the immediate cause of the destruction of the Turkish Empire.

Of the revolt which led to the destruction of this great body, and the policy which led to it, the following striking account is given by Mr Slade:

"Every campaign during the Greek war a body was embarked on board the fleet, and landed in small parties, purposely unsupported, on the theatre of war: none returned, so that only a few thousand remained at Constantinople, when, May 30, 1826, the Sultan issued a hatti scheriff concerning the formation of a new victorious army.' This was a flash of lightning in the eyes of the Janissaries. They saw why their companions did not return from Greece; they saw that the old, hitherto abortive, policy, dormant since eighteen years, was revived; they saw that their existence was threatened; and they resolved to resist, confiding in the prestige of their name. June 15, following, they reversed their soup-kettles, (signal of revolt,) demanded the heads of the ministers, and the revocation of the said firman. But Mahmoud was prepared for them. Husseyin, the aga of the Janissaries, was in his interests, and with him the yamaks, (garrisons of the castles of the Bosphorus,) the Galiondgis, and the Topchis. Collecting, therefore, on the following morning, his forces in the Atmeidan, the sandjack scheriff was displayed, and the ulema seconded him by calling on the people to support their sovereign against the rebels. Still, noways daunted, the Janissaries advanced, and summoned their aga, of whom they had no suspicion, to repeat their demands to the Sultan, threatening, in case of non compliance, to force the seraglio gates. Husseyin, who had acted his part admirably, and with consummate duplicity, brought them to the desired point-open rebellion flattering them with success, now threw aside the mask. He stigmatized them as infidels, and called on them in the name of the prophet, to submit to the Sultan's clemency. At this defection of their trusted fa

vourite chief, their smothered rage burst out;

they rushed to his house, razed it in a moment, did the same by the houses of the other ministers, applied torches, and in half an hour Constantinople streamed with blood beneath the glare of flames. Mahmoud hesitated, and was about to conciliate; but Husseyin repulsed the idea with firmness, knowing that to effect conciliation, his head must be the first offering. Now or never,' he replied to the Sultan, is the time ! Think not that a few heads will appease this sedition, which has been too carefully fomented by me, the wrongs of the Janissaries too closely dwelt on, thy character too blackly stained, thy treachery too minutely dissect

ed,-to be casily laid. Remember that this is the second time that thy arm has been raised against them, and they will not trust thee again. Remember, too, that thou hast now a son, that son not in thy power, whom Now is they will elevate on thy downfall. the time! This evening's sun must set for the last time on them or us. Retire from the city, that thy sacred person may be safe, and leave the rest to me.' Mahmoud consented, and went to Dolma Bachtche, (a palace one mile up the Bosphorus,) to await the result. Husseyin, then free to act without fear of interruption, headed his yamaks, and vigorously attacked the rebels, who, cowardly as they were insolent, offered a feeble resistance, when they found themselves unsupported by the mob, retreated from street to street, and finally took refuge in the Atmeidan. Here their career ended. A masked battery on the hill beyond opened on them, troops enclosed them in, and fire was applied to the wooden buildings. Desperation then gave them the courage that might have saved them at first, and they strove with madness to force a passage from the burning pile; part were consumed, part cut down; a few only got out, among them five colonels, who threw themselves at the aga's feet, and implored grace. They spoke their last.”

Five thousand fell under this grand blow; twenty-five thousand perished throughout the whole empire. The next day a hatti scheriff was read in the mosques, declaring the Janissaries infamous, the order abolished, and the name an anathema.

