Yet, thus surrounded, and regaled with this animated praise, I was
not content; I wanted a friend. I was alone amidst the innumerable
multitudes of those I had blessed. I knew no cordiality; I could repose
no confidence; I could find no equal. I was like a God, who dispenses
his bounties profusely through twenty climates, but who at the same
time sits, separate, elevated, and alone, in the highest heaven. The
reader may, if he pleases, despise me for the confession; but I felt
that I was not formed for the happiness of a God.
I was not however long sufficiently at leisure, thus to refine upon
the deficiencies of my situation. I had engaged in a task of extreme
delicacy, in which the smallest failure would draw along with it the
most serious consequences. Mine was not an undertaking that had for
its object, to supply those around me with luxuries, or to augment the
stock of their cheerful relaxations and amusements; the very existence
of my beneficiaries depended on its success. I had put myself in a
considerable degree, with whatever diffidence and caution, in the room
of the course of nature, and had taken the administration of the common
benefits of human society into my hands. The populace are ever ready to
construe this delegation in the strictest sense: unqualified to trace
the wheels and combinations of the great machine, if prosperity is
their lot, they willingly ascribe it to their protectors and governors;
and if they are unfortunate, it is against them that the storm of their
resentment is directed. The moment they are thus irritated, their
impatience is too great to admit of correctives and remedies; in the
fury of their disappointment, they disturb every thing, and render that
irreparable and fatal, which was at first only doubtful and unpromising.
My proceedings, as I have already said, bore in the commencement the
most benignant face, and seemed a revival of this despairing and
unfortunate nation little less than miraculous. The regular labours
in which the inhabitants became engaged, restored a healthful tone
to their minds; the payments they duly received seemed to discharge
them from all anxious solicitude; and, as by my own efforts and the
enterprises of others, the market was supplied with provisions, they
had no difficulty in exchanging these payments for the necessaries
of life. The supply of the market at first was easy; the universal
dejection that preceded, though it had not prevented all exertions for
that purpose, had rendered those exertions too feeble for extensive
success. The strenuous efforts that were now made were productive of
a copious supply; but they rendered each importation more difficult
than the importation before. The demand continued the same; the relief
was every day more diminutive and precarious. The harvest was however
advancing with the happiest auspices: and, though some time must yet
be consumed in expectation, it was probable frugality and fortitude
might enable the inhabitants to hold out till the season of plenty
should arrive.
But fortitude is not the virtue of a populace. The higher had been
their hopes, and the more unexpected their deliverance, with so much
the more blank and melancholy a countenance they beheld this unexpected
delay and retrogression. Not understanding the powers by which I acted,
they blindly ascribed to me the faculty of doing whatever I pleased.
As long as every thing went on prosperously, they were grateful; the
moment a reverse occurred, they were inclined to murmur. They made no
allowance for the limited capacities of a human creature: they imputed
whatever was unpleasing to indifference or ill will. The price of
commodities, after having for a while become moderate, now rapidly
rose again: this was partly the consequence of the increased quantity
of the precious metals, by means of which any assignable sum bore
a less proportion to the provisions of the market than it had done
before. Bread was at a very high price; and it occasionally happened
to buyers who did not come early enough, that there was no bread to be
purchased. The doors of the houses where it was sold, were besieged;
the industrious poor appeared before them with the first faint dawn of
the morning’s light. Here they consumed hours of painful expectation,
in grievous addition to the hours of their customary fatigue. The
whole was a scene of anguish and calamity; the passions of those who
composed it, mingled with the distress, and rendered it too heavy to
be borne. Anticipating famine, they felt the mischiefs of it before it
arrived. Never was the demand so urgent; it seemed as if the capacity
of men’s appetites was enlarged, and the cravings of hunger became more
insatiable, in proportion to the smallness of the supply. To people
thus circumstanced, it would have been vain to recommend frugality and
moderation. They devoured the food with their eyes, while it was yet
beyond the reach of their hands; and the lesson you read them, would
have sounded in their ears as if you had bid them die to-day, to escape
the danger of dying to-morrow.
The crowds which the necessity of purchasing bread brought together at
certain hours, when assembled, naturally entered into the discussion
of their present discontents. They were not satisfied with the
discourse and jostling of the morning; the habits produced by these
noisy assemblies had a secret charm with them, and drew them together
at seasons of less urgent demand. They patroled the streets: they
were loud in the expressions of their dissatisfaction. With the
inconsequence incident to the lower orders of mankind, they threatened
to destroy the mills, the markets, the places of sale, the means and
materials by which their wants were to be supplied.
