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Alexander W. Hidden, The Ottoman Dynasty: A History of the Sultans of Turkey, 1912

Page xv: Janissaries: 1. Tchohadar or Footman of the Grand Vizier. 2. Divan Tchaoushi or Usher of the Divan. 3. Yassakdji or Body-guard of the Foreign Ambassadors.

Page 9: The Divan was the great national council of which the Sultan was president; he often listened from a latticed window when the ministers discussed. In his absence the Grand Vizier presided. On the right of the presiding officer were the Pashas and the Kadiaskers or judges; on the left were the Defterdars and the Nishandjis or secretaries of state; directly in front of him stood the Teskeredjis or officers who reported on the condition of the various departments of state. It was always attended by a number of court officers, by the Grand Marshal, the Grand Chamberlain, and the Reis Effendi. Whenever it was necessary, the Grand Vizier had the power to call a special meeting of the Divan at his own residence, and the Imperial seal is always intrusted to his care, for its use is essential on all documents of state.

Page 26: The murder of all princes of royal blood henceforth became the safeguard of the Ottoman dynasty. The Koran says: "Sedition is worse than slaughter," and brothers of Sultans are ever seditious. On this account all princes are usually kept in strict seclusion in the palace. Since the foundation of the empire by Osman I in 1299 till the reign of Achmet I the throne passed from father to sons. But in 1617 Moustapha succeeded his brother Achmet I, and after his death the Divan convoked a special session in which a custom was established by a fetva, that thereafter the successor of the Sultan should as a rule be the oldest male relative, whether uncle, brother or nephew, and not his eldest son, as in other European countries.

Page 42: The month of Ramazan is followed by Sheker Bairam or Candy Easter, which lasts three days. On that day his Imperial Majesty goes to the Mosque in a court carriage drawn by four magnificent Arabian horses, accompanied by a brilliant retinue of marshals, generals and superior functionaries in full uniform emblazoned with gold embroidery and decoration, and by the Caftan Aghassi or the Grand Master of the Wardrobe, whose duties are in all processions to throw silver coins to the people; there the Sultan is received by the Grand Vizier, the Sheikh-ul-Islam and other dignitaries, and is greeted with three cheers of “Long live the Sultan!” The religious service lasts about an hour, and at its close the Sultan rides on a richly caparisoned white charger to the Dolma Baghtcheh Palace with his suite, where he withdraws to his private apartments to rest. Meanwhile the civil, military and religious dignitaries take their places in the Divan Khaneh or reception room, which is of immense dimensions. This throne room is embellished with great oriental splendor; the walls are decorated with immense mirrors, and from the beautifully ornamented high ceiling hang colossal crystal chandeliers. His Imperial Majesty enters and takes his seat on the throne, and the ceremony begins. The first in rank are their highnesses the Princes Imperial; they are followed by the Grand Vizier, who approaches the throne, bows low to kiss the hem of his imperial garment, which is now discontinued and a scarf attached to the throne is substituted for that purpose; the Sheik-ul-Islam, dressed in his white caftan, and turban of white, crossed in front by a band of gold, comes next and attempts to do the same, but is prevented by the Sultan, as there is but little difference in their religious rank; next come the Chief Justices, the Kadi-al-Askers of Roumeli, Europe, and Anadoli, Asia; the Istambol Kadisi, etc. During this ceremony the imperial band continues to play, the cannons are thundering, after which the people leave the palace.

Page 114: The Imperial Ottoman Divan or Council assembled four times a week, on Monday, Tuesday, Saturday and Sunday, under the presidency of the Sultan; Friday was observed as a day of prayer, Wednesday and Thursday were days of rest.

Page 169: In October of the same year, 1579, while the Grand Vizier Mehemet Sokolli was presiding at the council, a man disguised as a dervish approached him to present a petition, and, as he did so, stabbed him mortally ; the murderer, a Bosnian, was condemned to death. The Grand Vizier was succeeded by Achmet Pasha, an Albanian who died six months after and was succeeded by Sinan Pasha, an Albanian who disliked the Austrians.

In the Divan he asked their ambassador, Pezzen, who had given authority to the King of Austria to appoint a common clerk as his representative. "My sovereign," he replied, "is as free to appoint a clerk to be his Ambassador as the Sultan is to make a swineherd his Grand Vizier." Sinan Pasha turned to the other pashas and said, "I am paid in a good coin by this giaour."

