# Memoirs of the Twentieth Century/Constantinople, Feb 25, 1997

To the Lord High-Treasurer, &c.
Constantinople, Feb. 25. 1997.
MY LORD,
I CAN never sufficiently thank you for the pleasure I received from your Lordship's of Novemb. 29. from London-Chelsea, and the agreeable accounts you gave me in it, that my little Services here are acceptable to his Majesty and your Lordship; and above all, that the King condescends to entertain himself with the imperfect accounts I am able to send from hence.
Your Presents were most welcome to me, and especially, the glorious Telescope you have honour'd me with, which I shall in a few days set up conveniently enough. The Grand Seignior has already heard of it, and has resolv'd to have it brought into the Seraglio for his entertainment; which I am much rejoic'd at, you may believe, for the reasons I gave you. When he has seen it, I shall write to your Lordship a full account of all passages. Your Carolina White-wine was admirable, and the Silks much applauded here.
​I hardly know which to admire most, your prodigious Prudence, that has so greatly improv'd that drooping Colony in so small a time; or your Goodness, that after so long an absence can continue to remember me in so obliging a manner. But tho' I have less share in it as to any pleasure or expectation of my own, your Lordship's most exact and minute account of all the surprizing improvements made in the politer Arts, and those noble marks his Majesty has given of his zeal for Learning, gave me the highest satisfaction: and I am confident, all who have any regard to what our Country owes him, will never fail to express a due sense of the blessings they receive from him, and to beseech Heaven to continue long to us a Prince, who seems born for the good of his subjects and the world.
I am glad I can now assure his sacred Majesty and your Lordship, that at last the Treaty is perfected in every article, as directed in my last instructions in Mr. Secretary's Cypher. The Grand Seignior order'd the Vizier to sign them last Tuesday, as he accordingly did; and by this safe conveyance I transmit them for your perusal, and doubt not but your Lordship will be pleas'd ​to see our Trade here so happily establish'd, and that no weakness or inability of mine, has been able to disappoint the prudence and wisdom of his Majesty's and your Lordship's Measures.
I have spoke to the Patriarch and several of the Greek Papas or Priests in a body here, and they have assur'd me they will transmit their thanks in a particular Address to his Majesty. Their miserable condition made the mention of Pensions highly welcome; and indeed if some of our learned Clergy and Books could be sent hither, to concert measures with them, it might produce uncommon consequences in favour of our Church, and to the prejudice of the Papal See, who so ridiculously stiles herself Catholick, tho' her dominions are nothing equal to those of this Church in Europe and Asia as to extent, and very little superior as to numbers of people. And now, my Lord, I return with all submission to observe your commands, to make some additions to those imperfect Observations I had the honour to transmit you from hence relating to these people. But while you increase my desire, you almost take away the power of obeying you, by letting me know ​I am writing every word under my royal Master's discerning eye. This over-awes and damps my mind: for alas! what am I able to write, that can be fit to be heard or consider'd by so great a Prince, by so great a Judge as his Majesty? But your Lordship's desires, which are to me in the place of the most absolute commands, oblige me too strongly, to admit of any excuse to disobey them: and therefore as I have already spoke sufficiently on the subjects of their Army, Navy, Trade, and Revenue, and have also touch'd on several new Customs and Laws establish'd among them of late years; I shall go on to take notice of some others, that as yet I have left unmention'd. And the first I shall point to, are several Regulations formerly quite neglected here (which possibly may not be be unuseful to our selves or neighbours hereafter) in relation to the Plague.
Your Lordship, who is so perfectly acquainted with the customs and usages of all Nations, is by no means a stranger to the stupid contempt and indifference which this Court used to shew formerly on this occasion; and though they saw every year so many millions swept away, by the ravage of that epidemical evil, yet so blindly ​were they given up to their prejudices of Predestination, and that every Man's Fate was wrote in his forehead, that they never took the least measures for the common good and safety of their Subjects. But as experience (the fond wife of Wisemen, and the scornful mistress of Fools) has sufficiently convinced them of their error, they have of late issued several Orders relating to this subject, that are not unworthy your Lordship's consideration, if ever the crying Sins and Immorality of our times should call down this severe chastisement on our Country.
