And even the spies themselves had other spies set to spy upon them by the all-suspicious ruler. The Sultan’s spies were in every foreign capital—sometimes working with its secret police—to keep an eye upon the exiles and seek evidence to entrap friends of theirs in Turkey who might be in communication with them. And from this great army of spies a flood of denunciations poured into the Palace. The denunciations were well paid for, so the supply never failed, even when the terrorised people avoided any conduct that could be construed into a political offence. _Agents provocateurs_ incited men to acts that would afford ground for accusation. The spies did not hesitate to bear false testimony against the innocent, and, as in the case of Midhat Pasha, the creatures of the Palace, when desirous of ruining some individual, employed wretches to trump up the tale that would condemn him. A friend of mine suffered long imprisonment because the secret police searched his house and there pretended to find compromising papers which they themselves had forged. It is scarcely necessary to add that vile people availed themselves of the system to levy blackmail by threatening denunciation. The denounced were often condemned without any pretence of a legal trial. Many of the best men in the country disappeared from their families never to return, their fate the _oubliette_, or death by the cord, or the traditional dropping into the Bosphorus of a sack containing the victim. Exile or imprisonment for a term of years were the punishments awarded for minor indiscretions—chance words expressing disapproval of the methods of the Palace, or the possession of a foreign paper of liberal views. People were tortured in the Palace to betray their friends and relations. Thousands of families in Turkey have had to mourn members torn away after denunciations by the spies. After the proclamation of the Constitution about seventy thousand exiles returned to Turkey from remote parts of the Empire (the Siberias of Turkey) and from foreign countries, and how many thousands have been put to death or have died in captivity no man can tell.