Volume 6 Part 21 (2/2)
[Footnote 741: See his nine battles. V. Hammer, p. 339.--M.]
[Footnote 75: The virtues of Ibrahim are praised by a contemporary Greek, (Ducas, c. 25.) His descendants are the sole n.o.bles in Turkey: they content themselves with the administration of his pious foundations, are excused from public offices, and receive two annual visits from the sultan, (Cantemir, p. 76.)]
In these conflicts, the wisest Turks, and indeed the body of the nation, were strongly attached to the unity of the empire; and Romania and Anatolia, so often torn asunder by private ambition, were animated by a strong and invincible tendency of cohesion. Their efforts might have instructed the Christian powers; and had they occupied, with a confederate fleet, the Straits of Gallipoli, the Ottomans, at least in Europe, must have been speedily annihilated. But the schism of the West, and the factions and wars of France and England, diverted the Latins from this generous enterprise: they enjoyed the present respite, without a thought of futurity; and were often tempted by a momentary interest to serve the common enemy of their religion. A colony of Genoese, [76] which had been planted at Phocaea [77] on the Ionian coast, was enriched by the lucrative monopoly of alum; [78] and their tranquillity, under the Turkish empire, was secured by the annual payment of tribute. In the last civil war of the Ottomans, the Genoese governor, Adorno, a bold and ambitious youth, embraced the party of Amurath; and undertook, with seven stout galleys, to transport him from Asia to Europe. The sultan and five hundred guards embarked on board the admiral's s.h.i.+p; which was manned by eight hundred of the bravest Franks. His life and liberty were in their hands; nor can we, without reluctance, applaud the fidelity of Adorno, who, in the midst of the pa.s.sage, knelt before him, and gratefully accepted a discharge of his arrears of tribute. They landed in sight of Mustapha and Gallipoli; two thousand Italians, armed with lances and battle-axes, attended Amurath to the conquest of Adrianople; and this venal service was soon repaid by the ruin of the commerce and colony of Phocaea.
[Footnote 76: See Pachymer, (l. v. c. 29,) Nicephorus Gregoras, (l.
ii. c. 1,) Sherefeddin, (l. v. c. 57,) and Ducas, (c. 25.) The last of these, a curious and careful observer, is ent.i.tled, from his birth and station, to particular credit in all that concerns Ionia and the islands. Among the nations that resorted to New Phocaea, he mentions the English; ('Igglhnoi;) an early evidence of Mediterranean trade.]
[Footnote 77: For the spirit of navigation, and freedom of ancient Phocaea, or rather the Phocaeans, consult the first book of Herodotus, and the Geographical Index of his last and learned French translator, M.
Larcher (tom. vii. p. 299.)]
[Footnote 78: Phocaea is not enumerated by Pliny (Hist. Nat. x.x.xv. 52) among the places productive of alum: he reckons Egypt as the first, and for the second the Isle of Melos, whose alum mines are described by Tournefort, (tom. i. lettre iv.,) a traveller and a naturalist. After the loss of Phocaea, the Genoese, in 1459, found that useful mineral in the Isle of Ischia, (Ismael. Bouillaud, ad Ducam, c. 25.)]
If Timour had generously marched at the request, and to the relief, of the Greek emperor, he might be ent.i.tled to the praise and grat.i.tude of the Christians. [79] But a Mussulman, who carried into Georgia the sword of persecution, and respected the holy warfare of Bajazet, was not disposed to pity or succor the _idolaters_ of Europe. The Tartar followed the impulse of ambition; and the deliverance of Constantinople was the accidental consequence. When Manuel abdicated the government, it was his prayer, rather than his hope, that the ruin of the church and state might be delayed beyond his unhappy days; and after his return from a western pilgrimage, he expected every hour the news of the sad catastrophe. On a sudden, he was astonished and rejoiced by the intelligence of the retreat, the overthrow, and the captivity of the Ottoman. Manuel [80] immediately sailed from Modon in the Morea; ascended the throne of Constantinople, and dismissed his blind compet.i.tor to an easy exile in the Isle of Lesbos. The amba.s.sadors of the son of Bajazet were soon introduced to his presence; but their pride was fallen, their tone was modest: they were awed by the just apprehension, lest the Greeks should open to the Moguls the gates of Europe. Soliman saluted the emperor by the name of father; solicited at his hands the government or gift of Romania; and promised to deserve his favor by inviolable friends.h.i.+p, and the rest.i.tution of Thessalonica, with the most important places along the Strymon, the Propontis, and the Black Sea. The alliance of Soliman exposed the emperor to the enmity and revenge of Mousa: the Turks appeared in arms before the gates of Constantinople; but they were repulsed by sea and land; and unless the city was guarded by some foreign mercenaries, the Greeks must have wondered at their own triumph.