I shall not need to take notice to your Lordship, that in all Countries, and especially in Turky, whenever that calamity falls on them, one fifth of the People generally perish, and consequently that this is a vast drawback on the strength of the Empire, and the increase of their Subjects, and therefore that the severest Laws are requisite to remedy so dangerous an evil. As they are fully convinced of this now, they have established such Orders throughout the Empire, as they judged most necessary to prevent the spreading of so fatal a Contagion, and decreed that the most severe ​Quarantines must be observed in all Sea-Ports, whereby it shall be death for any Mariner or Passenger to come ashore, and sufficient rewards established for every person who ingenuously discovers the infection of any Ship, and the heaviest forfeitures in case of concealment. That all Custom-house-Officers shall have the same rewards, who discover any ship to be infected, and forfeiture of place and goods, if they connive at, or conceal such Infection: and that all ships where one fifth part of the crew are sick, shall be judged as infected, and perform the most rigid Quarantine accordingly.
Thus far they strive to shut out the danger by Sea, and at Land they have taken as great precautions, both to prevent its least approach, or, if it appears, to stop its course; and in cafe it spreads, to put all possible bounds to its raging fury. As to the first of these, the late Emperor Achmet ordered that the whole Quarter called the Janisarchi where the Linnen and Woollen Drapers, and the Druggists lived, (and whereby reason of the moist earth near the Sea-shore, and the rotting of the vast heaps of drugs thereby, and the aptness linnen and woollen packs have to retain infectious qua​lities, the Plague generally first broke out) should be removed into different parts of the suburbs, and adjacent villages, in the best air, and only one of those Trades to be assigned to each street. The same order obtains as to all Apothecaries, Brewers, Bakers, Tallow-Candlers, Butchers, Dyers, and such trades, which are apt to infect the air, and injure the health of great Cities, and are therefore obliged to live at a convenient distance from Constantinople: which I wish heartily were observed in every Metropolis in Europe, as well as in London, since I am confident it would make them abundantly more pleasant and healthful. There are Clerks of the Market also settled, who watch carefully that no corrupted or unwholesome meat, fusty corn, or rotten or decayed fruits or roots, be sold to the People, under severe Fines; nay, they are obliged also to destroy and bury those hideous tribes of wild dogs that run about their streets; and have even laid a tax on all houses that keep cats in them (though this last is so great a favourite with the Turks) those creatures being reckoned to contribute much to the spreading, if not to the breeding, infectious distempers. Besides ​these precautions, all common Beggars, Gypsies, and Dervises, who live on alms, are banished this City on pain of Death; their usual nastiness and distempers having justly rendered them suspected: and also all persons are obliged to bury their dead at least seven foot under ground. Nay though they keep publick Scavengers to carry away all filth and nastiness, yet every Housekeeper is to have the street clean swept before his door, and in summer time sprinkled with water to cool the air.
But in the second place, my Lord, if the Infection breaks out, each district has publick Searchers appointed to attend it, who remove all the sick who are necessitous to publick Hospitals, where they are well looked after; and oblige the richer sick to live retired in the remotest part of their houses, under the care of the publick Physicians of that district, who are in sufficient numbers obliged to attend them, at the general charge of the Inhabitants, on pain of the Galleys. All sick houses are marked with black strokes, to the number of the sick in them, and two slaves set to watch them by turns night and day, and to bury all that die, in their yards or gardens ten ​foot deep, with all their clothes and bedding, it being death to sell, or even conceal the least part of such goods, as they used to do.
In each district there are Cadies and publick Officers appointed to examine daily if the publick rules are observ'd both as to Physicians and Apothecaries, Searchers, Watchmen, and the Sick they are to attend; and to order all proper food and provisions for such houses as are shut up, and to oblige all such attendants on the Sick to carry white wands in their hands, that all may avoid them. It is true indeed they are under some difficulties to provide a sufficient number of Physicians for all districts, and the Physicians here are really very ignorant creatures; but then by their frequent experience in this epidemical distemper, and the general rules that are printed and dispers'd among them, every little Quack, Druggist, or Apothecary is able to discharge his duty tolerably in this point, tho' perhaps in no other.
