of the population: they are generally called Maniotes from the name of one of their districts; but their true name, which they have never lost, is Spartans. They occupy the lofty and sterile mountains between the gulfs of Laconia and Messenia, the representatives of a race driven from the sunny valley of the Eurotas to the bleak and inhospitable tracts of Taygetos, though the plains which are spread out below them are no longer held by a conqueror, and the fertile lands lie uncultivated for the want of labourers. In the islands, there is a singular mixture of Albanians and Greeks. The Albanians of Hydra and Spozzia have long been known as active traders and excellent mariners. The Hydriotes made great sacrifices for the cause of independence in the late war; the Spezziotes, more prudent and calculating, increased their wealth and their merchant navy. The island of Syra, which has long been the centre of an active commerce, now contains the remnant of the population of Ipsara and Chios. The Ipsariots are an active and handsome race, and skilful seamen; the Chiots, following the habits of their ancestors, are fond of staying at home and attending to their shops and mercantile speculations; they amass wealth, but they employ it in founding establishments of public utility, and in the education of their children. In Tinos, the peasants, who are also the proprietors, cultivate the vine and the fig even amid the most barren rocks; in Syra, Santorin, and at Naxos, they are the tenants of a miserable race of nobility, whose origin is traced to the time of the crusades, and who still retain the Latin creed of their ancestors. Besides these, there are various bodies of Suliotes, of people from the heights of Olympus, Candiotes, many Greek families from Asia Minor, Fanariotes, and others, who have emigrated, or been driven by circumstances, within the limits of the new kingdom. The Ipsariots are those who are supposed to have the least intermixture of foreign blood. They have the fine and characteristic Greek physiognomy, as preserved in the marbles of Phidias and other ancient sculptors; they are ingenious, loquacious, lively to excess, active, enterprising, vapouring, and disputatious. The modern Greeks are generally rather above the middle height, and well shaped; they have the face oval, features regular and expressive, eyes large, dark, and animated, eyebrows arched, hair long and dark, and complexions olive-coloured."

THE HISTORY

OF THE

OTTOMAN OR TURKISH EMPIRE.

The Turks are of Tartarian or Scythian extraction; and this appellation was first given them in the middle ages as a proper name; it being a general title of honour to all the nations comprehended under the two principal branches of Tartar and Mongol, who therefore never use it as A proper name of any particular nation. The Scythian, or Tartarian nation, to which the name of Turks has been peculiarly given, dwelt betwixt the Black and Caspian seas, and became first known in the seventh century, when Heraclius, emperor of the East, took them into his service in which they so distinguished themselves, by their fidelity and bravery in

the conquest of Persia, that the Arabian and Saracen caliphs had not only select bodies of them for guards, but their armies were composed of them Thus gradually getting the power into their hands, they set up or dethroned caliphs at pleasure. By this strict union of the Turks with the Saracens or Arabs, the former were brought to embrace the Mahometan religion, so that they are now become intermixed, and have jointly enlarged their conquests; but as the Turks became superior to the Saracens, they subdued them.

The following account has been given of the origin of the Ottoman em pire. Genghis khan at the head of his horse, issued out of Great Tartary and made himself master of a vast tract of land near the Caspian Sea, and even of all Persia and Asia Minor. Incited by his example and success, Shah Solyman, prince of the town of Nera, on the Caspian Sea, in the year 1214, passed Mount Caucasus with fifty thousand men, and penetrated as far as the borders of Syria; and though his career was stopped there by Genghis-khan, yet in the year 1219 he penetrated a second time into Asia Minor, as far as the Euphrates. Othman, his grandson, made himself master of several countries and places in Lesser Asia, belonging to the Grecian empire; and having, in the year 1300, at the city of Carachifer, assumed the title of emperor of the Othmans, called his people after his own name. This prince, among many other towns, took, in the year 1326, Prusa, in Bithynia, now called Bursa, which Orchan, his son and successor, made the seat of his empire. Orchan sent Solyman and Amurath, his two sons, on an expedition into Europe; the former of whom reduced the city of Callipolis, and the latter took Tyrilos. Amurath succeeded his father in the government, in 1360; look Ancyra, Adrianople, and Philipopolis; and, in 1362, overran Servia, and invaded Macedonia and Albania.