In the midst of these scenes of tumult and confusion, it is not to be
imagined that I escaped uncensured. Far otherwise: in proportion to the
gratitude and adoration with which they had lately regarded me, were
their detestation and abhorrence now. My interference was spoken of
with contempt and execration. For what purpose had I, a foreigner, come
into their country, and intruded myself into their affairs? Why had I
impiously taken them out of the hands of their heavenly Father, whose
care was so constant, and whose relief so certain? It was on my part
a despicable vanity and presumption, which the justice of Providence
could not fail to avenge; and they must now suffer the punishment
of my blasphemy. But they did not stop here. There was no horrible
calumny which they did not invent, or give credit to, against me. They
imputed to me the basest personal motives for what I had done. Under
the hypocritical pretence, they cried, of being their benefactor and
saviour, I was using them only for my private ends. I had become a
purchaser and vender of corn, for the single purpose of increasing my
fortune. The present scarcity, they were well assured, was artificial,
and of my own contriving. I had magazines in different stations on
the borders, which, when the price was risen to the standard of my
avarice, and when half the people had fallen victims to my inhumanity,
I purposed to dispose of to an immense profit.
Such were the aspersions to which my character became generally
exposed. By the populace, who now experienced the unsatisfied cravings
of hunger, and in whom my proceedings had excited hope, only to be
followed by a more cruel disappointment, they were greedily credited.
Many who knew their falsehood, were yet zealous to propagate them.
Short as had been my residence in Hungary, I had made many enemies. It
is to be feared that no man can be assiduous and indefatigable in the
service of others, without incurring that consequence. I employed a
great number of workmen; every one whom for whatever reason I refused
to employ, every one who, being unqualified for the service I required,
looked with an envious eye on the better fortune of his neighbour,
was well disposed to be my enemy. Persons of no contemptible account
in the community had been excited by expectations of profit to engage
in the importation of corn: these persons viewed my efforts in the
same department with a suspicious eye, and regarded a man who, however
cautious in his proceedings, was not regulated by the same motive, as
a most pernicious rival. My sudden elevation and importance in the
country were viewed with not more astonishment than aversion by those
whose importance I obscured. They could not hear with patience of an
upstart, a boy, a stranger, one universally unknown, elbowing out
the influence of all that was most illustrious and venerable in the
community, and robbing them daily of their adherents and retainers. All
these persons left no effort untried to defame my character.
The impulse once given, the turbulent disposition of the populace
became every day more formidable. It is much easier to disseminate
a temper of this sort than to quell it: my opulent foes might take
alarm at its excesses, and desire to undo what they had done; but it
was beyond their power. Every day I feared lest, from threats and
invectives, the populace should proceed to violence: every night I
thought I had reason to congratulate myself, that the day had passed
without waste and spoil committed by them on the means of their
subsistence, or was not marked with the destruction of their champion
and benefactor. In some places a sort of petty sedition broke out
among the labourers I employed: in the morning they refused to work:
why should a man work, they muttered, when after all he may starve
with the wages of his labour in his possession? At night they became
impatient and furious, and demanded from my superintendents and
storehouse-men the food, which in the morning they had refused to earn,
and were therefore now unable to purchase. I had already had some
experience in the nature of popular tumults; I had now no marchese
Filosanto at hand to persuade me of their inefficacy; and, if I had,
I should no longer have lent an ear to his serene and unsuspicious
generosity. I felt the reality of the danger; I saw the storm as it
blackened in my horizon, and was deeply convinced what it would be if
it burst upon my head.
It may be imagined with what feelings I viewed my whole design on the
point to be subverted, by the unruliness of those for whose benefit
it had been planned. It is true I had now no darling relations to be
involved in my fate, no incomparable wife, no daughters illustrious in
innocence and beauty; yet my feelings were scarcely less pungent than
they had been at the period of my catastrophe at Pisa. I had blamed
myself in review, that, in my experiments at Constance, at Dresden,
at Pisa, and at Madrid, I had not commenced upon a sufficiently ample
scale, but had suffered myself to be frustrated by the ingloriousness
of my precautions. That had not been my error in the present instance;
yet my success now promised to be scarcely more flattering than upon
former occasions. I had looked for happiness as the result of the
benevolence and philanthropy I was exerting; I found only anxiety and a
well grounded fear even for my personal safety. Let no man build on the
expected gratitude of those he spends his strength to serve! Let him be
beneficent if he will; but let him not depend for his happiness on the
conviction of his rectitude and virtue that is to be impressed on the
minds of others! There is a principle in the human breast, that easily
induces them to regard every thing that can be done for them, as no
more than their due, and speedily discharges them from the oppressive
consciousness of obligation. There is a levity in the generality of
men, that entails on them a continual oblivion of past benefits, and
makes one recent disappointment of more importance in their eyes than
an eternity of kindnesses and condescension. I shall have other
instances of ingratitude to display in what yet remains to be related
of my story.
