LETTER XXVIII.
However faction may agitate, or abuse irritate the minds of men against the executive branch of their Government, the People of every Nation under Heaven are disposed to think their own Constitutional System the best; and the artful intertexture of religion with Governments confirms them in that opinion, and often consigns the understanding to unalterable error and illiberal prejudice. It would be wonderful, then, if the Turkish Constitution, founded on the Koran, was not looked upon with abhorrence by the bulk of the Christian world; and more wonderful still, if the outrageous zealots of the Christian Church, who for so many centuries engrossed all the learning of Europe to themselves, should not have handed down with exaggerated misrepresentation every circumstance belonging to the great enemies of their faith. But that, at this day of intellectual illumination, Mankind should be enveloped in such error and darkness, with regard to the government of so large a portion of the globe as Turkey, is extraordinary; and only to be accounted for by a reference, in the first place, to those religious prejudices which we suck in from our nurse, and which habit, incessant document, and every part of our education, tend to confirm in our minds; and in the next, to that indisposition the human mind feels to part with its old prejudices, and the general indolence and incapacity of men to acquire knowledge by the arduous and fatiguing paths of study.
The Turkish Government is grossly misrepresented. Were our opinions to be directed by the general belief of Europeans, we should suppose that the life and property of every being in that vast Empire were irremediably at the mercy of the Grand Seignior—and that, without laws to protect, or any intermediate power whatever to shield them, they were entirely subject to the capricious will of an inexorable tyrant, who, stimulated by cruelty, sharpened by avarice, and unrestrained by any law human or divine, did every thing to oppress his subjects, and carry destruction among Mankind. I firmly believe, that, from the combination of ideas arising from those prejudices, there are few Christians who think or hear of the Grand Turk, that do not, by an involuntary act of the mind, instantly think of blood and murder, strangling with bowstrings, and slicing off heads with cimeters.
As there is no part of your education more near my heart than the eradicating illiberal prejudices from your mind, and fortifying you against their assaults; I find it impossible to refrain from giving you my opinion of the Turkish Government, which I have been at some pains to collect, as well from oral information as from the best authors; and which, though very far from what a generous and universally philanthropic disposition would wish them to have, is very different from that which is generally attributed to them, and unquestionably far more limited in its powers than the Governments of several Christian countries I could mention.
The Constitution of that country is laid down expressly in the Koran. The Emperor of Turkey (commonly called the Grand Seignior) is a descendant of Mahomet, who pretended he had the Koran from Heaven: and he is as much bound by the institutes of that book as any subject in his realm—is liable to deposition as they to punishment for breach of them, and indeed has been more than once deposed, and the next in succession raised to the Throne. Thus far, it is obvious, his power is limited and under controul. But that is not all—It is equally certain that the Turkish Government is partly Republican; for, though the People at large have no share in the legislation, and are excluded by the Koran from it (which Koran has established and precisely ascertained their rights, privileges, and personal security), yet there is an intermediate power which, when roused to exertion, is stronger than the Emperor’s, and stands as a bulwark between the extremes of Despotism and them. This body is the Ulama, composed of all the members of the Church and the Law, superior to any Nobility, jealous of their rights and privileges, and partly taken from the People, not by election, but by profession and talents.—In this body are comprised the Moulahs, the hereditary and perpetual guardians of the religion and laws of the Empire: they derive their authority as much as the Emperor from the Koran, and, when necessary, act with all the firmness resulting from a conviction of that authority; which they often demonstrate by opposing his measures, not only with impunity, but success. Their persons are sacred; and they can, by means of the unbounded respect in which they are held, rouse the People to arms, and proceed to depose. But, what is much more, the Emperor cannot be deposed without their concurrence.
If, by this provision of the Constitution, the power of the Monarch is limited, and the personal security of the subject ascertained, on the one hand; the energy of the Empire in its external operations is, on the other, very frequently and fatally palsied by it. Declarations of war have been procrastinated, till an injurious and irrecoverable act of hostility has been sustained; and peace often protracted, when peace would have been advantageous. The Ulama being a numerous body, it has been found always difficult, often impossible, to unite so many different opinions; and nothing being to be done without their concurrence, the executive power finds it often impossible to take a decisive step in a crisis of advantageous opportunity. But as this code of laws and government is received as a divine revelation, binding both Prince and People, and supposed to be sealed in Heaven, the breach of it would be sufficient to consign even the Monarch to deposition and death.
