Moustapha Bey to Mr. Olney.
Washington, November 16, 1896.
Mr. Secretary of State: I have taken cognizance of the responsive note which your excellency addressed to my predecessor on the 17th of October last, advancing the opinion that the damages occasioned to American citizens during the recent troubles in Asiatic Turkey were “caused in great part by reason of the participation or connivance of the authorities of the Imperial Government.” Starting from this point of view, your excellency adds that the principle of irresponsibility put forward by the Imperial legation was not applicable in the premises.
I did not fail to transmit to my Government your excellency’s communication, and while awaiting the instructions of the Sublime Porte I deem it a duty to submit to your enlightened appreciation several considerations.
It is a well-known fact—and American citizens have recognized and proved it themselves by thanking the Imperial Ottoman authorities through the medium of the consulate of the United States at Alexandretta—that while those authorities were engaged generally in restoring at all points the public order which had been disturbed by the Armenian revolutionists at Harpoot and at Marash, those same authorities had also hastened to assign troops and mounted gendarmes for the particular protection of the persons and property of the American citizens. Thanks to the efforts so put forth and to the immediate measures taken, no incident has arisen of a nature to personally injure the American citizens, and the fire which had broken out in a wing of their seminary was localized and extinguished after occasioning only a slight damage, which could have been repaired for an insignificant sum. In like manner an attempt to set fire to the stable of another American establishment was abortive.
It is true that several material losses were sustained by the American citizens during the troubles, but these losses can not be attributed to the negligence of our authorities nor to a lack of the display of efforts on their part to prevent them as far as might be possible. Those losses were nothing more nor less than the consequence of an abnormal situation, the responsibility of which could not and can not fall upon the Imperial Government.
In view of the facts and of the considerations above set forth, your excellency will not fail to admit, following your sentiments of impartial justice, that the information tending to impute to the Imperial Ottoman authorities a course and attitude incompatible with their office and character rest upon no foundation whatever, and that the principle of irresponsibility put forward by the Imperial legation is and remains perfectly justified.
Be pleased, etc.,