Office of the Historian

Mr. Thompson to Mr. Gresham.

[Extract.]
Legation of the United States,
Constantinople, April 27, 1893. (Received May 11.)
No. 82.]

Sir: I have the honor to report that the Ottoman Government have paid to this legation 500 Turkish pounds to cover the loss sustained by the American College of Marsovan in the destruction by fire, on the morning of February 27, 1893, of the unfinished girls’ school building belonging to the college. The receipt for this money you will find inclosed. The necessary Iradé has also been issued, granting immediate permission to rebuild, and a further Iradé is to be given to the college as soon as certain necessary formulæ are gone through with.

This later Iradé (once given) is what the college has been trying to obtain for years, but unsuccessfully. It guarantees protection and exemption from taxation, most important for any school in the Ottoman Empire.

Hosref Pasha, chief of the gendarmerie of the province of Sivas, in which Marsovan is situated, has been removed and the chief of police of Marsovan has been imprisoned.

These two men are responsible for the fire and the troubles at Marsovan.

I have, etc.,

D. P. Thompson.
[Inclosure in No. 82.]
Constantinople, April 26, 1893.

Received from D. P. Thompson, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of the United States, the sum of five hundred Turkish pounds (£Т.500), being the amount paid by the Ottoman Government to cover the cost of the burned building at Marsovan, the property of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.

W. W. Peel,
Treasurer Missions of the American Board in Turkey.