But, instead of prolonging the division of the Ottoman powers, the policy or pa.s.sion of Manuel was tempted to a.s.sist the most formidable of the sons of Bajazet. He concluded a treaty with Mahomet, whose progress was checked by the insuperable barrier of Gallipoli: the sultan and his troops were transported over the Bosphorus; he was hospitably entertained in the capital; and his successful sally was the first step to the conquest of Romania. The ruin was suspended by the prudence and moderation of the conqueror: he faithfully discharged his own obligations and those of Soliman, respected the laws of grat.i.tude and peace; and left the emperor guardian of his two younger sons, in the vain hope of saving them from the jealous cruelty of their brother Amurath. But the execution of his last testament would have offended the national honor and religion; and the divan unanimously p.r.o.nounced, that the royal youths should never be abandoned to the custody and education of a Christian dog. On this refusal, the Byzantine councils were divided; but the age and caution of Manuel yielded to the presumption of his son John; and they unsheathed a dangerous weapon of revenge, by dismissing the true or false Mustapha, who had long been detained as a captive and hostage, and for whose maintenance they received an annual pension of three hundred thousand aspers. [81] At the door of his prison, Mustapha subscribed to every proposal; and the keys of Gallipoli, or rather of Europe, were stipulated as the price of his deliverance. But no sooner was he seated on the throne of Romania, than he dismissed the Greek amba.s.sadors with a smile of contempt, declaring, in a pious tone, that, at the day of judgment, he would rather answer for the violation of an oath, than for the surrender of a Mussulman city into the hands of the infidels. The emperor was at once the enemy of the two rivals; from whom he had sustained, and to whom he had offered, an injury; and the victory of Amurath was followed, in the ensuing spring, by the siege of Constantinople. [82]
[Footnote 79: The writer who has the most abused this fabulous generosity, is our ingenious Sir William Temple, (his Works, vol. iii.
p. 349, 350, octavo edition,) that lover of exotic virtue. After the conquest of Russia, &c., and the pa.s.sage of the Danube, his Tartar hero relieves, visits, admires, and refuses the city of Constantine. His flattering pencil deviates in every line from the truth of history; yet his pleasing fictions are more excusable than the gross errors of Cantemir.]
[Footnote 80: For the reigns of Manuel and John, of Mahomet I. and Amurath II., see the Othman history of Cantemir, (p. 70--95,) and the three Greeks, Chalcondyles, Phranza, and Ducas, who is still superior to his rivals.]
[Footnote 81: The Turkish asper (from the Greek asproV) is, or was, a piece of _white_ or silver money, at present much debased, but which was formerly equivalent to the 54th part, at least, of a Venetian ducat or sequin; and the 300,000 aspers, a princely allowance or royal tribute, may be computed at 2500_l_. sterling, (Leunclav. Pandect. Turc. p.
406--408.) * Note: According to Von Hammer, this calculation is much too low. The asper was a century before the time of which writes, the tenth part of a ducat; for the same tribute which the Byzantine writers state at 300,000 aspers the Ottomans state at 30,000 ducats, about 15000l Note, vol. p.
636.--M.]
[Footnote 82: For the siege of Constantinople in 1422, see the particular and contemporary narrative of John Cana.n.u.s, published by Leo Allatius, at the end of his edition of Acropolita, (p. 188--199.)]
