No. 681.
Mr. Bayard
to Mr. King.
Washington, November 11, 1886.
Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your No. 257, of the 19th ultimo, in which, you inclose the correspondence relating to the camplaints of Rev. Br. Herrick, an American missionary., who was prohibited by the local authorities from holding divine service in a house rented by the American mission at Kastamouni.
Your note to the foreign office protesting against the action of the local authorities is approved. * * *
The true point at issue is the arbitrary interference with the right of an American citizen, whatever be his faith or profession, to come and go and follow the dictates of his own conscience, where and how he will, in Turkey. Setting an armed guard around the place of Dr. Herrick’s [Page 1083] temporary sojourn and forbidding all communication with him was an act which can only be attributed to the ignorance or arbitrary will of the officer who ordered it, and which it is not supposed for a moment the Government of the Sublime Porte will sanction in the face of the guaranties of freedom, of peaceable movement, and worship which have grown up and for so many years been unquestioned in favor of aliens in Turkey, and which are confirmed by international law.
It should also be remembered that the exercise of their religious functions and the maintenance of their hospitals by American missionaries in Turkey have been for many years, acquiesced in by the Sublime Porte, Under its toleration many benevolent institutions, in which large amounts of money have been invested, have grown upon Turkish soil. It can hardly tee supposed that men exercising, so unselfishly and prudently as do Div Herrick and his associates, offices, many of which are of non-sectarian charity, should be subjected, by the deliberate action of the Turkish Government, to indignities such as are here reported.
These men were received as missionaries as missionaries they were permitted to establish and endow hospitals and schools. It is an assumption, not only irrational in itself, but in conflict with the past dealing of the Turkish Government with these very men, that, while authorized by it to conduct these benevolent works, the conditions should have been imposed that, though received as missionaries, they should not be permitted to perform the religious services incidental, to their profession.
The retake of the local authority who subjected Dr. Herrick to this insult, and positive measures to prevent its recurrence, are therefore confidently expected.
I am etc.,