that of any other sovereign who occupied the throne of the Osmanli. His
love of literature, his enlightened mind, his inviolable faith, placed
him in strong contrast with his fellow-sultans; yet his private life
is stained with more than Oriental barbarity. He had children by two
wives, one of whom was the celebrated Roxalana; the elder, Mustapha,
was heir to the throne, and a youth of great promise, but Roxalana was
determined to prefer her own, and to that end stimulated Soliman to
put Mustapha to death. He sent for him to his tent; and as soon as he
entered, caused him to be seized by several mutes, who were in waiting
with a bowstring to strangle him. The young man made a vigorous
resistance, when the father, fearing he might escape, raised his head
above the canvass partition of the tent, and with menacing gestures
threatened the mutes with his vengeance if they did not despatch him.
The unhappy youth caught his father’s eye, and passively submitted to
his fate. He was strangled, and his body thrown on a carpet, to be
exposed in front of the tent. Mustapha had yet another brother, whom
it was necessary to dispose of also. He was a mere boy, and, as his
mother kept him carefully secluded within the walls of her apartments,
the wily Kislar Aga, who was sent to visit her, was obliged to have
recourse to stratagem to separate them. He represented to the mother
that Soliman was tortured with remorse for the death of her eldest son,
and wished to repair his fault by affection for the younger. He was
afraid his health would suffer by confinement, and it was his wish that
he and his mother should take air and exercise; and for this purpose
a horse, splendidly caparisoned, was sent for the boy, and an arrhuba
for herself and her female slaves. The credulous mother was persuaded,
and they set out to visit a beautiful kiosk on the shores of the
Bosphorus. The boy rode on “in merry mood,” with the Kislar Aga, and
she followed in the arrhuba. When arrived at a rough part of the road,
the carriage, which had been previously prepared, broke down, and the
truth instantly flashed upon the wretched mother’s mind; she sprung
out, and rushed after her son, who had by this time entered the kiosk
with his companion. She arrived breathless, and found the door closed;
she beat at it with frantic violence, and when at length it was opened,
the first object that presented itself, was her only remaining son,
lying on the ground, strangled, his limbs yet quivering in his last
agonies, and the Princess of the eunuch yet unloosed from his throat.
The last years of the wretched old man were imbittered by the conduct
of the sons, for whose advancement he had suffered those foul murders
to be committed. His son Bajazet was a rebel to his father’s authority;
and Selim, who succeeded him, was the most weak and wicked of the
Mohammedan line. His noble mosque, and the tombs that contain the ashes
of himself and his wife Roxalana, are shown by the Turks to strangers
as the most splendid monuments left by their sultans.
Selim II. succeeded to the throne in 1566, and was entirely devoted
to the gratification of his appetites. His father was temperate in
wine, and forbade its use under the severest penalties. It is said he
attributed the failure of the attack on Malta to the violation of the
law of Mohammed in this respect, and he caused caldrons of boiling oil
to be kept in the streets, ready to be poured down the throat of any
person, Turk, Jew, or Christian, who was found intoxicated. Selim, as
if in contempt and mockery of his father, indulged in wine to such
excess, that he despatched an expedition to Cyprus, and annexed that
island to the empire, for no other reason but because it produced good
wine. The loss of the sanguinary battle of Lepanto, in his reign, was
another blow following the defeat at Malta, which shook the mighty
fabric of the Turkish empire. Selim died after a reign of eight years
and five months, a rigid observer of all the Prophet’s laws, except
sobriety.
The people of the West had now begun to recover from the terror
which the first eruption of these terrible barbarians into Europe
had excited, and to consider the many commercial advantages to be
derived from an intercourse with them. The French and Venetians, in
the reign of Selim, had already established this intercourse; and
the English were supplied with Oriental produce by the latter, who
sent Argosies, or ships of Ragusa, in the gulf of Venice, to England,
freighted with the wealth of the East. One of these rich vessels was
wrecked on the Goodwin sands, and the Venetians were afraid to send
another. But the English having tasted of Asiatic luxuries, could not
dispense with them; and the enterprising Elizabeth, in whose reign the
accident happened, sent Raleigh and Drake to explore the West, while
Harebone was despatched to open a communication with the East. She
wrote a Latin letter, addressed, _Augustissimo invictissmoq. principi
Sultan Murad Can_; in which she seems not only to prize highly the
incipient reformation in England, but also to recommend herself to the
Turk by a principle common to Islamism, “an unconquerable opposition
to idolatry.” Her letter was well received, and Sir E. Barton was
appointed her first resident ambassador. He accompanied Amurath in his
Hungarian wars, and died on his return to Constantinople. He was buried
in the island of Chalki, and his monument still exists in a Greek
convent there. Hence originated an English residence at Constantinople,
and the establishment of the Levant Company, a body of merchants who,
for 240 years, have caused the name of England to be respected in the
East, among the most honoured nations of Europe.
