preference over me; but the tent keeper said, 'Stand ye all by, this lad, Mehamed Ali, shall be served first,' and I was served first. And I advanced step by step, as it pleased God to ordain; and now, here I am," rising a little on his seat, and looking out of the window which was at his elbow, and pointing to Lake Mareotis, "and here I am. I never had a master," glancing his eye on the roll which contained the imperial firman 49 I have the honor to be, Sir, your most obedient humble servant, John Barker

EPILOGUE

In a lengthy memorandum, "On Consular Reform in Turkey," drafted in 1844 during another stint as British ambassador to the Sublime Porte, Stratford Canning harshly criticized the qualifications, qualities, and activities of the current personnel in Britain's consular service in the Levant. British consulates employed persons that Canning deemed, for the most part, "inefficient and objectionable," many of them "bankrupt merchants, imbued with all the asperity of character incidental to misfortune; with all the susceptibilities belonging to a position attended with a certain color of disgraces; with old and deep-rooted prejudices unsuited to the present state of things; with exaggerated notions of British policy; with connections which shackle the free action of a conscientious man [and] divert the influence appertaining to their position into illegitimate channels; with large families beyond their ostensible means in a country where education is dear and vanity rife; and in some cases, with permission to trade, by which they may be no longer looked upon as the servants of British interests but as the builders of their own fortunes out of the materials confided to them for the public weal." Still more repugnant, Canning claimed, "are those consuls selected from the class of Levantine English, and those who are bona fide subjects of the Porte. The general prevailing features of the former are ignorance, vanity, trickery, and narrow-mindedness. The latter unite all these bad qualities to that of essentially injuring our interests by the very position in which they are unjustifiably placed and maintained." Canning further deprecated consular officials for their "superficial acquaintance with the country and its languages" and for "distorting facts to justify their course of action." 1 Canning's scathing critique serves as a reminder that additional TNA documents on Britain's consular and commercial presence in the Levant deserve scrutiny by scholars of Ottoman, Mediterranean, and Eastern Question history, not least because these sources will invariably raise new questions and provide more details on the complex of concerns that defined the BritishOttoman nexus. These findings will help to clarify both the variety of objectives that drove British policy in the Levant and the underlying tensions that spawned occasional friction in British-Ottoman affairs. Likewise, these materials will affirm the scope of British interactions with the lands and peoples of the Ottoman Empire, extending beyond military and naval strategy and geopolitical maneuvering to encompass a host of other issues.

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The reports and passages featured in this volume testify to the range of topics—commerce, consulates, capitulations, insurrections, treaty accords, Anglo-Russian rivalry, and acquisition of antiquities—that shaped British policy in the Levant and assumed growing prominence in subsequent BritishOttoman relations. Britain's strategic and economic involvement broadened, guided by several intertwined aims: secure the land and sea routes to India; contain the perceived threat of tsarist expansion; reform and regenerate the Ottoman Empire; and increase British trade. 2 Fear and mistrust continued to mark British perceptions of Russian territorial ambitions in the Near East, despite Russia's strategic decision shortly after the Russian-Turkish War of 1828-29 to preserve the Ottoman Empire, albeit in weakened state, and to cooperate with other great powers in the event the Empire's sudden demise created the opportunity for a shared partition of the sultan's European and Aegean lands. 3 The Convention of Balta Liman (1838), a British-Ottoman free trade agreement, granted most-favored nation status to Britain, abolished Ottoman state monopolies and preemptions, set up uniform customs duties for imports and exports, and exempted British traders from internal customs fees. Moreover, the treaty extended these commercial advantages to other European states, resulting in the expansion of European commerce as well as consular offices in the Ottoman East. Britain's share of Ottoman imports and exports grew, as did British financial activity in Turkey, especially after the British-French-Ottoman triumph over Russia in the Crimean War. 4 With the opening of the Suez Canal, British strategic and commercial interests focused increasingly on Egypt, and Britain became Egypt's main trading partner in the second half of the nineteenth century, a connection that culminated in the imposition of British colonial rule. 5 The documents selected for this book exhibit the skills, attributes, and limitations of consuls in their capacity as observers, analysts, and writers. They described social and administrative realities in key parts of the Ottoman realm; chronicled ongoing challenges from rebels, pashas, and pirates; conveyed images and scenes of sectarian warfare; detailed some of the intricacies in consular and commercial transactions; and noted the insecurity and uncertainty of Ottoman-European treaty contracts in an age of upheaval. Moreover, Britain's consuls wrestled with persistent questions that resonated in Europe's dealings with the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: consular abuse in the exercise of extraterritoriality, ambiguity and disorder in the capitulatory and protégé systems, rebellion by pashas and insurgents, and violation of treaty guarantees.

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227

British consulates, commerce, and capitulations relate directly to the Eastern Question, the precarious web of ambition, intrigue, duplicity, and dubious morality that entangled European rivals in a quest for profit and advantage in the Near East. Until World War One, the great powers continued to wield capitulatory privileges as a mechanism to exploit Eastern crises and to extend economic, diplomatic, and strategic leverage in the Near East. Consulates and embassies remained vital centers for the distribution of protection patents to Ottoman Christian clients who rendered useful assistance as intermediaries in business, commerce, diplomacy, and other enterprises. Ottoman officials, meanwhile, struggled to revise if not to abolish the capitulations by endeavoring to reform the Empire's political, judicial, and administrative structures. Manipulation of the capitulatory and protégé arrangements by Britain and other European powers contributed to the depletion of Ottoman resources and the breakdown of Ottoman governing institutions; these developments, in turn, fomented unrest and opposition among the sultan's subjects. Disturbances in the Balkans and the Levant, sparked by breakaway movements for regional autonomy or outright independence, generated crises that threatened to enmesh the great powers in Eastern conflict. Trade, piracy, and insurgency in the Levant belong not just to Ottoman and Eastern Question history but to Mediterranean maritime history, a field of inquiry that includes the economic, social, and cultural experiences of those communities directly or indirectly affected by the Middle Sea. The Black Sea and the Aegean connect the shared histories of the lands and peoples influenced by these bodies of water, while the Bosporus and the Dardanelles figure prominently in the exchanges and disputes that characterized British-Ottoman and Russian-Ottoman relations in the eastern Mediterranean. Ships and cargoes, mariners and merchandise, consular offices and commercial treaties, ports and harbors, customs and quarantine facilities, antiquities and pilgrimages: all these subjects in British-Ottoman maritime interactions attract attention from scholars worldwide who utilize published and unpublished records.6 Archival documents on specific eras and episodes in Ottoman, Mediterranean, and Eastern Question history offer eyewitness narrative; personal testimony; authentic, if not always accurate, information; telling detail; and firsthand observation. The TNA reports included in this volume exemplify these qualities in varying degrees and underscore the imperative of making archival resources accessible to a wider audience. For instance, a collection of primary sources on Russian activities in the Ottoman Levant, drawing on the wealth of materials in Moscow's Archive of Foreign Policy of

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the Russian Empire (AVPRI), will further elucidate the designs and dilemmas that distinguished Russian involvement in the Near East. 7 AVPRI's extensive holdings on consulates, commerce, contested borders, religious pursuits, and other facets of Russian-Ottoman relations will, to say the least, counter British Russophobia with a mirror image of Russian Anglophobia. A broad selection of AVPRI records can be found in the Foreign Policy of Russia (VPR), a seventeen-volume compendium covering just the first three decades of the nineteenth century. While Russian and Western historians have tapped some of the relevant items in this treasure-trove, VPR remains largely a neglected resource for the investigation of tsarist policy in the Ottoman world. Indeed, the careful scholar interested in Russian commercial navigation and consular affairs in the Levant can glean countless details from VPR's position papers, memoranda, consular dispatches, and trade data, materials that deserve analysis for the study of particular topics in Russian, Ottoman, Mediterranean, and Black Sea history.8 While British and Russian records remain invaluable for probing European interests and activities in the Ottoman Levant, a more complete understanding of European penetration requires the collaborative endeavors of multiple scholars working in multiple archives and libraries, in France, Turkey, Italy, and Greece, as well as in Britain and Russia. Ottoman documents in particular provide indispensable leads for examining commerce in the Levant, and it is hoped that Turkish and non-Turkish Ottomanists will continue to mine these sources in their research on the Levant. Additional findings from other archives will not only broaden and balance the British perspective featured in this book but sharpen our picture of the complexity and nuance of European-Ottoman relations and open fresh lines of scholarly inquiry.

NOTES

Abbreviations AVPRI

Arkhiv vneshnei politiki Rossiiskoi imperii (The Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire), Moscow El2 Encyclopedia of Islam: New Edition ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography OR, RNB Otdel rukopisei, Rossiiskaia natsional'naia biblioteka (The Manuscript Section of the Russian National Library), St. Petersburg RGIA Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv (The Russian State Historical Archive), St. Petersburg TNA, FO The National Archives, Kew, Foreign Office VPR Vneshniaia politika Rossii XIX i nachala XX v.: Dokumenty Rossiiskogo ministerstva inostrannykh del (The foreign policy of Russia in the nineteenth and the early twentieth century: documents from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs) I have used a short form in preparing these notations, citing only an author's last name (or multiple names for multiple authors). When an author has published several works, I have provided an abbreviated title of the book or journal article. Complete information on author names, book/journal titles, and dates/places of publication appear in the bibliography.

Chapter One Capitulations, Consulates, and the Eastern Crisis of the 1820s 1. For an introduction to the meaning, significance, and impact of the capitulations, see these recent studies based on Ottoman and Western sources: Boogert, The Capitulations and the Ottoman Legal System, 1-61, 160-63, 208-13; Boogert and Fleet, eds., The Ottoman Capitulations', Hamilton, Groot, and Boogert, eds., Friends and Rivals in the East, 33-35 136-37, 15961, 169-76, 182-89; Ahmad; Goffman, "The Capitulations and the Question of Authority in Levantine Trade;" idem, Izmir and the Levantine World, 10208, 128, 134-35, 146-51; Inalcik, "Imtiyazat;" the relevant sections by Inalcik, Faroqhi, and McGowan in Inalcik, with Quataert, eds., An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 188-95, 480-83, 520-26, 724-42. Also see Susa (Sousa), 1-173; Steensgaard; Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, 1: 97-98, 163-64; Kark, 53-67. 2. Virtually all of the scholarly works cited on the capitulations (note #1) discuss the duties and functions of consuls in the administration of extraterritorial jurisdiction over fellow nationals. Also see Anderson, An English Consul in Turkey, 174-209; Piatt, The Cinderella Service, 125-79. 3. See McGowan, 662-66, 714-16, for the impact of regional notables and strong pashas on the regression or devolution of the Ottoman central government's absolute authority. Also see Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, 21-39.

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4. On the diplomatic, economic, and commercial ramifications of the capitulations in the crucial eighteenth century, when the power balance between Europe and the Ottoman Empire shifted decisively against the latter, see Naff; Mantran, "The Transformation of Trade in the Ottoman Empire"; McGowan. 5. On berats, beratlis (protégés), and the protégé system, see Boogert, The Capitulations and the Ottoman Legal System, 63-115, 154, 228-30; Susa (Sousa), 93-102; Rey, 199-244; Quataert, "The Age of Reforms," 838-42; Mazower, Salonica, City of Ghosts, 119-21; Sonyel; Masters, Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Arab World, 74-80, 125. On the term reaya (sometimes cited as rayahs), see Faroqhi, "RaMyya; Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, 1: 150-63; Sugar, 43-55. Hereafter, I use the term to signify tax-paying Christian subjects of the Sublime Porte. 6. On the careers and activities of dragomans in the Ottoman Empire, see Groot; Eldem, French Trade in Istanbul, 215-18; Wood, 225-27; Boogert, The Capitulations and the Ottoman Legal System, 64-70; Cunningham, Eastern Questions, 1-22; Lewis, "From Babel to Dragomans'," Byrnes, 42-47. 7. Wood, 225. 8. Berridge, 137-38. 9. A substantial body of work examines the various roles of Ottoman nonMuslims in the Empire's maritime commerce, in particular the activities of the sultan's Greek, Armenian, Jewish, and Arab Christian subjects. For an introduction, see the excellent sections on trade by Inalcik, Faroqhi, and McGowan in Inalcik, with Quataert, eds., An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 188-217, 271-314, 474-530, 695-742, 824-42. Also see Masters, The Origins of Western Economic Dominance in the Middle East, 72-106; Goffman, Izmir and the Levantine World, 50-92; Mantran, "Foreign Merchants and Minorities in Istanbul;" Haddad; Frangakis-Syrett, The Commerce of Smyrna, 75-118, 155-87; Issawi, The Economic History of Turkey, 54-73; Gibb and Bowen, pt. 1, 299-313; Stoianovich; Panzac, "International and Domestic Maritime Trade in the Ottoman Empire;" idem Commerce et navigation dans l'Empire ottoman-, idem, Le caravane maritime-, Harlaftis and Vassallo, eds., New Directions in Mediterranean Maritime History, in particular the essays on Greek and Ottoman maritime history by Harlaftis, Pagratis, and Özveren and Yildirim, 111-70. 10. See the articles by Frangakis-Syrett: "Commerce in the Eastern Mediterranean;" "Commercial Practices and Competition in the Levant;" "Networks of Friendship, Networks of Kinship." 11. On the important activities of protégés in European trade with the Ottoman Empire, in particular their prominence as shippers, sailors, and captains in Russia's burgeoning merchant marine in the Black Sea and the eastern Mediterranean, consult Kardasis; Minoglou; Arsh, Eteristskoe dvizhenie v Rossii (The Philiki Etaireia movement in Russia), 139-49; Herlihy, "Russian Wheat and the Port of Livorno;" Prousis, Russian-Ottoman Relations in the Levant, 7-8; Harlaftis, "The Role of the Greeks in the Black Sea Trade;" Ovcharov. For the Greek role in the economic development of Odessa, Russia's major Black Sea emporium, see Herlihy, "The Ethnic Composition of the City of Odessa;" idem, "Greek Merchants in Odessa;" idem, "The Greek Community in Odessa;" idem, Odessa: A History, 6-20, 90-95, 125-26; Karidis; Prousis, "Dëmëtrios S. Inglezës." On the growth of a Greek merchant fleet and its contributions to European exchange in the Levant, see Leon; Kremmydas, Elliniki nautilia (Greek shipping); idem, Synkyria kai emporio stin proepanastatiki Peloponniso (Chance and commerce in pre-revolutionary

NOTES

12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17.

18. 19.

20.

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Peloponnese); idem, To emporio tis Peloponnisou (The commerce of the Peloponnese); Harlaftis, A History of Greek-Owned Shipping; Harlaftis and Charlaute, Istoria tis ellinoktitis nautilias (A history of Greek-owned shipping). Finkel, 469-70. Arsh, Eteristskoe dvizhenie v Rossii (The Philiki Etaireia movement in Russia), 53-62; idem, "O russkoi sisteme 'pokrovitel'stva'" (On the Russian system of 'protection'), 111-12; Rey, 266-81. Boogert, The Capitulations and the Ottoman Legal System, 91, 105-09; Eldem, Goffman, and Masters, The Ottoman City between East and West, 59. Boogert, The Capitulations and the Ottoman Legal System, 85-92, 110. Boogert's examination of Ottoman registers unearthed a total of 247 beratlis in the eastern Mediterranean by 1793-94. This figure, however, excluded several groups: the sizable number of Russian-recruited protégés, widely believed to have reached nearly 200,000 by the late eighteenth century; the scores of Austrian beratlis; and the protégés who resided in Albania, Thessaly, the Danubian Principalities, and other inland regions of the Ottoman Empire. Boogert himself admits the difficulty of assessing "the actual number of people who benefited from the privileges of berats," especially since "every berat exempted an entire household, the average size of which is uncertain." Despite this vagueness, he hypothesizes that even if each of the 247 berats released ten adult males from paying taxes, the total number of protégés—or those with capitulatory benefits—at the end of the eighteenth century amounted to around 2500 for the entire eastern Mediterranean, a figure which corroborates his overall thesis: "The protection system was thus a much less widespread phenomenon than has generally been assumed." (Boogert, 91-92). Clearly, additional research based on Ottoman and Western sources remains imperative for gleaning more consistently reliable estimates of protégés in all parts of the Ottoman Empire during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Masters, "The Sultan's Entrepreneurs," 587; idem, Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Arab World, 79; Quataert, "The Age of Reforms," 838; Sonyel, 58. Quoted in Cunningham, Anglo-Ottoman Encounters," 88-91. Liston tried without much success to correct abuses, recommending that berats should be withdrawn from protégés who served no useful function for British consuls or traders in the Levant. Rey, 264-65; Naff, 103; Fawaz, An Occasion for War, 23-24; idem, Merchants and Migrants in Nineteenth-Century Beirut, 73-75, 85-88. On the perils of commerce in the Levant, including shipwreck, see Wood; Davis; Panzac, La peste dans l'Empire ottoman. Tariff rates for European and protégé traders with capitulatory privilege ranged from 2 to 5%, depending on the types of goods imported and exported, the ports where these transactions took place, and other circumstances. Customs officials sometimes assessed additional fees, yet the combined cost of customs and extra levies remained substantially less than the duties owed by non-protégé Ottoman merchants for transporting the same goods and operating in the same ports. European and beratli traders thus had a distinct advantage. Sonyel, 57-59; Quataert, "The Age of Reforms," 838-41. Boogert, The Capitulations and the Ottoman Legal System, 91, asserts that "those who could afford to purchase a berat probably belonged to the social-economic elite of the non-Muslim communities, and...their contributions to communal taxes would thus have been considerable." Their share of Ottoman taxes presumably had to be paid by reaya subjects of the sultan.