Bajazet, his son and successor, was very successful both in Europe and Asia, defeating the Christians near Nicopolis; but, in 1401, he was routed and taken prisoner by Tamerlane. His sons disagreed; but Mahomet I enjoyed the sovereignty, and his son Amurath II. distinguished himself by several important enterprises, and particularly in the year 1444 gained a signal victory over the Hungarians near Varna. The Byzantine empire was already cut off from the west, when Mahomet II., the son of Amurath and his successor, at the age of twenty-six, completed the work of conquest. It is said, that the reading of ancient historians had inspired him with the ambition of equalling Alexander. He soon attacked Constantinople, which was taken May 29, 1453; and the last Paleologus. Constantine XI., buried himself under the ruins of his throne.

Mahomet now built the castle of the Dardanelles, and organized the government of the empire, taking for his model Nushirvan's organization of the Persian empire. In 1456, he subdued the Morea, and in 1461, led Comnenus, emperor of Trebizond, prisoner to Constantinople. Pius II. called in vain upon the nations of Christendom to take up arms.

Mahomet conquered the remainder of Bosnia in 1470, and Epirus in 1465, after the death of Scanderbeg. He took Negropont and Lemnos from the Venetians, Caffa from the Genoese, and, in 1473, obliged the khan of the Crim Tartars, of the family of Genghis-khan, to do him hom age. In 1480, he had already conquered Otranto, in the kingdom of Naples, when he died, in the midst of great projects against Rome and Persia. His grandson, Selim I., who had dethroned and murdered his father, drove back the Persian power to the Euphrates and the Tigris He defeated the Mamelukes, and conquered, in 1517, Egypt, Syria, and Palestine. During fifty years, the arms of the Ottomans, by sea and by land, were the terror of Europe and of Asia, especially under Solyman II. the Magnificent, also called the Lawgiver, who reigned between 1511 and 1666. In 1522, be took Rhodes from the knights of St. John, and, bv

the victory of Mohaez, in 1526, subdued half of Hungary. He exacted a tribute from Moldavia, and was successful against the Persians in Asia, so as to make Bagdad, Mesopotamia, and Georgia subject to him. He was already threatening to overrun Germany, and to plant the standard of Mahomet in the west, when he was checked before the walls of Vienna, in 1529. But as Hungary had placed its king, John Zapolya, under the powerful protection of the padishah, and the successful corsair Barbarossa was master of the Mediterranean, had conquered Northern Africa, and laid waste Minorca, Sicily, Apulia, and Corfu, the sultan Solyman might have conquered Europe, had he known how to give firmness and consistency to his plans. He was resisted at sea by the Venetians, and the Genoese Andrew Doria, by the grand-master Lavaletto in Malta, and by Zriny, under the walls of Zigeth.

Twelve sultans, all of them brave and warlike, and most of them continually victorious, had now, during a period of two centuries and a half, raised the power of the crescent; but the internal strength of the state was yet undevelped. Solyman, indeed, by his laws, completed the organization begun by Mohammed II., and in 1538 united the priestly dignity of the caliphate to the Ottoman porte; but he could not incorporate into a whole the conquered nations. He also imprisoned his successor in the seraglio.

From this time, the race of Osman degenerated, and the power of the porte declined. From Solyman's death, in 1556, to our own time, most of the Ottoman sovereigns have ascended the throne from a prison, and lived in the seraglio until, as it not unfrequently happened, they again exchanged a throne for a prison. Several grand viziers have, at different periods, alone upheld the fallen state, while the nation continued to sink deeper into the grossest ignorance and slavery; and pachas, more rapacious and more arbitrary than the sultan and his divan, ruled in the provinces. In its foreign relations, the porte was the sport of European politicians, and more than once was embroiled by the cabinet of Versailles in a war with Austria and Russia. While all Europe was making progress in the arts of peace and of war, the Ottoman nation and government remained inactive and stationary. Blindly attached to their doctrines of absolute fate, and elated by their former military glory, the Turks looked upon foreigners with contempt, as infidels. Without any settled plan, but incited by hatred and a thirst for conquest, they carried on the war with Persia, Venice, Hungary, and Poland. The revolts of the janizaries and of the governors became dangerous. The suspicions of the despot, however, were generally quieted with the dagger and the bowstring; and the ablest men of the divan were sacrificed to the hatred of the soldiery and of the ulema. The successor to the throne frequently put to death all his brothers; and the people looked with indifference upon the murder of a hated sultan, or the deposition of a weak one.