Lastly, my Lord, if the Plague in spite of all this care spreads thro' the City, all publick concourse, even at markets or the mosques, is prohibited, and no person ​allowed to walk the streets without some strong-scented herbs in their hands to smell to, or tobacco in their mouths or noses, and all publick houses are forbid the sale of any thing within doors. No Magistrates whatever are to leave the City, but must assemble once every day, to issue necessary orders, and punish all Offenders without mercy. They are to keep guards of Janisaries in every proper post, and to make vast fires in all great streets and squares, to purify the air, and in a word, to see nothing omitted for the publick benefit.
By these methods, my Lord, it is incredible how many millions of his subjects lives this good Emperor has saved, many of which, if established as laws in Europe, would keep us from those disorders, and panick fears which attend us when this publick judgment visits us for our sins, as it has more than once this last Century. In this view I have troubled your Lordship with this tedious repetition of some of the most considerable of them, which have been practised of late so successfully throughout this Empire.
It is certain, such care is more necessary in this age than ever, when Men and Wo​men are observ'd to grow barren, and to have fewer children than their Ancestors. Whether this proceeds from a detestable proneness to the unnatural Sin, or at least to Whoredom, or from the waste and ravage which Luxury, Voluptuousness, and Debauchery of all kinds have made in our bodies, or the dwindling and decay of Nature, that is wasted and spent with its own labours, or, which is most likely, from all together; I leave to your Lordship to decide, and to the Governors of Nations to provide against: for as their Strength consists in the numbers of their subjects, so their Lives seem to want and deserve more care than usual.
But I shall quit this melancholy topick, to observe some more agreeable regulations which have obtained here, that might be of service to our Country, if introduced among us, either by Laws, or Custom, the strongest of Laws.
And the first I shall take notice of in this light, is one which has contributed to raise this City from its Ruins, and the obscurity of its dark, narrow, and irregular Streets, to the beauty and uniformity which appears in every quarter of it: and that is, that even ​in its smallest streets, and much more in its larger ones and open squares, all houses whether great or small, must be built of one equal heighth and uniform model, as to doors, windows, and cornishes, according to the publick plan, settled by the Grand Seignior's Architect.
By this method the meanest streets are kept so even, straight, and with so regulated a neatness and proportion, for the poorest Citizens and the greatest, and are so properly suited to and matched with the adjoining dwellings, that they make a most pleasing prospect to the eye. I have often reflected, that if this had been settled but fifty years since with us, we should have by this time a very different City, and less of that shocking mixture of good and bad, high and low, old or new-fashioned houses, which deform our streets and squares, and look more like ill-sorted different sized Ships, of all burthens, and built by several Nations, when they lie at anchor in our Harbours, than Houses of the same City and People.
Another method I shall hint to your Lordship, is that of the publick Schools, which are used here of late for instructing ​the youth in wrestling, leaping, vaulting, swimming, riding, shooting, and fencing, which has prov'd of vast use in making them active, strong-limbed, and able-bodied. This is of such infinite service to Mankind in the various accidents of Life, that it were to be wished, we, who have so many schools for the improvements of our Minds, would have some to provide for the service of our bodies; and not leave such matters to chance, or the humour of Children, who seldom mind them or practise them, but with danger or hazard, for want of care and skill to direct them.
The next particular I shall mention, is a Law that obtains here as to houses already built, but extends not to future buildings, whereby all homesteads in every City, Town, or Village, where any house falls down, and continues four years in ruins, are immediately forfeited to the Grand Seignior, and sold at a low price to any Person, who will oblige himself to rebuild it. By this single rule they have kept their Towns from that Desolation which used to lay them waste; and if this were extended in our Country to forfeiture or fine, from the Tenant to the Landlord, and then in seven years to the ​King, it might keep up at least our present Tenements in repair, which are gone to ruin in so many of our Towns, to our great detriment.
I know not whether so abstemious and regular a person as my constitution and course of life have obliged me to be, may venture to mention another Custom which universally prevails here, since the use of Wine has been so general; and that is, that the Jews are entirely possest of the monopoly of Wine in this Country, who are found by experience to sell it and unmixed. This practice they give into out of principle, the Law of Moses strictly forbidding all mixtures; and as they scrupulously adhere to it, and dare not violate it, they are observed to keep it unadulterated, as it comes from the Vineyard. How far this might deserve to be encouraged in Great-Britain, where we consume so much Wine, and so abominably brewed and compounded, by the tricks and imposture of our Merchants; or how far at least, these Brokers of the World, who lie sucking the life-blood of our Trade, might be made useful in this branch of our Commerce, I leave to your Lordship's consideration, who knows so ​well how much the health and lives of the Subjects are concerned in it, as well as the Excise on the consumption.
