OFFICIAL INSTRUCTION TO THE GOVERNOR OF THE ISLAND OF CRETE, DATED 2 REBI-UL-EVEL, 1283 (JULY 15, 1866). Your Excellency's despatches, with their enclosures, forwarded through Kadri Bey on his return from an official mission to Crete, have arrived, and his report on the state of affairs, as witnessed by him in that island, has been thoroughly understood. It was hoped and expected that the non-Mussulman inhabitants, who had assembled together in several districts of the province, would have listened to the benignant and paternal exhortations of the Imperial Government; that they would have broken up these assemblies, and, showing obedience and submission to authority, have returned to their own homes. And the reluctance of the Porte up to the present moment to inflict the punishment due to their offences has been based upon this expectation. But it appears, on the contrary, that although these persons have made a show of breaking up their meetings, yet they have not abandoned their religious proceedings; and it is evident that at the present time they are still continuing in the course of excitement and commotion. Now, according to the sense of the petitions which have reached the Porte on the part of these persons, both at the commencement of the affair and subsequently, the object of these assemblies was to obtain the abolition of certain duties on such articles as tobacco, snuff, salt, and stamps; the facilitating of the means of communication in the island; reform in the election of the Medjliss or Demogerondia; the prevention of the evil practice of wearing arms; the formation of schools, hospitals, and such like institutions. But besides all these things, they have got certain ideas into their heads, to which they also now give expression. Now, from first to last, as is most manifest and natural, the principal wish of the Imperial Government is to secure the tranquillity and welfare of all classes of its subjects; and the inhabitants of Crete especially, and in many instances, have been the object of concessions and peculiar favor; above all, in the matter of the property tax ("virgu"), the sheep tax, and such like imposts which are levied in all other parts of the Ottoman dominions, the inhabitants of this island have alone been exempted. And up to the present day the Porte has never entertained the idea of depriving them of this indulgence. But the inhabitants of Crete now put forward a claim for the abolition of taxes which belong to a different category. For, as every one knows, the Porte some years ago, solely with the view of increasing the exports from its dominions, and in order to encourage and facilitate commercial enterprise, agreed to the abolition of the tax of 12 per cent. on exports to foreign countries; and owing to the tax being diminished at the rate of 1 per cent. annually, it will be reduced in the course of a few years to only 1 per cent. for a permanence.