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21. Boogert, The Capitulations and the Ottoman Legal System, 109-12; Sonyel, 59-61; Shaw, Between Old and New, 177-80, 341-50; Stanislavskaia, Russkoangliiskie otnosheniia (Russian-English relations), 433-34; VPR 3 (1963): 205-08, 239-42, 273-78, 686. 22. Masters, "The Sultan's Entrepreneurs," analyzes the sultan's endeavor to sell imperial berats to Muslim merchants in Ottoman Syria. 23. Shaw, Between Old and New, 178-79, writes: "Ottoman efforts to rationalize the Capitulations and reduce abuses in their administration were violently and successfully opposed by the European ambassadors and consuls, who saw in every reform only a new attempt to reduce the profits which they and their protégés received from these abuses. The European representatives at the Porte thus began a policy which was to prevail during much of the nineteenth century despite idealistic sentiments for reform. They opposed really fundamental reforms because of the threats posed to their traditional privileges. Thus in many ways Europeans in the Empire became as strong defenders of their vested interests and opponents of real reforms as were the most reactionary members of the old Ottoman ruling classes." For more on the question of Ottoman reforms and their impact on the capitulations, see Davison, Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 71-80, 256-64; Susa (Sousa), 177311. 24. On the European powers' continued reliance on the capitulatory and protégé systems in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, see Sonyel, 61-66; Issawi, "The Transformation of the Economic Position of the Millets in the Nineteenth Century;" Turgay. The capitulations, abrogated by the Ottoman government in September 1914, one month after the start of World War One, and restored by the victorious powers in the punitive Treaty of Sèvres (1920), were abolished for good in the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), the revised peace settlement necessitated by Greece's military debacle in Asia Minor and Mustafa Kemal's nationalist triumph in Turkey's War of Independence. See Shaw and Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, 2: 312, 356-59, 362-67. 25. LeDonne, The Russian Empire and the World, 104-17; idem, The Grand Strategy of the Russian Empire, 93-100, 159-60, 168-74; Fisher, The Russian Annexation of the Crimea; Jelavich, Russia's Balkan Entanglements, 1-24. On the significant but controversial Treaty of Kutchuk-Kainardji, see Hurewitz, 92-101; Davison, "'Russian Skill and Turkish Imbecility';" Druzhinina, Kiuchuk-Kainardzhiiskii mir (The Peace of Kutchuk-Kainardji). On the import of this treaty for Russia's wider involvement in the Eastern Question, see Anderson, The Eastern Question; Georgiev et al.; Macfie. 26. Vassallo, 23-24, 29; Bailey, 63-83; Puryear, France and the Levant, 5-6. 27. On the nationalist movements of the Serbs and the Greeks in the early nineteenth century, see Jelavich, History of the Balkans, 171-234; Jelavich and Jelavich, The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 26-52. 28. Hurewitz, 101; Finkel, 377-78. Quataert, "The Age of Reforms," 828, notes that war-induced losses adversely affected Ottoman commerce with Europe in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. 29. On the state of the Empire, in particular Ottoman administrative, military, economic, and government affairs in the early nineteenth century, see Finkel, 372-446; Shaw and Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, 2: 1-54; Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, 40-106.

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30. On Tepedelenli (Tepelenli; Tepedenli) Ali Pasha (d. 1822) and his importance for the start of the Greek revolt in 1821, consult Skiotis, "From Bandit to Pasha;" idem, "The Greek Revolution: Ali Pasha's Last Gamble;" Fleming, 3117, based on Western published and unpublished sources, including travelogues and consular dispatches; Arsh, Albaniia i Epir (Albania and Epirus), 302-30, utilizing Russian archives on Ali Pasha and his contacts with Russian consulates in the Balkans. For a good overview, see Finkel, 429-31; Jelavich, History of the Balkans, 80-84, 124-25, 216-17; Vickers, 18-24; Brewer, 36-48; Shaw and Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, 2: 17-19. 31. The Greek revolt exerted an immediate and profound impact on great power politics and diplomacy. For the European perspective on the Near Eastern crisis of the 1820s, see Anderson, The Eastern Question, 1-77; Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 614-21, 637-64; idem, Metternich's Diplomacy, 164-94, 223-25. 32. Stavrianos, 284. On the War of Independence, see Brewer; Clogg, A Concise History of Greece, 33-46; Woodhouse, Modern Greece: A Short History, 13556; idem, The Greek War of Independence-, Dakin, The Greek Struggle. 33. McCarthy, Death and Exile, 10-13, argues that the Greek revolt established a pattern of excesses and atrocities against Ottoman Muslims, a tendency that lasted until the end of the Empire. Greek forces massacred thousands of Muslim men, women, and children in the Morea, Missolonghi, Galatz, and Jassy, out of hatred but more so out of a calculated political strategy to foster national unity by removing Turkish ethnic and religious communities. Ethnic cleansing of this sort, according to McCarthy, accompanied subsequent struggles for national independence by Balkan Christians. 34. Mazower, The Balkans: A Short History, 44-65, provides examples of cultural, social, and religious interactions between Ottoman Muslims and Christians. 35. Walsh, 1: 305-06. 36. On the fate of the ecumenical patriarch, see Frazee, The Orthodox Church and Independent Greece, 22-35; Prousis, Russian Society and the Greek Revolution, 28, 55-56. See Mazower, Salonica, City of Ghosts, 125-30, on reprisals in Salonica. 37. Walsh, 1: 321-23. He referred to the Treaty of Kutchuk-Kainardji (1774). 38. The Destunis diary, located in OR, RNB, f. 250, d. 57, 11. 1-118, has been translated into English. See Prousis, "Smyrna 1821: A Russian View." 39. Francis Werry to George Liddell, 3 May 1821. Clogg, "Smyrna in 1821: Documents from the Levant Company Archives," 321. 40. Francis Werry to George Liddell, 12 May 1821. Clogg, "Smyrna in 1821: Documents from the Levant Company Archives," 322-23. 41. Francis Werry to George Liddell, 17 May 1821. Clogg, "Smyrna in 1821: Documents from the Levant Company Archives," 323-24. 4 2 . Francis Werry to the Governors of the Levant Company, 2 June 1821. Clogg, "Smyrna in 1821: Documents from the Levant Company Archives," 324-26. 43. Francis Werry to the Governors of the Levant Company, 18 June 1821. Clogg, "Smyrna in 1821: Documents from the Levant Company Archives," 328-29. 4 4 . Francis Werry to the Governors of the Levant Company, 17 July 1821. Clogg, "Smyrna in 1821: Documents from the Levant Company Archives," 337. Frank Street referred to the avenue behind the Smyrna wharf, where the city's English, French, Venetian, Dutch, and other Western communities built their warehouses, residences, taverns, cafes, and churches.

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45. Francis Werry to the Governors of the Levant Company, 17 August 1821. Clogg, "Smyrna in 1821: Documents from the Levant Company Archives," 341-42. 46. Francis Werry to the Governors of the Levant Company, 15 November 1821. Clogg, "Smyrna in 1821: Documents from the Levant Company Archives," 349. 47. Walsh, 2: 44-45. 48. Argenti, 11. TNA, FO 78/107, f. 228a. 49. Argenti, 13-14. 50. Argenti, 16-17, 28. TNA, FO 78/107, f. 94. 51. Argenti, 29. 52. Walsh, 2: 69-73. Walsh also described (1: 398-409) conditions on the island before and during the invasion. 53. Lane-Poole, 1: 389-90. 54. See Earle; Panzac, Barbary Corsairs; Harlaftis, "Greek Maritime History Steaming Ahead," 114-16, with numerous Greek-language sources on Greek piracy; Özveren and Yildirim, 169-70; Vasdravellis, Klephts, Armatoles, and Pirates in Macedonia, 76-104; Mazower, Salonica, City of Ghosts, 121-23. 55. Pappas (Greeks in Russian Military Service) provides extensive coverage of the Greek, Albanian, and other Balkan recruits and volunteers who fought with Russian, French, and British armed forces. 56. Frangakis-Syrett, The Commerce of Smyrna, 70-74, 108-10. 57. Greek naval action receives attention in general histories of the War of Independence: Dakin, The Greek Struggle-, Woodhouse, The Greek War of Independence-, Brewer. Also see Anderson, Naval Wars in the Levant, 482516. 58. Francis Werry to George Liddell, 12 May 1821. Clogg, "Smyrna in 1821: Documents from the Levant Company Archives," 323. 59. Frangakis-Syrett, The Commerce of Smyrna, 72. Also see Sayyid-Marsot, 208, on Greek piracy in the Levant during the revolt. 60. Anderson, The Eastern Question, 59-60. 61. TNA, FO 352/12A, ff. 32-36, 43-49, 122-24; FO 352/12B, ff. 2-2a. 62. TNA, FO 352/12A, ff. 418-19. 63. TNA, FO holds many of these British records on piracy in the Archipelago: 78/138, ff. 52-59; 78/142, ff. 20-26, 37-40, 60-72; 78/143, ff. 139-44, 197213; 78/145, ff. 301-05; 78/153, ff. 244-45; 78/172, ff. 207-10; 78/173, ff. 15-20, 33-38; 78/175, ff. 30-37. Also see Pitcairn Jones, vii-xxxiii, 21-31, 216-40, 264-67, 281-90. 64. Wrigley, 188-89; Dakin, The Greek Struggle, 73-77. 65. Pitcairn Jones, xxiii-xxiv, 67-71, 202; Anderson, Naval Wars in the Levant, 536-37; Wrigley, 239-42. 66. Sheremet, Turtsiia i Adrianopol'skii mir (Turkey and the Peace of Adrianople), 7-28; Fadeev, 52-57; Herlihy, Odessa: A History, 99-101. Documents from the Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire (AVPRI) shed light on the slump in Odessa's Black Sea commerce in the early 1820s: AVPRI, f. 161, II-3, op. 34, 1823, d. 1, 11. 1-2, and 1825, d. 4, 11. 1-7. Some of the AVPRI materials on Russian trade have been published in VPR 12 (1980): 154-55, 162-68, 543-46, 581-86; VPR 13 (1982): 88-89, 118-22, 144, 21617; VPR 14 (1985): 63-67, 181, 192, 196, 221, 273, 749-50. For more on Russian-Ottoman disagreements over mercantile navigation in the Straits and the Levant, see Prousis, "Disputes in the Dardanelles;" idem, "Risky Business;" idem, "Storm Warnings in the Straits."

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67. British consular records from Smyrna and other ports in the Levant reported frequent disruptions of British merchant shipping in the Black Sea and the eastern Mediterranean in the early 1820s: TNA, FO 78/136, parts 1-3, ff. 1313. Also see Puryear, France and the Levant, 4, 25-31, 34; Eldem, French Trade in Istanbul, 108-11. 68. Puryear, France and the Levant, 17-19; Wood, 194-96. For more on fictitious manifests, see document #5 in chapter three. 69. On Russian-Ottoman sources of friction from the Congress of Vienna to 1821, see Dostian, Rossiia i balkanskii vopros (Russia and the Balkan question), 129-95; Jelavich, Russia's Balkan Entanglements, 24-41; Sheremet, Voina i biznes (War and business), 207-18. 70. On Russia's official policy toward the Greek uprising of 1821, in particular the tsar's delicate balancing act between upholding legitimacy and intervening on behalf of Greek coreligionists, see Prousis, Russian Society and the Greek Revolution, 26-30, 185-87; idem, Russian-Ottoman Relations in the Levant, 25-27; Jelavich, Russia's Balkan Entanglements, 49-75; Dostian, Rossiia i balkanskii vopros (Russia and the Balkan question), 196238; Fadeev, 36-91; Sheremet, Voina i biznes (War and business), 218-86; Bitis, 104-15. 71. On these various connections between Russia and the Greeks, see Prousis, Russian Society and the Greek Revolution, 3-24; Arsh, Eteristskoe dvizhenie v Rossii (The Philiki Etaireia movement in Russia), 129-76, 200-22, 245-96. 72. The ultimatum appears in print in VPR 12 (1980): 203-10. 73. Webster, 349. 74. Webster, 376-78, with excerpts from Castlereagh's note to Bagot. 75. On Britain's policy toward the War of Independence, under both Castlereagh and Canning, see Webster, 349-400; Temperley, The Foreign Policy of Canning, 319-62, 390-409; Hinde, 321-44, 383-89, 404-11, 455-58; Byrne, 100-30; Middleton, 25-28, 106-113; Cunningham, Anglo-Ottoman Encounters, 188-323; Schwartzberg. 76. Crawley, 17-42. 77. Wrigley, 100-53, 187-227, 255-87, 297-98, covers all aspects of Ionian involvement in the Greek war, including corsair raids on British-flagged Ionian ships, and British-Ottoman tensions over Britain's alleged neutrality in the conflict. For more on the Greek loan, see Dakin, British and American Philhellenes, 26-41, 113-89. 78. Puryear uses the phrase "internationalization of the Greek war" in describing these events in France and the Levant, 37-68. 79. On Ibrahim Pasha's exploits in the war, including his supposed "barbarization project," see Brewer, 234-46, 254, 306-07; Temperley, "The Foreign Policy of Canning, 1820-1827," 90-91; VPR 14 (1985): 334-37; Woodhouse, Modern Greece: A Short History, 146; Sayyid-Marsot, 205-08, 213; Fahmy, All the Pasha's Men, 41-47, 55-60. 80. Lane-Poole, 1: 442. 81. On Russian and British mediation, culminating in the battle of Navarino, see Crawley, 43-97; Brewer, 255-57, 316-36; Woodhouse, The Battle of Navarino-, Anderson, Naval Wars in the Levant, 516-33; Bitis, 161-80. Also see the memoirs of Stratford Canning, Britain's envoy at the Porte, LanePoole, 1: 441-57. 82. Lane-Poole, 1: 417-19. For more on the abolition of the janissary corps, see Finkel, 423, 432-39. 83. Lane-Poole, 1: 422-26. 84. Quoted in Lincoln, 118.

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85. On Nicholas I's approach to the Eastern crisis, see Lincoln, 118-30; Jelavich, Russia's Balkan Entanglements, 79-89; Dostian, Rossiia i balkanskii vopros (Russia and the Balkan question), 238-72; Fadeev, 92-179. 86. Anderson, The Eastern Question, 72-73. On the Russian-Turkish War and the Treaty of Adrianople, see Prousis, Russian-Ottoman Relations in the Levant, 30-35; LeDonne, The Russian Empire and the World, 120-22; idem, The Grand Strategy of the Russian Empire, 173-74; Crawley, 155-73; Dostian, Rossiia i balkanskii vopros (Russia and the Balkan question), 273-330; Fadeev, 180369; Sheremet, Turtsiia i Adrianopol'skii mir (Turkey and the Peace of Adrianople); idem, Voina i biznes (War and business), 286-316; Arsh and Vinogradov, eds., Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia na Balkanakh (International relations in the Balkans) 238-95; Bitis, 274-324, 349-72. 87. Brewer, 337-51; Woodhouse, Modern Greece: A Short History, 148-56. 88. Puryear, France and the Levant, 60-64. The tsar's wartime ban of grain shipments from Russia's Black Sea harbors to the Ottoman Empire angered more than a few Odessan traders. Their complaints to government authorities underscored the reasons why they opposed the tsarist edict: their own personal business losses, the adverse impact on Black Sea shipping, and the expenses incurred for storing unshipped grain. These concerned merchants fully expected to reverse wartime setbacks with the resumption of unrestricted traffic. See AVPRI, f. 161, II-3, op. 34, 1828, d. 1, 11. 1-4, and 1829, d. 1, 11. 1-5. 89. Puryear, France and the Levant, 93-95, 101-04; idem, International Economics and Diplomacy in the Near East, 130-32; Bailey, 84-128, 247-70, with specifics on British-Ottoman commerce from 1825 to 1855. 90. Wood, 198. 91. Puryear, France and the Levant, 37-40; Wood, 179-204; Piatt, The Cinderella Service, 11. 92. Middleton, 244-53; Piatt, The Cinderella Service, 12-15, 125-26; Temperley, The Foreign Policy of Canning, 278-82. 93. Wood, 202. 94. Luke, 159-61. 95. See the relevant documents (#10, 12, 20) in chapter three. 96. On the perceptions of European travelers, consuls, and other visitors who recorded their observations of the Ottoman Levant in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, see Cunningham, Eastern Questions, 72-107; Eldem, French Trade in Istanbul, 172, 203-04, 218-26. For European attitudes toward Islam in general and Ottoman Turkey in particular, see Said; Daniel; Wheatcroft.

Chapter Two William Meyer in Prevesa: Pashas and Rebels 1. TNA, FO 78/103, holds countless dispatches and letters by William Meyer on virtually all facets of the military and political struggle for Greek independence, with extensive accounts not just of Ali Pasha and the siege of Ioannina but of Ottoman military campaigns and Greek insurgent operations throughout the mainland during the 1820s. Other Foreign Office collections with Meyer records include 78/96, 78/169, 78/175, 78/183, 352/11, and 352/12A. The two-volume compendium published by Prevelakis and Mertikopoulou contains Meyer's consular correspondence and related documents from the Foreign and Colonial Offices, but only for the years 181922. See Molly Greene's fine review of this work, International Journal of Middle East Studies 32, no. 2 (2000): 297-300.