I have but one thing further to offer to your Lordship, and I shall quit this subject for a while; and that is, the severe Penalties that every one is liable to, who is found in the streets of this City after one a-clock at night. I am very sensible this would be very disagreeahle to a Nation like ours, that glories in the very abuse and excesses of Liberty; but whether the consequences of such a regulation amongst us, by preventing Murders, Robberies, and Debaucheries of all kinds, would not make abundant amends for the restraint, I am more in doubt than possibly your Lordship may be, when you ballance the two Evils together.
I shall take the hint from hence to turn to another subject, and shew your Lordship that though it must be owned that there are some advantages in this absolute Monarchy, which ours, as a limited one, is deprived of; yet they are so trivial and inconsiderable, in comparison of the miseries that accompany it, that they deserve not to be mentioned. Nay, if I might trouble your ​Lordship with my small judgment in Politicks, I am of opinion, that no sensible, not to say no just and generous Man, would rather chuse to govern an Empire of Slaves, as this is, than a Nation of Subjects, as ours, merely upon the principle of ease and safety to himself, and security to his Family.
For tho' Men here are such vassals to powers that, like the Chæroneans in Bœotia of old who worshipped Agamemnon's sceptre, (as made by Vulcan for Jove, and brought from Heaven by Mercury) they make Gods of their Rulers; yet their History shews us how often they have served their Emperors whom they worship, as the poor Heathen did his Idol that he prayed to so long in vain to ease his miseries, that at last in a rage he broke it to pieces.
As on every little ill-success or ill-humour of the People, the heads of the Bassas are made a sacrifice to them, so on all greater misfortunes or misconduct abroad, we see how insolently and violently the rage of the Commonality and Soldiery breaks out against the Emperors themselves. They then depose one and set up another, according as their Passions or Caprice directs them, ​and take a full revenge for their intolerable slavery, by usurping as unjustifiable power to themselves. How often, my Lord, since I have been Ambassador here, have I seen the worst and lowest of the People demand and obtain the heads of the wisest and the best of the Bassas, on false and ill-grounded surmises? and this with such universal fury, that one would think the vengeance of Heaven fell on these Infidels, like Moses's great miracle on Pharaoh, when the dust of the Earth was turned into Lice that swarmed every where, crawling into the Palaces of Kings, and defiling and devouring the Princes of the Land.
It is true indeed, I have sometimes known these terrible Seditions of the People occasioned by real dangers of the State, which, like the Geese in the Capitol, they have saved by their noise and clamours, when those who should have been their best watchmen slept. But they have still been attended by such dreadful consequences to their Governors, as may make their Successors tremble to consider, that the rage of their Subjects, like the authority of their Emperor, is not circumscribed and bound​ed by settled and regular Laws, but their own wills.
A reflection which more or less there is too much ground for in all absolute Monarchies, but especially in this; and must make every wise Man chuse to govern a People, who are bound by Rules they have freely consented to, and have no temptations to break through from their own interest, than to rule over them by an absolute authority, which must ever be precarious, in proportion to the People's temptations and advantages to overturn it.
Besides, though in the hands of a good Prince the People seldom suffer by a Despotical Government; yet his Virtue will be no defence to him, if his Arms prove unsuccessful abroad, or his Administration by unforeseen accidents prove unfortunate at home; neither of which opportunities are often neglected by his opprest Subjects, or lest unrevenged by Civil Wars or Insurrections, which seldom end but in his ruin, or his Ministers.
Whoever looks into the History of this Empire, will be convinced by numberless instances of these truths, and will find in them, arguments sufficient to convince the ​most absolute Princes, that they would be happier in a more limited Government, and make them not only privately debate, like Augustus, how to moderate their tyranny, but publickly set on foot so noble and generous a design. I am persuaded, were the Grand Seignior to travel over, as a private person, the wide depopulated Wastes of his Provinces, and with his own eyes behold the Cruelty, Extortion, Oppression, and Injustice, which, under the cover of his authority, his Governors, Cadies, and Officers, make use of to enrich themselves, and plunder his wretched Subjects; his good-natured and generous temper would be affected in the tenderest manner by it. But while he sits in his Palace or Camp, surrounded by his great Bassas, he must hear with their ears, and see with their eyes, whatever is offered to his consideration; and to propose the least abatement of the misery of his People, would be regarded only as undermining his power, which at present rather wants props to support it.