My nights were restless; my thoughts were in arms. What was it that it
became me to do in the present emergency? Sometimes, in the bitterness
of my heart, hating myself, hating the endowments of the stranger,
hating a race of beings who denied all credit to the most unheard-of
exertions for their advantage, I determined to withdraw unobserved
from my attendants and clients, and bid adieu to Hungary for ever. But
whither was I to fly? What was I to do next? What experiment could I
make of the purposes to which to apply the philosopher’s stone, that I
had not already made? These questions, to none of which I could give a
satisfactory answer, checked the career of my passion, and gave pause
to my thoughts.
Whatever I did, I was determined to do nothing rashly, nor to quit
a great experiment without its having been fully tried. It was no
light concern, no trivial child’s-play, in which I had embarked. I
had taken the welfare, perhaps the existence, of a great and heroic
nation under my protection. In this glorious vocation it did not
become me to be lightly discouraged. What if those I served and saved
did not show themselves sufficiently sensible to the exertions I made
for them? I ought to purify my bosom, on an occasion like this, from
base and ignoble motives, and to deem myself sufficiently recompensed
by my conscious virtue. What if the service in which I had engaged
now appeared to be a service of hazard and peril? Is there any great
undertaking that can be separated from this condition? If hastily,
from cowardice, from pique, or from any other motive, I deserted the
business on which I had entered, what was to become of my mistaken
indeed, but in that case most unfortunate clients? The greater was the
crisis to which they were exposed, the more were unremitted vigilance
and uncommon powers necessary to guide them amidst its rocks and its
quicksands. I saw thousands of men who for several weeks had fed, as it
were, from the stores of my bounty. By a propensity inseparable from
the human heart, I became attached to the work of my meditations, and
the labour of my thoughts. All their fickleness, their injustice, even
the atrocious calumnies they admitted and propagated against me, could
not wean my attachment from beings, a great portion of whom, but for my
interference, would, I believed, long ere this have expired of hunger.
In the peculiar and urgent circumstances in which I found myself, no
expedient was so obvious as that of calling in the interference of the
government under which I lived. It was necessary that the resources
of national subsistence should be defended from the wanton spoil of
those who, when they were annihilated, must inevitably perish. It was
necessary that the benefactor of Hungary, who, I flattered myself, was
still able to watch effectively for her advantage, should be protected
from her misguided resentment. The alternative was singularly painful
to my feelings. The pride with which my unparalleled endowments
inspired me, was deeply wounded, when I was compelled to confess that
I was not alone equal to the task I had undertaken, and that I must
submit to call in a foreign auxiliary. I augured little favourable from
the interference of government, which, if I implored, I could scarcely
expect to guide, which was not likely to submit to my principle of
rendering its interference the mildest and smallest that the nature of
the case would admit; but, puffed up with presumption, and intoxicated
with authority, would probably leave no concern of the public welfare
uninvaded. Least of all, could I anticipate much of good from a Turkish
government. But what could I do? I could discover no other expedient.
Influenced by the views I have recited, I had hitherto kept myself as
far from the observation of the political directors of the state as
I could. But my cautiousness and reserve were now at an end. With my
eyes open I exposed myself to all the evils that might attend on my
proceeding.
I determined to apply to the bashaw of the province. Previously to my
taking this step, I had the precaution to enquire his character. He
was the genuine offspring of the Turkish system of government. His
name was Muzaffer Bey. He was originally a Circassian slave; then a
Janissary; and, rising by insensible gradation, had at length been
appointed bashaw of Buda, which, as being the immediate frontier
between Austria and the Porte, was at this time the most arduous
situation in the gift of the sultan. He was esteemed a good soldier; he
had been early distinguished by his dexterity in military exercises;
he had since seen much service; and, in every situation in which he
was placed, had earned commendation and honour. He was abstemious and
hardy; for himself, he neither pampered his appetites nor shrunk from
severity; and he had as little indulgence for those under his command
as for his own person. Yet he was indebted for his present eminence
more to the arts of the courtier, than to his merits in the field.
