As a result, the Armenians obtained no valid protection, and the Kurds and Circassians continued their raids against these peaceful people. Later, suspicion of Armenian insurrection arose in the mind of Sultan Abdul Hamid. There were a few isolated cases in which insignificant numbers of Armenians, prompted by their compatriots across the frontier in Russia, formed conspiracies against the Turkish Government. But these feeble sparks were extinguished by the Turkish officials on the spot without difficulty. They were made the excuse, however, by the Sultan for a new policy of massacre directed against these unfortunate people. Massacres on a small scale began in 1889. In 1890, when the writer was at Constantinople, he was favoured with an interview by the Sultan, who spoke on the subject of the Armenians, and sent a message to Mr. Gladstone, conveying his most positive assurances that he was animated by none but the most friendly feelings towards these people, and that he was determined to secure to them good government. Such assurances from this quarter were but proofs of malevolent intentions. Certain it is that the tale of official massacres was thenceforth for some years a continuous one. Abdul Hamid appears to have deliberately made up his mind, if not to settle the Armenian question by extermination of the Armenians, once for all, at least to inflict such a lesson on them as would never be forgotten. This policy culminated in 1894. Commissioners were then sent into the country inhabited by Armenians with directions to summon the Moslems of the district to the mosques and to inform them of the Sultan’s wishes and plans. They were to be told that liberty was given to them to take by force the goods of their Armenian neighbours, and if there was any resistance to kill them. It was not an appeal to the fanaticism of the Moslems, but rather to their greed for loot and to their jealousy of their more prosperous neighbours.