In all absolute Monarchies where I have been, the inhuman treatment of the subjects has ever struck me in the most shocking manner; and surely, to see Wretches, ​whom the Prince who tyrannises over them, calls his Fellows-creatures, and sometimes his Christian Brethren, us'd with less mercy or humanity than the beasts of the field; must fill every one, who has any bowels of pity in him, with horror. Indeed the lovely climates where Tyranny has generally seated herself in the World, seem to make some amends for the misery of those who groan under the burthen of such severe task-masters. But to behold it destroying the peace and happiness of the Northern Parts of the Globe, is to see upon Earth a lively image of Hell, that is, Woe, Punishments, and Misery in the midst of an uncomfortable gloom and darkness, without the least glympse of hope from the mercy of Heaven, or the smallest relaxation from their own complaints, or the weariness of their cruel tormentors, who must share in the tortures they are made ministers of.
Many people have wonder'd how such Governments finds subjects to live under them, and have generally accounted for it by the love of one's Country, which runs thro' all. But can Debtors love their Goal, or Felons their Dungeon? No certainly, my Lord; and therefore it must be ac​counted for, partly by the care these greedy shepherds take, that as few as possible of the flock they are to fleece stray from them; and partly, from seeing few of their neighbours much easier; and lastly, from their being teather'd up by little domestick ties and relations, and by customs and languages that are used by them, and thought barbarous by others.
I am assur'd, that about fifty years since the Inhabitants of the Isle of Scio found out a middle way (which few I doubt will dare to imitate them in) to put an end to their slavery under the Turks. For having severe new Taxes laid on them, and on being unable to pay them, finding their Wives, and Friends, and Children carried away for Slaves; they all, Men and Women, bound themselves by the severest penalties to make their Commonwealth, as Florus speaks, Res unius ætatis, and to put an end to their Slavery by having no more Children. It is certain they kept up this resolution so many years, that their Masters were glad at last to prevent the utter depopulation of the place, to remove their obstinacy and despair by abolishing the new Gabels. This was certainly a degree of resentment and reso​lution greater than ever was known in former Ages, and infinitely beyond the generous Fury of the people of Saguntum the Roman Colony in Spain. For they only burnt themselves, their Wives, Children, and Wealth, rather than be taken and enslav'd by their Enemies; but these calmly and deliberately persisted in cutting off all their Race, and delivering themselves without violence or rage in a calm, quiet and regular method, from an insupportable Tyranny, which at last they conquer'd by a noble Despair.
But it is time I should take your Lordship from such disagreeable Scenes of the misery of these States, to acquaint you with the happiness of a Commonwealth, which, next to your native Kingdom, you love above all others; and that is, the Commonwealth of Learning. It is with the highest pleasure I send you two of the noblest Manuscripts which possibly the Spoils of the East or Western World could furnish me with, and which our Royal Master's generous allowance for searching out and buying up all choice Manuscripts throughout this Empire, has enabled me to lay now at his feet, through your Lordship's hands. ​They are both in Arabick, and as far as I can judge with my little skill in that language, wrote in a good style, tho' probably in the tenth Century. They are perfect and tolerably well preserv'd, though such Treasures deserv'd infinitely greater care. The first and smallest is a Translation of several of Cicero's Tusculan Questions, which we have already; and those two invaluable Books of his De Gloria, the original of which was preserv'd, as Paulus Manutius and several Authors tell us, till the sixteenth Century, in the Library of Bernard Justiniani; and probably stolen from thence by Alcyonius the Physician, who is said to have destroy'd them, and inserted a great many passages out of them in his Treatise De Exilio. If I had the good fortune to have Alcyonius's Work here, I could soon inform your Lordship if the Physician was indeed the Plagiary he was suspected to be: but as I want that Treatise, I must leave that disquisition to your Lordship's care.
