fent age.

phecy, for the contemplation of the preThe teftimony of this unbiaffed writer is too valuable to be easily abandoned; and I am much deceived, if the Reader will not fee ample confirmation of the fyftem, refpecting the three great forms of Antichrift, which the Introductory Chapter offered to his confideration, in the following sketch of the nature and effects of the Mahometan fcourge of the Eaft; more especially if he will compare the defcription 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 Jacobinim in this Author's address to the Emperor of Ruffia, which I shall beg leave to fubjoin in a note, though it more properly belongs to the fubject of the following Chapter°.

"No

• "You are called on,, Sire, to crush with the irrefiftible 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 courfe; and their doctrines have done more than their armies. They have subverted the order, and confounded even the names of things. Virtues have the appellations of vices, and vices the appellations of vir

tues.

Can Ruffia, in all its extended provinces, when

"No defpotism was ever more profoundly politic than that, which wielding

at

every foreign contact will be poison: when every breath, except from the frozen ocean, will be full of miasma, escape the contagion? None will escape but the elder brethren of Jacobinifm, the Turks, whofe equally monftrous, though lefs dangerous tyranny, has for so many centuries infulted mankind, trodden under foot the laws of nations, and blafphemed Christianity; who, unprovoked, attacked, conquered, and flaughtered nations without number, murdered their fovereigns, and fpilt every drop of royal blood, maffacred their priefts 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 Jacobinism had made property a crime, the violation of property a legal refource 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 affaffins. Like the Jacobins, they taught Christian children to fight against their fathers, and their fathers' God; they too hold it lawful to murder prifoners in cold blood; they too pofsess a claim to every country in the univerfe, and a facred right to fubject 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

at once the temporal and fpiritual 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 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 wickedness and abomination, transferred from the origin of the nation to its posterity to this very day, confirmed by their religion, and approved by thofe who call themselves the Priests of God P."

"It is fcarcely credible, how far the lit

the contagion of their doctrines was to be feared, but their cruel fword, which once threatened the conqueft of the univerfe, and the extinction of all virtue, dig nity, and science in the world; yet was not this first monster so tremendous, in the infolence of his power, as an enemy, as is this fecond monster, in the infolence of his fucceffes, as a brother." Eton, p. 457.

♦ Eton, p. 20, 21.

tlenefs

tleness 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 moft folemn treaties in the light of a truce, which they are at liberty to break, whenever they can more effectually serve 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 sex, except fuch as they make flaves, who are annually obliged to ranfom their lives. It has frequently been debated at the Porte, to cut off all the Christians 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 Chriftians, who remain

VOL. II.

I

main firm to their religion, and every honour and advantage is held out to those who abandon it 9,"

"The effects produced by this monstrous government in the provinces are shocking to behold. We feek in vain for a population fufficient to compose those numerous kingdoms and states, which flourished when the Turks ufurped their dominion: we find the country literally a defert; we find vast villages uninhabited, and of many hundreds no traces remain. The empire in its flourishing state was a vast 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

Eton, p. 106.

* Mr. Eton affirms that the character of the Greeks is much fuperior to what it is ufually represented by French writers, in knowledge, ability, spirit, 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 Ruffiă, chap. ix. The manifefto of the Greek Patriarch, after the French invaded the Morea, is in fome degree a confirmation of this opinion.

3

fceptre