Page 170: During the reign of Mourad corruption and favoritism prevailed. Every appointment, civil, military or judicial, was bought, as the Sultan was spending large sums on his musicians, the parasites, dwarfs and buffoons with whom he spent the most of his time; he humiliated himself by partaking of a part of the bribes his courtiers received for such appointments. Incompetent men were appointed as generals or officers in the army; this brought insubordination on, and at last, in 1589, the Janissaries, being agitated by the debased coinage they received for their pay, attacked the Seraglio, where the Divan was assembled, and demanded the head of Mohammed Pasha Beylerbey of Roumania, and that of the treasurer, who was entirely innocent. Mourad was obliged to comply with their demands.

Page 179: Safiye, the Valideh Sultan, was an important factor in the imperial court and exercised a strong influence over her weak, impetuous and irascible son Mohammed. The Sultan's advisers were very anxious that he should join his army and command it in person. The Valideh, who feared the loss of her influence over her son, strenuously opposed his departure for the scene of action, and kept him infatuated with the beauties and pleasures of the harem. Public opinion and the announcement of further losses finally aroused the Sultan. He summoned the Mufti, who with rare good sense advised Mohammed by adroitly giving him a poem of Ali Tchelebi to read, which depicted strikingly the victories of the Hungarians, and the consequently pitiable condition of the Ottoman dominions.

This had the desired effect, and Mohammed immediately ordered a three-days' service of prayer at the Ok Meidan. Meanwhile all the Turks, including the historian Saadeddin, his tutor, the Mufti and the Grand Vizier, urged the Sultan to engage personally in the war against the infidels, while the Janissaries added to the pressure upon him by refusing to march in defense of their country without their ruler. This enthusiasm overruled the influence of the Valideh; in her indignation she forgot her Christian birth and the ties of early kindred, and proposed a massacre of the Christians in Constantinople, in which she was seconded by the fanatics in the Divan. Wiser councils finally prevailed, and the banishment of all unmarried Greeks in the capital was the result of the fury of this powerful woman.

Page 200: The change of rulers made no improvement in the condition of affairs in Turkey; after Ibrahim's accession to power matters grew worse. His earlier years had been passed in forced seclusion and in constant dread of the executioner's sword; it was almost a natural sequence, therefore, that the fostered immaturity of youth, combined with the strength and passion of untrained manhood, should form a character weak, voluptuous, selfish, cruel and despotic in the extreme. He was regardless of the welfare of his subjects, amused by his buffoons, and controlled by the beautiful and capricious women in his harem, whose desires were excessive and extravagant, and whose whims, however slight, were instantly gratified. One of the extravagant favors demanded by a lady of the Seraglio was, that Ibrahim bedeck his beard with jewels. He immediately complied with her wish, appearing in public thus adorned. He was exceedingly fond of perfumes and amber; he had also a mania for costly sable furs, and not only wore them, but used them as upholstery covering for sofas and divans, and as carpets.

Page 217: Of course this forced the Divan to open negotiations with the Russians, but Kara Moustapha Pasha opposed this course so emphatically, that he was allowed to take command of a new army thoroughly equipped to regain control of Poland. This expedition was joined by 30,000 Tartars sent by the Khan of the Crimea and the total army then besieged Cehryn, which fell after a long and painful siege (1678).

The return of the Turkish army through the wild fastnesses of the mountains was taken advantage of by the Russians, who attacked them unawares and slaughtered the soldiers and captured the baggage and artillery. Eventually this horrible war came to an end in 1681.

Page 236: A messenger was sent to Charles proposing a safe return to his kingdom, through either Poland or Germany, but Charles in reply threatened to hang him as he did not wish to listen to his propositions. The Sultan thought it advisable to send him a complimentary letter in which, after styling him the most powerful among the kings who worship Jesus, brilliant in majesty, and a lover of honor and glory, he requested him to depart in care of Providence, and promising that he should be accompanied by a noble escort, supplied with money and every other necessity. Charles accepted the 1,200 purses, but was in no haste to depart. The Sultan perceived that only force could compel him to return to his country. A decision of the Divan to force him to leave Turkey was sent to the Pasha of Bender, who at once waited upon the King of Sweden and made him acquainted with it. "Obey your master if you dare!" said Charles " and leave my presence instantly!" Charles proceeded to plan a defense, erecting intrenchments and other works. Shortly after this his camp was surrounded by a large number of Turkish troops.

