Regency, and had done everything to promote English interests in his country. He regarded with peculiar pride the high distinction the Queen had conferred on him in sending him the Grand Cross of the Bath, as well as many other assurances of her approbation. The Bey expressed his surprise that his position as a vassal of the Sublime Porte had ever been questioned in Europe. No Bey of Tunis had ever ascended the throne without the Sultan’s investiture, and he himself had received three separate firmans of appointment from Abdul Aziz and his two successors. He pointed out that his jewelled sword and the Order of the Osmanlie in diamonds were the insignia of his rank as Pacha of Tunis. The firman of 1871, about which much has been said, was merely a confirmatory and declaratory act, which was elicited from the Sultan by the accident of one of the Powers calling the _status_ of Tunis in question. The Bey added several details on the subject of the subordinate political position of Tunis, and declared that he and his predecessors had scrupulously carried out every demand of their suzerain, both during the Crimean war, and again in 1878. His principal consolation under the present trial was the unqualified approval of his conduct twice already conveyed to him by telegraph from the Sultan. He alluded to the explicit treaty engagements he had entered into with the Powers, by which he guaranteed equal privileges to all Europeans in his dominions, and said that if he had favoured one nation more than another it was undoubtedly France. Till a very recent period his relations with France had been most cordial, and he had never refused any request made to him by her representative which he could grant with any show of justice. France possessed a railway which crossed his dominions, as well as the sole means of telegraphic communication with Europe. He alluded in the strongest terms to the course pursued by the Havas Agency, which had endeavoured to deceive the world as to the Tunisian question, and to the attacks made on him by the Algerian press, and particularly the _Akhbar_; but in spite of all this, he said he would never ignore the importance of legitimate French interests in the Regency, or abandon the hope of the restoration of his old cordial relations with the French Government, which only very recently had acknowledged his efforts to maintain perfect order on the frontier. He said that M. Roustan had unceasingly pressed on him for thirteen months the acceptance of a French protectorate, and he added with energy, that, apart from his treaties with the great Powers, his political and religious relations with the Sultan would never allow him to accept it, and that nothing could ever change his fixed determination on the subject; although his suzerain alone had spoken, he could never believe that England and Italy were indifferent to his fate. Not only had they both large and important colonies, but they could not ignore the consequence of the complete