Besides this, there is at the end of the Manuscript a Treatise of his De Vita beata, that seems admirable in its kind, but 'tis imperfect. I should regret this as a great loss, if the joy of recovering the rest allow'd ​me; where tho' his admirable Style is still wanting, yet his manner of handling these noble Subjects, and the Reasonings and Images he adorns them with, is still preserv'd, and now happily restor'd to us.
But I hasten to the other larger and in my poor judgment a more desirable Treasure; which is a fine Arabick Translation, by one who calls himself Abumepha Nezan Ali, of that noble Historian Trogus Pompeius, who writ the History of the World in forty-four Books, in so elegant and admirable a style and manner, under Augustus. Your Lordship well knows, that this admirable Work was mangled and epitomis'd by Justin, and how that wretched Abbreviation occasion'd the loss of his noble performance; like Pharaoh's lean kine devouring the fat and well-favour'd ones of their own sort. The Translation seems well perform'd, and has some good Notes added to it, and seems to have been wrote in the ninth, or at least in the beginning of the following Century, by the hand and style, which answers that Age. I have look'd over it carefully, with what little judgment I have in such things, and cannot without indignation observe what Treasures of An​tiquity and History, as well as Geography; and what material Passages and Actions, untouch'd by all other Writers but the learned and judicious Trogus, his poor and unskilful Abbreviator has ignorantly and carelessly pass'd over unmention'd. This excellent and admirable Person, to whom History and the learned World were so much indebted (tho' they so ill repaid the debt, by suffering him to perish) was, as he tells us in his forty-fourth Book, a noble Roman, originally descended of the Vocontii in the Narbon Gaul, and whose Grandfather of the same name was declar'd a Roman Citizen by Pompey the Great in the Sertorian War. His Uncle commanded a Squadron of Horse in the War against Mithridates under the same General, and his Father serv'd under Caius Julius Cæsar, both as a Commander and his chief Secretary of State and War. Judge, my Lord, with what transport of heart I send you this incomparable Author, to be restored by you and our Royal Master's cares to the Commonwealth of Learning, which has too long mourn'd for his loss.
I beseech your giving the strictest orders to some able hand, to have him translated ​into an excellent Latin Style; tho' it will be impossible to equal that of his own inimitable Elegance, which we have lost for ever.
I must in justice to the care and judicious conduct of Mr. West, who carries this and them, acknowledge, that 'tis to his industrious and unwearied labours, next to his Majesty's bounty, that we are indebted for the recovery of this invaluable Jewel. He found it, and the Tracts of Cicero, cover'd with dust and moldiness in the Armenian Monastery at Etchmeasin near Rivan in Persia: and on this and many other accounts I zealously recommend him to your Lordship's favour.
He assures me, Mr. Pearson is still in that Country on the same account; and gives me hopes we may yet be able to retrieve some other valuable Authors, among the old Arabick and Persian Manuscripts that lie dispers'd in the neglected Libraries of many Monasteries there, and in the Eastern Countries.
Will your Lordship forgive me, if I encrease the length of this tedious dispatch, by accompanying these ancient rarities with a modern one, that was perfectly so to me, ​tho' I have so long resided here, and which I met the other day at a Cady's house in Pera, where I went on some business.
It was a Man of the famous African Sect of Mahometans that are called Bumicilli, of whom I had heard so much from common report, and the Writings of Travellers, without ever meeting one of them before. They set up for a very religious sort of people, who have a knowledge of, and conversation with aerial Beings, and are engag'd in perpetual war with the Devils, who are still ranging about the Earth and the Air, in order to tempt and hurt Mankind by all the arts and methods they can contrive.
However, it is certain these Gentlemen of the Bumicilli Sect are at bottom but a sort of vagrant thieves, who go round this vast Empire under this pretence, and either beg or steal all the pence they can from the deluded people. I am assur'd they have by these means greatly enrich'd themselves, and their Society; who have by such collections thus gather'd, founded great Convents, and got large Possessions, to enable them to continue their constant wars with all wicked Spirits with vigour and success.
​Methinks, my Lord, one may see here, with half an eye, a perfect picture of that illustrious religious Society, who owe their rise to the holy Loyola, and who profess all kinds of labour and toil, both as Exorcists, to drive out evil Spirits, and to extirpate imaginary Heresies and Hereticks, and defeat all such emissaries of the Devil, who distract their infallible Church.
