The New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

[From a London Paper.]

The following paper was read by Mr. Grey, in the House of Commons on the 29th February, the Russian Amendment under consideration. The member who presented it, stated it to be the answer of the Turkish Grand Vizier to Sir Robert Ainslie, the British Minister at Constantinople, during the Russian Negotiation.

"THE Grand Signior wars for himself, and for himself makes peace—he can trust his own slaves, servants and subjects—he knows their faith, has experienced their virtue, and can rely upon their fidelity: a virtue long since banished your corner of Europe. If all other christians tell truth no reliance is to be had on England, she buys and sells all mankind. The Ottomans have no connexion with your King, nor your country—we never sought for your advice, your interference or friendship; we have no minister, no agency, no correspondence with you; for what reason offer ye then to mediate for us with Russia: why seek ye to serve an empire of infidels as ye call us Musulmen? we want not your friendship, aid, or mediation. Your Vizier of whom you speak so highly, must have some project of deception in view, some oppressive scheme to amuse your nation, whom we are told are credulous, servile, and adorers only of money. Avarice, if we are well informed, is your chief characteristic—you would buy and sell your God—Money is your Deity—and all things is commerce with your ministry, with your nation. Come you then to sell us to Russia? No, let us bargain for ourselves: when fate has spun out the thread of our good fortune we must yield; what has been decreed by God and the prophet of men must and will come to pass. We Ottomans know no finesse. Duplicity and cunning are your christian morals. We are not ashamed to be honest, downright, plain and faithful in our state maxims. If we fall in war, we submit to the will of heaven decreed from the beginning. We have long lived in splendor the first power on earth, and we glory in having triumphed for ages over christian infidelity and depravity, mixed with all sorts of vice and hypocrisy: We adore the God of nature and believe in Mahomet. You neither believe in the God you pretend to worship, nor his Son, whom you call both your God and your prophet. What reliance can there be upon such a sacrilegious race? Truth you banish as you do virtue, from all your conduct and actions with each other; read the catalogue of the complaints, manifestoes, declarations, and remonstrances of all the christian Kings, Monarchs and Emperors, who have lived and warred with each other; you find them all equally blasphemous, equally perfidious, equally cruel, unjust and faithless to their engagements. Did the Turk ever forfeit his promise, word, or honor? Never! Did ever a christian power keep an engagement but while it suited its own avarice or ambition? No! How then do you think we are to trust you, a nation at this moment, if told truth, ruled by a perfidious administration, without one grain of virtue to guide the machine of state? The Grand Signior has no public intercourse with your court; he wants none. If you wish to remain here either as a spy, or, as you term yourself, an ambassador for your court, you may live with those of other christian nations, while you demean yourself with propriety, but we want neither your aid by sea or land, nor your council or mediation. I have no order to thank you for your offer, because it is by the Divan deemed officious. Nor have I any command to thank you for the offer of
our naval assistance, because it is what the Porte never dreamed of admitting into our seas. What you have to do with Russia we neither know nor care; our concerns with that court we mean to finish as suits ourselves, and the maxims of our laws and state policy.

If you are not the most profligate Christian nation, as you are charged to be, you are undoubtedly the boldest, in presumption and effrontery, in offering to bring such a power as Russia to terms, such as you and some other trivial Christians united, fancy yourselves equal to command—we know better, and therefore this effrontery of yours amounts rather to audacity, and to an imbecile dictation, which must render your councils at home mean and contemptible, and your advice abroad unworthy of wisdom, or attention from any power, much less the regard of the Porte, which on all occasions wherein its ministers had listened to you, have experienced evil, either in your designs or in your ignorance—His Sublime Highness cannot be too much upon his guard against the attempts and presumption of a nation so perfidious to the interest of its subjects (or colonies)—but it is the usual way of Christian Princes to sell and cede over their subjects to each other for money. Every peace made amongst you, as we are well informed, is made favorable to the King that best bribes. The Ottoman Ministry have too long and too often given ear to European councils, and as often as they so did, they either were betrayed, sold or deceived—away then with your interference for the Porte with Russia.

"It has been your aim to embroil all mankind, and thereafter to profit by your perfidy. We ask not, want not, nor desire your commerce, because our merchants have been sacrificed to your double dealings—you have no religion but gain—avarice is your only God and the Christian faith you profess is but a mask for your hypocrisy—we will hear no more from you—therefore you are commanded to make no reply."

[It is to be lamented that, in addition to the above, it was not noticed that, to the dishonor of the British, and some other Christian powers, they, to this day, are tributary not only to each other, but even to the contemptible state of Algiers.—Nations pretending to decide the fates of empires and continents, and at the same time meanly truckling to a nest of Barbarians, could not have failed adding a ludicrous feature to the gloomy picture drawn by the indignant Turk.]