The religious merit of subduing the city of the Caesars attracted from Asia a crowd of volunteers, who aspired to the crown of martyrdom: their military ardor was inflamed by the promise of rich spoils and beautiful females; and the sultan's ambition was consecrated by the presence and prediction of Seid Bechar, a descendant of the prophet, [83] who arrived in the camp, on a mule, with a venerable train of five hundred disciples. But he might blush, if a fanatic could blush, at the failure of his a.s.surances. The strength of the walls resisted an army of two hundred thousand Turks; their a.s.saults were repelled by the sallies of the Greeks and their foreign mercenaries; the old resources of defence were opposed to the new engines of attack; and the enthusiasm of the dervis, who was s.n.a.t.c.hed to heaven in visionary converse with Mahomet, was answered by the credulity of the Christians, who _beheld_ the Virgin Mary, in a violet garment, walking on the rampart and animating their courage. [84] After a siege of two months, Amurath was recalled to Boursa by a domestic revolt, which had been kindled by Greek treachery, and was soon extinguished by the death of a guiltless brother. While he led his Janizaries to new conquests in Europe and Asia, the Byzantine empire was indulged in a servile and precarious respite of thirty years. Manuel sank into the grave; and John Palaeologus was permitted to reign, for an annual tribute of three hundred thousand aspers, and the dereliction of almost all that he held beyond the suburbs of Constantinople.
[Footnote 83: Cantemir, p. 80. Cana.n.u.s, who describes Seid Bechar, without naming him, supposes that the friend of Mahomet a.s.sumed in his amours the privilege of a prophet, and that the fairest of the Greek nuns were promised to the saint and his disciples.]
[Footnote 84: For this miraculous apparition, Cana.n.u.s appeals to the Mussulman saint; but who will bear testimony for Seid Bechar?]
In the establishment and restoration of the Turkish empire, the first merit must doubtless be a.s.signed to the personal qualities of the sultans; since, in human life, the most important scenes will depend on the character of a single actor. By some shades of wisdom and virtue, they may be discriminated from each other; but, except in a single instance, a period of nine reigns, and two hundred and sixty-five years, is occupied, from the elevation of Othman to the death of Soliman, by a rare series of warlike and active princes, who impressed their subjects with obedience and their enemies with terror. Instead of the slothful luxury of the seraglio, the heirs of royalty were educated in the council and the field: from early youth they were intrusted by their fathers with the command of provinces and armies; and this manly inst.i.tution, which was often productive of civil war, must have essentially contributed to the discipline and vigor of the monarchy.
The Ottomans cannot style themselves, like the Arabian caliphs, the descendants or successors of the apostle of G.o.d; and the kindred which they claim with the Tartar khans of the house of Zingis appears to be founded in flattery rather than in truth. [85] Their origin is obscure; but their sacred and indefeasible right, which no time can erase, and no violence can infringe, was soon and unalterably implanted in the minds of their subjects. A weak or vicious sultan may be deposed and strangled; but his inheritance devolves to an infant or an idiot: nor has the most daring rebel presumed to ascend the throne of his lawful sovereign. [86]
[Footnote 85: See Ricaut, (l. i. c. 13.) The Turkish sultans a.s.sume the t.i.tle of khan. Yet Abulghazi is ignorant of his Ottoman cousins.]
[Footnote 86: The third grand vizier of the name of Kiuperli, who was slain at the battle of Salankanen in 1691, (Cantemir, p. 382,) presumed to say that all the successors of Soliman had been fools or tyrants, and that it was time to abolish the race, (Marsigli Stato Militaire, &c., p.
28.) This political heretic was a good Whig, and justified against the French amba.s.sador the revolution of England, (Mignot, Hist. des Ottomans, tom. iii. p. 434.) His presumption condemns the singular exception of continuing offices in the same family.]
While the transient dynasties of Asia have been continually subverted by a crafty vizier in the palace, or a victorious general in the camp, the Ottoman succession has been confirmed by the practice of five centuries, and is now incorporated with the vital principle of the Turkish nation.
