great forms of Antichrift, which the Introductory Chapter offered to his confideration, in the following fketch of the nature and effects of the Mahometan fcourge of the East; more especially if he will compare the description of this power, with that which has tyrannized over the Weft, for the fame purposes of trial and punishment, and with the animated picture of Jacobinifm in this Author's address to the Emperor of Ruffia, which I fhall beg leave to fubjoin in a note, though it more properly belongs to the subject of the following Chapter

m

"No

m "You are called on, Sire, to crush with the irresistible weight of your armies the enemies of religion, morality, and focial order. Peace with them will be more dangerous than war. Their doctrines will have freer course; and their doctrines have done more than their armies. They have fubverted the order, and confounded even the names of things. Virtues have the appellations of vices, and vices the appellations of virtues. Can Ruffia, in all its extended provinces, when every foreign contract will be poison: when every breath, except from the frozen ocean, will be full of miafma, efcape the contagion? None will efcape but the elder brethren of Jacobinifm, the Turks, whofe equally monftrous, though lefs dangerous tyranny, has for fo many centuries infulted mankind, trodden under foot the laws of nations, and blafphemed Chriftianity; who, unprovoked, attacked, conquered, and flaughtered nations without number, murdered their fovereigns, and fpilt every drop of royal blood,

maffacred

"No defpotifm was ever more profoundly politic than that, which wielding at once the temporal and spiritual fword, converted fanaticism itself into an inftrument of fovereignty, and united in one perfon the voice and the arm of the Divinity. In Turkey the judicial and facerdotal characters are the fame. The

maffacred their priests at the altar, extirpated nobility, plundered the opulent, and bound the wretched remains of the people in fetters of perpetual and hereditary flavery. They alone, till the reign of Jacobinifm had made property a crime, the violation of property a legal resource of government, and the lives and poffeffions of men the right of tyranny; they alone had hitherto confounded the hereditary ranks among mankind; had depreffed genius, learning, and the Chriftian religion, and governed their barbarous empire by flaves and alfaffins. Like the Jacobins, they taught Christian children to fight against their fathers, and their fathers' God; they too hold it lawful to murder prisoners in cold blood; they too poffefs a claim to every country in the universe, and a facred right to subject all people to their laws; they too hold all other fovereigns as ufurpers, and dethroning them as the highest merit. But ftill the Turks have a religion; and though it permits them numberless enormities to their own fect, and all enormities to others, they acknowledge a God, and many moral duties. Not the contagion of their doctrines was to be feared, but their cruel fword, which once threatened the conqueft of the universe, and the extinction of all virtue, dignity, and science in the world: yet was not this firft monster so tremendous, in the infolence of his power, as an enemy, as is this second monster, in the infolence of his fucceffes, as a brother." Eton, p. 457

chief engine of this hierarchy is the fetva of the Mufti, a fort of manifefto, which, like the bulls of the Roman Pontiff, originating in ecclefiaftical power, has been applied to the most important political purposes. In other countries particular reigns, or epochas, have been marked with actions difgraceful to the human fpecies; but here is a fyftem of wickednefs and abomination, transferred from the origin of the nation to its pofterity to this very day, confirmed by their religion, and approved by thofe who call themselves the Priefts of God "."

"It is fcarcely credible how far the littlenefs of pride is carried by the Porte, in all their tranfactions with the Chriftian Princes. To fupport their faith, and to extend their empire, are the only law of nations which they acknowledge. Their treaties amount only to a temporary remiffion of that implacable enmity, with which their religion infpires them against every thing not Mahometan. They confider the most folemn treaties in the light of a truce, which they are at liberty to break, whenever they can more effectually ferve the cause of Mahomet.

In this they are much affifted by the nature of the Arabic language, which they mix with the Turkish in their public acts, and which, by the various application of its terms, literal and metaphorical, enables them to give whatever interpretation they please to the contract. When they have conquered, they put to death all ages, rank, and fex, except fuch as they make flaves, who are annually obliged to ransom their lives. It has frequently been debated at the Porte, to cut off all the Chriftians in the empire, who will not embrace Mahometanifm; but avarice has in this inftance triumphed over cruelty. Every fpecies of mifery and humiliation attends the Christians, who remain firm to their religion, and every honour and advantage is held out to those who abandon it."

"The effects produced by this monstrous government in the provinces are fhocking to behold. We feek in vain for a population. fufficient to compose those numerous kingdoms and ftates, which flourished when the Turks ufurped their dominion; we find the country literally a defert; we find vaft villages uninhabited, and of many hundreds no traces

⚫ Eton, p. 106,

remain.

remain. The empire in its flourishing state was a vaft camp.

"The Fleet goes annually to collect the tribute from Greece and the islands in the Archipelago. It is then that the miferable Greeks moft feel the weight of the iron fceptre that governs them, and all the infults and oppreffion of the vile fatraps of the Tyrant. When a ship of the fleet arrives in a port, all the people who can, fly to the mountains, or into the country. Others fhut themfelves up in their houses, without daring to ftir out. Every one in the roads and even in the streets are plundered by the foldiers and failors of the fhips; and if they are not cut and wounded with a piftol ball, they esteem themselves happy. The captains and officers raise contributions for themselves, and thus the poor. Greeks pay another tax to the fleet,

P Mr. Eton affirms that the character of the Greeks is much fuperior to what it is usually represented by French writers, in knowledge, ability, fpirit, and manly courage. They bear the Turkish yoke with great impatience, and have long been anxious for affiftance to enable them to ftrike it off. See his account of their negotiations with the late Emprefs of Ruffia, chap. ix. The manifefto of the Greek Patriarch, after the French invaded the Morea, is in fome degree a confirmation of this opinion.