Throughout his last year as ambassador, Stratford urged the Turkish leaders to be more serious about the protection of the Christians in the Ottoman Empire: it was the price, he told them, that Turkey had to pay for British and French help in the Crimean War. He was particularly exercised by the continued execution of Muslims for converting to Christianity, despite the Sultan’s promises to secure the Christians from religious persecution and abolish the ‘barbarous practice of putting seceders to death’.