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2. On Jeremiah Meyer (1735-89), see the entry by Katherine Coombs in ODNB 37: 987-89. For biographical information on William Meyer (1778-1869) and an introduction to his consular writings, see the relevant sections in Prevelakis and Mertikopoulou, 1: ii'-xxxiv'. 3. On Adair's diplomatic mission and the Treaty of the Dardanelles, see Adair; Cunningham, Anglo-Ottoman Encounters, 103-43. On Russian policy in the Ionian Islands and the close ties between tsarist Russia and Ionian Greeks, many of whom served in the Russian army, navy, diplomatic corps, and merchant fleet, see Saul; Stanislavskaia, Rossiia i Gretsiia (Russia and Greece); idem, Russko-angliiskie otnosheniia (Russian-English relations); Koukkou, Istoria ton Eptanison (A history of the Ionian Islands). 4. Prevelakis and Mertikopoulou, 1: xviii'. 5. Appointed to his consular post in 1818, Meyer only arrived in Prevesa in early 1820, a delay largely caused by British-Ottoman negotiations over Parga, an Ionian territory on the coast of Epirus, ceded by Britain to Ottoman authority in 1819. Britain established a consulate-general in Ioannina in 1804, principally for the purpose of monitoring French activities and initiating contacts with Ali Pasha. Wood, 184-85. Unlike Levant Company consuls, assigned and supervised by the company, and with primarily commercial functions, Foreign Office-appointed consular officers in Ioannina and Cairo had political and commercial duties and reported directly to the Foreign Office. See Foreign Secretary Castlereagh's elaborate instructions of 28 April 1819 to William Meyer, TNA, FO 78/93, ff. 5-18. 6. The Suliotes, clans of Hellenized Christian Albanians, resided in the mountainous enclave of Suli, roughly thirty miles southwest of Ioannina. Fiercely independent in fortified villages, they resisted the repeated incursions of Ali Pasha to subjugate their land and to force allegiance to him. After promising the Suliotes safe passage to Corfu after their defeat in 1803, Ali Pasha massacred many of them, the context for the dramatic episode in which Suliote women threw their children and themselves over a mountain precipice rather than submit to Ali Pasha. And yet the Suliotes backed Ali Pasha's revolt against the sultan in 1820, inspired by the prospect of reestablishing control over Suli. Defeated by the Ottoman army, Suliote forces found haven in Cephalonia before joining sides with Greek rebels in 1821 and 1822. On the Suliotes, see Vickers, 20; Brewer, 38-39; Arnakis, 126-27; Pappas, 38-41, 180-91, 286-88; Psimouli. For the Philiki Etaireia, the secret society founded in Odessa in 1814, including its preparations for an armed revolt and its links to tsarist Russia, see Arsh, Eteristskoe dvizhenie v Rossii (The Philiki Etaireia movement in Russia), 167-296; Prousis, Russian Society and the Greek Revolution, 18-24, 183-85; Brewer, 26-35. 7. Six of the Meyer documents presented in this chapter have been published, in slightly different versions, in volume one of the Prevelakis and Mertikopoulou collection (1: 243-45, 253-57, 315-25, 359-62, 369-72). All the dispatches I worked with came from the Foreign Office, while Prevelakis and Mertikopoulou cited variations of these same documents from the Colonial Office. In a few instances, I have edited Meyer's writing with a somewhat different stylistic approach in matters of paragraph structure, spelling, and grammar; but I have retained his underlining of words and phrases for emphasis. 8. Meyer's criticism of Ionian Greeks who abused their protégé status to spread sedition and unrest reinforced the suspicions of Sir Thomas Maitland and other British authorities in the Ionian protectorate. They suspected that Ionian Greeks in Russian service, such as Ioannis Vlassopulos, Russian consul in

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9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

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Patras, not only belonged to the Philiki Etaireia but actively recruited new members among Ottoman and Ionian Greeks. Sir Thomas Maitland (17601824) served as governor of Malta, commander in chief of British forces in the Mediterranean, and lord high commissioner of the Ionian Islands. He ruled the Ionians in an enlightened but authoritarian manner, and the Ionian constitution of 1817 gave him strong executive powers. He held a low opinion of Ionian Greeks, associating them with duplicity and other negative traits, and disdained the 1821 uprising as a blow against legitimacy and established government. Partly for these reasons, influential Ionian aristocrats and other local elites criticized Maitland's regime. For more on Maitland, see Lord; Dixon; Wrigley; the entry by H. M. Chichester, rev. Roger T. Stearn, in ODNB 36: 235-39. Meyer alluded to Russia here. It made sense for him to think that the transfer of Greek church hierarchs every two years might counteract Russian influence, given that the legendary Bishop Germanos of Patras belonged to the Philiki Etaireia and played a crucial role in that town's uprising in 1821. See Brewer, 1-3, 66-69, 75-77. Yet the Porte's periodic relocation of Greek bishops would not have neutralized Russian sway. Russia shared an Eastern Orthodox connection with Ottoman Greek Christians, and at least some clergy in Ottoman lands relied on Russian philanthropic assistance to promote education and to improve the lot of their communities. A Russian diplomatic dispatch of 1820, most likely referring to Bishop Germanos, mentioned a church hierarch of Patras who contributed to the construction of a local school and who enjoyed respect among Greeks and Turks alike. See VPR 11 (1979): 402-05; Prousis, Russian-Ottoman Relations in the Levant, 93-95. François Charles Hugues Laurent Pouqueville (1770-1838), historian and diplomat, served as French consul in Ioannina and Patras and published numerous works based on his extensive travels in Ottoman Greece. While not always accurate, and sometimes rather biased against the British and the Greeks, Pouqueville's writings (see bibliography) still offer useful information on daily life and society. Florimond Marquis de Latour-Maubourg served as chargé d'affaires of the French embassy in 1808-12 and then as ambassador in 1821-23. Meyer clearly exaggerated the membership of the Greek secret society. According to Brewer (34), "by the time the revolution began in 1821 the society's known membership was 1,093. Three-quarters of all the members were recruited abroad, over half of those in Russia and the neighboring principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia." For an analysis of the Philiki Etaireia's organization, composition, and activity, see the two studies by Frangos cited in the bibliography. The most popular Greek song circulating at the time, "War Hymn" ("Thourios") by the poet-pamphleteer-martyr Rhigas Pheraios (1757-98), inspired national feeling and patriotism. The fate of the revolutionary Pheraios —apprehended by Habsburg officials, extradited to Ottoman authorities, and executed for political radicalism—gave the poem personal authenticity, not to mention wider appeal, thus explaining its continued celebrated status in Greek literature. See Stavrianos, 278-79; Woodhouse, Rhigas Velestinlis. On the importance of folk songs and popular ballads as a rich source of Greek poetry and national identity, see Beaton, 102-11; L. Politis, 83-97; A. Politis; Watts. British quarantine officials in the Ionian Islands intercepted correspondence from the Greek mainland in order to gather military and political intelligence. See Dakin, British Intelligence of Events in Greece, based on British archival

NOTES

14.

15.

16.

17.

239

materials for the period 1824-27, with information on such topics as the course of the war, Greek discord, British philhellenes, political agents from France and other foreign powers, and British-French rivalry for influence among Greek factions. The double date denotes the Old Style Julian calendar, in effect in Russia until 1918, and the New Style Gregorian calendar of the West, including Britain's Ionian protectorate; the Julian calendar lagged twelve days behind the Gregorian calendar in the nineteenth century. Greek and Russian writers generally used Old Style dating or cited both forms. This important memorandum, authored by the influential Corfiote expatriate Ioannis Kapodistrias, Russia's joint foreign minister along with Karl V. Nesselrode, stated his educational and social philosophy, in particular his advocacy of faith-based learning and his opposition to political violence as a means of national emancipation. Kapodistrias, who visited Corfu in 1819 and who protested Britain's cession of Parga to Ottoman authority, remained a controversial figure because Lord High Commissioner Maitland wrongly suspected him of supporting, if not directing, the Philiki Etaireia. That the secret society recruited in the Ionian Islands (see Wrigley, 95-99) only reinforced Maitland's fears that an Ionian branch of the Etaireia would spawn conspiratorial designs in the protectorate. Kapodistrias, like many lonians, denounced Maitland's authoritarian rule, but repeatedly refused offers to head the political conspiracy and rejected armed struggle as a viable option. On the views of Kapodistrias toward education and the Philiki Etaireia, see Clogg, The Movement for Greek Independence, 131-36; Prousis, Russian Society and the Greek Revolution, 20-22, 184; Arsh, Kapodistriia, 170-212, 288-96; Woodhouse, Capodistria, 198-205, 209-13; idem, "Kapodistrias and the Philiki Etairia, 1814-1821;" Koukkou, Ioannis Kapodistrias, 85-110. Lord High Commissioner Maitland continued to suspect that Kapodistrias, tsarist foreign minister until his resignation in 1822, had fomented the plots that produced the 1821 uprising. Metternich, the architect of the conservative order in Europe, also intrigued against Kapodistrias and fueled some of Maitland's mistrust. See Grimsted, 249-55; Woodhouse, Capodistria, 151-59, 178-99, 253-57. On Maitland's imposition of measures to curb Ionian Greek support of the rebellion and to enforce strict Ionian neutrality, see Crawley, 20-21; Wrigley, 71-80, 108-10, 115-34, 139-43, 175-77. The "unheard of enormity" most likely referred to the Cerigo massacre of October 1821. Local residents on Cerigo killed about forty Turkish refugees who had fled to the island from the southern Morea, an outrage that drove Maitland to take draconian steps, such as martial law and disarming the population, to maintain order. Wrigley covers this episode, as does Pratt, 122-27. Francis Werry, British consul in Smyrna, commented on this incident in a dispatch of November 1821 to the Levant Company: "The massacre of forty Turks, men, women, and children in the island of Cerigo, where they had taken refuge from the Morea [and] were performing quarantine, caused suspicion unfavourable to us." Clogg, "Smyrna in 1821: Documents from the Levant Company Archives," 353. On Tripolitsa, see Brewer, 111-23. Sacked and captured by Greek insurgents in October 1821, this citadel town in the central Peloponnese became a contested site in the early months of the war. Flight, disease, starvation, and death in battle reduced the town's population by almost one-half (from 30,000 to 15,000 residents). Nearly 8,000 Turks and Albanians died in combat during the siege, while an additional 2,000 non-combatants, mostly women and kids, were massacred by Greek forces in a nearby gorge.

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18. Alexander Mavrocordato, one of the prominent leaders of the Greek War of Independence, held several military and political positions. He served as president of the provisional government, commanded Greek forces at Peta, and collaborated with Lord Byron in the defense of Missolonghi. See Brewer, 145-54, 202-19. 19. For Byron's activity and death in Greece, and his significant place in the European philhellenic movement, see Howarth; St. Clair, That Greece Might Still Be Free; Woodhouse, The Philhellenes; Dakin, British and American Philhellenes; Spender; Nicolson; Traeblood. 20. On Greek loan monies raised in London, see Brewer, 220-25, 289-96. 21. The United States initiated direct consultations and negotiations with the Porte in the 1820s, resulting in a nine-article commercial treaty signed in 1830. The U.S. received additional commercial and consular privileges in the Treaty of Commerce and Navigation (1862). See Susa (Sousa), 128-36; Field, 145-46; Oren, 114-16. 22. For good detail on the year-long siege of Missolonghi, which fell in April 1826, see Brewer, 269-88. This town remains an honored site in Greek history, not just because Byron perished here but because its valiant defense came to symbolize fortitude and resistance in the face of overwhelming odds. Moreover, the fall of Missolonghi sparked an outpouring of philhellenic support across Europe, vividly evoked in Eugène Delacroix's famous painting "Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi." Under Greek control from the start of the war, Missolonghi had already endured several sieges before the vastly outnumbered garrison and residents fell to a joint Ottoman-Egyptian army. 23. John Bidwell emerged as a key figure in the administration of consular affairs in the Foreign Office. As superintendent of the consular department from 1825 to 1851, he corresponded with British consuls, helped to decide where to place consular offices, and received most of the dispatches addressed to the Foreign Office. Middleton, 195-97, 251, 265. 24. Meyer's estimates for Missolonghi closely resemble the figures cited in Brewer, 283-86. According to Brewer, Missolonghi's population comprised 9,000 persons: 3,500 combatants, 1,000 civilian workers, and 4,500 women and children. Casualties from the siege totaled about 4,000 dead and 3,000 captured (mostly women and children); about 2,000 escaped. 25. On the Ottoman campaign near Athens, see Brewer, 306-15. The work of Domna Dontas, detailing the last phase of the war in western Greece, incorporates some of what she describes as Meyer's "excellent reports" on the internal affairs of the Albanians in Epirus. Dontas (x) assesses the consulgeneral as "an astute observer, who had many contacts with the Turks and Albanians, and if he was slightly prejudiced against the Greeks he at least recounted sober facts which correct impressions derived from pro-Greek sources."

Chapter Three John Cartwright in Complications 1.

Constantinople:

Consular

and

Commercial

With the establishment of a consulate-general at Constantinople in 1804, the British embassy turned over commercial duties to the new consular office. Appointed and paid by the Levant Company, the consul-general had a regular commission under the crown; unlike most company consuls, who engaged in commerce as a source of income, the consul-general did not need to use his trading privileges. Cartwright, who replaced Isaac Morier, consul-general from 1804 until his death in 1817, influenced British trade in the Levant for

NOTES

241

the next quarter of a century. Several of his consular reports from the 1830s detailed commercial problems and abuses in the Ottoman Empire and provided perspective on Ottoman-British trade relations. Moreover, Cartwright helped to negotiate the Anglo-Turkish Commercial Convention (1838), an agreement that abolished Ottoman prohibitions and preemptions, established uniform rates of dues, and facilitated the expansion of British trade and consulates in the Near East. See Puryear, International Economics and Diplomacy in the Near East, 25-26, 112, 119-25; idem, France and the Levant, 6, 32. 2. Aside from the documents presented here, additional correspondence from Consul-General Cartwright to the Levant Company and the Foreign Office can be found in Issawi, The Economic History of Turkey, 92-96, and TNA, FO 78. For specific citations of Cartwright's letters and dispatches, located in the myriad holdings of FO 78, see the useful descriptive index compiled by Prevelakis and Gardikas-Katsiadakis. 3. Article 42 formed part of the final treaty of capitulations between the Ottoman Empire and England (1675), an accord that confirmed and broadened previous capitulatory privileges and remained in force until the end of the Ottoman Empire. See Hurewitz, 34-41. After the Anglo-Turkish War of 1807-09, part of Britain's wider struggle against Napoleonic France, the Peace or Treaty of the Dardanelles (1809) reaffirmed and continued all of Britain's extraterritorial rights and restored merchant property sequestered in the war. See Hurewitz, 189-91. 4. The deputy governor of the Levant Company clearly rebuked the British embassy for its "too ready acquiescence in repeated previous encroachments" of capitulatory privileges and its reliance on a "doubtful medium," a dragoman who proved unable or unwilling to press British interests when dealing with the Porte. Many Europeans perceived the title of dragoman as a byword for timidity, delay, evasion, and compromise, owing largely to the fact that these multi-tasking translators, negotiators, and intelligence-gatherers, though protégés of European employers, occasionally endured Ottoman punishment as subjects of the sultan. Some dragomans thus diluted the vigor of the messages they had to convey, circumvented their assigned duty, and intrigued with the Porte or another European embassy. See Wood, 225-27; Cunningham, Eastern Questions, 1-22. 5. Depending on fluctuating exchange rates, "the comparatively insignificant sum" of 50,000 Turkish piastres in 1819 approximated 1,500 to 2,000 pounds sterling. The piastre suffered a precipitous decline in international value from about 1815 to the 1840s. For pound-piastre exchange rates during this period, see Brewer, xiv; Pamuk, "Money in the Ottoman Empire," 96670; idem, A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire; Temperley, England and the Near East, 405. 6. Frederick Pisani belonged to one of the dragoman dynasty families, whose members served various European embassies and the Porte over the centuries. Originally from Chios and Crete before settling in Constantinople by the late seventeenth century, the Pisanis became interpreters for the British and Russian embassies. See Groot, 225, 236-46, for more on the Pisanis and other Levantine families, part of a well-connected cosmopolitan network of middlemen interrelated by marriage, service experience, and residence in Pera and Galata, the areas in Constantinople that housed most of the capital's European consulates, embassies, and merchant firms.