Amurath III. was distinguished by the extraordinary number of his
children. He had attached himself to a fair Venetian, sold to him
as a slave, and raised her to the dignity of Sultana; but she had
no children, and the Janissaries began to express their discontent.
They accused her of sorcery, and caused her attendants to be put to
the torture, to discover what philtres she had used to entangle the
sultan’s affection. None were discovered, except a good and amiable
disposition. Amurath, however, soon attached himself to so many others,
that he filled the seraglio with 200 of his progeny. He died in the
year 1595, at the age of 50, leaving 48 children alive.
The first care of his successor, Mahomet III. was the usual resort
of Turkish policy. He strangled twenty-four of his brothers−-nor was
he satisfied with this carnage. He escaped an insurrection of the
janissaries, and, suspecting that his favourite Sultana and her son
were concerned in it, he caused them to be sewed up in sacks, and
drowned in the sea of Marmora. He died in 1603, after a reign of 8
years.
Achmet I. also commenced his reign with a measure of Turkish
precaution. He had a brother, and, to render him incapable of reigning,
he caused his eyes to be put out. This horrid process is performed
in various ways−-either by scooping out the eyes; by compressing the
forehead till the balls are forced out of their sockets; by rendering
the lens opaque with boiling vinegar; or, finally, by heating a metal
bason red-hot, the intense glow of which, held to the eye, soon
destroys the sensibility of the optic nerve. This latter is said to
be the least painful, and has been practised by the more humane.
Not satisfied, however, with the operation, and still apprehensive
of the janissaries, he caused his blind brother to be strangled. He
was, notwithstanding, celebrated for his taste and magnificence; and
the mosque, of his erection, and called by his name, is a lasting
memorial of these qualities. He died at the early age of twenty-nine,
in the year 1617. His reign is remarkable for the first introduction
of tobacco into Constantinople, by the Dutch, who then began to trade
there, and brought with them this plant from America. It was at first
strongly opposed by the mufti as a violation of the koran; but the
grand vizir, who became fond of it, ordered it to be served out in
rations to the janissaries, and they soon silenced all opposition.
Amurath IV. ascended the throne in 1524. He took Babylon, and caused
30,000 of its inhabitants to be massacred in cold blood, under his own
eyes. In addition to the usual cruelty, and disregard of human life,
which distinguished other sultans, he adopted a practice peculiarly
his own. It was his custom to issue from the palace at night with
drawn scimitar in his hand, and not return till he had committed some
murder. Another of his favourite amusements was to place himself in a
window with a bow and arrows, and pin to the opposite wall any casual
passenger. Historians represent him as so fond of shedding human blood,
that it seemed to be the aliment on which he lived. His caprice was
equal to his cruelty; he found, or made, cause for displeasure in every
thing, as a pretext to justify him. He sent thirty poor pilgrims to the
galleys, because he did not like their dress. It was his delight to
render those unhappy, whom he hesitated to deprive of life. Whenever an
ill-assorted marriage was likely to cause this, he adopted it. He broke
suitable arrangements, and compelled young girls to marry decrepit old
men, and youths of eighteen to unite themselves with women of eighty.
He indulged freely in the use of wine, but disliked tobacco, and was so
determined that no one else should enjoy it, that he instantly stabbed
with his yategan the man on whom he detected the smell of it. One
instance only of mercy is recorded in the course of his life. A certain
Tiraki was an inveterate smoker, and, to indulge it, he dug a hole in
the ground. Here the sultan stumbled upon him, and proceeded at once
to despatch him; but the smoker bade him observe, that his edict was
issued for the surface of the earth, and was not meant to extend below
it. For the first time, he spared the life of an offender. He died in
1640. Unfortunately for his subjects, he reigned fourteen years.
Mahomet IV. was placed on the throne at the age of nine years, but
the talent of his vizir compensated for his own want of experience.
