What passed at this audience is the more important and binding, as it was one of a formal character, applied for on public grounds; and, to give it still greater value, the Sultan, after I had retired from his presence, called back the dragoman of the Porte, and desired him to assure me that what he had said in public proceeded from his real conviction, and was, in fact, the sincere expression of his personal sentiments.
_Official Declaration of the Sublime Porte, relinquishing the practice of Executions for Apostacy_.
It is the special and constant intention of His Highness the Sultan that his cordial relations with the High Powers be preserved, and that a perfect reciprocal friendship be maintained, and increased.
The Sublime Porte engages to take effectual measures to prevent henceforward the execution and putting to death of the Christian who is an apostate.
_Acknowledgment of the Sublime Porte's Official Declaration respecting Executions for Apostacy. March_ 22, 1844.
The official declaration communicated by his Excellency the Minister for Foreign Affairs shall be transmitted to the British Government, who will understand with satisfaction that the Sublime Porte, in taking effectual measures to prevent henceforward the execution and putting to death of any Christian, an apostate from Islamism, relinquishes for ever a principle inconsistent with its friendly professions; and the further assurances to be given at the Ambassador's audience of the Sultan, in the sense of the instruction presented in copy to the Porte on the 9th ultimo, will fully satisfy the British Government that Christianity is not to be insulted in His Highness' empire, nor any one professing it to be treated as a criminal, or persecuted on that account.
_Earl of Westmorland to the Earl of Aberdeen_.--(_Received April_ 12.)
I received a private letter From Sir Stratford Canning, dated Constantinople, March 23, announcing the termination of his negotiation with the Turkish Government as to its future conduct in the cases of Christians who have renounced the Mahomedan religion, and bearing witness to the cordial manner in which M. de Le Coq, the Prussian Minister, under Baron Bülow's instruction, had assisted his exertions.