Page 248: The Sarratch Khaneh or Saddlers' Bazaar is a small quarter by itself adjoining one of the principal streets of Stamboul, the Divan Yol. The rich bestow the greatest possible attention upon the trappings and equipments of the animals they use, and the workmen who produce these objects constitute a special guild. In this bazaar may be seen elaborate saddles covered with leather or stuffs or velvet decorated with ornamental hand-sewing with silver and gold and with selected pearls sewed on to it; some of these valuable saddles are to be seen at the imperial treasury. Saddlebags of all descriptions are also made here. They are of all shapes and sizes, and useful for the long journeys on horseback into Asia, which are often undertaken from Constantinople. In this Bazaar in 1853 by orders of Abdul Medjid a saddle of great value was made of cloth and leather decorated with valuable jewels and sent to Pope Pius IX.; also Hamid I presented a saddle in gold to Empress Catherine II, which was made in the same place. The Sarratch Khaneh was formerly entirely in the hands of the Greeks, but as soon as the Turks learned the art, the Greeks were obliged to quit.

Page 253: During these reverses the Mufti Pirizade Osman Effendi tried to persuade the Sultan at the Divan to massacre all the Christians of the empire. Previous to this proposition he issued a fetva commanding the slaughter of all Moldavians and Wallachians, and their wives and children to be taken in slavery; but as the Mufti found no seconders the project was rejected.

Page 254: Captan Hassan Pasha was a native of Persia, where he was kidnapped when a boy by the Turks, and sold to another person, from whose service he freed himself by the assistance of a Greek. He escaped to Smyrna, thence to Algeria, where he enlisted in the army, promoted for his ability and courage and at last was appointed governor to some province. He became very wealthy, and being suspected by the Divan of Algeria, was obliged to escape in order to save himself and his accumulated wealth. On his way he was captured by a Spanish vessel, and was detained six years in Madrid; he was sent to Naples in exchange for Christian prisoners. From Naples he passed to France, and sailed in a Danish ship for Constantinople. On his arrival there he had a private interview with the Grand Vizier Kaghip Pasha, through whom Hassan obtained an opportunity of appearing before the Padishah Moustapha, who, being convinced of his intelligence and characteristic vigor, appointed him captain of Turkish man-of-war. He afterwards became Admiral, and at last he was promoted to the highest rank of Grand Vizier. He died at the age of seventy years, and it is supposed that he was poisoned.

Page 266: About four hundred and seventy of these Mamelukes, under the command of Saim Bey, wholly unsuspicious of the treacherous design of Mehemet Ali, accepted the invitation. They were received and treated cordially at the Divan (hall of audience) on the 1st of May, 1811, and offered to Mehemet Ali their hearty congratulations. As they were passing at their departure through a narrow defile between high walls, all mounted, with their attendants who usually served on foot, armed and attired in gorgeous robes forming a brilliant procession, they were swept down by Albanian troops with cannon and a hail of bullets from the tops of the walls and in all directions, which threw the unprepared Mamelukes and their horses in a confused mass. Death passed over them like a whirlwind, not sparing one of them. The lifeless body of the brave Saim Bey was dragged by a rope around his neck through various parts of the city. The heads of the principal officers were embalmed and sent to the Sultan at Constantinople. Only one of the Mamelukes, named Emin Bey, escaped this horrible massacre in Cairo. Being detained on business and not able to attend the festival, he arrived there when the Mamelukes were entering the narrow defile. He waited until all passed and would have followed them, but the gates were shut at once and immediately after he heard the reports of the firearms. He surmised the result and at once galloped out of the city. He afterwards with a small party retired to Syria.

Page 280: Mahmoud had been determined for a long time to humiliate and destroy this audacious man, and the opportunity finally presented itself February, 1820. Two men were arrested in the mosque of St. Sophia, in the act of firing upon Ismail Pasha Bey, who, having fled from Ali Pasha, had taken refuge in the imperial court. These two assassins were hired by Ali Pasha, but the attempt failed, and they were compelled to confess the name of their employer. The Sultan issued an order immediately declaring Ali Pasha to be a Fermanli or an outlaw, and all his loyal subjects were commanded to fight the rebel. A series of engagements between the two parties took place, with varying success, and he was able to stop the bribes which Ali had used freely among the members of the Divan, and which were only prolonging the conflict. At last Ali Pasha, after a brave resistance, not being able to defend his capital any longer, took refuge in a castle which he had built on an abrupt peninsula jutting into a lake. He was well fortified there and threatened to blow himself up unless the Sultan's pardon was granted him. At last, Khurshid Pasha, who was in command of the besiegers, succeeded, on the pretense of offered capitulation, in getting Ali Pasha into his power.