His chief care had ever been to recommend himself to those above him,
and to obtain the good will of his equals; for the opinion of his
inferiors he gave himself little concern. With considerable ability, he
laboured under no check from either principle or ingenuous pride; and
therefore was extremely successful in his attacks on the inclination
of those he sought. The habits of his mind had modified the lines of
his countenance and the tones of his voice. Except to his dependants
and the poor he almost always spoke with a smile upon his face, and
his enunciation was silver-tongued, oily, copious, and insinuating.
If he ever adopted a different manner, the variation was only in the
means not the end; and, when he seemed to travel by an opposite road,
the goal at which he aimed was the same. He never consulted any oracle
but that of his apparent interest; if he had any insolence in his
nature, he regarded his slaves and those under his military command as
affording a sufficient sphere for its exercise; he had no affections to
disturb him from his bent; he had no passions but the self-complacency
of superior cunning, and the sordid love of pelf.
This account of the man with whom I had to deal was far from
encouraging; but I had no alternative. I sent to signify my desire to
confer with him; or, to speak more accurately, to ask, in the Eastern
manner when it would be agreeable to him to receive a present of which
I requested his acceptance. He appointed the morning of the following
day. I prepared a gift, such as might tend to conciliate his favour,
without marking in the donor the possession of immoderate wealth.
It consisted of silks and muslins, with a small piece of plate of
exquisite workmanship. My present was borne by two of my servants.
We were ushered to the bashaw in his private apartment; there were
two or three persons in attendance upon him. They examined my present
together; and, without condescending to express much approbation, I
could nevertheless discern that the bashaw was pleased with it. This
ceremony concluded; Muzaffer ordered what I had brought to be taken
into a different apartment; and, every other person withdrawing, we
were left alone.
While the bashaw was examining my gift, I took the opportunity of
considering his person. He appeared to be about sixty years of age;
his complexion dark and muddy; his features coarse and distorted; his
mustachoes remarkably large; his person, though bony and muscular,
considerably below the middle size; and his figure ungainly and
ungraceful. I felt surprised that such a man should ever have been an
excellent soldier, or have risen from a low rank to one of the first
situations of the empire. To look at him, he seemed better formed for
the vice of a comedy, than the ruler of a nation. He raised his eyes
towards me askance, as he sat leaning on his elbow, and said,
“You call yourself--?”
“The sieur de Chatillon.”
“And your age--?”
“Is two and twenty.”
“I am glad you are come to me. I intended to have sent for you, and you
have saved me the trouble.”
I made many apologies for my intrusion, but added that I had a petition
to prefer, and I hoped he would favour me with a hearing.
“Not at all, not at all; do not call it an intrusion: it is necessary I
should be acquainted with you.” He proceeded:--
“You have undertaken to confer great benefits on the subjects of
the grand signior, my master; to rescue them from famine. Young,
rich, a stranger, unknown to my master, unknown to his subjects, I
understand that you have spared no labour or expense to bring about
their welfare. This is really a very extraordinary case; your merit is
unprecedented; I do not feel myself competent to reward it.”
I answered that I laid no claim to uncommon merit; that every temper
had its particular gratifications; and that I found as real a luxury in
the proceedings he had remarked, as other men did in the excesses of
the table, or the promiscuous enjoyments of the harem.
“It is out of my power,” continued he, “to remunerate you as you
deserve; I must send you to Constantinople.”
I perceived that this was the first essay of his artifice. I informed
him which I have no doubt he knew well enough before, that I had no
desire to go to Constantinople. I wished to remain where I was, and to
finish what I had begun.
“What, you have not done then?” suddenly and with an abrupt voice
exclaimed the bashaw. “By Mahomet, a man of a reasonable appetite in
your place might be satisfied. Have not you filled the streets with
riots, and the country with rebellion? Do not the populace assemble in
crowds, insulting every one they meet, and talking of nothing but fire
and devastation, the bowstring and the cimeter? Be so good, my dear
sir; as to inform me what further you may have in view?”
“Reverend bashaw,” cried I with submission, yet with firmness, “I have
none of these things in view. But a moment ago you did justice to my
intentions. They are those of beneficence, and beneficence only.”
