Omar Pasha having failed to make any impression, A’ali Pasha, the grand vizier, came out in October, 1867, to try conciliation.  He offered all that the Cretans could desire, short of annexation to Greece,—­an assembly of their own, freedom from taxation for a term of years, a prince of their own election without reserve, and the half of the customs receipts.  I waited on him, as I had on the former envoys of the Sultan, as a matter of etiquette, and was surprised by the just and reasonable tone and substance of his propositions.  They seemed even better for the Cretans than annexation to Greece, and I so represented them to Mr. Morris.  But I received from him the orders of General Ignatieff to urge the Cretans to reject them, as the certain alternative was their independence and annexation to Greece.  I obeyed my orders without concealing my own sentiments in favor of the acceptance of the offers of the grand vizier.

A’ali made on me an impression of honesty and justice such as I had never seen in any Turkish official.  He dissembled none of his difficulties, and discussed the questions arising out of the position without reserve.  For the first time since the affair began I felt my sympathies drawn to the Turkish aspect of the political question involved.  I had long seen that Crete could not be governed from Athens without a course of such preparation as the Ionian Islands had had; they would never submit to prefects from continental Greece; they felt themselves, as they really are, a superior race, superior in intelligence and in courage; but the men from Athens had persuaded them that the only alternative to submission to the Sultan was annexation, and, meanwhile, the ships of Europe were carrying their families to Greece, where they were to remain practically as hostages for the fulfillment of the Greek plans.  The Russian influence was now strengthened by the service rendered in the deportation of the women and children, and the Greek influence by the maintenance of them in Greece.

The offers of A’ali Pasha were rejected without being weighed.  A’ali used no arts; he offered bribes to no one; he showed what the Sultan was ready to offer and guarantee, and listened patiently to all that the consuls or the friends of the Cretans said, but it was too late.  Meanwhile fighting had ceased, for the Turks dared not go into the interior, and the Christians, having neither artillery nor organization, could not attack the fortified posts or the walled cities.  The fighting men in the mountains were provided with food from Greece, and had lost the habits of industry which would have made peace profitable.  Dissensions arose amongst the chiefs, and the best of them went back to Greece to urge the carrying of the war into the continental provinces of Turkey.  The conclusion of the war by the proffered autonomy of Crete was utterly ignored by all who had any influence in bringing about a solution.