His reign was distinguished by several remarkable events. The great
island of Crete, or Candia, had hitherto resisted Turkish rule. It
was determined to reduce it, and, after an obstinate resistance of
twenty-four years, it was at length taken by treachery. The Turks
lost 200,000 men; and such were the ravages committed, that this fine
island remained a desert. A second siege of Vienna followed. Tekeli,
the noted Hungarian rebel, had raised the standard of revolt against
his sovereign: to aid his plans, the renegade Christian called in the
assistance of the greatest enemy of his faith; and Mahomet advanced
with an immense army, now certain of realizing the plans of Soliman
the Magnificent, and declaring himself Sultan of all Christendom. But
his projects were arrested in the moment of their accomplishment,
and from a quarter least expected. John Sobiesky advanced from his
deserts with his gallant Poles, and signally defeated the Turks in
two engagements. They were driven from their strong hold in Pest, the
capital of Hungary, of which they had held obstinate possession for
157 years, and retired behind the Danube. Since that time, instead
of being the assailants, pushing on their advances into Europe,
they merely struggle to keep their position in a European soil. To
console himself for his losses, the Sultan, whose disposition seemed
susceptible of other enjoyments besides those of war, became attached
to rural occupations. The Turks have always been distinguished by their
fondness for flowers, and he engaged in the pursuit of cultivating them
with more pleasure than any of his predecessors. To encourage it,
his vizir, Cara Mustapha, collected, in every pashalik of the empire,
whatever was rare and curious in the vegetable world; the seeds, bulbs,
and roots of which were conveyed to Constantinople. Hence, as some
erroneously say, originated[4] that love of flowers which at this day
distinguishes the Turks; and Europe is supplied with its most beautiful
specimens of floriculture by a rude people, whose coarse and brutal
indulgences in other respects, seem incompatible with so elegant an
enjoyment. He shortly after caused his favourite vizir to be strangled,
on the suspicion of intending to master Vienna, in order to establish
a dynasty for himself in Europe. His own death soon followed, by the
hands of the discontented Janissaries, after a reign of thirty-nine
years.
Achmet II. was more distinguished by the talents of his grand vizir,
Kiuprili, than by any act of his own. The father of this man was an
instance of the singular and unexpected fortune for which some are
remarkable in Turkey. He was a Frenchman, born in a village called
Kuperly, in Champaigne, from whence he took his name. He committed a
murder, and was obliged to fly, but the boat in which he escaped was
taken by Algerine pirates. Under this circumstance, whoever assumes
the turban is no longer a slave. He did not hesitate to abjure his
faith, and enrolled himself among the Janissaries at Constantinople,
where he obtained paramount influence in that turbulent corps. His
son was raised to the rank of grand vizir−-governed the great Turkish
empire−-and set up and deposed sovereigns at his pleasure. His
destruction was resolved on by the Kislar Aga, who feigned a plot
in which he was concerned against the sultan,−-while in the act of
revealing it, a mute raised the curtain of the tent. Accustomed to
listen rather by sight than sound, he at once learned the subject
of the conversation by the motion of the lips, and revealed it to
Kiuprili. The Kislar Aga was strangled, his secretary hanged in his
robes of office with his silver pen-case suspended from his girdle, and
Kiuprili remained in the ascendant. As if to mark his hatred of the
religion for which his father had apostatized, he caused two patriarchs
of the Greek church to be strangled in prison. He was killed in battle
in Servia−-the Turks were everywhere defeated−-and his master soon
after died of grief in 1695.
The reign of Mustapha II. was marked by calamities which have never
since ceased to afflict the Turkish empire. Besides the ordinary
inflictions of war, every other seems to have been laid, by the hand
of Providence, on this ruthless nation: Constantinople and Pera were
utterly destroyed by fire−-a bolt of thunder fell on the imperial
mosque, and left it in ruins−-the caravan of pilgrims proceeding to
Mecca was attacked by Arabs, and 25,000 of them put to the sword−-the
turbulent Janissaries, availing themselves of every pretext for
discontent, were again in a state of insurrection, and compelled the
sultan to fly for his life to Adrianople, along with the mufti. Here he
was obliged to surrender the unfortunate head of the church, who was
treated with every indignity, and then thrown into the river, where
he perished. The new mufti, with his son, were seized, tortured, and
executed; and the sultan himself was soon after deposed in 1703, and
his brother Achmet set on his throne. This military revolt was the most
serious that had afflicted the empire since its foundation, and was a
prominent feature of that principle of total disorganization, which
seemed inherent in the political and moral state of this people.
