About the progressive element which has inspired and maintained so obstinate an opposition to the Sultan, much has been heard in England, but little is really known. I will therefore touch upon its history, aims, and present position.
The common name for this element, the 'Young-Turkish Party,' though widely used, is inaccurate, and I do not propose to use it myself in connection with these advocates of the progressive reform. There is no organised body such as could properly be called a 'party,' though on various occasions different societies have been formed by agitators for reform, whose chief aims and aspirations have been identical; namely, to check the Sultanic absolutism, to secure a representative mode of government, and introduce necessary reforms. The growth of the revolutionising element in Turkey cannot be traced to the influence of the French Revolution; it was due to the introduction, for the first time, of English ideas of liberty, and the spread of information about the English system of constitutional government It is perhaps known to few that the first Ottoman reformer was a member of the first Ottoman diplomatic mission to the Court of St James's. Agah Effendi, the first Turkish Ambassador who was accredited in England, some hundred years ago, was accompanied by a young man named Ra-if Mahmud Effendi, who acted as his private secretary. This young secretary remained in England many years and devoted himself to the study of scientific subjects, more especially geography, and afterwards published a translation of an English atlas into Turkish, the first ever prepared in that language. While in England, Mahmud Effendi used to send reports to the Sublime Porte on the forms of administration and system of government in this country. When Sultan Mahmud II. came to the throne, the young diplomatist was invited to Constantinople to assist in the work of reorganising the administration; but during one of the fanatical outbursts which preceded the extermination of the Janissary corps, this first modernised statesman of Turkey was accused of being a man of 'broad views,' and killed in a _mélée_. The seeds of reform sown by him, however, were not entirely destroyed; and it was chiefly owing to the work of the later Turkish statesmen, who followed his example in reorganising the system of their country, that the famous Hatt-i Sherif, or first reform charter of the Ottoman empire, was drawn up, and, with the assistance of the friendly Powers, proclaimed.