r
institutions, so as to effect a reform in the monetary and financial
system, as well as to create funds to be employed in augmenting the
sources of the material wealth of my empire.

"Steps shall also be taken for the formation of roads and canals to
increase the facilities of communication and increase the sources of
the wealth of the country. Everything that can impede commerce or
agriculture shall be abolished. To accomplish these objects, means
shall be sought to profit by the science, the art, and the funds of
Europe, and thus gradually to execute them.

"Such being my wishes and my commands, you, who are my Grand Vizier,
will, according to custom, cause this Imperial Firman to be
published in my capital, and in all parts of my empire; and you will
watch attentively and take all the necessary measures that all the
orders which it contains be henceforth carried out with the most
rigorous punctuality."

Lord Stratford, in replying to a congratulatory address from the
missionaries, declared his agreement with them in the opinion, that
something great had been gained; though he believed the principles
involved would require persevering efforts to carry them into
practice. He said that he was himself but an humble instrument in
the hands of divine Providence, and that he had never felt the hand
of God so sensibly in any other measure he had carried through, as
in this, which, after he had given it up for lost, had succeeded all
at once, in a way that filled him with astonishment.[1]

[1] That the Hatti Humaioun was really intended to include the death
penalty, is made exceedingly probable by the official correspondence
which preceded it, and which was in fact its procuring cause. Only a
few brief extracts can be given in this note.

Referring to the punishment of death as applied to apostates from
Islamism, the Earl of Clarendon, English Minister of Foreign
Affairs, writes thus to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe: "As the Turkish
empire is, by treaty stipulations, to be declared part and parcel of
the European system, it is quite impossible for the powers of Europe
to acquiesce in the continuance in Turkey of a law, and a practice,
which is a standing insult to every other nation in Europe."

Again, on the 17th of September, 1853, the Earl of Clarendon writes
thus to Lord Stratford: "Her Majesty's Government distinctly demands
that no punishment whatever shall attach to the Mohammedan who
becomes a Christian, wheth