There is a passage in the Mémoires du Prince Eugène, which, whether or not the reputed author of that work, the Prince de Ligne, possessed accurate knowledge of Prince Eugene or his opinions, may at least serve to show the opinion entertained in Europe during the last century of the military value of those qualities which belong to soldiers who retain some of the habits of savage life. The French government may have on this principle organized the corps called "Turcos." Another measure of the French government in the same direction is the adoption of the sword-bayonet. The French government has also, it is said, borrowed the more open line from our Highlanders, and has evinced its wisdom by organizing such a corps and adopting such improvements. The English government, on the contrary, has evinced the reverse of wisdom, by permitting the depopulation of the Highlands of Scotland, and thereby expelling many thousands of men, who, by their brave and patriotic spirit, their strength and activity of body, their power of enduring hardship, fatigue, and privation, their skill and dexterity in the use of their weapons, their rapid mode of attack, accompanied by wild and savage war cries, like those of the Turks, would have been in the long run rather more valuable to the British nation than either the sheep or the red deer which have supplanted them. Of this depopulation I will speak in a subsequent chapter. In the meantime, I give

here the passage from the Mémoires du Prince Eugène.

"Si un Bacha, un renégat, un général des alliés de la Porte, mettait des pelotons à leur façon en seconde ligne dans les intervalles de la première, et d'autres en troisième dans ceux de la deuxième, et puis encore des réserves et leurs Spahis sur les ailes; avec leurs maudits Allah! Allah!' en hurlemens, et leur manière d'avancer avec cinquante hommes et un petit drapeau, ils seraient invincibles." *

Even at the commencement of the present century the Turkish cavalry had not altogether lost its once formidable character. And this would seem to indicate that a considerable portion of the Turkish military strength still survived during the first quarter of the present century. I am inclined to think that the destruction of the Janissaries has something to do with the present state of weakness of the Turkish empire. The main cause of the destruction of the Janissaries is generally understood to have been the dread entertained of them by the Sultans, as being a sort of check-a rough and clumsy one indeed, but, nevertheless, very effective in its way— upon their own misgovernment. It may be true that the Janissaries had greatly degenerated from

* Mémoires du Prince Eugène de Savoie, écrites par lui-même. Seconde réimpression conforme à l'édition de Weymar (1809), à Londres, 1811, pp. 120, 121.

Still they

their former discipline and valour. remained as a sort of visible impersonation both of the fanatical and the military spirit which had formed the source of the Turkish strength. The fanatical intolerance may still remain; as indeed is witnessed by the very ordinance of 1826, for the formation of a new body of troops in accordance with the modern usages of other nations, which quotes from the Koran these words "Employ every means in your power to conquer the infidels."

But the Turk, though he may be still as stupid and cruel a bigot as ever, has lost his old confidence in his bigotry as a principle of action, and has got no new principle of action in the place of it. And, with the fall of the Janissaries, all check on the misgovernment of the Sultans is now removed. The consequence is, that they can now go on revelling in the earthly dream of their Prophet's heaven without the danger of that dream being broken by the sabres of their own Janissaries. But in this world it is not given to any man, or beast, to reckon on undisturbed sensual enjoyment. The hog is rudely shaken out of his dream of pleasure by the butcher's knife. An end, not very dissimilar, overtook Nero and Heliogabalus, and has been the customary fate of despots innumerable, in all parts of the world where despots have a taste for the life of hogs. Indeed such habits must be regarded as

dangerous indulgences anywhere, whether those men who pursue them are princes or private men.

The Sultan, therefore, though now freed from the fear of his Janissaries' sabres, is occasionally disturbed by visions of Russian bayonets. From these he was delivered not long ago by England and France, at no small cost to themselves. This might, perhaps, have the effect of enabling the Sultan to enjoy himself in quiet for a long time to come, provided that England and France can always be reckoned on to join against Russia. But suppose

that France should join Russia instead of joining England, England would then have rather a tough job in hand, not only to defend herself, but to defend Turkey against Russia and France united. Under these circumstances, if the Spahis cannot be reorganized in their pristine strength, it would seem very desirable both for England and Turkey to re-establish the Janissaries, or some other equally effective check or control upon the imbecility and vices of the Turkish government; a check of that kind being the only constitutional check which the Turkish government, like almost all the Asiatic governments, of the nature of which it partakes largely, would appear to admit of.

Both the Spaniards and the Turks furnish remarkable examples of a principle which is found in a greater or less degree in operation among all nations

--the principle of regarding all other nations as inferior, and distinguishing them by an epithet more or less opprobrious. With the Greeks and Romans all foreign nations were distinguished by a word which, though originally meaning only foreigners, came to have a stronger signification-barbarians. This word, though it might involve that idea, did not adopt for the leading idea it was meant to convey a different religious worship. But with the Arabs, the Turks, and the Spaniards, the religious idea was the predominant one in the term which they bestowed on other nations. With the Arabs, most foreigners were Kaffirs; with the Turks, Giaours; and with the Spaniards, Heretics. Kaffirs, Giaours, and Heretics were wretches; to conquer, rob, and slaughter whom was not only a meritorious deed on earth, but a passport to eternal happiness in heaven.

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With nations such as these, when they set up the trade of conquerors, there evidently would be no middle course. Their mission on earth being, as the chosen people of the true God, to spread the knowledge and worship of their true God by fire and sword, they must either destroy or be destroyed. The Arabs have lost their place among the nations. The Turks and the Spaniards still hold a nominal place; but a place so fallen from that they once held in the height of their power and of their savage and fanatical arrogance, that they may serve as a warn