yernment had become more critical, and perplexity and distress prevailed on every side; yet the SubJime Porte, notwithstanding that it depended only upon herself to join with the other powers, nevertheless, giving way to her known principles of justice, did no ways consent to deviate from the line of a neutral conduct.

On the contrary, considering that, if under the circumstances of a strong famine, by which France, blocked up by sea and land, was afflicted, the Sublime Porte had also broken off her connection, their distressed situation would have been such as to throw the inhabitants into total desolation and despair; she abstained from that measure; and she hereby asks, whether it be not a fact, that the liberality which she has shewn to thea, from time to time, has brought complaints against her from other powers?

The extensive advantages which the French have reaped from the Şublime Porte's remaining neutral, during the course of the war, become clear and evident by a moment's glance at the events of the war, and the public transactions during that period. Whilst, therefore, in consideration of the uniform acts of condescension thus observed towards them by the Sublime Porte, they, on their side, ought also to have been steady in preserving peace; yet, those among them, who found the means of assuming to themselves the reins of government by favour of the revolution, began to devise various pretences, and, under an illusive idea of liberty a liberty so called in word, but which in reality knows no other laws but the subversion of every established government (after the example of France), the abo

lishment of all religions, the destruction of every country, the plunder of property, and the dissolution of all human Society-to occupy themselves in nothing but in misleading and imposing upon the ignorant amongst the people, pretending to reduce mankind to the state of the brute creation; and this, to favour their own private interests, and render the government permanent in their own hands.

Actuated by such principles, they made it their maxim to stir up and corrupt, indiscriminately, the sub-, jects of every power, whether distaut or near, either in peace or at war, and to excite them to revol against their natural sovereigns and government.

Whilst, on one hand, their minister at Constantinople, pursuant to that system of duplicity and deceit which is their custom every where, made professions of friendship for the Ottoman empire, endeavouring to make the Sublime Porte the dupe of their insidious projects, and to forward their object of exciting her against other friendly powers; the commanders and generals of their army in Italy, upon the other hand, were engaged in the heinous attempt of perverting the subjects of his majesty the Grand Signior, by sending agents (persons notorious for their intri guing practices) into Anatolia, Morea, and the islands of the Archipelago, and by spreading manifestoes of the most insidious tenor, among which the one addressed by Buonaparte to the people of Macrio, with several others distributed` by the same, are sufficiently known to the public.

Upon the Sublime Porte's complaining to the directory of this conduct of their commanders and

generals,

generals, their answer was that all proceedings on the part of their of ficers, contrary to friendship, were not with the consent of the directory; that the same should be prevented, and their officers warned against it; the wish of the French government being to strengthen more and more the antient friendship subsisting with the Sublime

Porte.

In consequence of this answer, delivered officially on their part, it was expected that the said generals would have left off their seditious pursuits. But nevertheless, no change appearing in their conduct, and their perseverance in such insidious practices being greater than ever, it became obvious that the answers of the directory were only fictitious and deceitful; that the intriguing attempts of their agents could not but be dictated by the instructions which were given them; and consequently, that any further complaint would be of no avail whatever.

Notwithstanding these transactions, however, the Sublime Porte, in the hopes of the directory altering its system of conduct, and laying aside the senseless pursuit of wishing to overturn the universe; in expectation of seeing things in France, from the harassed situation of that country, at length take a different turn, by the people refusing to bear any longer those intolerable evils and disasters which have been brought upon them, from the personal views of a few upstart individuals, since the commencement of the revolution; and with the view of preventing secret enmity from producing an open rupture, did not alter her course, but preferred keeping silence.

In the beginning of the war with the other powers, the French go

vernment had declared, that their intention was not to acquire new territory, but, on the contrary, to restore every such conquest as might have been made by their arms during the contest: contrary to which, they not only have kept possession of various extensive provinces, snatched by them from the belligerent powers; but not content with this, profiting by the changes which had prevailed among the allied courts through their intrigues, have put off the mask en'tirely, and, developing their secret views, without reason or justice have fallen upon several free and independent republics and states who had held themselves neutral, like the Sublime Porte, invading their territories when least provided with the means of defence, and subjecting them to their will by open force and hostility.

Thus, no one being left to controul them, they tore the veil of all decorum at once; and, unmindful of the obligations of treaties, and to convince the world that friend, ship and enmity are the same thing in their eyes, contrary to the rights of nations, and in violation of the ties subsisting between the two courts, they came, in a manner altogether unprecedented, like a set of pirates, and made a sudden invasion in Egypt, the most precious among the provinces of the Ottoman Porte; of which they took forcible possession at a time when they had experienced nothing from this court but demonstrations of friendship.

Upon the first surmise of the French project to invade that province, Ruffin, their chargé d'affaires at this residence, was invited to a conference, where he was questioned officially about this business: he first declared he had no intelli

gence

gence whatever respecting it; but he gave it, as a speculation of his own, that if such an enterprise ever proved true, it probably must be to take revenge of the beys, and to annoy and attack the English settlements in the East Indies.