To the spirit and const.i.tution of that nation, a strong and singular influence may, however, be ascribed. The primitive subjects of Othman were the four hundred families of wandering Turkmans, who had followed his ancestors from the Oxus to the Sangar; and the plains of Anatolia are still covered with the white and black tents of their rustic brethren. But this original drop was dissolved in the ma.s.s of voluntary and vanquished subjects, who, under the name of Turks, are united by the common ties of religion, language, and manners. In the cities, from Erzeroum to Belgrade, that national appellation is common to all the Moslems, the first and most honorable inhabitants; but they have abandoned, at least in Romania, the villages, and the cultivation of the land, to the Christian peasants. In the vigorous age of the Ottoman government, the Turks were themselves excluded from all civil and military honors; and a servile cla.s.s, an artificial people, was raised by the discipline of education to obey, to conquer, and to command.
[87] From the time of Orchan and the first Amurath, the sultans were persuaded that a government of the sword must be renewed in each generation with new soldiers; and that such soldiers must be sought, not in effeminate Asia, but among the hardy and warlike natives of Europe.
The provinces of Thrace, Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, and Servia, became the perpetual seminary of the Turkish army; and when the royal fifth of the captives was diminished by conquest, an inhuman tax of the fifth child, or of every fifth year, was rigorously levied on the Christian families. At the age of twelve or fourteen years, the most robust youths were torn from their parents; their names were enrolled in a book; and from that moment they were clothed, taught, and maintained, for the public service. According to the promise of their appearance, they were selected for the royal schools of Boursa, Pera, and Adrianople, intrusted to the care of the bashaws, or dispersed in the houses of the Anatolian peasantry. It was the first care of their masters to instruct them in the Turkish language: their bodies were exercised by every labor that could fortify their strength; they learned to wrestle, to leap, to run, to shoot with the bow, and afterwards with the musket; till they were drafted into the chambers and companies of the Janizaries, and severely trained in the military or monastic discipline of the order. The youths most conspicuous for birth, talents, and beauty, were admitted into the inferior cla.s.s of _Agiamoglans_, or the more liberal rank of _Ichoglans_, of whom the former were attached to the palace, and the latter to the person, of the prince. In four successive schools, under the rod of the white eunuchs, the arts of horsemans.h.i.+p and of darting the javelin were their daily exercise, while those of a more studious cast applied themselves to the study of the Koran, and the knowledge of the Arabic and Persian tongues. As they advanced in seniority and merit, they were gradually dismissed to military, civil, and even ecclesiastical employments: the longer their stay, the higher was their expectation; till, at a mature period, they were admitted into the number of the forty agas, who stood before the sultan, and were promoted by his choice to the government of provinces and the first honors of the empire. [88] Such a mode of inst.i.tution was admirably adapted to the form and spirit of a despotic monarchy. The ministers and generals were, in the strictest sense, the slaves of the emperor, to whose bounty they were indebted for their instruction and support. When they left the seraglio, and suffered their beards to grow as the symbol of enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, they found themselves in an important office, without faction or friends.h.i.+p, without parents and without heirs, dependent on the hand which had raised them from the dust, and which, on the slightest displeasure, could break in pieces these statues of gla.s.s, as they were aptly termed by the Turkish proverb. [89] In the slow and painful steps of education, their characters and talents were unfolded to a discerning eye: the _man_, naked and alone, was reduced to the standard of his personal merit; and, if the sovereign had wisdom to choose, he possessed a pure and boundless liberty of choice. The Ottoman candidates were trained by the virtues of abstinence to those of action; by the habits of submission to those of command. A similar spirit was diffused among the troops; and their silence and sobriety, their patience and modesty, have extorted the reluctant praise of their Christian enemies. [90] Nor can the victory appear doubtful, if we compare the discipline and exercise of the Janizaries with the pride of birth, the independence of chivalry, the ignorance of the new levies, the mutinous temper of the veterans, and the vices of intemperance and disorder, which so long contaminated the armies of Europe.
<script>