As to the military force, which in the hands of all Despots has been made the instrument of the People’s slavery, that of the Turk could avail him nothing; and, whenever it does interfere, acts only to his overthrow. The very reverence they have for his person arising from obedience to their religion, they are, à fortiori, governed by it, not him. He holds no communication with them; and the standing force of the Janissaries is, compared with the mass of the People, only a handful. Some wild accounts, indeed, have stated it at 300,000; but the best informed fix it below 60,000, of which a great part consists of false musters and abuses—great multitudes being enrolled to obtain certain privileges annexed to the office of Janissary. The fact is, that the chief force of the Empire is a militia composed of the People; who, with respect to obedience and subordination, are so loose that they leave their duty whenever they please, without receiving any punishment. How far the People of Turkey are protected from the encroachments of power, will appear from the recital of a fact related by one of the best and most liberal of our Historians on that subject, and which is of too great notoriety to be doubted.
In the year 1755, the Porte, as it is called, or Palace of the Grand Vizir at Constantinople, was burnt down: in laying the plan for rebuilding it on the former site, the leading consideration was, how to contrive matters so as to render it secure from accidents of a like nature in future; and it was determined that the only certain means to do so was, to leave a space of clear ground all round it, for which purpose the contiguous houses should be purchased from the proprietors, and demolished. All the owners of the houses agreed to the sale, except one old woman, who pertinaciously refused: she said she was born, and had lived all her life, in that spot, and would not quit it for any one. Now, in England, for the convenience of a private canal, the Parliament would force her to sell. But what did they say in Turkey? When all the people cried out, “Why does not the Sultan use his authority, and take the house, and pay her the value?” No! answered the Magistrates and the Ulama, it is impossible! it cannot be done! it is her property. While the power of the Monarch is thus limited, and the rights of the People thus ascertained by the Koran, and in things manifest and open to view rigidly adhered to, justice between man and man is rarely administered; for, though the laws themselves are good, the corrupt administration of them disarms their effect, and distorts them from their purpose. The venality of the Judges is beyond conception flagitious and barefaced; and their connivances at false witnesses so scandalously habitual, that testimony is become an article of commerce, and can be procured with a facility and at a price that at once stamps an opprobrium on the country, and furnishes matter of wonder to the considerate mind, how, if Judges are flagitious and shameless enough to be guilty of it, the People can bear such a pernicious system so long. Hence flow all the censures on the laws and government of that country—hence most of the impediments under which its commerce and agriculture languish; while the actual written laws of the realm are, if duly administered, sufficiently adequate to the security of property, the regulation of commerce, the repression of vice, and the punishment and prevention of crimes.
In endeavouring to guard your mind against an illiberal, vulgar prejudice, I have stated to you what the Turkish Constitution is, and what the Laws; but you must not carry what I have said to an overstrained or forced interpretation. I would not have you infer that the People are well governed; I only say, that their Constitution contains within it the means of better government than is supposed. I would not have you infer that property is always secure; I barely say there are laws written to secure it. This too I wish to impress on you, that the common people are more free, and that property and life are better secured, in Turkey, than in some European countries. I will mention Spain for one. Like the country we are now contemplating, fear keeps them, as disunited individuals, under passive obedience in ordinary cases; but, unlike the Spaniards, when notoriously aggrieved—when their property or religious code is forcibly violated—when the Prince would riot in blood, and persist in an unsuccessful war—the Turks appeal to the Law; they find a Chief; the soldiery join their standard, and depose or destroy him, not on the furious pretext of popular hatred, but upon the legitimate ground of the Koran, as an infidel, and a violator of the laws of God and Mahomet—They always, however, place his regular successor on the Throne. Yet, notwithstanding the general venality which pollutes the fountains of Justice, and notwithstanding the great abuse of power to which I have alluded, their internal policy is, in many respects, excellent, and may be compared with advantage to that of any Nation in Europe. Highway-robbery, house-breaking, or pilfering, are little known and rarely practised among them; and at all times the roads are as secure as the houses. Ample provisions too are made against those petty secret frauds, which many who carry a fair face in England, and would bring an action of damages against one that should call them rogues, practise every day. Bakers are the most frequent victims of justice, and are not infrequently seen hanging at their own doors. They are mulcted and bastinadoed for the first and second offence, and on the third, a staple is driven up in their door-case, and they are hanged from it. Notwithstanding which, men are constantly found hardy enough to pursue the same course of practice; and this is the more extraordinary, as the police is so strictly attended to, that the Bashaw or Vizir himself goes about in disguise, in order to discover frauds and detect the connivances of the inferior officers of justice. But what wilt our great Ladies, who consume their nights, destroy their constitution, and squander their husbands’ property in gambling; who afterwards, to repair their shattered finances, have recourse to the infamous expedient of keeping gaming-houses, and endeavour to recover by degrading means what they have lost by folly, to the disgrace of themselves and family, and the shame of their sex and rank—What will they say when I tell them, that gaming is held among the Turks to be as infamous as theft, and a gamester looked upon with more detestation than a highway robber? The Turkish Ambassador and his train will, on their return to their country, have to tell a curious tale of this much-famed island, in that and other respects.