“I know nothing about that. I have nothing to do with honest men’s
blunders; I look to the effects they produce.”
“These effects, most mighty sir, are temporary; they are the clouds
that will often obscure for an instant the brightest sunshine.
Condescend to lend me your generous assistance, and all will be well.”
“Do not tell me of clouds and sunshine. This is, to my thinking, not an
April shower, but an earthquake and a hurricane. If we are all to be
swallowed up or whirled into the air, it is no consolation to me, that
the day after we are gone, every thing shall be as fair and serene as
paradise itself.”
“Remember, sir, that when I came into Hungary, I found its inhabitants
in the most desperate condition, miserable, wasted and starving. Have I
not already suspended this evil for months?”
“Yes, I do remember. You are one of those busy-bodies, who never see an
evil without imagining they are the persons to correct it, intruding
into every thing, and subverting every thing. The superintendence
of the public welfare is a mystery to which none are competent, but
those whom Mahomet has raised to the situation of statesmen. Your
interference is blasphemy against the spirit of our religion, and
deserves to be encountered with the most exemplary punishment.”
“Good God! then, is it in this country a crime to feed the hungry, to
clothe the naked, and shelter the houseless?”
“Sieur de Chatillon,” retorted the bashaw, “you appear to be
unacquainted with the maxims of Turkish policy, the wisest and most
beneficent in the world. If none of the disturbances had happened at
which I have so much reason to be alarmed, still, in relieving the
people in the manner you have done, you have incurred the guilt of
high treason against the sultan. Know, sir, that, through the whole
extent of his dominions, there is but one proprietor, and that is our
illustrious monarch. You say, that you wish to be the benefactor of
his subjects, and the judge of your own proceedings: such sentiments
are direct rebellion against the glorious constitution of Ottoman. The
sovereign of Constantinople will have no benefactor in the countries he
presides over, but himself. Like the invisible ruler of the universe,
he acts by second causes; he allows his ministers to be the instruments
of his beneficence; but all must be ascribed to him, must flow from
his will, and be placed under his control. You, who have formed a
plan of public benefit without consulting him, and have presumed,
like a luminary of the world, to move in an orbit of your own, have
in strictness of construction forfeited your life to his justice; and
I consult rather the clemency of his nature than the maxims of his
policy, if I suffer you to go from this palace with your head upon your
shoulders.”
Without permitting myself to be too much moved by the imperious
language addressed to me, I complained to the bashaw of the rigorous
and arbitrary character of what he stated to be the maxims of the
Turkish government. I solemnly protested that I had no private or
personal object in view. The effect of my operations would be to
give new strength and energy to his master’s dominions. By diffusing
happiness among his subjects, by reviving industry, and scattering
plenty, prosperity, and ease, all disaffection would be rooted out;
and the people, who are never minute in scanning the cause of their
enjoyments, would bless the sceptre under which they were made to
participate such manifold benefits. If the policy of the divan led them
in any degree to interfere, they ought rather to crown my measures with
their applause, than wantonly to throw obstacles in the way of what I
purposed. I asked however no reward, I demanded no favour for myself;
all I desired was that the sultan would assist me in securing to his
people those benefits, the dissemination of which I had so auspiciously
begun.
The bashaw, without taking any direct notice of this expostulation,
answered, that I was not aware of the maxims of his government, to
which, in consideration of my seeming generosity and rectitude, he
was willing to give the mildest interpretation. “It is however,”
continued he, “to the last degree idle in you to imagine, that you
can be permitted to go on unobserved, and that the sultan and his
representatives are to take no account of your proceeding. The great
instrument for ruling mankind is by their passions and their opinions.
The man from whom they believe they have the most to fear and the most
to hope, will always be their master. Whatever be your secret or your
professed designs, you go on from day to day making yourself partisans,
and enlisting the subjects of the sultan among your personal retainers.
What security has he for your submission and loyalty? How shall he know
that, when you have acquired the advantages of a powerful leader, you
will not go over to the enemy, or, in the present distracted condition
of the province, even have the audacity to set up for yourself? If
therefore, by an unexampled clemency of construction, I decline to
reduce you into the passive machine of my master’s will, it is at least
incumbent on me, that I should take account of your powers, and possess
myself of the schedule of your property. By this means only can I
watch your progress, and take care that you do not suddenly become too
powerful for a subject. Are you prepared to satisfy me on this head?”