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7. The fabled Seraglio, now the Topkapi, became the landmark imperial palace of the sultans, where they met with advisers, made policy, and issued decrees. It also served as the repository for the Ottoman dynasty's most sacred religious relics as well as artistic treasures and historical artifacts. On the palace, household, and exhibits of the Seraglio, see Miller; Goodwin; Mansel, 56-59, 64-74; Freely, 206-20, 225-29, 348-54. 8. Much of the fighting in five Russian-Turkish wars from 1711 to 1812 took place in Moldavia and Wallachia, demonstrating this region's strategic significance as a staging ground for tsarist military operations in the Balkans and a supply depot for Russian troops. In Russian-Ottoman agreements, most notably the Treaty of Bucharest (1812), the Porte pledged to guarantee orderly governance in the Danubian Principalities and to consent to Russia's approval of the selection of hospodars. But Danubian issues continued to stir discord in Russian-Ottoman relations, and Ottoman violation of treaty arrangements prompted tsarist protests and threats of military intervention. See Jelavich, Russia's Balkan Entanglements, 1-24; idem, Russia and the Formation of the Romanian National State, 1-15; Grosul, Dunaiskie kniazhestva (The Danubian Principalities); Dostian, Rossiia i balkanskii vopros (Russia and the Balkan question), 29-31, 42-86, 139-41, 174-76; Jewsbury, 17-54. 9. An Ottoman army defeated Ypsilanti in June 1821, forcing his flight to Transylvania. On the ill-conceived and ill-fated uprising of March 1821 in the Danubian Principalities, led by Prince Alexander Ypsilanti, an aide-de-camp to the tsar and a general in the Russian army, who had assumed leadership of the Philiki Etaireia in 1820, see Prousis, Russian Society and the Greek Revolution, 23-27; Arsh, "Ipsilanti v Rossii" (The Ypsilanti family in Russia); Brewer, 49-61; Jelavich, History of the Balkans, 206-13; Charles and Barbara Jelavich, The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 4042, 88-89. Ottoman troops occupied Moldavia and Wallachia (1821-22) and replaced the ruling hospodars without consulting the tsarist government, in violation of the Treaty of Bucharest. 10. On the state of unease and apprehension in Smyrna in the months following the outbreak of the Greek revolt, see the diary of Spyridon Destunis, Russian consul-general, and the dispatches of Francis Werry, British consul: Prousis, "Smyrna 1821: A Russian View;" Clogg, "Smyrna in 1821: Documents from the Levant Company Archives." Ottoman Muslims and Orthodox Christians often referred to Western merchants, residents, consuls, and envoys as "Franks." 11. Philip Green, British consul in Patras, published Sketches of the War in Greece (1827) with the help of his brother Richard Green, vice-consul in the same town. By the end of 1821, this key commercial town in the Peloponnese, headquarters for numerous consulates, had been reduced to a virtual wasteland, with most of the houses destroyed. See Brewer, 70-78, for the harsh fate of Patras. Philip Green, an agent of the Levant Company, later defied British neutrality by selling supplies to both sides in the war, purely for personal profit. 12. Although Alexander I condemned the Ypsilanti-led revolt and dismissed him from Russian service, the tsarist regime insisted on Ottoman compliance with treaty accords. An ultimatum of 6/18 July 1821, delivered to the Porte by Ambassador Stroganov, requested the sultan's government to evacuate Ottoman forces from the Danubian Principalities, to restore damaged Orthodox churches and properties, to ensure protection of Orthodox Christians, and to distinguish between rebels, who deserved punishment, and

NOTES

13.

14.

15. 16.

17.

243

innocent subjects, who should not be harmed. When the Porte failed to meet these terms within the ultimatum's eight-day deadline, Stroganov's departure from Constantinople severed formal diplomatic ties between the two empires. The ultimatum appears in VPR 12 (1980): 203-10. Also see Prousis, RussianOttoman Relations in the Levant, 26-29; idem, Russian Society and the Greek Revolution, 28-29. The Russian-Ottoman Treaty of Commerce (1783) recognized Russia's annexation of the Crimea and reaffirmed the capitulatory privileges already ceded to Russia in the Treaty of Kutchuk-Kainardji (1774), including unrestricted commercial navigation in the Black Sea, the Straits, and the Levant and the right to establish consulates anywhere in the Ottoman Empire. See Noradounghian, 1: 351-73, for the text of the Treaty of Commerce, and Hurewitz, 92-101, for an English translation of the Treaty of KutchukKainardji. The Porte granted the same commercial privileges in the Black Sea and the Straits to British merchant vessels in an agreement of 1799. See Hurewitz, 140-41. Ongoing Ottoman interference with British commerce, as described by Cartwright, corroborated the caution and uncertainty expressed by Lord Strangford, Britain's ambassador at the Porte, in the communication he sent to the consul-general on 9 August 1821. Strangford notified Cartwright that the Ottoman foreign minister had announced the Porte's compliance "with my demand for the removal of the embargo which it had imposed upon vessels laden with corn, arriving in this port from those of the Black Sea." In consequence of this permission, "the merchants will now have the power of re-exporting all cargoes which they may not be disposed to sell to the Turkish government. Such cargoes as they may be unwilling to expose to the risk attendant on re-exportation (after their long detention here), it will be my duty to oblige the government to take on its own account, and at terms which shall, in every sense, secure the proprietors from loss. And I trust that I need not assure you that my best endeavours shall be directed to this object; though from the circumstances of the present crisis, it is impossible to answer for early and complete success." TNA, FO 78/136, ff. 38-38a. Cartwright most likely referred to François Chabert, dragoman at the British embassy for over three decades, notwithstanding the consul-general's negative tone toward him. The Chabert family, of French origin, another Levantine dragoman dynasty, served the French, British, and Sardinian embassies. Groot, 235-46. A para, a Turkish copper coin, approximated a small fraction (1/40) of a piastre. An oke or oka constitutes a unit of weight, equal to 2 3 / 4 pounds; it is also a unit of liquid measure, equal to 1 '/3 quarts. Spencer Smith, secretary of the embassy, acted as chargé d'affaires in 179599. The Earl of Elgin (renowned for the Elgin Marbles, removed from the Parthenon in Athens and acquired by the British Museum) served as ambassador from 1799 to 1803, when his secretary Alexander Straton stayed on as chargé d'affaires until the arrival of the next envoy, William Drummond. Groot, 226. The distinguished diplomatic career of Stratford Canning (1786-1880) at the Porte featured stints as minister plenipotentiary in 1810-12 and ambassador in 1825-29 and 1841-57. He became perhaps the most influential British envoy at the Porte, encouraging Ottoman legal and administrative reform as a means to strengthen the Empire and thus to contain the threat of tsarist expansion. Lord Tennyson's poetic eulogy, inscribed on Canning's tomb in Westminster Abbey, rightly calls him "the voice of England in the East." On

244 B R I T I S H C O N S U L A R

18.

19.

20.

21. 22.

R E P O R T S FROM THE

LEVANT

Canning's career in the Ottoman Empire, see Lane-Poole; Malcolm-Smith; Byrne; Cunningham, Anglo-Ottoman Encounters, 144-87, 276-323; the entry by Muriel E. Chamberlain in ODNB 9: 924-32. Several years before Cartwright's memorandum, an adviser at the Russian embassy in Constantinople, Dmitrii V. Dashkov, wrestled with the same concerns in his investigation of Russia's consular establishment in the Ottoman Levant. Dashkov inspected Russian consulates in the Peloponnese, the Aegean Archipelago, Egypt, and Syria in 1819-21, scrutinizing consular affairs and proposing regulations to upgrade the personnel and management of the consular system. Since the embassy had tried without lasting success to curtail consular disorders and abuses, Dashkov recommended a complete overhaul. A restructured hierarchy of consulates would expedite communication with the embassy and reduce the number of temporary consular agents. An apprenticeship at the commercial chancellery of the Russian embassy would train newly designated consuls with the requisite skills to discharge their duties with competence and efficiency. Uniform legal procedures would instill order and regularity in consular judicial proceedings, thereby ending the confusion in civil and criminal suits involving Russian subjects at consular courts. Dashkov's directives implied that all consuls would not only fulfill their assigned tasks but faithfully represent the interests of Russian official policy toward the Porte. Dashkov, "Mémoire sur l'état des Consulats Russes dans le Levant au commencement de 1821," 9/21 July 1821, RGIA, f. 1630 (Dashkov collection), op. 1, d. 135, 11. 10-21. For an English translation of this report, with more information on Dashkov's inspection of Russian consulates, see Prousis, Russian-Ottoman Relations in the Levant, 16-22, 95-106. Consular correspondence sometimes used exequatar as a synonym for berat. An exequatar, an official document that the Ottoman government granted to a consul or commercial agent, authorized the recipient to perform his duties in the Ottoman Empire. Berridge covers the dragoman section of the British embassy and the effort to create a mixed dragomanat, with an infusion of English natives working with the stock of experienced and fluent Levantines. Cartwright's proposal for a mixed establishment echoed the sketchy plan put forth by Sir Robert Listón, ambassador at the Porte in 1812-20 (Berridge, 142-44). Venice and France led the way in establishing a linguistically trained cadre of dragomans, setting up institutions for "youths of language" (giovani della lingua and jeunes de langue) to learn the languages of the Islamic Near East. In the case of France, young children between the ages of six and nine trained in Turkish, Arabic, and Persian and served as dragomans in Levantine ports. Initially launched in Paris and later transferred to the custody of the Capuchins in Constantinople, this school partly inspired the formation of France's National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations. See Eldem, French Trade in Istanbul, 142. Some of Vondiziano's consular reports to Consul-General Cartwright, depicting events in Cyprus, have been published in Luke, 157-71. Clogg's essays on the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) in the Levant offer useful context, although they do not mention Adrianople as a site of activity: Clogg, "Enlightening 'A Poor, Oppressed, and Darkened Nation';" idem, "The Foundation of the Smyrna Bible Society." Founded in 1804, with the aim of distributing vernacular translations of the Bible to peoples worldwide, the BFBS sent representatives to the Near East. Active among the non-Muslim population of the Ottoman Empire, and supported by European

NOTES

245

merchants and consuls, they published and disseminated Armenian, Hebrew, and modern Greek translations of the Bible. 23. Appointed by the BFBS in 1821 as its first full-time agent in the Levant, Henry D. Leeves encouraged translations of the Bible into Albanian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Kurdish, and Ladino (Spanish printed in Hebrew characters). He also promoted Turkish translations printed in Greek and Armenian letters for Turkish-speaking Greek and Armenian Christians. Clogg, "Enlightening 'A Poor, Oppressed, and Darkened Nation'," 243-44. 24. Adrianople's Greek Orthodox and Armenian hierarchs, together with the chief rabbi, belonged to the millet leadership of their respective communities. Islam's tolerance toward Christians and Jews as "people of the book," and the Ottoman Empire's theocratic structure, separated subjects into millets (ethnoreligious communities) on the basis of religious affiliation. The millet system allowed Ottoman non-Muslim groups —Eastern Orthodox, Armenian Christian, Jewish—to retain religious and legal autonomy under the administration of their own religious officials. See the essays on the Greek Orthodox, Jewish, and Armenian millets in the standard work of Braude and Lewis. 25. On the abolition of the janissary corps as a crucial step on the path of modernizing reform in the Ottoman Empire, see Quataert, "The Age of Reforms," 764-65; Finkel, 423, 432-39; Shaw and Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, 2: 19-22. Chapter Four Francis and Nathaniel Werry in Smyrna: Chios, Piracy, and Russophobia 1. On the Werry family's maritime connection, including the careers of Francis Werry (1745-1832) and Nathaniel Werry (1782-1855) in the Levant, see Rees, xiv, 1-57. 2. On Smyrna's commercial florescence in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, see Frangakis-Syrett, The Commerce of Smyrna. Also useful are the primary sources presented in Angelou, 439-82; Cunningham, "The Journal of Christophe Aubin;" Prousis, "Russian Trade Prospects in Smyrna." Smyrna developed into the commercial hub of the Ottoman Empire, connected by trade and shipping routes to Constantinople, Salonica, Patras, the Aegean islands, Egypt, Syria, and Anatolia. 3. On the riots of 1797, see Frangakis-Syrett, The Commerce of Smyrna, 62-65; Clogg, ed., The Movement for Greek Independence, 15-17; idem, "The Smyrna 'Rebellion' of 1797." 4. Clogg, "Smyrna in 1821: Documents from the Levant Company Archives." The diary of Spyridon Destunis, Russian consul-general in Smyrna, who verified many of Werry's impressions and observations, appears in English translation in Prousis, "Smyrna 1821: A Russian View." 5. For more on Delacroix's celebrated philhellenic work and other French artistic images inspired by the Greek revolution, see Athanassolgou-Kallmyer. 6. On the Chios massacre, see Argenti's introduction (ix-xxxiv) and his collection of contemporary diplomatic accounts (3-206). Also see Brewer, 154-67, largely based on Argenti. 7. Francis Werry to the Levant Company, 2 April 1822. Argenti, 32. 8. Francis Werry to the Levant Company, 17 April 1822. Argenti, 33-34. 9. Francis Werry to the Levant Company, 17 May 1822. Argenti, 39.

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R E P O R T S FROM THE

LEVANT

10. John Cartwright to the Levant Company, 25 May 1822. Argenti, 39-40. Ottoman forces executed about fifty hostages in the citadel on Chios; about ten hostages in Constantinople met the same fate. 11. Francis Werry to the Levant Company, 1 June 1822. Argenti, 40-41. 12. Francis Werry to the Levant Company, 2 July 1822. Argenti, 43. 13. Francis Werry to the Levant Company, 17 April 1822. Argenti, 34. On the sequestered property of Greek emigrant merchants and the debt claims of European creditors, see Frangakis-Syrett, The Commerce of Smyrna, 67-68; Puryear, France and the Levant, 25-28. Also see Frangakis-Syrett, "Networks of Friendship, Networks of Kinship," 201, on the numerous Ottoman Greek merchants from Chios who, after emigrating to Smyrna in the prerevolutionary era, prospered in the cloth trade and owned some of the major commercial firms in this flourishing Levantine center. 14. British factory at Smyrna to Francis Werry, 13 April 1822. Argenti, 35-37. 15. Francis Werry to the Levant Company, 17 May 1822. Argenti, 39. 16. John Cartwright to Captain Hamilton, 11 July 1827; James Charnaud to John Cartwright, 25 June 1827. Pitcairn Jones, 137-38. 17. Francis Werry to Captain Hamilton, 12 July 1827. Pitcairn Jones, 141. 18. Francis Werry to Captain Sotheby, 7 September 1827; British merchants at Smyrna to Francis Werry, 6 September 1827. Pitcairn Jones, 172-74. 19. Francis Werry to Captain Sotheby, 19 September 1827; Nicolo Frangopulo to Francis Werry, 8 August 1827. Pitcairn Jones, 176-82. 20. Francis Werry to Captain Sotheby, 21 September 1827. Pitcairn Jones, 182. 21. Pietro Cordia to Francis Werry, 15 July 1827. Pitcairn Jones, 205-07. 22. On the origins and development of Russophobia in early nineteenth-century Britain, see Gleason; Hopkirk, 57-68, 116-19, 153-64; Ingram, Britain's Persian Connection, 203-16. A corresponding Anglophobia colored Russian official perceptions of British imperial policy in the Near East. More than a few Russian documents, penned by foreign ministers, envoys, and consuls, alleged British jealousy over Russia's special relationship with the sultan's Greek Christians. British envy supposedly provoked "constant insinuations" that "undoubtedly incite the discontent of the Turks all the more in this matter." Britain's "perfidious policy will not fail to exploit the first favorable circumstance" to supplant Russian influence in the Aegean Archipelago. See the dispatch from Grigorii A. Stroganov, envoy at the Porte, to Foreign Minister Karl V. Nesselrode, 2/14 January 1819, VPR 10 (1976): 626-29. Also see Dmitrii V. Dashkov's letter to Stroganov, 26 May/7 June 1820, VPR 11 (1979): 402-05. 2 3 . Russia annexed eastern Georgia in 1801 after that region, in fear of a Persian attack, had accepted Russian protection. The Treaty of Gulistan (1813), ending the Russian-Persian War of 1804-13, secured Russian control of Georgia, Dagestan, and northern Azerbaijan. The Treaty of Turkmanchai (1828), in the wake of the Russian-Persian conflict of 1826-28, ceded to Russia the eastern Armenian khanates of Yerevan and Nakhichevan. By the Treaty of Adrianople (1829), following the Russian-Turkish War of 1828-29, Russia gained additional land in the Transcaucasus as well as the entire northeastern coast of the Black Sea, from the mouth of the Kuban to Fort St. Nicholas, including the ports of Anapa, Sukhumi, and Poti. For tsarist expansion in the Caucasus and Transcaucasus in the early nineteenth century, see LeDonne, The Grand Strategy of the Russian Empire, 98-100, 168-74; idem, The Russian Empire and the World, 112-22; Barrett; Atkin; Baddeley; Hopkirk, 62-68, 75-88, 102-19; Kelly, 47-57, 63-69, 138-61, 224-26;

NOTES

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

247

Ingram, Britain's Persian Connection, 263-304; idem, The British Empire as a World Power, 54-96; Bitis, 189-273. On the sequence of complex events that comprised the Eastern Question, in particular British, Russian, and other European rivalries over the fate of the Ottoman Empire, see Anderson, The Eastern Question; Yapp, The Making of the Modern Near East, 47-96; and Georgiev et al., for a Russian perspective. On the Great Game, usually associated with Anglo-Russian competition in Persia, Afghanistan, and Central Asia, see Hopkirk; Gillard; and the works by Edward Ingram cited in the bibliography. Ingram's strictly geopolitical approach connects the Eastern Question to the Great Game, arguing that British defense of India required buffer zones or protectorates in Asia Minor, Persia, and Afghanistan. According to LeDonne, The Russian Empire and the World, 117, every move "by either one of the global powers [Britain and Russia] triggered anxiety and called for a response in the other's capital, and both powers began to probe for a line of an optimum of conquest to demarcate the outer boundary of their respective possessions." For the relevance of "informal empire" to British interests in the Ottoman Empire, see Sluglett; Marshall; Porter. "Empire" became an elastic term, encompassing a range of methods by which Britain and other European powers exerted influence and control in non-European lands. Joseph Planta, as permanent undersecretary of state in the Foreign Office from 1817 to 1827, handled administrative matters, prepared reports, dealt with consular affairs, and received dispatches from Levant Company officials and consuls. He ably assisted Foreign Secretaries Castlereagh and Canning, both of whom praised his skill, diligence, and efficiency. Middleton, 131-32; ODNB 44: 521. Britain's ambassador at the Porte, Lord Strangford, described the fate of these Chiote hostages in his note of 25 May 1822 to Foreign Secretary Castlereagh: "The most tragical occurrence took place on the 18 th instant when, in spite of the assurances so often given to me by the Porte, that she considered those unhappy men as perfectly innocent and that no offense could be alleged against them, the ten Chiote hostages residing here were publicly beheaded. They were all persons of good repute, great connections in tradeparticularly with the English merchants, and of large and honourably acquired fortunes. [Emphasis original] Their fate is deeply regretted even by the Turks; the better class of whom do not scruple to inveigh against this transaction as an act of unnecessary cruelty..." The Porte claimed the necessity of the execution in order "to pacify the janissaries," who had become enraged over the cruelties committed by the Greeks on Chios. Lord Strangford, however, maintained that these Greek abuses "cannot justify an act which, fertile as this place has been in horrors, is beyond all comparison, the one which I have witnessed with the greatest disgust and indignation.... I had been in constant private communication with these poor Chiotes. I had been so happy as to have rendered them some services during their captivity and I had flattered myself with the hope that my recommendations in their favour could have been attended to...." Argenti, 19-20. The Moldavian-Greek Callimachi family belonged to the Phanariotes, an Ottoman elite comprised of Greek and Hellenized families of noble and princely descent, named after the Phanar, or Lighthouse, district of Constantinople, where many of them resided near the official seat of the ecumenical patriarch. Their wealth and influence allowed the Phanariotes to occupy strategic positions in the Ottoman ruling hierarchy, including the

248

29.