In answer to this, it was circumstantially stated to him, that the smallest attempt, on the part of the French, upon Cairo, on whatever pretext it might be founded, would be taken as a declaration of war, and thereby the friendship subsisting between the two courts since the most ancient times, would, both in a legal and political sense, be converted into enmity; and the Ottoman empire would not suffer the loss of a handful of sand of the Egyptian territory; that the whole Ottoman sect would set itself in motion for the deliverance of those blessed lands; and that if the chastisement of the beys of Egypt was necessary, it behoved the Sublime Porte to inflict it on them as Ner dependents; that the interference of the French in this business was inconsistent with the rights of nations; that the court of Great Britain being the dearest friend of the Ottoman empire, the Sublime Porte would never consent to the passage of French troops through her territory to act against their settlements; that, in short, should even their expedition to Egypt have no other object but this, it would be equally construed into a declaration of war: of all which he was charged to make the earliest communication to the directory in this very language

Dispatches, bearing instructions to the same effect, were at the same time written to Aali Effendi, the Sublime Porte's embassador at Pars who was moreover directed to 1798.

demand officially an explanation of the matter upon the spot.

Before the communications sent by Ruffin to the directory, and the dispatches transmitted by the Sublime Porte to her embassador before named, a letter of an old date was received by the said Ruffin, expressing that Buonaparte's expedition to Egypt was true, but that the object was to secure some commercial advantages, by bringing the beys to an account, and to hurt Great Britain; that an embassador had been appointed to prefer several propositions favourable to the interests of the Ottoman Porte, and. to adjust the affair in question; with this further ridiculous hint, that were the Porte to declare war for this against the republic, both courts would lay themselves open to an attack on the part of the emperor; all this the said chargé-d'affaires delivered officially, and he also presented a copy of that letter.

Upon the other hand, in the answer received meanwhile from the Ottomanembassadorabove mentioned, it was stated, that, in conformity to his instructions, he had had an interview with Talleyraud Perigord, the minister of external relations, in which he had produced his dispatches, explained their purport, and demanded, officially, a categorical answer: that the said minister (forgetting, as it is to be supposed, the tenor of the letter which had been written to Ruffin some time before) positively disavowed the expedition against Egypt, and said that Buonaparte's commission had no other object, but the conquest of Malta; that the abolition of the order there being a measure conducive to the benefit of all the Turks, the Sublime Porte ought to feel even obliged by it; that the directory had nothing more at heart (Q)

than

than to maintain the peace existing with the Porte since time immemorial, and more and more to strengthen the same; thus barefacedly exhibiting a farce of the most artful duplicity.

The wide contradiction between the above two communications being visibly a fresh artifice by which to mislead the Ottoman Porte with her eyes open, and to gain time until intelligence could be procured respecting the affairs of Egypt, the result of which had not then come to their knowledge, must not this most extraordinary event be taken as a palpable de monstration, that the directors of the French government, to second their own ambition and arrogance, have actually lost all recollection of those laws observed and maintained in every regular government, and that no faith whatever is to be placed in their words and professions?

From the tenor of their arbitrary proceedings and despotic conduct, as too well witnessed from first to last, it is clear and evident that their project is no other but to hanish every orderly institution from the face of the world; to overset human society; and, by an alternate play of secret intrigue or open hostility, as best suits their end, to derange the constitution of every established independent state, by creating (as they have done in Italy) a number of small republics, of which the French is to be the parent mother, and thus to sway and to conduct every thing after their own will every where.

Now Egypt being the portal of the two venerable cities, Mecca and Medina, and the present operations in that quarter being of a nature affecting all the Mahomedan sect at large, the Sublime Forte,

consistently with ber express decla rations to the above French chargéd'affaires, and through her embassador to the directory at Paris, feels compelled, by every law, to resist the sudden and unprovoked aggressions and hostilities committed by the French as above, and, with a full confidence in the assistance of the omnipotent God, to set about repelling and destroying the enemy by sea and land. Thus to wage war against France is become a precept of religion incumbent upon all mussulmen.

In consequence whereof, the aføre-named chargé d'affaires, together with the officers of that mission, have been sent to the Seven Towers, to be detained there as hostages until such time as Aali Effendi before named, and those of his retinue, be arrived from Paris: and the consuls, merchants, and French properties in Constantinople, and in other parts of the Ottoman empire, shall also be kept in deposit, and as a security, until the merchants, dependents of the Sublime Porte, with their shipping and properties, as also the public ships, with their equipages, detained in the province of Egypt (prisoners of war excepted) be set at liberty.

To repel the perfidy of these usurpers, who have raised the standard of rebellion and trouble in France, is a measure in which not the safety and tranquillity of the Sublime Port alone, but also that of all the powers in Europe is concerned. Wherefore the best hopes are entertained of the cordial co-ope ration of all friendly courts as well as of their disposition to fulfil, by every means in their power, their duties of friendship and of assist ance in the present cause.

1 Rebuilakir, 1213. (11 September, 1798.) Imperial