Mr. Morris to Mr. Seward.
Sir; I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of despatches Nos. 116 and 117. The instructions contained in the same will be complied with.
The insurrection in the island of Crete cannot, to all appearances, continue much longer, as the insurgents have recently suffered a severe defeat, and the Porte is constantly despatching troops to the island for the purpose of crushing resistance by an overwhelming superiority of numbers. The sympathies which the Cretans have naturally aroused in Greece, and practically manifested in the shipment of arms and ammunition and in expeditions of armed bands to Crete, have given rise to earnest protests on the part of the Porte. The relations between the Hellenic government and that of Turkey are in a very critical position, and an open rupture is probable unless the insurrection soon comes to an end. King George manifests no disposition to restrain the practical demonstrations of sympathy which his subjects are making in behalf of a people with whom they are related by ties of blood, religion, and language. However widely separated, the Greek people are united by a fellow-feeling which binds them together as closely as if they were all gathered into one nationality. This feeling neither time nor oppression by stronger rulers has ever been able to extinguish, and it is this, also, which renders the government of such a people so extremely difficult by the Turks, with whom they never have assimilated, and never can. They are proud of their name, their language, their descent, and their history, and devoutly attached to their religion, and can never be moulded in the general mass of Turkish subjects, so as to lose their distinctive features as a people. Faults they have—such faults as belong to all people who have been the slaves of a foreign despotism for ages—but they have virtues and capacities also, calculated to make them, when united in a common nationality, one of the most enterprising, powerful, and promising races of the age.
The island of Crete has suffered more than any other part of the empire the evils that seem inseparable from provincial governments. It has been too often regarded as a field of plunder for rapacious pachas, who have enriched themselves by the most infamous practices, at the expense of the people they were sent to govern.* * * * * * * * *
[Page 254]I deemed it my duty, at one time, to represent to Lord Lyons that facts of which I was cognizant justified me in asking his interference with the Porte to procure the recall of Ismael Pacha, as its own interests would be seriously compromised by his retention in office, through an open insurrection to which he was forcing the Cretans. Although Lord Lyons was fully advised of the situation of affairs in the island, I deemed it my duty, in the general interests of humanity, and out of friendship to the Porte, to make the above representation to him, and the more so because I have no right of direct interference myself in domestic questions of this empire. This governor has been at length recalled, and is now in disgrace; but unfortunately he was not removed from office till he had, by his vicious government, goaded the Cretans into hostilities with the Turkish government. Up to the present time more than two thousand lives have been lost in the combats which have taken place, hundreds of families have left the island, the olive crop has been ungathered, and such ruin and desolation have been inflicted upon this beautiful and fertile island that it will not recover from the effects of the same in ten or twenty years to come.
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Although rumors of trouble prevail, of disturbances in Epirus and other provinces, they have not been confirmed by any reliable authority. It is a fact, however, that the feeling of disaffection to the Porte is constantly spreading among the Christian subjects, while its pecuniary and military embarrassments are daily increasing, and to such a degree as to paralyze the power of the government to maintain its authority. Indeed, it seems, unless a change for the better soon takes place, that the great powers who have an interest in the preservation of Turkey must eventually interfere to save the empire from the ruin with which it is menaced.
I am, sir, with great respect, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.