Mustapha I. was twice dethroned; Osman II. and Ibrahim were strangled, the former in 1622, the latter in 1648. Selim I., indeed, conquered Cyprus in 1571, but in the same year, Don John of Austria defeated the Turkish fleet at Lepanto. A century after, under Mahomet IV., in 1663, Candia was taken, after a resistance of thirteen years; and the vizier Kara Mustapha gave to the Hungarians, who had been oppressed by Austria, their general, Count Tekeli, for a king, in 1682; but, the very next year, he was driven back from Vienna, which he had besieged, and, after the defeat at Mohaez, in 1687, the Ottomans lost most of the strong places in Hungary. The exasperated people threw their sultan into prison; but, in a short time, the grand vizier, Kiuprili Mustapha, restored order and courage, and recalled victory to the Turkish banners; but he was slain in the battle against the Germans near Salankemen, in 1691. At last, the sultan Mustapha II. himself took the field; but he was opposed

by the hero Eugene, the conqueror at Zentha, in 1697; and, on the Don, Peter the Great conquered Azoph. He was obliged, therefore, by the treaty of Carlowitz, in 1699, to renounce his claims upon Transylvania and the country between the Danube and the Theias, to give up the Morea to the Venetians, to restore Podolia and the Ukraine to Poland, and to leave Azoph to the Russians.

Thus commenced the fall of the Ottoman power. A revolt of the janizaries, who, abandoning their ancient rigid discipline, wished to carry on commerce, and live in houses, obliged the sultan to abdicate. His suc cessor, the imbecile and voluptuous Achmet III., saw with indifference the troubles in Hungary, the war of the Spanish succession, and the great northern war. Charles XII., whom he protected after his defeat at Pultowa, finally succeeded in involving him in a war with Peter; but the czar, although surrounded with his whole army, easily obtained the peace of the Pruth, by the surrender of Azoph, in 1711. In 1715, the grand vizier attacked Venice, and took the Morea; but Austria assisted the republic, and Eugene's victories at Peterwardein and Belgrade in 1717, obliged the porte to give up, by the treaty of Passarowitz, in 1718, Tes meswar, Belgrade, with a part of Servia and Wallachia, but still it retained the Morea. Equally unsuccessful were Achmet's arms in Persia; in consequence of which an insurrection broke out, and he was thrown into prison in 1730. In 1736, the Russian general Münmich humbled the pride of the Ottomans; but Austria, the ally of Russia, was not successful, and the French ambassador in Constantinople effected the treaty of Belgrade, by which the porte regained Belgrade, with Servia and Wallachia.

Catherine, empress of Russia, soon after her elevation, began to make it a favourite object in her plan of politics to gain a dictatorial ascendency over the king and diet of Poland. This she effected partly by the intri gues and persuasive bribes of her minister at the court of Warsaw, and partly by marching a powerful army into that kingdom: but as soon as this hostile step was taken, the porte took the alarm, and stimulated by jealousy of its northern rival, resolved to support the liberties and independence of the Poles. These resolutions being formed in the divan of Constantinople, M. Obreskow, the Russian resident there, was, according to the constant practice of the Turks on such occasions, committed a prisoner to the castle of the Seven Towers, (October 5, 1768.) War was declared against the empress of Russia, and the most vigorous preparations were made to collect the whole force of the empire. The court of Russia was far from seeking a rupture with the porte, being fully employed in important objects nearer home; but being unable to prevent a war, two armies, amounting together to one hundred and fifty thousand men, were formed, at the head of the largest of which Prince Gallitzin crossed the Dniester, and entered Moldavia, with a view of becoming master of Choczin; but the prudent measures taken by the Turkish vizier frustrated all his attempts, and obliged him to repass the river. The impatience of the Turks to pursue these advantages, and to transfer the seat of war into Podolia, excited a general disgust at the cautious and circumspect conduct of their leader; in consequence of which he was removed, and Maldovani Ali Pacha, a man precipitate and incautious, appointed in his stead; who, by repeated attempts to cross the Dneister in sight of the Russian army, lost in the short space of a fortnight twenty-four thousand of his best troops; which spread such general discontent through the army, that, renouncing all subordination, the troops retreated tumultu ously towards the Danube, and no less than forty thousand men are said to have abandoned the standard of Mahomet in this precipitate flight The Turkish provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia were overrun by the Russians, and most of the places of strength became easy preys to the

