ring Greeks. Nor will the advantage
derived be wholly theirs; for, until you shall cease or be forced to
abandon your inhuman traffic in Christian slaves and the commission of
cruelties which stain the character of man, your subjects must
inevitably continue barbarians,--a state from which it would be a source
of great gratification to contribute to release them. It is true that
the Christian world has not of late contended in arms with those of your
faith on points of religion. It has, however, not fallen into a state of
apathy so great as to see unheeded the perpetration of those enormities
which you are daily committing on Christians,--a sentiment with which no
feeling of animosity towards you or towards your people is combined. On
the contrary, it desires to render you every good service consistent
with that duty paramount to all others, namely, to wipe out the stain
from the civilized world of unfeelingly and inhumanly co-operating to
exterminate, enslave, and transport to bondage a whole Christian
people--and such a people--the descendants of those Greeks whose genius
laid the chief foundation of literature, the sciences, and the arts; who
reared those noble monuments and edifices which time and the more
destructive barbarian hand have yet failed to destroy, and which,
compared with the wretched hovels of your hordes, may better point out
to you the elevation they attained, and the prostrate state in which
your people are--owing, alas! to the baneful effects of bigotry and
despotic sway. Surely, surely there is ample field for the exercise of
your energies at home, in encouraging industry, the arts and sciences,
in promoting the civilization of your people, and in enacting equitable
laws for the security of persons and property--on which bases the
national prosperity of all countries must rest. But should your
ambition, not content with bestowing blessings like these on your native
land, lead you to soar almost above mortal acts, distant oceans would
unite, and the extremities of the globe approach at your command.[9]
Thus might your name be rendered immortal, and Egypt become again the
emporium of commerce, and one of the richest and happiest nations upon
earth. How infinitely great the glory from such acts! How despicable the
fame of a tyrant conqueror, the ruler of slaves! It would be pleasing to
support you as the author of great and good works, but it is shameful to
permit your present proceedings, and dastardl