30. 31. 32.

33.

BRITISH CONSULAR REPORTS

FROM THE

LEVANT

prestigious office of grand dragoman, the Porte's chief interpreter and diplomat who negotiated directly with European states. From roughly 1711 to 1821, Phanariotes held the lucrative but tenuous hospodarships of Moldavia and Wallachia, governorships that usually went to the highest bidders. Sultans deposed and reappointed hospodars on a regular basis for financial profit, with the result that hospodarships changed hands among key Phanariote families (Mavrocordato, Mourouzi, Ghica, Soutso, Ypsilanti, Callimachi). Their affluence and connections exposed them to intrigue and conspiracy from political foes, including jealous rivals within their own ranks; they also faced threats of Ottoman reprisal, as evinced in the fate of the grand dragoman, Constantine Mourouzi, executed in 1821 for suspected complicity with Greek rebels. Without citing the names of the princely brothers or explaining the reasons for their demise, the document most likely alluded to Scarlat Callimachi, hospodar of Moldavia in 1806-07 and again in 1812-19. He supported Greek educational initiatives in the Morea and sought to resolve Russian-Ottoman disputes over the interpretation of the Treaty of Bucharest (1812), especially those clauses that dealt with the Danubian Principalities. An anti-Phanariote uprising in Wallachia in 1821, led by the Romanian revolutionary Tudor Vladimirescu, prevented S. Callimachi from assuming office as governor of Wallachia, and his suspected ties with Greek insurgents in Moldavia cost him his life. His execution for alleged collusion with Ottoman enemies and traitors formed part of a larger story, the Porte's decision in 1821 to employ nonGreeks as dragomans and to end Phanariote rule in the Principalities, thus returning the hospodarships to native Danubian nobles and princes. For an introduction to the Phanariotes, see Arnakis, 94-96; Jelavich, History of the Balkans, 53-57, 102-11, 208; Stoianovich, 269-73; Jewsbury, 9-17. On Scarlat Callimachi and his role in Russian-Ottoman relations, see Arsh, Kapodistriia, 210, 302; VPR 12 (1980): 10-11, 24-31, 33-38, 113-14, 166, 633, 685; VPR 14 (1985): 506, 510, 817. The letter referred to Lycurgus Logothetis, the reckless adventurer who led the ill-fated Samiote assault that declared Chios's independence from Ottoman rule in March 1822, which in turn aroused "Turkish vengeance." The inept Logothetis proclaimed himself "savior" of Chios, but failed to prepare the island's defenses, bickered with fellow "liberators," and fled when the Ottoman navy approached. Lord Strangford succinctly remarked in his dispatch of 25 April 1822 to Foreign Secretary Castlereagh: "The Samiote Greeks, whose unfortunate expedition to Chios has been the cause of the calamity which has overwhelmed that once happy and flourishing island, took no part in the combat and basely fled to Psara. hastily embarking on the side opposite to that where the Turkish troops landed." [Emphasis original] See Argenti, xii, xx-xxii, 12; Brewer, 156-58. For more on M. Mavrogordato, the influential Chiote who lost his properties in Smyrna after the Chios massacre and who resettled in London, see document #10 in chapter four. These excerpts from Francis Werry's letter appear in print in Argenti, 37-38. Eleaz Aga (or Elez Aga) belonged to the Elezoglu family of derebeys, or powerful regional notables, who held sway near Scala Nuova (Kujadasi). See Clogg, "Smyrna in 1821: Documents from the Levant Company Archives," 340; Brewer, 159, 164. Frederick North, 5 t h Earl of Guilford, classical enthusiast and antiquity collector, helped to organize the Philomousos Etaireia (Society of Friends of the Muses), founded in Athens in 1813 with a branch in Vienna in 1814. This

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educational and philanthropic society, under the direction of Ioannis Kapodistrias and with donations from philhellenic contributors in Russia and the rest of Europe, raised money for Greek schools in Athens and Thessaly, funded Greek students in Europe, and attempted to preserve Greek antiquities. Frederick North also founded the Ionian Academy in 1824. On the Philomousos Etaireia, see Prousis, Russian Society and the Greek Revolution, 15-17; Arsh, Kapodistriia, 124-69; Koukkou, Ioannis Kapodistrias, 50-55. 34. Ambassador Grigorii A. Stroganov charged embassy secretary Dmitrii V. Dashkov with the mission of inspecting Russian consulates in the Levant in order to correct abuses in consular affairs and to upgrade Russia's consular service. The elimination of consular irregularities and problems would mark a crucial step toward establishing Russian-Ottoman harmony and friendly bilateral ties on a firm foundation. Indeed, Tsar Alexander I authorized Stroganov to improve the functioning of consulates, requesting the envoy to urge consuls to implement orderly and efficient procedures and to observe treaty accords. A reformed consular service would make Russia's position more secure and less vulnerable to Ottoman pressure. Before the Greek revolution cut short his inspection tour, Dashkov visited most of Russia's consular offices in the Ottoman Empire and criticized much of what he discovered. His archive contains countless documents on his findings and recommended regulations, but nothing in the Dashkov collection suggests that he visited Prevesa or Ioannina, intrigued with or against Ali Pasha, or approved of the Greek revolt. On Dashkov and Stroganov, in particular Dashkov's travels in the Levant, his investigation of consulates, and his writings on consular and Ottoman reform, see Prousis, Russian-Ottoman Relations in the Levant, based on the Dashkov archive. On the larger picture of tsarist moderation and cordiality toward the Porte after the Congress of Vienna, see VPR 9 (1974): 207-12, 704-07; Jelavich, Russia's Balkan Entanglements, 24-41; Dostian, Rossiia i balkanskii vopros (Russia and the Balkan question), 129-95. 35. Halet Efendi, Mehmed Said (1761-1822), played a significant political and military role in the reigns of Selim III and Mahmud II. Although Ottoman ambassador to France in 1802-05, he rejected Western-style reform of Ottoman institutions, including the janissary corps, and participated in the conservative coalition that overthrew Sultan Selim. As a close adviser to Mahmud II, Halet Efendi supported the sultan's political drive to restore centralized absolute rule and to curb the powers of provincial notables in Anatolia and the Balkans. In organizing some of these military expeditions against derebeys and ayans, Halet sought to strengthen his own anti-reform base among the janissaries and their allies and to eliminate rivals for power in the provinces. While he ardently backed the sultan's suppression of Ali Pasha's revolt, he worked against the sultan's proposed military reforms. A target of growing criticism because of Ottoman military setbacks in the Peloponnese in 1821, Halet Efendi fell from favor in the sultan's inner circle. According to Lord Strangford, it was Halet Efendi who incited the execution of the Chiote hostages in Constantinople in 1822, part of "the barbarous system of terrorism which Halet Efendi pursues for the sake of diverting public attention from his own misdeeds." (Argenti, 20). Exiled from the capital, Halet Efendi was executed on the sultan's orders. See Finkel, 430-31; Shaw, Between Old and New, 385, 398, 450; Shaw and Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, 2: 8-9, 15, 18.

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36. Arsh, in Albaniia i Epir (Albania and Epirus), integrates Russian archival sources in his coverage of Ali Pasha, including information (315-16) on the rebel pasha's contacts with the Russian consulate at Patras. Published Russian archival documents, in VPR (11) 1979: 388-93 , 420-24, 761-62, 764, indicate that Ambassador Stroganov firmly upheld the tsarist stance of caution and restraint toward the Porte. He spurned Ali Pasha's overtures for Russian help in 1820 and admonished the pasha that he himself, not Ottoman troops, would be responsible for the "spilled blood" of Christians who joined his rebellion. Also see Skiotis, "The Greek Revolution," 100-01. 37. These enclaves on the Albanian coast—Parga, Prevesa, Vonitsa, Butrinto— had belonged to Venice's Ionian colony before France acquired the Ionian Islands in 1797. The Russian-Ottoman agreement of 1800, placing the Ionians under Ottoman suzerainty and Russian occupation, ceded the four continental districts to the Ottoman Empire. See Saul, 99-100. The demise of the Venetian Republic in 1797 altered the diplomatic landscape of the Levant since Venice, as the oldest capitulatory power, had benefited from a network of consulates and its embassy in Constantinople had become a center of information, intrigue, and influence. See Groot, 235-36. 38. This extensive note, with three different narrative voices, requires a brief explication. The British merchant William Wilkinson, consul in Bucharest, authored An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, a detailed contemporary description of the Danubian lands under Phanariote rule. Wilkinson covered not just the extortion and rapacity intimately associated with Phanariote hospodarships but the tangled rivalry among European powers for influence at the Porte, especially during the Napoleonic era. The quoted excerpts can be found in Wilkinson, 106-09. For more on the historical context, see the sections on the Eastern Question and AngloOttoman relations in Shaw's major study of Selim Ill's New Order, the sultan's reformed army and military organization, Between Old and New, especially 328-86. General Horace Sebastiani, Napoleon's confidante and French ambassador at the Porte in 1806-08, supported Turkey's declaration of war against Russia and helped the Ottomans to defend their capital against an attack from the British fleet in 1807. Charles Arbuthnot, British ambassador to the Porte in 1804-07, promoted a British-Russian alliance against an expansionist France and broke off diplomatic ties with Turkey when the sultan declared war on Russia, setting in motion the events that led to the AngloTurkish War of 1807-09. For more on British-Ottoman relations at this time, see Hurewitz, 167-83. In addition to Shaw's work on Selim's New Order, see Finkel, 390-94, 413-17, 423-25, on the sultan's reorganized and modernized regiments, the fierce opposition he encountered from the janissaries, and the demise of the New Order after his deposition. 39. Lord Strangford, Britain's ambassador at the Porte in 1821-24, displayed "extraordinary and splendid diplomatic talents" in handling the Eastern crisis. When the Porte failed to comply with Russia's ultimatum of 6/18 July 1821, specifically those complaints dealing with the persecution of Greek Christians and other treaty violations, Stroganov left Constantinople and formal diplomatic contacts between the two countries ended. As another Russian-Turkish war loomed, Strangford defused a tense situation, cooperating with European diplomats, including secretary Dashkov, who stayed behind as chief of staff at the Russian embassy. Through patient and persistent negotiations with the Porte, they averted war, sought to pacify the Greek insurgency, and restored direct talks between Russia and Turkey. For all his deft conduct in avoiding a wider war, however, Strangford remains a

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controversial figure. He harbored excessive fear of tsarist ambitions in the Near East, fueled Ottoman suspicion of Russian policy, wrongly accused Dashkov of involvement in the conspiratorial Philiki Etaireia, and falsely implicated Stroganov and Kapodistrias in the planning of the Greek rising. Yet Strangford and Dashkov worked together in the crisis of 1821, agreeing that the Porte's swift restoration of order and its evacuation of troops from the Principalities would forestall a Russian-Ottoman conflict. See Cunninghan, Anglo-Ottoman Encounters, 188-232; Crawley, 17-22; Wrigley, 156-62, 166-69, 177-86; Prousis, Russian-Ottoman Relations in the Levant, 22, 25, 27, 41-42, 73, 77. 40. Greek military forces, scattered in the mountainous regions of Ottoman Albania, Epirus, Macedonia, Thrace, and Thessaly, played a major role in the War of Independence. Armatoloi, irregular militias in Ottoman service, maintained order in the provinces and guarded mountain passes. Klephts, bandits or brigands, resisted Ottoman rule from their mountain hideouts. Kapetanoi, or captains, often former klephts, commanded detachments of armatoloi, who fought against or with klephts depending on the circumstances. On these armed forces and their prominence in the Greek revolt, see Fleming, 40-44; Pappas, 21-34; Vasdravellis, Klephts, Armatoles, and Pirates in Macedonia; Koliopoulos, 20-66; Jelavich, History of the Balkans, 61-62, 75-76. 41. By the terms of the Treaty of Jassy, Russia evacuated her occupation forces from Bessarabia and Moldavia; gained Black Sea coastal areas between the Bug and the Dniester, including the fortress of Ochakov; and established the Kuban as the new boundary of the Russian Empire in the Caucasus. As a result of the Ottoman defeat, according to LeDonne, The Russian Empire and the World, 110-11: "A new spatial configuration was emerging in the basin of the Black Sea, as the Russians continued to show a relentless determination to incorporate the frontier zones on both sides of the sea." The text of the treaty appears in Hurewitz, 105-09; Noradounghian, 2: 16-21. Russia did not formally annex Bessarabia until the Treaty of Bucharest (1812). See VPR 6 (1962): 406-17; Hurewitz, 193-97; Jewsbury. 42. Greek mariners' "blind devotion to Russian counsels" can be seen in any number of incidents and anecdotes. For instance, a British consular agent on Naxos informed Lord Strangford that some of the insurgent islands, greatly alarmed by the calamity on Chios, would have submitted "were it not for the insidious assurances held out to them" by the former Russian consuls at Naxos and Aivali, "who go about from island to island, with forged dispatches from their government, stating that Russia is on the point of declaring war against Turkey—of making common cause with them—and of sending a powerful fleet to their assistance, if they will but hold out a little longer." See Argenti, 14. As for "a strong spirit of democracy" among Greek seamen, the islands of Hydra, Spetsae, and Psara, whose ships comprised most of the revolutionary navy, enjoyed relative autonomy under Ottoman rule and collected their own taxes. Moreover, islanders aired their views in trade affairs: "On all merchant ventures, since everyone down to the cabin-boy was to receive a share of the profits, decisions before and during the voyage were taken only after the captain had consulted the crew." (Brewer, 89). This tradition of consensus continued during the war. Sailors generally received an advance payment for a month in service, and any significant change in this arrangement depended on an agreement between captains and crews. See Brewer, 89-99. 43. The Convention of Constantinople designated the Ionian Islands an Ottoman protectorate under Russian occupation. See Hurewitz, 146-48.

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4 4 . On émigré Greeks who served in Russia's army, navy, diplomatic corps, merchant marine, and church hierarchy, and on the protection of Ottoman Greek subjects proffered by tsarist consuls, see Arsh, Eteristskoe dvizhenie v Rossii (The Philiki Etaireia movement in Russia), 53-62, 129-66; Prousis, Russian Society and the Greek Revolution, 6-15; idem, Russian-Ottoman Relations in the Levant, 7-14; Batalden; Bruess. 45. For an introduction to the scholarship on Russia's religious and cultural links with the Greek world, see the studies by Boris L. Fonkich cited in the bibliography. Also see Kapterev, and the numerous essays on specific aspects of the Russian-Greek nexus in the published volumes of Balkanskie issledovaniia (Balkan Studies) (1974-97) and Modem Greek Studies Yearbook (1985-2007). The Werrys' phrase, "threatening the Turks with the influence of their [the Greeks'] northern protectors," perhaps reminded the British Foreign Office of Russia's manipulation of the disputed religious clauses in the Treaty of Kutchuk-Kainardji (1774). Russia indeed donated alms and material aid to Greek churches and shrines in the Ottoman realm, but the illdefined prerogative to intervene in Ottoman affairs to safeguard freedom of worship for the sultan's Orthodox Christians morphed into a rationale for pursuing border security along the Russian-Ottoman frontier, political leverage in the Balkans, and commercial expansion in the Black Sea and the eastern Mediterranean. See Prousis, Russian-Ottoman Relations in the Levant, 5-7, 142. 4 6 . For centuries, Ottoman sultans did not seek reciprocity with European states since the bulk of commerce with Europe occurred within the vast domain of the Ottoman Empire. Special circumstances like negotiating an armistice or peace called for ad hoc Ottoman envoys to deal with European interlocutors. But the issue of reciprocity changed during the reign of Selim III, when the reforming sultan experimented with mutual diplomatic relations, such as embassies, legations, and consulates in Western capitals (London, Vienna, Berlin, Paris), as part of the Sublime Porte's attempt to acquire direct knowledge of European affairs and technical expertise on a regular basis. The Treaty of the Dardanelles with Britain (1809), in reaffirming British capitulatory rights, granted reciprocal privileges to the Ottomans. The sultans could appoint consuls to Malta and other British-controlled lands in order "to manage and superintend the affairs and interests of the Sublime Porte." These representatives would have "similar privileges and immunities" as those granted to English consuls in the Ottoman Empire. See Hurewitz, 1, 168, 189-91; Shaw, Between Old and New, 185-93; Finkel, 395-97. 4 7 . See Frangakis-Syrett, The Commerce of Smyrna, 89-91, 103-14, on the crucial function of non-Muslim commercial intermediaries, especially Asia Minor's Greek and Armenian traders employed as carriers, brokers, and agents in the exchange between Levantine ports such as Smyrna and the Anatolian hinterland. Also see Frangakis-Syrett's three articles, cited in the bibliography, on European trade networks in Smyrna and Anatolia. Greek and Armenian middlemen, both protégés and non-protégés, connected European merchants to markets and raw materials. 4 8 . Alexei P. Ermolov (1777-1861), decorated war hero for service in Russia's Napoleonic campaigns in 1812-15, served as commanding officer and chief administrator in the Caucasus/Transcaucasus from 1816 to 1827. He held off Ottoman and Persian attempts to recapture lost territories, constructed strategically placed forts such as Grozny to secure control over turbulent areas, and organized punitive expeditions to subdue mountain tribesmen who resisted tsarist rule. Relying on fire and sword to integrate the Caucasus into

NOTES

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50.

