LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
SIR HENRY ELLIOT. [To THE EDITOR Or THE .gerzerAvos.-]
Sra,—My attention has been called to an observation in your issue of March 10th, to the effect that I had confessed to having "nodded assent" to the deposition of Sultan Abdul Aziz. My article in the Nineteenth Century must have been very ill- expressed if it is fairly open to any such interpretation.
What I intended to convey, and all that I intended to convey, was the conviction that the general discontent had reached such a pitch, that an attempt to depose him had seemed to me certain. I expected that this attempt would be made by a popular move- ment headed by the Softas, of whom several thousands were known to have armed themselves with a view to some great contingency ; but I had no more knowledge than the Sultan himself of the conspiracy by which his overthrow was effected, nor had I a suspicion that any of his own Ministers were engaged in one.
I must, therefore, emphatically repudiate any supposition that I was privy to or cognisant of a plot against the Sovereign to whom I was accredited, or that more is to be inferred from my article than that a close observation of the state of public opinion—of which, as stated in it, I warned the Sultan—had convinced me that a catastrophe was impending.—I am, [Sir Henry Elliot may not have actually "assented" to the deposition of Sultan Abdul Asiz, but he did assent to Midhat's plans for a change in the Constitution (see his own narrative, p. 280), and he must have suspected that the change would involve a revolution, for he knew of its approach, and of the contract with Prince Murad (p. 282) before the outbreak. It was not, however, to this that we alluded, but to what we understand to be his direct assent to the deposition of Sultan Murad. The Grand Vizier, he expressly says (p. 292), wanted his "previous approval," and he replied in these words :—" He must not expect me, as the Queen's Ambassador, to express a direct opinion upon a question of such extreme delicacy ; that he had two duties to bear in mind, the one to his Sovereign and the other to his country, and he must endeavour to reconcile the two as long as possible ; but when he became convinced that the safety and welfare of the Empire were seriously endangered by the continued inability of the Sultan to take charge of its interests, that consideration must override all others. Whether that moment had come was a question for him, and not for me, to answer." If that is not assent, what is it ? Six days after, Abdul Hamid was proclaimed.—En. Spectator.]
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