The Turks, happily for us, are not a commercial people, notwithstanding their Empire has every advantage to induce them to become so. We cannot do without those valuable articles which their soil produces almost spontaneously; and the Turk, like the easy possessor of a very rich mine, allows us to enrich ourselves at our pleasure. Three per cent. duty equally on all exports and imports, is, with little exception, their only restriction to Europeans engaged in their trade.
Would the Empress be equally moderate, if in possession of this fertile region? Believe me she would not. As several of our manufactures could not be carried on without her productions, she would only give them on her own terms. Perhaps only in her own bottoms. All her politics would be directed to increase her trade and shipping, and consequently her naval force; and, thus inclined, with such a country, she would soon rise to a maritime power much beyond what the world has ever experienced. We have only to look to Tyre, to Rhodes, and many other places scarce bigger than specks on the map of Turkey, to conceive what a force might arise from this immense, this all producing Empire.
In its present state, Turkey, as I have already hinted, may be compared to a rich mine, to which the industrious from every nation have free access. In the hands of the Empress it would be like the barred treasure of an ambitious Lord, never to be opened but to be increased.
In this I do not mean to reflect on her Imperial Majesty, since, I fancy, every European power, in a similar situation, would act the same part. I only desire to evince that England will never derive such advantages from Turkey, as whilst it remains in the hands of the Ottomans, and consequently that it is our interest, as well as that of every other nation that does not expect a share in the partition of the Turkish Empire, to break the confederacy between the Empress of Russia and the Emperor of Germany, and check the progress of the two Imperial Courts. I mention the Emperor, because, though he has not yet declared war, it is very well known that he is bound, both by treaty and inclination, to assist the Russians.
The French Court very wisely, in the last war, supported the Porte; but from the indifference with which she now beholds the threatened ruin of a power with whom she trades to so much advantage, a rumour gains ground that she has been brought over to the ambitious views of the Imperial Courts, by the promise, that should their designs succeed, Egypt and the Island of Candia shall be given to France.
Should this ever happen, England may bid adieu to the trade of the Levant, and, in a short time, by the easy communication the French will establish with the East-Indies, by the way of the Isthmus of Suez, they will give a fatal blow to our India trade also.
To prevent these schemes from succeeding, our first object is to countenance the Spaniards in opposing the entrance of the Russian fleet into the Mediterranean; since, if the Turks can bring their whole force to act towards the north, I do not think, now that their fleet has such a decided superiority on the Black Sea, that they have much to fear in the present state of Europe. The King of Sweden, were he countenanced, is well disposed to take an open part in their favour; and this countenance the King of Prussia will undoubtedly afford him.
As to Europe's having any thing to dread from the Turks extending their conquest, the idea is absurd. Their Empire is already larger than they well can keep in order; and, from the nature of their government, the more they extend it, the more will it be weakened. Their army may make irruptions, but must soon return to its proper bounds.
They do not, like the Romans, incorporate the vanquished with the conquerors, so as, in time, to become one people, and to increase in numbers as they increase in territory. On the contrary, the farther the Turk advances in Europe, the more he augments the number of his rebellious subjects, and by dispersing, he weakens his own.
Constantinople excluded, the Grand Signior's subjects in Europe are computed at eight Greeks to one Turk. Totally different in language, manners, and religion, a natural antipathy is bred between them. The Turk spurns the Greek as an impious dastard. The Greek, urged by revenge, is ever ripe for a revolt, and ready to join the first invaders.