51.

52.

253

the Russian Empire, Ermolov's forces destroyed villages, cleared forests, and massacred combatants and non-combatants; they also built roads and facilitated trade. An active player in an unstable area at the Empire's edge, Ermolov fomented Ottoman-Persian hostility by encouraging Abbas Mirza, Persia's reformist crown prince, to attack the Ottoman frontier. The ensuing Turkish-Persian War (1821-23) ended in a stalemate, but not before the conflict undermined Britain's role as Abbas's chief paymaster and tied up Ottoman troops in an eastern diversion that helped Greek insurgents in the early stages of their War of Independence. When Abbas invaded the Transcaucasus over a border dispute, triggering the Russian-Persian War of 1826-28, Ermolov lacked sufficient forces to mount an offensive. Tsar Nicholas I reprimanded the popular commander for failing to comply with orders and then replaced him with General Paskevich, who defeated Abbas's army and won accolades for the conquest of Yerevan. On Ermolov's career in Georgia and the Caucasus, see Barrett; Whittock; Kelly, 49, 53-57, 141-44; Lincoln, 112-15; Bitis, 72-78, 196-206, 210-35, 263-55. General Ermolov combined brutality toward subject peoples with an enlightened attitude toward his soldiers and staff. Well-read and outspoken, he promoted an atmosphere of free thinking, provided haven for liberal officers and officials who took part in the Decembrist revolt (1825), and detested General Arakcheev, the notorious spokesman and symbol of political reaction in the last decade of Alexander I's reign. Ermolov's independent-mindedness and fervent patriotism made him popular among many Russian officers who, after occupying France, returned home brimming with Western constitutional and liberal political ideals; he protected more than a few of these reformist officers under his command in the Caucasus. The phrase "mutual instruction" alluded to the Lancaster school movement in Russia, the brainchild of progressive educator Joseph Lancaster, who pioneered the pedagogical principle of "peer tutoring." This method claimed that more students would receive instruction, at lower cost, if the more advanced pupils in class helped their less advanced peers to learn their lessons. Many liberal-minded Russian officers, including some who served with Ermolov, espoused the Lancasterian precept of "mutual instruction" as a way to promote education in the army and in society at large. On the Lancaster movement in Russia, see Zacek. In Smyrna and other areas outside the Ottoman capital, most dragomans hired by European consulates came from Greek Orthodox, Jewish, or Gregorian Armenian families. See Groot, 225-26. In addition to this appeal from Consul Werry, Ambassadors Strangford and Canning interceded with the Foreign Office to increase the pay of dragomans, influenced by the sharp fall in value of the piastre and perhaps convinced that the skills of dragomans outweighed their vices. See Berridge, 140; Cunningham, Eastern Questions, 8. The Capitulations and Articles of Peace between His Majesty the King of Great Britain and Ireland and the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (London: J. Darling Minerva Press, 1816), a copy of which can be found in TNA, FO 78/93, ff. 235-63a. The Karaosmanoglus, a family dynasty of powerful notables near Smryna, possessed large holdings of land and exerted significant influence. See Frangakis-Syrett, The Commerce of Smyrna, 37-40, 61-63; Hasluck, 2: 597603; Shaw, Between Old and New, 215, 242, 312; Finkel, 400; Eldem, Goffman, and Masters, The Ottoman City between East and West, 121-25.

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LEVANT

53. Nathaniel Werry rebuked Robert Listón, Britain's ambassador at the Porte in 1794-95, for trying to eradicate abuses in the European protégé system. Listón tried, but without much success, to regulate the distribution of berats or patents of protection; he recommended that berats should be withdrawn from British protégés who served no useful purpose for Britain's embassy, consulates, or commerce in the Levant. See Cunningham, Anglo-Ottoman Encounters, 88-91; Shaw, Between Old and New, 177-79. 54. The "massacre taking place at Smyrna" occurred during the turmoil and reprisal that made this city so chaotic in the months after the outbreak of the Greek revolt. See Clogg, "Smyrna in 1821: Documents from the Levant Company Archives;" Prousis, "Smyrna 1821: A Russian View." 55. William Turner, author of a three-volume Journal of a Tour in the Levant (London: J. Murray, 1820), served as secretary and minister plenipotentiary at the British embassy in Constantinople in 1824-25. 56. "Indiscreet zeal of British missionaries" perhaps referred to overly eager activities by some members of the British and Foreign Bible Society, in particular those who may have distributed vernacular translations of the Bible to Ottoman subjects without formal approval from local authorities. Any number of reasons account for why the Foreign Office thought it necessary to caution Consul Brant about missionary fervor. In some cases, a deep conviction in Christianity's pre-eminence over other faiths inspired missionary aggressiveness, as did a widespread belief in the superiority of European civilization over most non-European cultures (Porter, 204). Richard Clogg's study of Smyrna's short-lived Bible Society, established in 1818 but severely hampered by the Greek revolt, the troubles in Smyrna, and the departure of many subscribers, claims that Turkish authorities viewed missionaries and Bible Society agents with suspicion during the War of Independence, associating them with the assault on Ottoman political and religious authority. Clogg also informs us of a French abbot, calling himself a Roman Catholic missionary, who provoked religious friction and strife by his overzealous proselytizing. He preached "in the most violent style, condemning Greeks, Protestants, and all alike, who do not submit to the Pope." When a Swiss citizen exposed the abbot's ignorance in a debate, the zealot threatened him with a severe beating, prompting the would-be victim to seek British consular protection from Francis Werry since the Swiss did not have their own consular representation. See Clogg, "The Foundation of the Smyrna Bible Society," 36-37, 43-44.

Chapter Five Henry Salt and John Barker: Notes from Cairo, Alexandria, and Aleppo 1. On the life, travels, and career of Henry Salt (1780-1827), see Manley and Rée, Henry Salt, idem, ODNB 48: 749-50; Jasanoff, 233-67, 280-81, 297-99. John James Halls, a close friend of Salt and an artist who exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1798 and 1828, published a two-volume biography of Salt based largely on the latter's correspondence with friends and associates in Britain (see bibliography). See Halls, 2: 281-94, for an overview of Salt's life and character.

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2. George Annesley, Viscount VaJentia, Voyages and Travels to India, Ceylon, the Red Sea, Abyssinia, and Egypt, 3 vols. (London: W. Miller, 1809), with twenty-four color plates by Henry Salt. A manuscript of 13 September 1808 with Lord Valentia's observations on trade in the Red Sea can be found in TNA, FO 1/1, ff. 3a-12. 3. Salt published a short work about his journey, A Voyage to Abyssinia and Travels into the Interior of that Country in the Years 1809 and 1810 (London: F. C. and J. Rivington, 1814; reissued London: Cass, 1967). Salt described his government mission in two reports to the Foreign Office, focusing in particular on commerce in the Red Sea and the political situation in Abyssinia and the Arabian Gulf. See TNA, FO 1/1: ff. 78-97a, March 1811; ff. 191-99, September 1811. 4. Jasanoff argues (237-38) that Salt, "a professional amateur," remained on the margins of the art world, high society, and diplomacy and that he possessed "few qualifications for any occupation in particular." In selecting Salt as consul-general for Cairo, hardly a marginal assignment in view of the enhanced strategic and commercial value of Egypt's location, the Foreign Office demonstrated trust and confidence in Salt's abilities to handle this important appointment. Indeed, Castlereagh held Salt in high esteem, considering him the person most capable for the job (Manley and Ree, Henry Salt, 215). On Salt's various diplomatic tasks and activities as consulgeneral, including his periodic discussions with Muhammad Ali, see Manley and Ree, Henry Salt, 67-81, 182-96, 213-66; Jasanoff, 241-44, 283-85. 5. For an excellent introduction to Muhammad Ali's governorship, his internal and external policies, and his impact on Egypt and the Near East, see Dodwell; Sayyid-Marsot; Fahmy, All the Pasha's Men; idem, "The Era of Muhammad Ali Pasha;" Yapp, The Making of the Modern Near East, 145-54. Also useful are Sabry; Ibrahim; Finkel, 411-12, 422-28, 432, 443-46; Shaw and Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, 2: 9-12, 18-19, 32-35, 56-58. Also see Salt's numerous letters from Egypt in Halls. 6. For more on commerce in Egypt under Muhammad Ali, see Sayyid-Marsot, 162-95; Puryear, International Economics and Diplomacy in the Near East, 38-39, 113-15. 7. Admiral Cochrane commanded the Greek navy in 1826-28. For more on his Greek service, see the relevant sections in the standard works on philhellenism: St. Clair, That Greece Might Still Be Free-, Woodhouse, The Philhellenes; Dakin, British and American Philhellenes. Also see Brewer, 290-91, 301-03, 312-15, 320, 342; Manley and Ree, Henry Salt, 239-40, 251, 257-58. Lord Cochrane actually threatened Alexandria not in 1826 but in June 1827, when Muhammad Ali's fleet appeared ready to sail for the Morea. In an attempt to destroy Egypt's navy, Cochrane anchored his flotilla outside Alexandria's harbor and burned a stranded Egyptian vessel before withdrawing to Greece. The assault clearly failed, but it demonstrated to Muhammad Ali the potential danger from Greek ships, even in Alexandria. Salt's letter of 13 July 1827 (Halls, 2: 272-73) described Cochrane's failed foray in Alexandria. 8. On public fascination with ancient Egypt, commonly called Egyptomania, and on the contest between British and French collectors for amassing Egyptian antiquities in the first half of the nineteenth century, see Jasanoff, 117-25, 211-306; Manley and Ree, Henry Salt, 82-165; Fagan, 43-190; Mayes. Bernardino Drovetti, French consul and collector, became Salt's chief rival in the match.

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9. On Salt's contributions to the study of Egyptian hieroglyphics, see Manley and Rèe, Henry Salt, 216-17, 227-29; Mayes, 290-91. On Champollion, who deservedly received credit for deciphering ancient Egyptian writing, see Jasanoff, 275-77, 287-88, 293-97; Fagan, 157-70. 10. Ancient Greek travelers and historians, when they visited or wrote about Thebes, called the two massive monuments of a seated Amenhotep III (14 tl1 cent. B. C.) the Colossi of Memnon, after the mythical Memnon who had lived in Egypt. The son of Eos, goddess of the dawn, Memnon ruled as king of Ethiopia, fought for Troy in the Trojan War, and perished in combat against Achilles. A familiar historical landmark thus received the name of a figure from Greek mythology. Over the centuries, visitors and explorers used the phrase "Young Memnon" to describe a gigantic bust located at the nearby Ramesseum, the mortuary temple of Ramses II (131*1 cent. B. C.). The bust, of course, depicted Ramses II, not Amenhotep III, but tourists and antiquity hunters continued to conflate the two illustrious pharaohs and to apply the Memnon appellation to both the Colossi and the Ramses bust. Both pharaohs left a rich legacy in monumental architecture and sculpture at Thebes, Karnak, and Abu Simbel. Fagan, 17, 22-23, 80-81. 11. On Salt's cooperation with Burckhardt and Belzoni in the quest for Egyptian antiquities, including the Young Memnon endeavor, and on Salt's collecting activity in general, see Jasanoff, 249-56; Manley and Rèe, Henry Salt, 82142; Mayes, 115-55; Fagan, 80-96, 110-20. The Young Memnon, housed initially in the Townley Gallery, moved to the British Museum's new Egyptian Gallery in 1834. 12. On the storm surrounding Salt's first collection, especially the difficult negotiations with the British Museum, see Jasanoff, 261-67; Manley and Ree, Henry Salt, 143-81, 197-211; Mayes, 264-76, 289-90. 13. On these subsequent acquisitions by Sir John Soane, the Louvre, and the British Museum, see Jasanoff, 266-67, 278-81; Manley and Rèe, Henry Salt, 211-12, 243-45; idem, ODNB 48: 750; Mayes, 179-88; Fagan, 107-10, 14649. 14. See the entry on John Barker by Arthur H. Grant, rev. Lynn Milne, in ODNB 3: 883-84. Edited and published by his son, who summarized and excerpted his father's writings, John Barker's communiqués and correspondence became the basis for a two-volume work: John Barker, Syria and Egypt under the Last Five Sultans of Turkey, ed. Edward B. B. Barker (London: Samuel Tinsley, 1876; reprint Elibron Classics, 2005). 15. Ottoman Syria comprised an expansive administrative region, encompassing the contemporary lands of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and the West Bank and the key Ottoman towns of Aleppo, Damascus, Acre, Tripoli, and Sidon. With the collapse of effective centralized rule from Constantinople, the pashaliks (provinces) of Ottoman Syria asserted themselves. Regional governors, most notably Ahmad al-Jazzar Pasha (1775-1804), Sulayman Pasha (1804-19), and the notorious Abdallah Pasha (1819-31), exerted sweeping power in their territories, relying on tax agents to collect tribute dues from urban and rural populations and on armed retinues of regular and irregular forces to suppress opposition and to maintain control. In Lebanon, F.mir Bashir II enjoyed a long and successful stint (1788-1840) as chief tribute collector and local leader, preserving his command by supporting the nominal authority of the sultan and, more crucially, working closely with the principal powerbrokers in the region, above all Abdallah Pasha of Damascus and Acre. Bashir curbed threats from Lebanon's tribal chieftains, sheikhs, and notables,

NOTES

16.

17.

18.

19. 20.

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many of whom coveted his position, and the emir crushed a tax revolt in several districts that opposed the heavy tribute payments imposed by Abdallah Pasha. On Ottoman Syria in the early nineteenth century, including the relationship between Abdallah Pasha and Emir Bashir II, see Fawaz, Merchants and Migrants in Nineteenth-Century Beirut, 23-26, 40-41; idem, An Occasion for War, 16-21, 36-42; Harik; Polk, 1-82; Salibi, xiv-xxvii, 339; Hitti, 317-432; Finkel, 408-09. It made perfect sense for William Richard Hamilton (1777-1859) to urge Henry Salt to search for Rosetta Stone fragments and other antiquities. Both men knew each other in London, shared a passion for antiquarian pursuits, corresponded with one another, and served as diplomatic officials in the Near East. Hamilton had been attaché and secretary for Lord Elgin during his ambassadorship to the Porte (1799-1803) before moving to the Foreign Office as undersecretary of state for foreign affairs (1804-22). Like Salt, Hamilton became best known for his antiquarian enthusiasm and activities. In 1801, while the French evacuated Alexandria, he discovered where they hid the Rosetta Stone and sent the find off to London. In 1802, he supervised the removal of the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon and the transport of this precious cargo to Britain; nine years later he published a memoir on Lord Elgin's quest for antiquities in Greece. On Hamilton, see the entry by R. E. Anderson, rev. R. A. Jones, in ODNB 24: 933-34; Jasanoff, 218, 220, 26466; Manley and Rèe, Henry Salt, 42, 65, 80-81, 104, 151, 174-80, 197-200, 215, 227, 289; Fagan, 55-56; Mayes, 114-15, 265-68, 304-05; Middleton, 131, 149, 182. Many of Salt's letters to Hamilton discussed Greek and Egyptian antiquities, such as his description of the ancient theater of white marble, "in perfect preservation," on the island of Milo. Halls, 1: 455-57. Colonel Tomkyns Hilgrove Turner fought with British troops at Aboukir Bay and Alexandria; seized the Rosetta Stone from departing French forces, or so he claimed; and escorted the artifact on its voyage to Britain. Fort St. Julian is located near Rosetta. See Fahmy, All the Pasha's Men, 62, 136, 148, 209-11, 214-15, 217-29, for information on outbreaks of plague, cholera, smallpox, and other infectious diseases in Egypt under Muhammad Ali. Salt's letter of 27 March 1816 to William Richard Hamilton (Halls, 1: 451-57) touched on a variety of topics, most notably the severity of plague attacks. On Tussun Pasha, the youngest son of Muhammad Ali, see Sayyid-Marsot, 8085; Manley and Rèe, Henry Salt, 70, 281. Samuel Briggs, British merchant in Alexandria since 1803, organized and directed the Briggs commercial firm, with offices in London and Alexandria. Peter Lee, Levant Company consul in Alexandria, served as partner in this commercial house. Briggs and his associates profited extensively from Egypt's cotton export trade, one of the few European companies that did so well under Muhammad Ali's system of monopolies, and Briggs himself maintained cordial ties with the pasha. His firm supplied Egyptian grain to the British in Malta, cooperated with the pasha in forging commercial exchange with India, and arranged for the governor to send one of his ships to England for repair. Briggs befriended Salt; and both men funded the exploration and excavation of Egyptian antiquities. See Rodkey, "The Attempts of Briggs and Company to Guide British Policy in the Levant;" Manley and Rèe, Henry Salt, 38, 102, 107, 158. U.S. and Spanish dollars circulated in the Near East. The value of one U.S. dollar fluctuated from around 12.6 piastres in the 1820s to 16-17 piastres in the 1830s (Sayyid-Marsot, x). The Spanish dollar, legal tender in the United

258

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26. 27.

