I have to congratulate the Assembly upon the clear and explicit Declaration obtained by his Royal Highness the Prince Regent from the sultan of the Ottoman Empire, by which the arrangement, placing these Islands for ever under the sole and exclusive protection of my Royal Master, is acknowledged and confirmed; and by which the Ottoman Porte not only withdraws any pretension it might have advanced in regard to these States, under the treaty of the 21st March, 1800, but concedes to every native of these Islands the same safety, protection, and privileges, throughout the wide range of the Turkish dominions, which are granted to British subjects.