Page 284: The commerce of Russia on the Black Sea had to be completely discontinued on account of the blockading of the Bosporus. The ultimatum of the ambassador was not answered, and as a result, on July 18th, Baron Straganoff decided to cease all diplomatic relations whatever with the Reis Effendi. On the 31st of July he sailed for Odessa, having first declared to the Divan that if the Porte did not at once better the situation Russia would give to the Greeks refuge, protection and assistance. The Reis Effendi replied to St. Petersburg, too late, however, and the most atrocious cruelties were committed by the Janissaries and troops from Asia Minor before the foreign ambassadors, particularly Lord Stangford, the British ambassador, could succeed in persuading the Grand Seignior to recall his command to arm all Mussulmans.

Page 299: This defeat enraged the Sultan and the Divan; and on no condition would they make any terms, or accept the Treaty of London, which the foreign Ministers, especially the representative of Russia, urged more peremptorily. In the meantime the Porte seized all of the ships of the Franks in Constantinople, detained them for some time, and stopped all communication with the allied powers till indemnity should be made for the destruction of the fleet. This gross offense caused the departure of the ambassadors; but the Ottoman Government endeavored to induce them to remain and offered complete amnesty to the Greeks, with other insincere promises, but positively refused to recognize their independence; the only reply made by the ambassadors was to leave Constantinople on the 8th of December.

Page 324: Mahmoud abolished the power of a Turkish governor to condemn to death for a simple cause either a Christian or a Turk unless authorized by a legal sentence, pronounced and signed by the Kadi; he also prohibited the confiscation of his property, as heretofore was the custom. Instead of holding himself aloof from the cares of state, Mahmoud always attended the Divan. By thus keeping himself informed in the affairs of the Government, he was able to redress many of the worst of the wrongs connected with the Vacoufs by placing the revenues under the administrations of the state. However, he did not undertake applying this vast resource of wealth to the uses of the Government. The military fiefs, Ziamets and Timars, he handled more boldly. Since they had for some time ceased to serve their purpose, that of furnishing effective military service. Mahmoud attached them to the public domains, and in this manner essentially strengthened the resources of the state, at the same time putting an end to a host of corruptions.

Page 338: Nicholas I. of Russia, after mustering a fleet at Sebastopol and an army of 30,000 men, sent Prince Menschikoff as a special messenger to Constantinople. He demanded the protection of all members of the Greek Church in Turkey and the settlement of the question regarding the Holy Places of Jerusalem in such a manner as to leave the supremacy to the Greeks. On May 5, 1853, Menschikoff, appearing before the full Divan in his top coat and muddy boots, delivered his message with ill-concealed disdain and contempt. At the time Lord Stradford de Radcliff and M. de la Cour, the English and French ambassadors, were absent. On their return, however, they assured the Sultan of their entire support, and the Russian demands were at once refused. Menschikoff delivered an ultimatum that was disregarded, and started for Russia.

Page 342: The Divan by this time perceived the impossibility of properly defending, unaided, the coast of the Black Sea against the Russians, and called for the assistance of the allied powers whose fleet occupied the Bosporus, and these vessels entered the Black Sea January 2, 1854.

Page 376: Except on special occasions the Sultan eats alone. His meals are prepared in his private kitchen. The Aktchi Bashi or chief cook officiates under the ever watchful eye of the Kelardji Bashi, controller of the cellars, one of the most weighty functionaries in Yildiz Palace, for the health, the very life even, of the ruler is at his mercy. When cooked, his meals are served in silver vessels and each one is closely sealed with the red wax bearing the official seal of the Kelardji Bashi. Scores of people from the kitchen follow the meals in procession into the imperial chamber. The Kelardji Bashi breaks the seal before it is given to the Sultan, and often he is requested to taste some particular dish before the Sultan partakes of it; this is done as a precaution against poison, and it is eaten from the dish in which it is served; the Sultan partakes sitting on a divan in a loose robe with the sleeves turned up. The repast is wound up with coffee and a cigarette, formerly the tchibouk, which is made, as previously mentioned, of cherry wood or jasmine. The precious amber piece was encircled with rings of gold, enameled and often enriched with diamonds or rubies. The Sultan's drinking water is brought to the palace in casks under special precautions from a certain spring in the suburbs of Constantinople.