I saw this Creature from my window in the street, laying manfully about him with all his might, (for he was a tall strong black fellow) and beating the air like a Bedlamite, with a long Pike he brandished about his head, and frequently push'd most furiously with; traversing his ground, now running forwards and shouting, and then giving back, and appearing sorely hurt; and anon, recovering himself, and seeming to fall anew on his foes. The people of the house told me he was a most holy Man, and had defeated all the Devils in that neighbourhood so fortunately, that they liv'd much happier and holier than formerly; and that it had cost them very little money for so great advantages. I found my self obliged to give them a paient hearing; and especially seeing all the teople ​ in the street seem'd to be of their mind, by the zeal and joy they shewed whenever their heroick Combatant appear'd to get the better of the imaginary and invisible Devil he was engag'd with: for I need not assure your Lordship, that whether he apprehended being oppress'd with numbers, or having foul play shewn him, or other reasons best known to himself, the Devil was so cowardly as never once to let himself be seen by us, who were gazing on this furious engagement.
After I had look'd on this fine battle, with equal amazement and delight, near a quarter of an hour by my watch, I saw our Warriour, to the great concern and trouble of all his religious Spectators, fall down on the earth as in a swoon. There he lay a long time, and the Cady, in whose house I was, being a very zealous and sincere Mussulman, ran out into the Street, with tears in his eyes, and with all the concern and care imaginable had him brought in. He made him be laid gently on a Sofa in the room where I was, and had two or three Slaves, sometimes throwing cold water on his face, and sometimes rubbing his limbs, and endeavouring to bring him to life.
​As sensible as I was that it would displease, I could not help asking the Cady in the ear, if it was possible he could think all this any thing but a meer cheat to get money from them; and indeed all the people before our faces (as the custom is on these occasions) had put money into the Combatant's bag which hung at his back. Notwithstanding all this, he lift up his hands and eyes at my infidelity, reproach'd me with our credulity as to miracles in Europe, and our false Church, tho' we would believe none in the true one; and to convince me of my mistake, and open my blind eyes (for so he call'd them with some fury) he made the slaves pull off the wretch's clothes, and shew me the black-and-blue marks he had receiv'd in the combat, and which appear'd plentifully all over his arms, ba k, and sides.
The truth is, tho' I well knew, and had been told, that their way is to make such marks by cords, and actual blows they give themselves in the night-time, in order to impose on the croud; yet finding the good Cady so violent, I was oblig'd to seem amazed and convinc'd, and to give my assent to a number of stories they told me of the ​battles this holy Man had fought with unparallel'd success with a great many Devils, to the peace and comfort of all true Mussulmen in those parts. I was even under a necessity to applaud his courage and sanctity as the rest did; and at last, when they had recover'd their Warriour out of his counterfeit swoon, I very humbly sat down, and eat and drank with him and the Cady, listning attentively to his accounts of his long warfare with different Dæmons, and to shew my firm faith in all he related, and entirely appease the Cady, I gave him a Zequin for his further encouragement in so useful a method of serving his Prophet, and the good Mussulmen in Turkey.
Was this a wonderful scene or no, my Lord? and is there not matter here for fine reflections? However, my Lord, I shall cut them short, having so long trespass'd on your patience already, and shall leave you to make your own remarks on the wretched impostures, and the silly credulity of that noble, that wise, that rational creature Man!
I expect in some little time to be summon'd to the Seraglio to shew the Grand Seignior your admirable Telescope, of which, probably, I may give your Lordship some ​account in my next; and in the mean time I must acquaint your Lordship, that I find two or three packs of some of our best deep-mouth'd southern Hounds would be a most acceptable present to his Highness. If you would procure some able and skilful Physician to come and attend the Grand Seignior, I am empower'd to assure him of 30 Purses at least (or 15,000 Ducats) besides Presents, with all possible good treatment, and to be Hachim Bachi or chief Physician. As this I find would be a most agreeable Obligation, I recommend it to your Lordship's care to procure such an one: and indeed the favour and complaisance that has been shewn to his Majesty's desires in our late Treaty, deserve all the returns we can make them.
I reserve my Compliments for another opportunity, and, if I may say so, for another sort of Man than your Lordship; to whom, and all your excellent Family, I and mine are,
My Lord, your Lordship's, &c.
STANHOPE.
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Errata:
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