The President has witnessed, with the most lively satisfaction, the effort of several of the Christian Governments of Europe, to suppress or mitigate these horrors, and he has learned with no common gratification their partial success. He is moreover anxious that the active sympathy and generous interposition of the Government of the United States should not be withheld from so benevolent an object, and he has accordingly directed me to instruct you to employ, should the occasion arise, all those good offices and efforts which are compatible with discretion and your official character, to the end that justice and humanity may be extended to these persecuted people, whose cry of distress has reached our shores. I am, sir, Your obedient servant, JOHN FORSYTH. The following letter was addressed to David Porter (1780–1843; the father of Admiral David D. Porter), who was then United States Minister to Turkey: DEPARTMENT OF STATE. Washington, August 17, 1840. DAVID PORTER, ESQ. Sir:――In common with the people of the United States, the President has learned with profound feelings of surprise and pain the atrocious cruelties which have been practiced upon the Jews of Damascus and Rhodes, in consequence of charges extravagant and strikingly similar to those, which, in less enlightened ages, were made pretexts for the persecution and spoliation of these unfortunate people. As the scene of these barbarities are in the Mahomedan dominions, and, as such inhuman practices are not of an infrequent occurrence in the East, the President has directed me to instruct you to do everything in your power with the government of his Imperial Highness, the Sultan, to whom you are accredited, consistent with discretion and your diplomatic character, to prevent or mitigate these horrors,――the bare recital of which has caused a shudder throughout the civilized world; and in an especial manner, to direct your philanthropic efforts against the employment of torture in order to compel the confession of imputed guilt. The President is of the opinion that from no one can such generous endeavors proceed with so much propriety and effect, as from the representative of a friendly power, whose institutions, political and civil, place upon the same footing, the worshippers of God, of every faith and form, acknowledging no distinction between the Mahomedan, the Jew, and the Christian. Should you, in carrying out these instructions, find it necessary or proper to address yourself to any of the Turkish authorities, you will refer to _this distinctive characteristic_ of our government, as investing with a peculiar propriety and right, the interposition of your good offices in behalf of an oppressed and persecuted race, among whose kindred are found