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States until 1857 and equal in value to the U.S. dollar, became almost a global currency by the late eighteenth century, with widespread circulation in the Americas, the Far East, and the Near East Antiquity enthusiast William Richard Hamilton admired the Young Memnon when he came across this striking monument while traveling in Upper Egypt in 1801. In his Aegyptiaca (1809), the first volume of an unfinished project on ancient and modern Egypt, Hamilton praised the colossal head as "certainly the most beautiful and perfect piece of Egyptian sculpture that can be seen throughout the whole country." Quoted in Manley and Rée, Henry Salt, 87. Aegyptiaca included Hamilton's transcription of the Rosetta Stone's Greek script and an English translation. On the military campaigns Muhammad Ali organized against the Wahhabi threat, see Finkel, 411-12, 428; Ibrahim, 198-202; Sayyid-Marsot, 198-203; Fahmy, All the Pasha's Men, 39-41, 47-48, 52; idem, "The Era of Muhammad Ali Pasha," 150-53. These works cover the various military exploits and talents of Ibrahim Pasha, the governor's well-known son and commander. This "unusual incident" involving a hippo skin for the Habsburg emperor of Austria recalls similar examples of "the exotic" in the discourse between Europe and the Ottoman Orient. In a celebrated case evoking "the charm of the unfamiliar," Muhammad Ali offered two baby giraffes from Sennaar as gifts to the monarchs of Britain and France. These extraordinary acquisitions arrived at their respective new homes in London and Paris in 1827, but the Englandbound giraffe, who traveled from Egypt with two Arab keepers, two milch cows, and an interpreter, survived only two years in the royal menagerie at Windsor. See Manley and Rée, Henry Salt, 253, 297. George Civigny, Russia's consul-general in Alexandria, conducted consular business in much the same way as his European peers in Egypt. Civigny distributed Russian passports to non-Muslim Ottoman subjects, who henceforth enjoyed capitulatory privileges. He also employed protégés at the consular office as agents and translators and sent reports on trade and consular affairs, such as staffing and judicial cases, to Russia's embassy in Constantinople. On at least one occasion, according to embassy secretary Dmitrii V. Dashkov, Civigny made what seemed an inappropriate choice as consular agent, a young protégé aged thirteen or fourteen. See Prousis, Russian-Ottoman Relations in the Levant, 48, 52-56. Muhammad Bey Defterdar, the son-in-law of Muhammad Ali, commanded several of the governor's military expeditions. Sayyid-Marsct, 28, 78, 80, 102; Fahmy, All the Pasha's Men, 86-88, 92. On Muhammad Ali's military expeditions in Sudan, including the tragic fate of thousands of black slaves who perished before they could be "domiciliated in Egypt," see Ibrahim, 204-10; Sayyid-Marsot, 85-86, 195, 204-06; Fahmy, All the Pasha's Men, 86-93; idem, "The Era of Muhammad Ali Pasha," 15354. The failure of the Sudan invasion to provide sufficient slave recruits compelled the pasha to conscript Egypt's peasantry. Salt had cause to lament the loss of friends and loved ones "in a country so subject to plague and other fatal diseases." Indeed, Peter Lee's illness and sudden death hit Salt particularly hard. After the recent deaths of his wife and child, Salt found relief and comfort from Consul Lee and his family. Not only did Salt now have to assume Lee's consular duties until a replacement arrived but he lost a friend and a source of solace. Consul Lee's wife and five children would be left destitute unless the Levant Company or the Foreign Office provided for them.

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29. Salt's recommendation to Foreign Secretary Canning that the Alexandria consulate be placed under the direction of the government echoed the views of Consul-General Cartwright and others who called for consular reform. With the dissolution of the Levant Company (1825), the Foreign Office assumed control and supervision of the company's consular offices. This structural transition benefited British trade interests in the Levant, as merchants no longer had to pay fees exacted by company officials. On the eve of its demise, Salt harshly criticized the Levant Company: "it is certainly a most oppressive tax on the merchants and of no earthly advantage." Halls, 2: 241-42. 30. On Egypt's participation in the Greek War of Independence, in particular Ibrahim Pasha's campaigns in the Morea, see Brewer, 234-46; Sayyid-Marsot, 205-18; Fahmy, All the Pasha's Men, 41-47, 55-60, 73-74; idem, "The Era of Muhammad Ali Pasha," 157-60. 31. For Muhammad Ali's impositions on Egypt's population, in particular conscription and taxation, see Fahmy, All the Pasha's Men, 89-111, 119-22; Sayyid-Marsot, 128-42. 32. Piracy in the eastern Mediterranean delayed Barker's arrival in Alexandria until late October 1826, ending an exceedingly difficult two-year period during which Salt, as Britain's lone diplomatic representative in Egypt since Peter Lee's death, had to handle an increasingly busy load of consular matters. Moreover, after Barker did arrive to start his new assignment, he frequently complained to the Foreign Office about his accommodations, his hospitality expenditures on visiting travelers and naval officers, his legal duties, and the plague. He also inquired about a transfer to Smyrna, his birthplace. Manley and Ree, Henry Salt, 242, 254-55, 273. 33. For more on the historical context of the events reported in this document, see Theophilus C. Prousis, "Bedlam in Beirut: A British Perspective in 1826," Chronos, no. 15 (2007): 89-106. 34. "Albanian costume" referred to the dress often worn by Greek and Albanian Orthodox Christian bandits, rebels, and mountain warriors who resisted Ottoman authority: a kilted skirt with pistol and dagger tucked into a wide belt. Pappas, 26. Modern concepts of ethnicity and nationality did not really apply to these Balkan brigands who struggled against Ottoman rule. Loyalty to clan and region and a shared Eastern Orthodox faith trumped ethnic differences and brought Orthodox Albanians into much closer contact with Orthodox Greeks and Slavs than with Muslim Albanians. The majority of Albanians embraced Islam in the Ottoman era. 35. On Emir Bashir II and his cooperation with Abdallah Pasha, see note #15 above. 36. An officer of Abdallah Pasha of Acre arrived in Beirut with a detachment of Albanian Muslim irregular forces referred to as Arnouts or Arnaouts, derived from the Ottoman designation of them as arnavud or arnavutlar. These local auxiliaries joined the armed retinues hired and organized by Ottoman pashas to maintain local power. Pappas (Greeks in Russian Military Service) includes many references to Albanian troops which served Ottoman authority and helped to subdue Greek and other Balkan rebellions. Also see Mazower, 10003. 37. The French convent belonged to the Capuchins, the Franciscans, or the Jesuits, Catholic missionary orders that had established themselves in Ottoman Lebanon by the eighteenth century. 38. Fawaz, Merchants and Migrants in Nineteenth-Century Beirut, 26. Henri Guys, French consul in Beirut in 1808, 1810, and 1824-38, published several works based on his experiences, including Beyrouth et le Liban, 2 vols.

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(Paris: Comon, 1850), and Esquisse de l'état politique et commercial de la Syrie (Paris: Chez-France, 1862). Correspondence from European envoys and consuls, such as Barker's dispatch, frequently used the term avania to denote any of the following: extortion, unjust exaction, special fee, extra charge, arbitrary levy, extraordinary payment, extralegal fee, present, and offering. In disputes over particular points in the capitulations, pashas and other Ottoman officials at the regional or local level of society levied an avania on European merchants and protégés, a symptom supposedly of Ottoman institutional decline and arbitrary rule. This European perspective has been balanced, or countered, in the recent research of Boogert, The Capitulations and the Ottoman Legal System, 117-57, and Olnon, 159-86. Relying on case studies, Islamic legal theory, and Ottoman judicial procedure, they argue that avanias, or legal fees, often resulted from ongoing negotiations, between European merchants and consuls on the one hand and Ottoman regional authorities on the other, about the meaning and implementation of capitulatory agreements. Boogert and Olnon remind readers of the need to approach Western travel and diplomatic reports on the Ottoman Empire not just with a critical eye but with a grasp of Ottoman legal practice. Yet the Western perception, or misperception, of avania as some sort of extortion remains widespread in primary and secondary sources. Barker's disparaging remark, "a vizier of two tails only," alluded to this official's lowly place in the Ottoman hierarchy. The number of horsetails displayed on an official's standard signified rank and prestige. A sultan topped the chain of command with seven horsetails, while a bey ranked at the bottom with only one. Pashas usually had two tails, viziers three, and grand viziers five. Barker's vizier, with only two tails, hovered near the bottom of the pecking order and thus lacked sufficient prestige. The notion that custom had "greater force than law" recalls similar comments made by European travelers and residents in the Ottoman East, many of whom perceived the weight of custom over legal decree in judicial rulings. Russian diplomatic official Dmitrii V. Dashkov, who toured Ottoman Palestine as a religious pilgrim in 1820-21 and published an account of his experiences, explained the various rivalries among Christian sects over custodianship of the Holy Places in Jerusalem, above all the Holy Sepulcher in the Church of the Resurrection. In censuring these interdenominational feuds, Dashkov maintained that "the mode of Eastern judicial proceedings contributes a great deal to their continuation.... To convince [Ottoman legal authorities] that a law is beyond question, custom and long standing are essential; in the eyes of the Turks, both are more important than lifeless official documents." Quoted in Prousis, Russian-Ottoman Relations in the Levant, 109; idem, "The Holy Places: A Russian Travel Perspective," 286 In 1805-06, Selim III attempted to end the European "protection racket" by which growing numbers of Ottoman non-Muslim subjects purchased berats and thereby gained extraterritorial privileges as European protégés. A new regulation stipulated that only those beratlis who actually performed services for European consulates and embassies would continue to enjoy capitulatory benefits; all others would have their property confiscated if they did not surrender their patents in a timely manner. In the same vein, the sultan ordered regional pashas and judges to treat all claims of extraterritoriality by European protégés with suspicion. Although directed mainly against tsarist Russia, in view of the many Greek and other Ottoman subjects who alleged Russian protection under false pretense, these efforts to curb abuses in the

NOTÉS

43. 44.

45. 46.

47.

48.

49.

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protégé system prompted objections from all the European powers. They resisted Ottoman interference with consular staffing and the dispensation of protection patents and continued to manipulate the capitulations. Faced with this intransigence, the Porte sought to retain the loyalty, skills, and resources of would-be merchant protégés by selling imperial berats to selected nonMuslim and Muslim traders, allowing them to engage in foreign commerce with similar advantages and privileges as European protégés enjoyed under capitulatory treaties. This experiment, according to the research of Masters, had at best marginal success. See Masters, "The Sultan's Entrepreneurs," 57987; Shaw, Between Old and New, 341; Sonyel, 59-61; Prousis, RussianOttoman Relations in the Levant, 9-10. Peter Abbott's correspondence of 1825-26 with the Levant Company and with the embassy and consulate-general in Constantinople can be found in TNA, FO: 78/136, ff. 387-98; 352/12A, ff. 379-406. Muhammad Ali reinforced Ibrahim Pasha's forces in the Morea after the initial invasion of 1825. The governor raised new troops, prepared an expedition to seize Greek naval bases at Hydra and Spetsae, and called on French officers to supervise ship maneuvers. Admiral Muharram Bey, who commanded Egypt's navy at Navarino, sought to avoid what he considered an unnecessary confrontation with the combined fleets of Britain, France, and Russia. Brewer, 278, 320-21, 329-32; Sayyid-Marsot, 78, 80, 165, 190, 216; Fahmy, All the Pasha's Men, 176. Admiral Cochrane (see note #7 above) did not succeed in his attempt to attack the pasha's fleet in Alexandria harbor in 1827. Boghos Yusuf, an Armenian merchant, participated in the Ottoman-British expedition against the French and served as an interpreter for the British in Egypt. He then joined Muhammad Ali's dragoman staff, becoming the governor's chief interpreter and negotiator. Manley and Rèe, Henry Salt, 281; Sayyid-Marsot, 67, 76, 84, 166, 187, 199, 212. The reference to Marseilles exemplified Muhammad Ali's French connection. French engineers as well as technical and military advisers helped to revitalize Egypt's army; France agreed to build several frigates for Egypt's navy; French trade with Egypt increased; and France supported Muhammad Ali in his disputes with the Porte over Syria. See Puryear, France and the Levant, 42-49. Muhammad Ali did not speak with total accuracy when he asserted to Consul Barker that, as of late November 1826 when their audience took place, the Greeks had never attacked any of his ships. A Greek fleet assailed the combined Ottoman-Egyptian navy near Bodrum peninsula in 1824, producing a stalemate that postponed Ibrahim Pasha's invasion of the Morea until 1825 (Brewer, 236). In May 1825, six Greek fireships burned seven Egyptian warships and a dozen other vessels at Modon (Methoni) in the Peloponnese, a Greek tactical success but of no long-term importance in preventing Ibrahim's subjugation of the Morea (Brewer, 244). In August 1825, a Greek squadron set fire to a cargo boat near one of Muhammad Ali Pasha's ships in the harbor at Alexandria (Manley and Rèe, Henry Salt, 238). Fahmy, All the Pasha's Men, 1-3, 6, astutely cites the political import of this monologue by Muhammad Ali. The pasha ignored Consul Barker's imperial firman from the sultan and talked about his childhood triumphs in Albania as part of a calculated strategy to impress European officials and visitors. Hardly accidental or unintentional, this episode suggested the pasha's meticulous approach to projecting an image of strength, independence, and self-reliance. In a staged performance of political theater, he played his part well: the powerful pasha who had become a fixture in Egypt, a landmark on the

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contemporary scene who evoked the permanence of the pharaohs and pyramids that also captured Western attention. And yet Muhammad Ali still recognized his nominal sovereign, sending Mahmud II the required annual tribute, using the sultan's name in Friday prayer, minting coins bearing his name, and naming the newly dug Mahmudiyya canal after him (Fahmy, "The Era of Muhammad Ali Pasha," 146, 157). Epilogue 1. TNA, FO 352/28A, "On Consular Reform in Turkey," 1844, folios not numbered. 2. For British aims in the Near East, see Bailey, 39-83, 129-205; Puryear, International Economics and Diplomacy in the Near East, 1-116. 3. On the tsarist policy of consolidating Russian gains and treaty rights by preserving the existence of a weakened and treaty-bound Ottoman Empire, see Prousis, Russian-Ottoman Relations in the Levant, 31-36, 123-33; Dostian, Rossiia i balkanskii vopros (Russia and the Balkan question), 301-05; Kerner; Puryear, France and the Levant, 89-93. 4. On the Anglo-Turkish Commercial Convention of 1838 (Balta Liman) and its economic consequences, see Martin, 112; Puryear, International Economics and Diplomacy in the Near East, 117-45, 180-229; Bailey, 84-128, 247-70. 5. By the 1880s, according to Martin (113), Britain received 80% of Egypt's exports and provided 44% of her imports. 6. For a recent survey of the scholarship on Mediterranean maritime history, see the essays in Harlaftis and Vassallo, eds., New Directions in Mediterranean Maritime History. 7. For an introduction to AVPRI's resources on all aspects of tsarist foreign affairs, see the descriptive index compiled by Budnik, Arkhiv Vneshnei Politiki Rossiiskoi Imperii (The Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire). The two-volume work of Lisovoi, Rossiia v Sviatoi Zemle (Russia in the Holy Land), a collection of AVPRI materials on Russian activities in Ottoman Palestine in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, demonstrates the value of identifying documents on a specific theme or issue and making them readily available for scholarly research. Based on AVPRI and other Russian archives, Lisovoi has published a monograph on tsarist Russia's religious and political endeavors in the Near East, Russkoe dukhovnoe i politicheskoe prisutstvie v Sviatoi Zemle i na Blizhnem Vostoke (Russia's religious and political presence in the Holy Land and in the Near East). For descriptions of selected AVPRI holdings on Russian commercial, consular, and religious pursuits in the Levant, see Prousis: "Archival Gleanings on Russian Trade and Consulates in the Near East," "A Guide to AVPRI Materials on Russian Consuls and Commerce in the Near East," and "AVPR (Arkhiv Vneshnei Politiki Rossii) and the Orthodox East." 8. Ministerstvo inostrannykh del SSSR, Vneshniaia politika Rossii XIX i nachala XX v.: Dokumenty Rossiiskogo ministerstva inostrannykh del (The foreign policy of Russia in the nineteenth and the early twentieth century: documents from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs), 17 vols. ( V P R ) . Translations and analyses of selected VPR documents appear in Prousis: "Disputes in the Dardanelles," "Russia's Position toward Ottoman Orthodox Christians," "Russian Trade Prospects in Smyrna," "Risky Business," and "Storm Warnings in the Straits."