This great stroke made a prodigious sensation in Europe, and even the best informed were deceived as to its effects on the future prospects of the Ottoman Empire. By many it was compared to the destruction of the Strelitzes by Peter the Great, and the resurrection of Turkey anticipated from the great reform of vigorous measures of the Czar. But Mahmoud, as Moscovy arose from the the cases and the men were totally different. Peter, though a despot, was practically acquainted with his He had voluntarily decountry. scended to the humblest rank, to make himself master of the arts of life. When he had destroyed the Prætorian guards of Moscow, he built up the new military force of the empire, in strict accordance with its national and religious feelings, and the victory of Pultowa was the consequence. But what did Sultan Mahmoud? Having destroyed the

old military force of Turkey, he subjected the new levies which were to replace it to such absurd regulations, and so thoroughly violated the political and religious feelings of the country, that none of the Osmanleys who could possibly avoid it would enter his ranks, and he was obliged to fill them up with mere boys, who had not yet acquired any determinate feelings-a wretched substitute for the old military force of the empire, and which proved totally unequal to the task of facing the veteran troops of Russia. The impolicy of his conduct in destroying and rebuilding, is more clearly evinced by nothing than the contrast it affords to the conduct of Sultan Amurath, in originally forming these guards.

"Strikingly," says Mr Slade," does the conduct of Mahmoud, in forming the new levies, contrast with that of Amurath in the formation of the Janissaries; the measures being parallel, inasmuch as each was a mighty innovation, no less than the establishment of an entire new military force, on the institutions of the country. But Amurath had a master mind. Instead of keeping his new army distinct from the nation, he incorporated it with it, made it conform in all respects to national usages; and the success was soon apparent by its spreading into a vast national guard, of which, in later times, some thousands usurped the permanence of enrolment, in which the remainder, through indolence, acquiesced. Having destroyed these self-constituted battalions, Mahmoud should have made the others available, instead of outlawing them, as it were; and, by respecting their traditionary whims and social rights, he would easily have given his subjects a taste for European discipline. They never objected to it in principle, but their untutored minds could not understand why, in order to use the musket and bayonet, and manœuvre together, it was necessary to leave off wearing beards and turbans."

"But Mahmoud, in his hatred, wished to condemn them to oblivion, to eradicate every token of their pre-existence, not knowing that trampling on a grovelling party is the surest way of giving it fresh spirit; and trampling on the principles of the party in question, was trampling on the principles of the whole nation. In his ideas, the Oriental usages in eating, dressing, &c. were connected with the Janissaries, had been invented by them, and therefore he proscribed them, prescribing new modes. He changed the costume of his court from Asiatic to European; he ordered his soldiers to shave their beards, recommending his courtiers to follow

the same example, and he forbad the turban, —that valued, darling, beautiful head-dress, at once national and religious. His folly therein cannot be sufficiently reprobated: had he reflected that Janissarism was only a

branch grafted on a wide-spreading tree, that it sprung from the Turkish nation, not the Turkish nation from it, he would have seen how impossible was the more than Herculean task he assumed, of suddenly transforming national manners consecrated by cenwould have shrunk. turies, a task from which his prophet The disgust excited by these sumptuary laws may be conceived. Good Mussulmans declared them unholy and scandalous, and the Asiatics, to a man, refused obedience; but as Mahmoud's horizon was confined to his court, he did not know but what his edicts were received with veneration."

"If Mahmoud had stopped at these follies in the exercise of his newly-acquired despotic power, it would have been well. His next step was to increase the duty on all provisions in Constantinople, and in the great provincial cities, to the great discontent of the lower classes, which was expressed by firing the city to such an extent that in the first three months six thousand houses were consumed. The end of October, 1826, was also marked by a general opposition to the new imposts; but repeated executions at length brought the people to their senses, and made them regret the loss of the Janissaries, who had been their protectors as well as tormentors, inasmuch as they had never allowed the price of provisions to be raised. These disturbances exasperated the Sultan. He did not attribute them to the right cause, distress, but to a perverse spirit of Janissarism, a suspicion of harbouring which was death to any one. He farther extended his financial operations by raising the miri (land-tax) all over the empire, and, in ensuing years, by granting monopolies on all articles of commerce to the highest bidder. In consequence, lands, which had produced abundance, in 1830 lay waste. Articles of export, as opium, silk, &c. gave the growers a handsome revenue when they could sell them to the Frank merchants, but at the low prices fixed by the monopolists they lose, and the cultivation languishes. Sultan Mahmoud kills the goose for the eggs. In a word, he adopted in full the policy of Mehemet Ali, which supposed the essence of civilisation and of political science to be contained in the word taxation; and having driven his chariot over the necks of the dere beys, and of the Janissaries, he resolved to tie his subjects to its wheels, and to keep them in dire slavery. Hence a mute struggle began throughout the empire between the Sultan and the Turks, the former trying to reduce the

