In Turkey, the Sultan is the supreme and absolute ruler; there exists no one but himself who can be said to possess any power. He issues his edicts, which have the force of laws. He commands the whole naval and military power of the country. He sometimes, though in violation of the Koran, which is the very ground-work of his authority, imposes taxes on the people, and levies them as he likes, either generally, or locally, or partially, making one place, or one set of persons, or one individual, pay, and not the rest of his subjects. And, with few exceptions, the whole nation is subject to his absolute will and caprices, and there is no one who does not derive from him all the authority and weight he possesses in any employment, or in any station.
As, however, the Sultan cannot do all the business of the country, but, on the contrary, from the indolent habits of the East, and the worse and more effeminate habits contracted by the bad education of despotic princes, passes his time inactive and averse to employment of any kind, he is obliged to delegate his power to ministers and officers of different kinds,—yet all of these are named and removed by him, and are absolutely dependent on his pleasure or caprice. His prime minister is called the Grand Vizier; the minister of foreign affairs is the Reis Effendi; the governors of provinces are called bashaws or pashas; the admiral is called the capitan (captain) pasha, and so forth; the judges are called cadis; and all these act in the Sultan’s name, and obey, absolutely, whatever orders he gives them; so that, if he pleases to order that a cause be decided in a particular way, the judges must obey; and applications to the Sultan, or the bashaw, or governor of a province, to interfere for this purpose, are very frequent. Thus there is no possibility of resisting his superior authority, or controlling his universally prevailing influence, unless it be that some kind of limits are fixed by the Koran, and by the bodies of priests and lawyers who interpret it, and administer the laws founded upon it, and whom it is not the practice of the Sultan to interfere with, although he appoints all their chiefs, either directly, or through his governors. The chief priest, or primate, or archbishop, is called the Grand Mufti, and owes his promotion to office to the Sultan entirely, at whose pleasure he continues to hold it till he is removed.
The Eastern tyrant orders any individual to be seized and put to death for a look, much more for a mutinous word. He walks through his capital, perhaps in disguise, and settles some dispute between his subjects by ordering one to give up his property to another, because he thinks, upon a moment’s inquiry, that the latter has a right to it, or merely because his caprice makes him lean to one rather than the other. He hears a charge against a man, and at once strangles him on the spot; or he takes a dislike, and, without any pretext at all, kills him, and sells his family for slaves. He covets some one’s house, or garden, or jewel, or wife, and instantly seizes it, or kills the owner that he may take it. Even this is not the worst that the people suffer; for, were this all, men might be safe by keeping at a distance, and the despot cannot be everywhere. But where he himself is not, his deputies, his bashaws, or, as in some countries they are called, his beglerbegs, are, and their subaltern oppressors. Each has all the sovereign’s prerogatives in his own person; and though they are all liable to be summarily punished, not only by removal, but by being strangled with the bowstring sent to be inflicted upon them, and although the prince does now and then so punish wicked governors, yet he has a direct interest in their exactions; for one of his largest revenues is the succeeding as heir to all persons in his service; and in case they should conceal, or secretly make over to their family the gains they have made in the public service, the Sultan, during their life, squeezes the money from them, and puts them to the tortures by the bastinado—severe strokes on the soles of the feet—and by other torments, in order to discover their property. The bowstring is used in a way quite characteristic of the Turkish despotism. The Sultan, or his vizier, if he be the person ordering the punishment, sends an officer, generally one of very inferior rank, to the bashaw who has been complained of, and whose conduct has, behind his back, been examined by the government at Constantinople. He carries a bowstring with him, and the order of the Sultan in writing, sealed with the imperial signet, dipped into black ink, and signed with the Sultan’s cipher of toghra. The bashaw, if he has a power in his hands which enables him to set the sovereign at defiance, and to rebel against his authority, avoids seeing the messenger, and puts him to death on some pretext, as having him waylaid, and representing him as killed by banditti. But if not, he at once, on receiving the messenger’s communication, kisses the sealed paper and the bowstring, bares his neck, and allows the man to strangle him, when his body is either buried privately, or thrown to be devoured by dogs, according as the people, or the troops, at the seat of his government, are well or ill disposed towards his person.
The foundation of the whole Turkish law is laid in the Koran, or Mohammedan scriptures; and here the absolute power of the sovereign is distinctly pronounced, and the duty of passive submission to his will inculcated upon all, as a duty to God immediately rendered.
THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE.
The aspect of affairs in Europe gives the public a strong interest in measuring the forces and the energy of the great antagonist whose aggression has called forth the fleets and armies of England and France to battle after an unbroken peace of forty years. It has seldom happened to any nation to engage in hostilities with a foreign power whose real strength and resources are so imperfectly known. No other empire but that of Russia ever succeeded in keeping so vast a portion of the globe a secret and a mystery from the rest of mankind. We know that she possesses territories wider than the realms of Tamerlane; and that the troops under her banners are as countless as the hosts that followed Napoleon when he was the master of Europe.
Russia, taking its whole extent, is by much the largest empire of which there is any record in the annals of the world; and vast as it is, it may be said to be compact and continuous, without the intervention of land belonging to any other power. In this great empire every variety of climate is to be found, and every vegetable production, from those of the climate of southern Europe to the icy regions of the north, where vegetation fails, and nature is for ever bound in unproductive fetters—may, in one district or another, be brought to maturity. Nor are the mineral riches less copious; for there is scarcely a valued product of the mine which may not be obtained in some part of Russia, and several of the most useful ones, in great abundance, and of excellent quality. We insert a correct table[3] of the population and extent of the empire.
More than a hundred peoples, speaking a hundred different idioms, inhabit the surface of the empire. But almost all these peoples are scattered along its frontiers. The whole interior is inhabited by one sole race, that of the Russians proper. The Russian race alone consists of about 50,000,000 souls, whilst all the other tribes of the empire put together do not exceed 15,000,000.