It is necessary here to recall the fact that Midhat during the Conference sent the patriot Odian Effendi to London to communicate to Lord Derby the occurrence which had recently taken place in his country, and to add that as the Powers had not insisted on the carrying out of the proposals formulated by Russia, which were found to be impracticable in the present condition of Turkey, it was hoped that the Powers would take the new Constitution under their protection, and see to its execution in practice. The following despatch from Lord Derby to Lord Salisbury and Sir H. Elliot shows the result of this step:— _The Earl of Derby to the Marquis of Salisbury and Sir H. Elliot._ “FOREIGN OFFICE, “10_th January_ 1877. “MY LORD AND SIR,—Odian Effendi called upon me this afternoon by appointment, and spoke to me again of the impossibility which his Government felt of accepting the proposals made to them in the Conference. “There might, he said, be concessions on both sides in regard to the reforms, but the question of the guarantees would still remain, and offered insuperable difficulties. “Under these circumstances he was anxious to make a personal suggestion, which he thought might offer a mode of arrangement, and which he understood that Midhat Pasha was ready to adopt. It was that the Constitution recently decreed by the Sultan should be brought to the cognizance of the Powers in a form which should make its execution a matter of international obligation between the Porte and them, and that the organisation of the provincial administrations to be drawn up by the Turkish Ministers should, after receiving the approval of the Powers, be made a portion of the general plan, and embodied in the same agreement. “The whole system of reforms granted by the Sultan to his subjects would thus be placed under the guarantee of the Powers, who would have a right to watch over the manner in which it was carried out. “Odian Effendi wished to know whether this proposal would be favourably received by Her Majesty’s Government, and whether I thought there would be any use in the Porte bringing it forward in the Conference. “I told Odian Effendi in reply that there was a manifest inconvenience in discussing here the questions which at the same time were in process of negotiation at Constantinople. I must therefore refrain from expressing an opinion upon the plan which he had mentioned to me. “If it was to be proposed by the Turkish Government, this must be done by them at Constantinople, and upon their own responsibility.[17] “I am, etc., “(Signed) DERBY.” Hardly had the foreign envoys departed from the capital, and the doors of the great hall at the Admiralty been shut behind them, when the Palace proposed to put the match to the mine that had been carefully laid for the reformers.