latter to the condition of the Egyptian fellahs, the latter unwilling to imitate the fellahs in patient submission. The Sultan flatters himself (1830) that he is succeeding, because the taxes he imposed, and the monopolies he has granted, produce him more revenue than he had formerly. The people, although hitherto they have been able to answer the additional demands by opening their hoards, evince a sullen determination not to continue doing so, by seceding gradually from their occupations, and barely existing. The result must be, if the Sultan cannot compel them to work, as the Egyp. tians, under the lashes of task-masters, either a complete stagnation of agriculture and trade, ever at a low ebb in Turkey, or a general rebellion, produced by misery."

The result of these precipitate and monstrous innovations strikingly appeared in the next war with Russia. The Janissaries and dere beys were destroyed the Mussulmans everywhere disgusted; the turban, the national dress-the scymitar, the national weapon, were laid aside in the army; and instead of the fierce and valiant Janissaries wielding that dreaded weapon, there was to be found only in the army boys of sixteen, wearing caps in the European style, and looked upon as little better than heretics by all true believers.

"Instead of the Janissaries," says Mr Slade, "the Sultan reviewed for our amusement, on the plains of Ramis Tchiftlik, his regular troops, which were quartered in and about Constantinople, amounting to about four thousand five hundred foot, and six hundred horse; though, beyond being dressed and armed uniformly, scarcely meriting the name of soldiers. What a sight for Count Orloff, then ambassador extraordinary, filling the streets of Pera with his Cossacks and Circassians! The Count, whom the Sultan often amused with a similar exhibition of his weakness, used to say, in reference to the movements of these suc

cessors of the Janissaries, that the cavalry were employed in holding on, the infantry knew a little, and the artillery galloped about as though belonging to no party. Yet over

such troops do the Russians boast of having gained victories! In no one thing did Sultan Mahmoud make a greater mistake, than in changing the mode of mounting the Turkish cavalry, which before had perfect seats, with perfect command over their horses, and only required a little order to transform the best irregular horse in the world into the best regular horse. But Mahmoud, in all his changes, took the mask for the man, the

rind for the fruit. European cavalry rode flat saddles with long stirrups; therefore he thought it necessary that his cavalry should do the same. European infantry wore tight jackets and close caps; therefore the same. Were this blind adoption of forms only useless, or productive only of physical inconvenience, patience; but it proved a moral evil, creating unbounded disgust. The privation of the turban particularly affected the soldiers; first, on account of the feeling of insecurity about the head with a fez on; secondly, as being opposed to the love of dress which a military life, more than any other, engenders."

"Mahmoud," says the same author, "will learn that in having attacked the customs of his nation,-customs descended to it from Abraham, and respected by Mohammed,— he has directly undermined the divine right of his family, that right being only so considered by custom,-by its harmonizing with all other cherished usages. He will learn, that in having wantonly trampled on the unwritten laws of the land, those traditionary rights which were as universal household gods, he has put arms in the hands of the disaffected, which no rebel has hitherto had. Neither Ali Pasha nor Passwan Oglou could have appealed to the fanaticism of the Turks to oppose the Sultan. Mehemet Ali can and will. Ten years ago, the idea even of another than the house of Othman reigning over Turkey would have been heresy: the question is now openly broached, simply because the house of Othman is separating itself from the nation which raised and supported it. Reason inay change the established habits of an old people; despotism rarely can."