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Gibb, A History of Ottoman Poetry v1, 1902

Page 232: Very different is the fate that has attended the labours of Suleymán Chelebi, the other of the two poets who lived under Báyezíd.

This writer, who is called Suleymán-i Burseví, that is, Suleymán the Brusan or native of Brusa, is the earliest strictly Ottoman poet whose work is in our hands. Of his life we have few details; the facts that h was a disciple of the famous teacher Emír Sultán; that he served as Imám or Precentor of the Divan to Báyezíd the Thunderbolt, and that he became, after the death of that monarch, Imám of the great mosque which the latter had built in Brusa, represent the sum of our knowledge concerning his career. The date of his death is unrecorded; but it must have been later than 805 (1403), the year of that of Báyezid whom we are told he survived.

Page 413: How many a Khan within this khan hath lighted! How many a King on this divan hath lighted! An ancient caravanseray the world is Where many and many a caravan hath lighted.

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Gibb, A History of Ottoman Poetry v4, 1902

Page 58: Mustafa Sámí Bey, famous alike as historian and poet, was the sone of one ‘Osman Efendi who held the position of Arpa Emini or Intendant of the Barley, as the comptroller of the supplies of barley for Constantinople and the Sultan’s stables used to be called in olden times. Sámí, who entered the civil service and became a Clerk of the Divan, was during the reign of Ahmed’s successor, Mahmud I, appointed Wáqi’a-nevis or Imperial Annalist, and as such wrote the chronicles of the Empire from 1143 (1730-1) till 1146 (1733/4) in which year he died.

Page 71: Few particulars are forthcoming concerning the life of Háméi Efendi who is usually called Hámí of Amid, from his native city of Amid or Diyárbekr. He is said to have been for a time Divan-secretary to certain vezirs, and as in some of his poems he refers to what he saw in Constantinople, he must have visited the capital, if he did not reside there. He died, however, in 1160 (1747-8) in his native city, to which, and to places in the neighborhood of which, he at times refers in his Díwán.

Page 159: In 1168 (1754—5), when Hakím-záde Alí Pasha was passing through Toqad on his way from Trebizond to assume for the third time the office of Grand Vezír, he was presented with a qasída and a chronogram by Kaní, who was then thirty-eight years of age, and who from his youth upwards had been famous in his native town alike for his learning and for his writings both in verse and prose. These poems so pleased the old statesman that having obtained the permission of the local Mevleví sheyih, he took Kání along with him to Constantinople. Here, through his patron's influence, the poet was at once entered among the Clerks of the Divan, a good position in itself, and one which might easily have led to something better. But the restless nature of Kání could not brook the routine of official life, and he had hardly received his appointment before he began to look about for some excuse to throw it up.

Page 160: The opportunity was not long in coming; Alí Pasha's third tenure of the Grand Vezirate lasted only two months; and when it came to a close Kání resigned his post, and set out for Silistria as divan secretary to an officer who had been appointed governor of that place. Having lived a free and easy life for nearly forty years in an Anatolian provincial town, Kání not unnaturally found the formalities and ceremonies of Constantinopolitan official society unendurably irksome; and as the following passage from one of his letters shows, this was one at least of the reasons of his eagerness to escape: 'As this draggle-turbaned Kání is not of the same stamp as that stately company who, clad in sumptuous apparel, adorn the streets and market-places, he has been compelled to forsake Constantinople and find a peaceful abode for himself in this reptile-house of Islam called Silistria.'

Page 206: O Ghálib, in sad sooth unread hath our petition bode; To Love’s Divan we’ve come, but ne’er have seen that Lord of Might.

Page 324: The young man’s first employment was as secretary to on Jebbár-záde Salesman Bey, a local notable, on whose death he went to Constantinople, where he arrived in 1228 (1813). Here the influence of a paternal uncle called Mustafa Mazhar, who held the position of Re’is Efendi, got him into the office of the Imperial Divan. His abilities were soon recognized, and promotion quickly followed, till, after having hold various important offices, such as Amedji and Beylikjr, he found himself in his uncle’s old post of Re’is Efendi.