Achmet III. was called to succeed his brother, and his first act was to
avenge himself on the conspirators, who had placed him on the throne
in a truly Turkish manner. He disarmed their suspicions by rewards and
promises, and, having separated them into various situations of trust
and profit, caused every man of them to be strangled in detail.
Notwithstanding the state of insecurity of every thing in Turkey, it
nevertheless became in his reign the asylum of the Christian monarchs
of Europe. Charles XII. of Sweden, and Stanislaus the king of Poland,
whom he had set up, both fled thither for protection: yet, violent and
outrageous as was the conduct of “Macedonia’s madman,” whom the Turks
for folly and obstinacy called “Ironhead,” both kings were treated with
kindness and hospitality. They were followed by their great enemy, the
czar Peter, whose usual sagacity seemed to have deserted him. He was
shut up behind the Pruth by the Turks, and they had now the opportunity
of holding three Christian monarchs in their hands, and dictating what
terms they pleased: but avarice, that ruling passion of the Osmanli,
saved Peter and his army−-Catherine, his wife, who had accompanied him,
brought in the night all her personal jewels, and as much money as she
could collect, to the czar, who immediately sent them to the grand
vizir: he was not able to resist the offer, and the Russian monarch and
his army were allowed to depart in peace.
Another circumstance distinguished the reign of Achmet III., even
still more important than his being the arbiter of the fate of three
Christian kings. The art of printing had now been invented for more
than two hundred and fifty years, and every other state in Europe
had adopted the important discovery. The Turks alone rejected it,
and assigned, as a reason, that it was an impious innovation. They
allowed no book but the Koran; they affirmed that it contained every
thing necessary for man to know, and any other knowledge was worse
than useless. Such was their veneration for this book, that it was
strictly forbidden to sit, or lay any weight, upon a copy of it; and if
a Frank was detected in the act of doing so, even unwittingly and by
accident, he was immediately put to death. This veneration they extend
to paper of any kind, because it is the material of which the sacred
book is composed, and that on which the name of Allah is written; and
hence they strictly prohibit its being desecrated by any common use,
and carefully lay up any fragment of it which they accidentally find.
The process of printing they consider as compressing and defiling a
sacred book, and the mufti denounced it. It was not, then, till the
year 1727, that this innovation was tolerated, and a press established
at Constantinople. Even then it was done in such a way as was attended
with no advantage to an ignorant people. It was still prohibited to
print the Koran, and, as that was almost the only book read in the
empire, little was added to Turkish knowledge. Achmet was soon after
deposed, and the patron of printing deemed unfit to reign.
He was succeeded in 1730 by his nephew Mahomet, the fifth of the name
who had ascended the throne of Turkey, but usually called Mahmoud I. It
was in his reign the celebrated usurper, Thamas Kouli Khan, seized on
the crown of Persia, and war was kindled with the Turks. These nations
comprise the two great sects into which the followers of the Prophet
are divided. The Persians hold in abhorrence Abubekir and Omar, whom
the Turks revere; and they adhere to the doctrines of Ali, whom the
Turks abhor. The latter call themselves _Sunni_, or “the orthodox,”
and have no fellowship or communion with the _Rafazir_ or _Shiites_,
“infidels” or “heretics.” They affirm, that Allah may have mercy on
Jews and Christians, but he will have none on the Persians, whom he
hates sixty and ten times as much as the most inveterate infidels.
The enmity, therefore, between the discordant sects of the faithful
is even greater than between the faithful and the infidel. It was the
enlightened policy of Thamas Kouli Khan to put an end to this bloody
dissention, and reconcile the different shades of opinion among the
professors of the same religion. It was stipulated as an article
in the peace which followed, that their respective priests should
labour assiduously to this end; but, like all such attempts, it was
unavailing, and the enmity is at this day more inveterate than ever.
Mahmoud died in 1754, and was regretted as the least sanguinary of the
Ottoman race.
But the time was now approaching when the dynasty of the Mohammedans
in Europe seemed hastening to its close. The Russians, ever since the
capture of Asoph, on the Mœotis, by Peter the Great, had never ceased
advancing on Constantinople. The Turkish territories on the north of
the Euxine were intersected by vast rivers which fell into that sea;
and the policy of the Russians was, to advance from river to river,
and, at the end of every war, to make the last the boundary of their
territory, and secure for themselves all that lay behind it. In this
way Catherine pushed her frontier to the Dnieper, and built a naval
arsenal at Cherson, thereby establishing a naval supremacy on the Black
Sea; and, that her object might not be ambiguous, she caused to be
inscribed on the western gate, “This is the road to Constantinople.”