How completely has the event, both in the Russian and Egyptian wars, demonstrated the truth of these principles! In the contest in Asia Minor, Paskewitch hardly encountered any opposition. Rage at the destruction of the Janissaries among their numerous adherents-indignation among the old population, in consequence of the ruin of the dere beys, and the suppression of the in the church, from the anticipated rights of the cities-lukewarmness innovations in its constitution—general dissatisfaction among all classes of Mahometans, in consequence of the change in the national dress and customs, had so completely weakened the feeling of patriotism, and the Sultan's authority, that the ele ments of resistance did not exist. The battles were mere parades-the sieges little more than the summoning of fortresses to surrender. In

Europe, the ruinous effects of the innovations were also painfully apparent. Though the Russians had to cross in a dry and parched season the pathless and waterless plains of Bulgaria; and though, in consequence of the unhealthiness of the climate, and the wretched arrangements of their commissariat, they lost 200,000 men by sickness and famine in the first campaign, yet the Ottomans, though fighting in their own country, and for their hearths, were unable to gain any decisive advantage; and in the next campaign, when they were conducted with more skill, and the possession of Varna gave them the advantage of a seaport for their supplies, the weakness of the Turks was at once apparent. In the battle of the 11th June, the loss of the Turks did not exceed 4000 men, the forces on neither side amounted to 40,000 men, and yet this defeat proved fatal to the empire. Of this battle, our author gives the following characteristic and graphic account:

"In this position, on the west side of the Koulevscha hills, Diebitsch found himself at daylight, June 11th, with thirty-six thousand men and one hundred pieces of cannon. He disposed them so as to deceive the enemy. He posted a division in the valley, its right leaning on the cliff, its left supported by redoubts; the remainder of his troops he drew up behind the hills, so as to be unseen from the ravine; and then, with a wellgrounded hope that not a Turk would escape him, waited the grand vizir, who was advancing up the defile totally unconscious that Diebitsch was in any other place than before Silistria. He had broke up from Pravodi the day before, on the receipt of his despatch from Schumla, and was followed by the Russian garrison, which had been reinforced by a regiment of hussars; but the general commanding it, instead of obeying Diebitsch's orders, and quietly tracking him until the battle should have commenced, harassed his rear. To halt and drive him back to Pravodi caused the

vizir a delay of four hours, without which he would have emerged from the defile the same evening, and have gained Schumla before Diebitsch got into position.

"In the course of the night the vizir was informed that the enemy had taken post between him and Schumla, and threatened his retreat. He might still have avoided the issue of a battle, by making his way transversely across the defiles to the Kamptchik, sacrificing his baggage and cannon; but deem

ing that he had only Roth to deal with, he, as in that case was his duty, prepared to force a passage; and the few troops that he saw drawn up in the valley on gaining the little wood fringing it, in the morning, confirmed his opinion. He counted on success; yet, to make more sure, halted to let his artillery take up a flanking position on the north side of the valley. The circuitous and bad route, however, delaying this manœuvre, he could not restrain the impatience of the delhis. Towards noon, Allah, they repeated it, broke two squares, and Allah her,' they made a splendid charge; amused themselves nearly two hours in carving the Russian infantry, their own infantry, the while, admiring them from the skirts of the wood. Diebitsch, expecting every moment that the vizir would advance to complete the success of his cavalrythereby sealing his own destruction-ordered Count Pahlen, whose division was in the valley, and who demanded reinforcements, to maintain his ground to the last man. The Count obeyed, though suffering cruelly; but the vizir, fortunately, instead of seconding his adversary's intentions, quietly remained on the eminence, enjoying the gallantry of his delhis, and waiting till his artillery should be able to open, when he might descend and claim the victory with

ease.

Another ten minutes would have sufficed to envelope him; but Diebitsch, ignorant of the cause of his backwardness, supposing that he intended amusing him till night, whereby to effect a retreat, and unwilling to lose more displayed his whole force, and opened men, suddenly

a tremendous fire on the astonished Turks. In an instant the rout was general, horse and foot; the latter threw away their arms, and many of the nizam dgeditt were seen clinging to the tails of the delhis' horses as they clambered over the hills. So complete and instantaneous was the flight, that scarcely a prisoner was made. Redschid strove to check the panic by personal valour, but in vain. He was compelled to draw his sabre in self-defence: he fled to the Kamptchik, accompanied by a score of personal retainers, crossed the mountains, and on the fourth day re-entered Schumla.