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Gibb, A History of Ottoman Poetry v5, 1902

Page 193: Diwán (Collection of Poems)

Page 194: Diwán Efendisi (Secretary of Divan)

Page 200: Kátib-i Diwán (Secretary of Divan)

Page 225: Divan, the

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Appleton’s New Spanish-English and English-Spanish Dictionary, 1903

otomano, n.a. a. & m. & f. Ottoman. — v. ottoman, divan.

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Gibb, A History of Ottoman Poetry v2, 1902

Page 24: Mehemmed II organized likewise the civil and military administration. As constituted by him, the Divan, what we should now call the Cabinet, consisted of nine members, namely, four Vezis, the chief of whom was called the Grand Vezir and was President of the Divan and Prime Minister of the Empire, two Qázi-Askers, who controlled all matters connected with the ulema, the one in Rumelia, the other in Anatolia; two Defterdars or Treasurers; and one Nishanji or Chancellor. ….. Footnote: The word 'Diwan' ought in strictness to be transliterated 'Diwán', as it is spelt and pronounced exactly in the same way as the name given to the collected lyric works of a poet, but for the sake of distinction I shall use the popular form 'Divan' where the Ottoman cabinet is meant, and reserve the more correct ‘Diwán' for the other and more technical sense of the word.

Page 25: Footnote: This continued to be the constitution of the Divan till the time of Suleymdn I, who added several new members to the original nine.

Page 64: Elsewise 'tis as bright Zelikhá with her golden orange shown.' Nay, the truth is this: the Sun to view the King's Divan hath oped There a ruby window whence to look that gilded dome upon. …….. Footnote: In this couplet the poet passes to the praise of the Sultan (Mehemmed II). He says, 'no, all these pictures I have been presenting are mere fancies; the real truth about the sun is, not that it is a king or a ship or a peacock, but that it is a celestial being who is looking through a round window of ruby (i. e. itself), which it has opened in the dome of heaven in order to look down on this far more magnificent dome of the Divan-chamber of the Sultan'. It will be noticed here again that the sun is presented at once as the window and as the looker through the window.

Page 96: The accession of Bayezfd II, which took place in 886 (1481), was duly celebrated by Nejatf; and when in the same year Prince Abdullah, the eldest son of Bayezid, but still a mere lad, was made governor of Qaraman in place of his uncle Prince Jem, the poet was appointed to his service with the position of Secretary of Divan. In the Ramazan of 888 (Oct. 1483) Prince Abdullah died at his seat of government, and Nejátí returned to Constantinople, where he presented the Sultan with a beautiful elegy he had composed on his late master.

Footnote: 'Secretary of Divan' (Kátib-i Díwán, or, Díwán Efendisi) was the title of the official secretary of a vezir or other high functionary.

Page 99: and this quatrain: —

'Nejati, though thou'st blackened the leaves of thy Dfwan, 'Dost hope the book wherein thy deeds are writ will white appear?   'Unless, may be, the living do forget not from their prayers 'Those who are gone and who of such remembrance worthy are.'

Footnote: i. e. though thou hast covered the white pages with black writing, i. e. though thou hast composed a whole Díwán of poems.

Page 104: The literary work of Nejati is therefore practically confined to his Díwán; and this volume has been sufficient to win for him a distinguished position in Ottoman literature. It is true that Nejati is not inspired in the sense that Nesimi was; he is an extremely self-conscious writer, he never for a moment forgets himself in his subject. None the less he is, judged by the standards of his school, the greatest Turkish poet that has yet appeared. He is more artistic, more subtle, more original than any of his predecessors. Although he is a follower in the footsteps of Ahmed, his work is not, like that of the pioneer, a mere collection of translations or adaptations; and if his verses lack somewhat of the virility of Jem's, they are infinitely more studied and refined. The Prince's poetry owes such originality as it has to the fact that the author put into it something of his own personality; the originality of Nejati's work, on the other hand, is due to the imaginative ingenuity of the poet. His verses abound in graceful metaphors, which, though always conceived in the Persian spirit and presented after the Persian fashion, are not simply transferred from some Persian díwán, but are the result of the observation and the applicative skill of the author himself.

Page 135: Mihri, though the most distinguished, was not the only Ottoman poetess of those old times. The biographers speak of another lady, Zeyneb by name, whom also they credit with the production of a Diwan, and who, according to Sehi, was moreover skilled in music. But this Zeyneb is an even more shadowy figure than Mihri. Latifi claims her for his own city of Qastamuni, and says that she was the daughter of a learned man of that place, who, perceiving her innate talent, had her carefully educated in the different branches of knowledge, and caused her to study the Persian diwans and the Arabic qasidas, the result being that she herself composed a Diwan of Turkish and Persian poems which she dedicated to Sultan Mehemmed II.