conqueror. The campaign which opened so auspiciously for the Ottomans, by the rashness and folly of their general ended in their disgrace and ruin. The vizier was degraded and banished.

The czarina, who almost from the commencement of her reign had endeavoured to establish an efficient naval force, which, under the super intendence of Sir Charles Knowles, had been successfully effected, now caused a large fleet of Russian men-of-war, commanded by Count Orlow, to proceed from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, to annoy the Turks on their extensive coasts in the Levant. The unskilfulness of the Russians in maritime affairs greatly retarded the progress of their fleet; and it was not unt the spring of 1770, that it arrived at the scene of action, al though many experienced British officers were volunteers in the expedition. The Turks, to whom the sea has ever proved a fatal element, for some time had no force capable of opposing the enemy, so that the Morea was exposed to their ravages, and several places of strength were taken; the Greek inhabitants everywhere joyfully received the invaders; but at length an army of Albanians being collected, they drove the Russians to their ships, and having recovered the whole country, chastised the revolt of its inhabitants by the lawless vengeance of a licentious soldiery. The Russians, now driven from the Morea, had advanced in full force into the Ægean sea, and, passing the straits which divide the island of Scio from the coast of Natolia, were met by a Turkish fleet of superior force. A furious engagement ensued on the 5th of July, in which the Russian admiral Spiritof encountered the capitan pacha, in the Sultana of ninety guns, yard-arm and yard-arm. The two ships running close together, grappled each other. The Russians, by throwing hand grenades, set the enemy's ship on fire, which rapidly spread, and soon reached the Russian ship. This dreadful spectacle suspended the action between the two fleets, until both ships blew up. Only twenty-four Russians were saved, among whom were the admiral, his son, and Count Theodore Orlow; the ship carried ninety brass guns, and had on board a chest containing 500,000 rubles (£112,500 sterling.)

Although each fleet was equally affected by this event, yet it infused a anic among the Turks, which the Russians did not partake of. During he remainder of the day the Turks maintained the action; but on the approach of night, the capitan pacha, contrary to the advice of his officers, gave orders for each ship to cut its cables, and run into a bay on the coast of Natolia, near a small town anciently called Cyssus, but now known by the name of Chisme. Hossein Bey, who had raised himself by his talents for war to be second in command, saved his ship by bravely forcing his way through the enemy's fleet. Here the Russian fleet soon after blocked them up, and began a furious cannonade; which being found ineffectual, a fire ship was sent in at midnight, on the 7th of July, which, by the intrepid behaviour of Lieutenant Dugdale, grappled a Turkish man-of-war. and the wind at that moment being very high, the whole Ottoman fleet was consumed, except one man-Of-war and a few galleys which were towed off by the Russians. The Russians next morning entered the harbour and bombarded the town and a castle that protected it; and a shot happening to blow up the magazine, both were reduced to a heap of rubbish. Thus, through the fatal misconduct of a commander, there was scarce a vestige left, in a few hours, of a town, a castle, and a fine fleet, which had all been in existence the day before. It was somewhat remarkable, that this place was rendered famous by a great victory which the Romans gained there over the fleet of Antiochus, in the year before Christ

191.

The Turkish fleet consisted of fifteen ships of the line, from sixty to ninety guns, besides a number of xebecs and galleys, amounting in tin whole to near thirty sail. The Russians had only ten ships of the line