This eventful battle, fought by the cavalry on one side, and a few thousand infantry on the other, decided the fate of Turkey ;—immense in its consequences compared with the trifling loss sustained, amounting, on the side of the Russians, to three thousand killed and wounded; on that of the Turks, killed, wounded, and prisoners, to about four thousand. Its effect, however, was the same as though the whole Turkish army had been slain."

We have given at large the stri

king account of this battle, because it exhibits in the clearest point of view the extraordinary weakness to which a power was suddenly reduced which once kept all Christendom in awe. Thirty-six thousand men and a hundred pieces of cannon decided the fate of Turkey; and an army of Ottomans forty thousand strong, after sustaining a loss of four thousand men, was literally annihilated. The thing almost exceeds belief. To such a state of weakness had the reforms of Sultan Mahmoud so soon reduced the Ottoman power. Such was the prostration, through innovation, of an empire, which, only twenty years before, had waged a bloody and doubtful war with Russia, and maintained for four campaigns one hundred and fifty thousand men on the Danube.

6. Among the immediate and most powerful causes of the rapid fall of the Ottoman Empire unquestionably must be reckoned the Greek Revolution, and the extraordinary part which Great Britain took in destroy. ing the Turkish navy at Navarino.

On this subject we wish to speak with caution. We have the most heartfelt wish for the triumph of the Crossover the Crescent, and the liberation of the cradle of civilisation from Asiatic bondage. But with every desire for the real welfare of the Greeks, we must be permitted to doubt whether the Revolution was the way to effect it, or the cause of humanity has not been retarded by the premature effort for its independence.

Since the wars of the French Revolution began, the condition and resources of the Greeks have improved in as rapid a progression as those of the Turks have declined. Various causes have contributed to this.

"The islanders," says Mr Slade, "it may be said, have always been independent, and in possession of the coasting trade of the empire. The wars attendant on the French Revolution gave them the carrying trade of the Mediterranean; on the Euxine alone they had above two hundred sail under the Russian flag. Their vessels even navigated as far as England. Mercantile honses were established in the principal ports of the continent of Europe; the only duty on their commerce was five per cent. ad valorem, to the Sultan's custom-houses. The great demand of the English merchants for

Turkish silk, when Italian silk, to which it is superior, was difficult to procure, enriched the Greeks of the interior, who engrossed the entire culture. The continental system obliged us to turn to Turkey for corn, large quantities of which were exported from Macedonia, from Smyrna, and from Tarsus, to the equal profit of the Grecian and Turkish agriculturists. The same system also rendered it incumbent on Germany to culti vate commercial relations with Turkey, to

the great advantage of the Greeks, who were to be seen, in consequence, numerously frequenting the fairs at Leipsic. Colleges were established over Greece and the islands, by leave obtained from Selim III.; principally at Smyrna, Scio, Salonica, Yanina, and Hydra, and the wealthy sent their children to civilized Europe for education, without opposition from the Porte, which did not foresee the mischief that it would thereby gather.

"In short, the position of the Greeks, in 1810, was such as would have been considered visionary twenty years previous, and would, if then offered to them, have been hailed as the completion of their desires. But the general rule, applicable to nations as well as to individuals, that an object, however ardently aspired after, when attained, is chiefly valued as a stepping-stone to higher objects, naturally affected them: the possession of unexpected prosperity and knowledge opened to them further prospects, gave them hopes of realizing golden dreams, of revenging treasured wrongs-shewed them, in a word, the vista of independence."

These causes fostered the Greek Insurrection, which was secretly ornized for years before it broke out in 1821, and was then spread universally and rendered unquenchable by the barbarous murder of the Greek patriarch, and a large propor tion of the clergy at Constantinople, on Easter Day of that year. The result has been, that Greece, after seven years of the ordeal of fire and sword, has obtained its independ ence; and by the destruction of her the means of making any effectual navy at Navarino, Turkey has lost resistance on the Black Sea to Russia. Whether Greece has been benefited by the change, time alone can shew. But it is certain that such have been the distractions, jealousies, and robberies of the Greeks upon each other since that time, that numbers of them have regretted that the dominion of their country has passed from the infidels.

But whatever may be thought on