Page 227: Ashiq is the only one of the biographers to give us any particulars concerning Mesihi's history. From what he says it is evident that the future poet must in early life have found his way to Constantinople. He appears to have begun his career as a softa, that is, a student of the Law; but he soon turned his attention to calligraphy, in which he took great pleasure, and which he practiced with much success. His skill in this art won for him the good graces of the illustrious vezir Ali Pasha, one of the greatest contemporary patrons of men of talent, who honoured him with his friendship and appointed him to be his divan secretary. But Mesfhí was, unfortunately for himself, of a careless and pleasure-loving disposition, and failed to take due advantage of his opportunities. A certain Ali Chelebi, another of the vezir's proteges, who had been Mesfhí’s boon-companion, told the biographer Ashiq that that 'city lad', as the Pasha used to call the poet, was never at hand when wanted to draw up a letter or other document, and used invariably to be found by the porters sent to seek him, either in the disreputable quarter of Under-Castle, or in the taverns, or in the pleasure-gardens with his favourites. The Pasha was not unnaturally annoyed at this conduct, and so put off promoting his secretary or raising his salary till he should mend his ways. But before this happened Ali Pasha was killed, in the First Rebí 917 (June 1511), in battle against the Shíi rebels of Tekke, and Mesfhí found himself without a patron and without the means of livelihood. His first necessity was of course to discover another protector, but this was far from easy.

Page 230: Hasan proceeds on the same lines, but is as usual more bombastic in his strain; thus he says, ‘It is fitting he should be famed under the pen-name of Mesihi, for Messiah-like he revivified the dead of speech and through the channel of his musky-figuring reed made the Water of Life to flow.' 'In subtlety of fancy and in grace and delicacy of diction he is without peer, and it is meet he should be called the Third of the Trinity of the poets of Rum.' 'His eloquent poems are world-renounced as the sun in the ethereal heaven.' 'It were no figure of speech to say that the hosts of fancies mustered in his eloquent Diwan have never before been assembled at any divan, and that the stars of imagination that shine in the heaven of his pages have never before been gathered together in a single place.'

Page 264: Jafer's first appointment was the Muderrisate or Principalship of the College of Mahmud Pasha in Constantinople. But Sultan Bayezid, who highly appreciated the young man's talent, and who doubtless felt a special interest in him on account of the old Amasiya days, soon found for him another and far more exalted post. The official who held the position of Nishanji or Chancellor of the Divan having been promoted to the vezirate, it became necessary to appoint someone else to the vacant office. It so happened that there was no one among the government clerks, from whose ranks the selection would regularly have been made, who was deemed competent adequately to discharge the functions of this important and responsible post. The Sultan therefore ordered the vezirs to select from among the ulema some man whose proved ability and literary skill were sufficient guarantee of his efficiency. The vezirs, who probably knew something of the wishes of their Imperial master, made choice of Jafer Chelebi; and Bayed, who was greatly pleased, at once began to shower favours on his old friend. Till this time the Defterdars or Treasurers of the Divan had always taken precedence of the Nishanji; they used to sit above him on the bench in the council-chamber, and to stand above him when, drawn up in line, the members of the Divan saluted the Sultan as he passed. Bayezid changed this arrangement; he gave the Nishanji precedence over the Defterdars, a step somewhat keenly resented by the latter officials. He further conferred, for the first time, the rank and title of Pasha on the Nishanji; and so Jafer became generally known among the people as the Nishanji Pasha, or, as we might say, the Lord Chancellor.

Page 303: Footnote: Here Lámii, Ahi, and Wálí introduce a long digression concerning the way in which, before their flight is finally decided on, Melody entertains Heart and fans his passion. The King, who hears that the Prince is amusing himself in this fashion, has Heart's minstrels arrested and brought before his divan. Here Melody, along with the three minstrels, Harp, Tabor, and Flute, are questioned concerning themselves, and a long colloquy ensues. Eventually they charm the whole divan, and King and courtiers give themselves up to merry-making. At length the King is brought to himself by the remonstrances of a sheikh called Inspiration (Ilhám), whereupon he imprisons all the minstrels. All this, like most of the other additions which occur in the Turkish versions, and which in no way affect the course of the story, is doubtless the invention of Lámií.