Meantime, the Turkish government seemed to contain within itself the
elements of rapid decay. While all Europe was advancing in the arts
and sciences which improve life and strengthen kingdoms, the Turks
alone stood still and refused to move−-their ignorance inveterate,
their obstinacy intractable, their cities falling to ruins, their
population daily decreasing, their internal dissensions growing more
sanguinary, and, above all, the insolence of the Janissaries without
control−-interdicting every improvement, paralyzing every effort,
utterly inefficient as soldiers, and formidable only to their own
government. The first step, therefore, was to establish some force to
restrain these men, that the people might be at liberty to follow other
states in the march of amelioration: and this was now undertaken by the
reigning sovereign.
Selim III. was the most amiable and enlightened man that had yet filled
the throne of the Osmanli. He succeeded his uncle, Abdal Hamed Khan,
whose sons were infants at the time of their father’s death in 1789.
His anxious wish was to correct the prejudices, and enlighten the
ignorance of his subjects, by gradually introducing European usages
among them. His first improvements were military: a corps was formed,
adopting the European discipline, and called the _nizam dgeddit_, or
“new regulation.” Against this innovation the Janissaries revolted:
they spurned with indignation all customs but their own; they thought
their institutions the perfection of human nature, and that any change
must be a degradation. They therefore deposed Selim in 1807, and called
to the throne his cousin, Mustapha IV., the son of Abdul Hamed Khan,
who had now arrived at adult years. Selim, however, by his many good
and amiable qualities, had secured the affections of a large body of
his subjects, who, though they did not accede to his military plans,
were strongly attached to his person: and among these was Mustapha
Bairactar.
This man was a rough soldier, of large stature, and immense bodily
strength, fierce in disposition, and coarse in manners, but susceptible
of the most affectionate attachment. He was called Bairactar because he
had been originally a standard-bearer, and, though now raised to the
command of a large army, with the usual pride of a Turk, still retained
the original name of the humble rank from which he had raised himself.
When he heard that the master he loved was deposed and a prisoner, he
hastened with his army to the seraglio, and demanded admission at the
great gate of the Babu Hummayoun.
Mustapha, who was of a light and frivolous, though cruel character, was
in the habit of amusing himself daily on the Bosphorus; and when he
heard of this insurrection in favour of his deposed cousin, he hastened
to land at the sea-gate of the seraglio. He here motioned to his
attendant eunuch, who ran to obey his orders. Selim was found in his
private apartment, engaged in the performance of the _namaz_, at the
hour of prayer, which he never omitted. In this position he was seized
by the eunuch, who attempted to strangle him. He started up, however,
and made a vigorous resistance; but his murderer, twining round his
legs, seized him in such a way as gave him exquisite pain: he fainted,
and in this senseless state was strangled. Meantime, the Bairactar
thundered at the great gate, and threatened to batter it down, if
the deposed sultan was not produced. He was answered, that his wish
should be immediately complied with. The gate was thrown open, and the
lifeless Selim cast before him: the rough soldier threw himself upon
the body of his gentle master, and wept bitterly.
Another revolution immediately ensued−-the cruel and frivolous Mustapha
was deposed, and the soldiers searched for his brother Mahmoud, who
was known to be in the seraglio, but was no where to be found. It
was at length discovered, that a slave attached to his person had
immediately seized him when the disturbance began, and hurried him to
an oven, where she shut him in, and kept him concealed. From thence he
was taken, and placed on the throne. His first act of Turkish policy,
immutable in ferocity and disregard of human life, was to cause his
brother Mustapha to be strangled; and his next, to cast into the sea
all the females of his brother’s harem, lest any of their children,
even then unborn, should cause a disputed succession.
The present sultan, Mahmoud II., was born in the year 1788; he was
the second son of Abdul Hamed Khan, and is now the only survivor of
fifteen male children. He was placed on the throne on the 28th of July,
1808, and from the moment of his elevation showed symptoms of that
energetic and resolute character which has since distinguished him.
The Russians had advanced from the Pruth to the Danube, and, in the
disorganized state of the Turkish army, there was no force to oppose
them. The young sultan erected the standard of the Prophet at Daud
Pasha, just within the walls of Constantinople; he raised a large army,
and the Russians were compelled to retire without crossing the Balkan
mountains, as all Europe expected; but they left behind them, in the
bosom of the Turkish empire, a more formidable force than their own
arms−-and this was, the discontented Greeks.