It should be noted that, according to a telegram to
Paris —which must have come from the French Consul at Ragusa— Dervish Pasha, before advancing to Dulcigno, issued a pro- clamation ordering the Albanian League to dissolve its organisa- tion, under penalty of death. This order would be no bruit= fulmen, for the Catholic Albanians have already seceded, and without them, the Mahommedan Albanians could not defy the Turks. The order is one more proof that the Sultan had begun to be alarmed at the independence of the League, and at Lord Granville's proposal that the Northern Albanians should receive autonomy, under the nominal suzerainty of the Sultan. This proposal was accepted in principle by the Ambassadors at Con- stantinople, and especially by M. Tissot, after he had applied for and received special instructions from Paris. There could
be no objection to the formation of an Albanian State in the peninsula, to which Mussulmans unable to bear contact with their former subjects could accrete, more especially as the Albanians are not ill-inclined to Greece, feeling the influence of her superior civilisation and her perfect tolerance. The great difficulty would be to arrange the claims of the rival chiefs of clans, who have yet to find their Duke of Montrose.