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INDEX Abas Pasha, 86 Abbas Mirza, 253 n. 48 Abbott, Peter, 130, 222, 261 n. 43 Abdallah Pasha of Syria, 192-93, 214, 216, 222, 256-57 n. 15, 259, n. 35-36 Aberdeen, Foreign Secretary, 155, 178-79 Adair, Robert, 51, 237 n. 3 Adam, Frederick, 66, 80 Adrianople, Treaty of (1829), 46, 236 n. 86, 246 n. 23 African Association, 181, 190 Akkerman Convention (1826), 45 Alexander I, Tsar, 37-38, 45, 111, 242 n. 12, 249 n. 34, 253 n. 49 Ali Bey, 53, 65 Ali Pasha (Tepedelenli; Tepelenli; Tepedenli) of Ioannina (Epirus), 10, 15, 24, 44, 51-54, 56, 5865, 69, 74, 87, 152, 161-64, 233 n. 30, 236 n. 1, 237 n. 5-6, 249 n. 35, 250 n. 36 Ali Pasha of Tripoli, 194, 220-22, 260 n. 40 Anglophobia, 228, 246 n. 22 Arbuthnot, Charles, 164, 250 n. 38 Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire (AVPRI), 22728, 234 n. 66, 262 n. 7 Arnouts, 216, 259 n. 36 avania (extralegal fee or levy), 220, 260 n. 39 ayans (regional notables or potentates), 16, 21, 24, 249 n. 35 Bagot, Charles, 39 Banks, Joseph, 181-82 Barker, John, 10, 34, 48-49, 130, 181, 192-95, 214-24, 256 n. 14, 259 n. 32, 260 n. 39-40, 261 n. 48-49 Bathurst, Henry, 70 Bekir Aga, 76, 80 Belal Aga, 185, 210, 213 Belzoni, Giovanni Battista, 190-91, 256 n. 11

berats/beratlis (patents of protection and protégés; protégé system), 1722, 35-36, 49, 171, 173, 194, 219, 221-22, 226, 230 n. 5, 11, 231 n. 15, 17, 20, 252 n. 47, 254 n. 53, 258 n. 25, 260 n. 39, 42, 261 n. 42 Bidwell, John, 89, 94, 171, 175, 178, 240 n. 23 Bosanquet, Jacob, 104-06, 117-19, 208 Brant, Richard William, 154-55, 157, 178-79, 254 n. 56 Briggs, Samuel, 199, 205, 257 n. 20 British and Foreign Bible Society, 103, 136-39, 244 n. 22, 245 n. 23, 254 n. 56 British Museum, 181-82, 189-91, 196, 201, 206, 243 n. 16, 256 n. 11-13 Bucharest, Treaty of (1812), 37, 163, 242 n. 8-9, 248 n. 28, 251 n. 41 Burckhardt, John Lewis, 190, 201, 256 n. 11 Byron, Lord, 24, 41, 51-52, 74, 7678, 80, 240 n. 18-19, 22 Callimachi, 156, 247-48 n. 28 Canning, George, 40-43, 48, 74, 77, 79-80, 82, 85, 102, 117, 120-21, 132, 135, 150, 160, 174, 209-10, 222, 235 n. 75, 247 n. 26, 259 n. 29 Canning, Stratford, 32-33, 42-44, 90, 94, 103, 120, 132-36, 139-40, 169-70, 174-75, 187, 211, 214-15, 217-18, 222, 225, 235 n. 81, 243-44 n. 17, 253 n. 50 capitulations (capitulatory system), 10, 15-22, 103-05, 112, 127-28, 167-68, 171, 179, 184, 195, 200, 210, 226-27, 229 n. 1-2, 230 n. 4, 232 n. 23-24, 241 n. 3, 252 n. 46 Cartwright, John, 10, 36, 48-49, 99136, 139, 145-46, 149, 156, 17778, 220, 240-41 n. 1, 241 n. 2, 243 n. 13, 244 n. 18, 20-21, 259 n. 29

286

BRITISH CONSULAR

Castlereagh, Lord, 30, 38-40, 48, 60, 66-67, 104, 108, 182, 190, 201, 205-07, 235 n. 75, 237 n. 5, 247 n. 26-27, 248 n. 29, 255 n. 4 Catafago, 222 Catherine II (the Great), Empress, 152, 165 Catziflis, Georgio, 130, 218-20 Chabert, François, 114, 243 n. 14 Champollion, Jean-François, 189, 191, 256 n. 9 Charnaud, James (Francis), 130, 149 Chios, massacre of (1822), 29-32, 144-47, 155-58, 245 n. 5-6, 246 n. 10, 248 n. 29-30 Civigny, George, 203, 258 n. 25 Cochrane, Thomas, 186-87, 195, 210, 223, 255 n. 7, 261 n. 45 Codrington, Edward, 43 Commerce, Treaty of (1783), 36-37, 113, 115, 117-18, 127, 243 n. 13 Concert of Europe, 37-39 Consular Act (1825), 48 Convention of Balta Liman (AngloTurkish Commercial Convention of 1838), 226, 241 n. 1, 262 n. 4 Convention of Constantinople (1800), 165, 251 n. 43 Cordia, Pietro, 150 Crassan, Antonio, 131, 134-35 Dardanelles, Treaty of the (1809), 36, 51, 120, 237 n. 3, 241 n. 3, 252 n. 46 Dashkov, Dmitrii V., 162-63, 244 n. 18, 249 n. 34, 250-51 n. 39, 258 n. 25, 260, n. 41 Delacroix, Eugène, 144, 240 n. 22, 245 n. 5 Delhi Achmet Pasha, 86 derebeys (regional notables or potentates), 16, 24, 172, 248 n. 32, 249 n. 35 Dervish Pasha, 79 Destunis, Spyridon, 27, 233 n. 38, 245 n. 4

REPORTS

FROM THE

LEVANT

dragomans (interpreters and translators), 17-18, 20, 49, 103, 105, 107, 113-14, 118, 120, 12829, 135, 138, 147, 155-56, 17072, 174, 179, 194, 220-21, 224, 230 n. 6, 241 n. 4, 6, 243 n. 14, 244 n. 20, 248 n. 28, 253 n. 50, 261 n. 46 Drovetti, Bernardino, 255 n. 8 Drummond, William, 243 n. 16 Ducci, Nicholas, 220 Duckworth, Thomas, 158 Duveluz, Pietro, 103, 130, 136-41 Eastern Question, 9-10, 13, 15, 22, 37, 42, 46, 49, 151, 162, 182, 225, 227, 232 n. 25, 236 n. 85, 247 n. 24, 250 n. 38 Elezoglu, 248 n. 32 Elgin, Lord, 190, 243 n. 16, 257 n. 16 Elias, Moussé (Musse), 131, 219-20 Emin Bey, 95 Emir Bashir II, 216, 256-57 n. 15, 259 n. 35 Ermolov, Alexei P., 169, 252-53 n. 48, 253 n. 49 Foreign Office (British), 9-10, 36, 4648, 51, 89, 94, 99, 102-03, 117, 120, 135, 143, 14748, 154-55, 159, 170-72, 175, 178-79, 181-82, 185, 189-90, 195-97, 203, 206, 223, 236 n. 1, 237 n. 5, 7, 240 n. 23, 241 n. 2, 247 n. 26, 252 n. 45, 253 n. 50, 254 n. 56, 255 n. 3-4, 257 n. 16, 258 n. 28, 259 n. 29, 32 Franchini, 163-64 Frangopulo, Nicolo, 130, 150 Frere, Bartholomew, 108 George III, King, 51 Germanos of Patras, Bishop, 238 n. 9 Gordon, Robert, 70 Gouras, Colonel, 95

INDEX Great Game, 151, 154, 162, 247 n. 24 Greek War of Independence (1821), 10-11, 15, 24-25, 34, 42, 51, 90, 108, 183, 192, 207, 212-14, 233 n. 31-33, 234 n. 57, 235 n. 70, 75, 77-79, 240 n. 18, 253 n. 48, 254 n. 56, 259 n. 30 Green, Philip, 110, 130, 242 n. 11 Green, Richard, 53, 90-91, 130, 242 n. 11 Grigorios V, Ecumenical Patriarch, 26, 233 n. 36 Gulistan, Treaty of (1813), 246 n. 23 Guys, Henri, 217, 259-60 n. 38 Hal et Efendi (Mehmed Said), 162-63, 249 n. 35 Hamilton, Rowan, 149, 158-59 Hamilton, William Richard, 196-98, 257 n. 16, 18, 258 n. 22 Hankey, Frederick, 55 Hassan Pasha, 206 hospodars (governors of Moldavia and Wallachia), 37, 108, 156, 242 n. 8-9, 248 n. 28, 250 n. 38 Hussein Bey, 94 Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt, 42-43 , 79, 89-90, 96, 169, 183, 186-87, 202, 211-13, 235 n. 79, 258 n. 23, 259 n. 30, 261 n. 44, 48 Ismael Pasha, 58-60, 63-64 Jassy, Treaty of (1792), 165, 251 n. 41 Kapodistrias, Ioannis A. (Capo d'Istria, John), 51, 54, 67-68, 239 n. 14-15, 249 n. 33, 251 n. 39 kapudan pasha (admiral and commander of Ottoman navy), 30, 86, 89, 157, 172, 175 Karaiskaki, Captain, 95 Karaosmanoglu, 172, 253 n. 52 Khurshid Pasha, 52, 63-64, 66-67, 74, 82 Kutchuk-Kainardji, Treaty of (1774), 23, 36-37, 232 n. 25, 233 n. 37, 243 n. 13, 252 n. 45 Lausanne, Treaty of (1923), 232 n. 24 Lee, Peter, 111, 192, 195, 198-99, 208-09, 224, 257 n. 20, 258 n. 28, 259 n. 32

287

Leeves, Henry, 137, 139, 245 n. 23 Levant Company, 10, 20, 23, 27, 3437, 46-48, 51, 99, 101-06, 108, 110, 112, 117-18, 120-30, 135, 143-45, 148, 153, 155-58, 161, 168, 170-71, 179-80, 195, 198, 208- 09, 237 n. 5, 240 n. 1, 241 n. 2, 242 n. 11, 247 n. 26, 257 n. 20, 258 n. 28, 259 n. 29, 261 n. 43 Liddell, George, 108, 110, 155-57 Liston, Robert, 20, 104, 113, 173, 231 n. 17, 244 n. 20, 254 n. 53 Logothetis, Lycurgus, 248 n. 29 London, Treaty of (1827), 43 Louvre, 181, 189, 191, 256 n. 13 Mahmud II, Sultan, 24, 42-44, 52, 56, 104, 140, 163, 183, 249 n. 35, 262 n. 49 Mahmud Bey, 59 Maitland, Thomas, 41, 53, 55-57, 7074, 91, 237-38 n. 8, 239 n. 14-16 Mavrocordato, Alexander, 74, 79, 240 n. 18 Mavrogordato, Michele, 147, 156, 171-72, 248 n. 30 Mayer, Jacob, 89 Metternich, 239 n. 15 Meyer, Jeremiah, 51, 237 n. 2 Meyer, William, 10, 12-13, 49, 51-97, 236 n. 1, 237 n. 2, 5, 7-8, 238 n. 9, 11, 240 n. 24-25 millet (ethno-religious community), 245 n. 24 Missett, Ernest, 182, 197-98 Missolonghi, siege of (1826), 42, 52, 54, 82-86, 88-94, 240 n. 22, 24 Mourouzi, Constantine 248 n. 28 Muctar Pasha, 59 Muhammad II, Sultan, 44 Muhammad Ali Pasha of Egypt, 10, 42, 79, 154, 163, 181-92, 195, 197214, 223-24, 255 n. 4-7, 257 n. 18-20, 258 n. 23-24, 26-27, 259 n. 31, 261 n. 44, 46-49, 262 n. 49 Muhammad Bey Defterdar, 204, 258 n. 26 Muharram Bey, 223, 261 n. 44 Mustafa Bey, 200 Mustafa Kemal, 232 n. 24

288

BRITISH CONSULAR

R E P O R T S FROM THE

Napoleon (Bonaparte), 23, 163-65, 250 n. 38 Neale, Henry, 159 Nesselrode, Karl V., 239 n. 14, 246 n. 22 Nicholas I, Tsar, 45, 236 n. 85, 253 n. 48 North, Frederick, 162, 248-49 n. 33 Omar Pasha Vrioni, 83, 87 Paris, Treaty of (1815), 70 Paulovich, Stephen, 130 Pehlivan Aga, 164 Peltzer, 175-77 Phanariotes, 247-48 n. 28, 250 n. 38 Pheraios, Rhigas, 238 n. 12 Philiki Etaireia (Society of Friends), 38, 52, 60-62, 67, 69, 81, 94, 163, 237 n. 6, 238 n. 8-9, 11, 239 n. 14, 251 n. 39 Philomousos Etaireia/Philoi Musoi (Society of Friends of the Muses), 162, 248-49 n. 33 piracy, 33-35, 101, 111, 148-50, 158-59, 169-70, 177-78, 234 n. 59, 63, 259 n. 32 Pisani, Frederick, 107, 114-16, 241 n. 6 Planta, Joseph, 155, 159, 170, 201, 203, 206-07, 210, 214, 223, 247 n. 26 Pouqueville, François, 60, 238 n. 10 protégés. See beratlis (protégés) Ramses II, 190, 201, 256 n. 10 reaya (tax-paying Christian subjects of the Ottoman sultan), 17, 1922, 25, 27, 35, 38, 65-66, 100, 106, 111, 114, 140, 147, 173, 193, 211, 214, 216, 218-22, 230 n 5, 231 n. 20 reis efendi (Ottoman f o r e i g n minister), 30, 110, 113, 118, 218 Reshid Mehmet Pasha, 85-90, 93, 95-96 Rosetta Stone, 189, 196, 257 n. 1617, 258 n. 22 Ross, Patrick, 56 Royal Society, 181

LEVANT

Rudsdell, Joseph, 90-92 Russian-Persian Wars (1804-13, 182628), 246 n. 23, 253 n. 48 Russian-Turkish Wars (1768-74, 1787-92, 1806-12, 1828-29), 23, 33, 45-46, 108, 226, 236 n. 86, 242 n. 8, 246 n. 23 Russophobia, 151, 162, 228, 246 n. 22 St. Petersburg Protocol (1826), 43 Salt, Henry, 10, 13, 49, 181-92, 195214, 223, 254 n. 1, 255 n. 2-4, 78, 256 n. 9, 11-12, 257 n. 16, 18, 258 n . 28, 259 n. 29, 32 Sébastiani, Horace, 164, 250 n. 38 Selim III, Sultan, 21-22, 24, 43-44, 164, 249 n. 35, 250 n. 38, 252 n. 46, 260 n. 42 Seraglio, 107, 242 n. 7 Seti I, 191 Sèvres, Treaty of (1920), 232 n. 24 Smith, Spencer, 117, 243, n. 16 Soane, John, 191, 256 n. 13 Society of Antiquaries, 182, 189, 19697 Sotheby, Charles, 149 Strangford, Lord, 29-30, 33, 36, 40, 57, 66, 109, 114, 164, 243 n. 13, 247 n. 27, 248 n. 29, 249 n. 35, 250-51 n. 39, 251 n. 42, 253 n. 50 Straton, Alexander, 118, 243 n. 16 Stroganov, Grigorii A., 37-38, 40, 108, 162-64, 242 n. 12, 243 n. 12, 246 n. 22, 249 n. 34, 250 n. 36, 250-51 n. 39 Sublime Porte, 11, 15-16, 22, 24, 51, 91, 180, 183, 205, 215, 225, 230 n. 5, 252 n. 46 Suliotes, 54, 60, 63-64, 90-91, 237 n. 6 Turkish-Persian War (1821-23), 23, 253 n. 48 Turkmanchai, Treaty of (1828), 246 n. 23 Turner, Tomkyns Hilgrove, 197, 257 n. 17 Turner, William, 175-76, 254 n. 55

INDEX Tussun Pasha, 198, 257 n. 19 Valentia, Lord, 181, 184, 190, 255 n. 2 Veli Aga, 94 Veli Bey, 96 Vienna, Congress of (1814-15), 23, 41, 48, 61, 162, 165, 235 n. 69 Vitali, Antonio, 130, 211 Vladimirescu, Tudor, 248 n. 28 Vlassopulos, Ioannis, 237 n. 8 Vondiziano, Anthony, 130, 244 n. 21 Wahhabis, 183, 185-86, 198-200, 202, 258 n. 23 Walsh, Robert, 25-26, 29, 31-33, 234 n. 52

289

Werry, Francis, 10, 12, 27-28, 30, 3334, 48-49, 110, 130, 135, 143-80, 239 n. 16, 245 n. 1, 248 n. 31, 252 n. 45, 253 n. 50, 254 n. 56 Werry, Nathaniel, 10, 12, 49, 130, 143, 147-48, 150-55, 159-61, 170-77, 245 n. 1, 252 n. 45, 254 n. 53 Wilkinson, William, 164, 250 n. 38 Wolff, Joseph, 136 Yani, Giorgios, 220-21 Young Memnon, 190, 201, 256 n. 1011, 258 n. 22 Ypsilanti, Alexander, 38, 109, 242 n. 9, 12 Yussuf Pasha, 79, 86, 110 Yusuf, Boghos, 224, 261 n. 46