' That was the opinion of a Gentleman anxious to defend Turkey,
and speaking in this House more than sixty years ago; we are now living
sixty years later, and no one now, but the noble Lord, seems to insist
upon the fact of the great and growing power of the Turkish Empire.
If any one thing is more apparent than another, on the face of all the
documents furnished to the House by the Government of which the noble
Lord is a Member, it is this, that the Turkish Empire is falling, or has
fallen, into a state of decay, and into anarchy so permanent as to have
assumed a chronic character. The noble Lord surely has not forgotten
that Turkey has lost the Crimea and Bessarabia, and its control over the
Danubian Principalities; that the Kingdom of Greece has been carved out
of it; that it has lost its authority over Algiers, and has run great
risk of being conquered by its own vassal the Pasha of Egypt; and from
this he might have drawn the conclusion that the empire was gradually
falling into decay, and that to pledge ourselves to effect its recovery
and sustentation, is to undertake what no human power will be able to
accomplish. I only ask the House to turn to the statements which will be
found nearly at the end of the first of the Blue Books recently placed
on the table of the House, and they will find that there is scarcely any
calamity which can be described as afflicting any country, which is not
there proved to be present, and actively at work, in almost every
province of the Turkish Empire.
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