On this question I hesitated for a moment; I had not exactly
anticipated the enquiry; at length I requested the delay of a few days,
and then I promised that all his demands should be satisfied. The
bashaw resumed:--
“Sieur de Chatillon, I remark your hesitation, and I draw from it
no favourable augury. These indirect and involuntary indications
are more worthy of my attention than all the studied and elaborate
information you shall think proper to give me. Sir, you are a man of
darkness, and every thing that relates to you is enveloped in mystery.
You come hither with no apparent motive; you have no connections of
blood in Hungary; you have no acquaintance with any eminent person
of the Hungarian nation. I have had my spies on you, though I have
not hitherto thought proper to summon you to my presence. You have
purchased no property in the province; I cannot learn that you have
any correspondences or resources from abroad. I have been at the pains
to procure an account of your expenditure during the three months you
have resided among us; much of that expenditure has been obscure,
clandestine, and indirect; but I believe you will find my estimate,
which you are at liberty to inspect and remark upon, tolerably correct.
Your disbursements for three months, exceed the amount of two years’
income of the richest subject that even the credulous monarchs of
Christendom suffer within their dominions. What am I to think of this?
How can I be sufficiently vigilant respecting a man, whose expenditure
is immense, and whose wealth can neither be traced to its source, nor
ascertained in its amount?”
I was not slow in conjecturing the result which the bashaw proposed to
himself from our present conference. I was confirmed in my conjecture
by the circumstance of his choosing that the discussion between us
should be apart from all witnesses. He regarded me as a boy, and had
therefore practised upon me all those arts which might most effectually
excite in me fear and alarm. He found however that, under the external
indications of youth and inexperience, I possessed the wariness that
added years most powerfully inculcate, and the self-possession of a
mind thoroughly awake to its situation and its resources. This must
have been to the minister before whom I stood a memorable phenomenon.
But curiosity is not a Turkish passion; and the single object of the
bashaw in the present instance, was to make the mysteriousness of
my circumstances a pretext for extorting money. I submitted with as
little seeming reluctance as possible to the necessity of the case;
I requested the good offices of Muzaffer to protect my benefactions;
and begged permission to make him the compliment of a handsome sum of
money, by way of convincing him that I was worthy of his friendship.
This business was easily adjusted between us. I found him perfectly
skilled in the duties of a public office, and by no means under the
dominion of visionary scruples. He told me he was now convinced that I
was a well meaning man, and a good subject; he said, that nothing could
tend more effectually to demonstrate my innocence, than my showing
that I understood the duties and concerns of a minister of state; and
that for his own part he was never so happy, as when he was thus able
to reconcile his private interests with the good and faithful service
of his master. There was nothing that demanded a more unremitted
vigilance, or a more skilful management, than such a situation as
his; and it would be most unreasonable, either in the sovereign that
appointed him, or the subjects over whom he was placed, to expect him
to be indifferent to the emoluments and perquisites of his function.
He complimented me warmly upon the disinterestedness and liberality of
my exertions. He thought himself particularly fortunate in having so
public-spirited an individual within the circuit of his jurisdiction.
In fine, he hoped he should be honoured with my personal acquaintance,
and assured me that nothing could make him more happy than the
frequent repetition of my visits.
We now perfectly understood one another; and it was apparent that I had
to do with a man, who, for what he deemed an adequate consideration,
would willingly lend me the authority and countenance of his office,
and suffer me to guide him in any of the functions I might conceive
necessary for the execution of my projects. Guards were agreed to be
placed upon the magazines where corn was still contained, and from
place to place on the banks of the rivers, where the depredations
of a misguided populace were most to be apprehended. Finding the
bashaw so perfectly willing to comply with my requisitions, I further
obtained from him the direction of several squadrons of cavalry
for the protection of the crops, which from the consequences of my
interference now began on all sides to variegate the scene. This was
a most important service. When the corn was first committed to the
earth, it was out of the reach of military devastation. But, as time
glided silently on, the case became materially altered; the enemy might
from forecast desire to reap the harvest of what he had not sown, or
from malice to destroy that without which the Turk would perhaps be
unable to retain his newly acquired territory. This had in reality
been the principal cause, before my arrival in Hungary, of the very
general neglect into which agriculture had fallen. Muzaffer, than whom
no person could now be more polite and condescending, allowed me to
determine the number and nature of the troops I required; and added
that, though he could not openly put them under my direction, the
slightest intimation I might think proper to convey to him, should at
any time decide their march, and regulate their quarters.