As we anticipated, the position in the Turkish empire grows
more serious with the march of events. To a certain extent, the Ottoman Government still appears to be acting in good faith. Faad Pasha has arrested the chief civil and military functionaries in Syria. Aehmet Pasha and Kurshid Pasha have been brought to Constantinople under arrest ; Achmet has been sent back to Syria, degraded ; and both are to be tried by a mixed commis- sion. In the meanwhile, however, there is a general concur- rence of testimony to the incapacity of the Turkish Government to carry out its measures, either of repression or of justice. The report of a Mussulman conspiracy extending throughout the em- pire gains ground. The latest scene of the combination, which has been reported, is Roumelia, and it is said that an intended attack upon the Embassies in Scutari has been actually dis- covered.
All reports are unanimous in proclaiming the exertions made by Abd-el-Kader to defend the Christians where he was present, and to clear up doubts wherever he was in communication with Christian authorities; and he had made reports in Constantinople which showed that the Mussulman officers were incapable of executing the professed intentions of the Porte. In some re- spects, the Pasha acquitted them, as being defioient in strength ; but from his reports it is clear they are still more generally de- ficient in sincerity.
In the meanwhile new pressure comes upon the Ottoman. Government from various points. The people of Servia have been protesting against the encroachment of the Turks in vio- lation of treaty stipulations. Servia claims of the Porte the recognition of hereditary descent in the Obrenoviez family, the restraint of Turks within certain fortress boundaries, and a new constitution. The Porte has assented to the restriction Of the Turks ; has refused the abstract recognition of the Obrenovicz descent, but has agreed to the actual descent from Milosch to Michael ; and, refusing the new constitution, has despatched commissioners to inquire into the defects of the existing consti- tution. The actual position in European Turkey, therefore, is, that the Porte cannot keep its own fanatical and conspiring Mussulman subjects in check ; that it cannot withhold a recog- nition of Christian claims ; that it is actually at the present mo- ment conducting inquiries in several of the Christian provinces, under the pressure of treaty obligations towards the Powers ; and finally that the great protector of the Greek Church in Turkey—Russia—has at the present moment on the Pruth, or within reach, an Army to the amount of 75 or 80,000 men.