Page 348: The vezier was in the field, on some expedition or another. One day he held a divan or levee at which the young man was present, probably as a member of his suite. Among the officers who attended was Evrenos-oghli Ahmed Bey, the representative of a famous aristocratic family and one of the great military chiefs of the Empire. When this brilliant officer arrived he went forward and seated himself above all the other warriors and emirs present. While the youth was still admiring the gallant bearing of the noble, there entered the court a poor-looking man meanly dressed in a shabby suit of the clothes peculiar to the learned profession, who without a moment's hesitation advanced and seated himself above the resplendent son of Evrenos, while the latter, far from resenting the intrusion, at once made way for the new-comer, treating him, as did all the other emirs, with the utmost deference and respect. Kemal-Pasha-zade, amazed at the sight, turned to someone who was standing near and asked what it might mean. He was answered that the poor-looking man was Monla Lutfi of Toqat, at present principal of the Philippopolis college with a daily salary of thirty aspers, and that the deference shown him was because of the honour in which learning and its representatives were held by all men howsoever great. Then and there the young man determined to abandon the career of arms in favour of that of learning: 'for,' said he to himself, 'it is impossible I should ever attain the rank of the Son of Evrenos, but I may well achieve a higher than Monla Lutfi's.'

Page 366: We have seen how the court of Prince ‘Abdu’lláh and afterwards that of Prince Mahmúd were graced by the presence of Nejáti: [Footnote: Nejáti was Prince Mahmud's nishanji or chancellor, Suni (Nejáti's pupil) was the Prince's secretary of divan, and Tálíi (another poet) was his defterdar or treasurer.

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Melbourne Centennial International Exhibition, The Official Catalogue of the Exhibits, 1888

191 Craig, Williamson & Thomas, 6,14, 16. Elizabeth-st., Melbourne.—Drawing room, dining room, and bedroom furniture. In this exhibit there is shown for the first time "Ford's Patent Sliding-door Mirrored Wardrobe." This invention will prove advantageous to ladies and gentlemen, the door being so constructed as to enable the person using the wardrobe to have his or her figure refiected in any position required, thus dispensing with the use of cheval glasses. Visitors are requested to see the working of this exhibit. The wardrobe was manufactured at Craig, Williamson and Thomas’ Cabinet Factory, Little Collins-st. East, and is made entirely of colonial woods. Mr. Ford, the patentee, is manager of the firm's furniture department. The wool sack ottoman, divan chair, with shaped bolster top, and corner ottoman, are the registered design of Craig, Williamson and Thomas. The remainder of the drawing room suite is upholstered in tapestry and plush in the Oriental style.

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United States Department of State, Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire, 1881

Page 22: Belgium. — Belgium, also, after it became independent of Holland, concluded a treaty of commerce and amity with the Porte, that, namely, of August 3, 1838, 1839 between Leopold I and Mahmud II. It contains the same provisions as the treaty with the United States referred to above. Besides the provisions concerning the jurisdiction accord to consuls over the citizens or subjects of their respective states even in cases of offenses committed against the subjects of the Ottoman Porte, these two treaties, namely, that with the United States and that with Belgium, contain slight modifications of the provisions of the older capitulations respecting causes (in which the sum shall exceed 500 pilasters) that are to be submitted, not to the provincial tribunal, but to the Divan or Sublime Porte. (Martens’ Recueil.) …….. As to the clause of this fourth article regarding the causes, exceeding 500 pilasters, to be submitted to the Sublime Porte, there was then no Divan Akan Adlieh, and the Grand Divan (see French capita. of 1740, art. 41, and Russian capit. of 1783, art. 64), or Council of State, would have had to hear such causes. For the composition and attributes of the Divan at or about that time, see Grassi’s Charle Turquie, Paris, 1825, tome i., page 255, Sub. verbo Divan. The Reis Effendi was then a member of this court or Divan.

Page 28: 5th. In civil causes between native and foreigners jurisdiction is served in may of the capitulations to the local tribunals, but with various guarantees and qualifications, such as, that the suit must be tried in the preens of the consular dragoman, that the Ottoman judge shall not give heed to the native unless he have written proof of his claim, and, lastly, that if the claim exceed a given sum it shall b referred to the imperial divan. Usage, however, and the provisions of some of the capitulations have widely departed from these stipulations.

Page 29: In the older capitulations, the same for which the suit was to be brought before the imperial divan was 3,000 aspens; it was afterwards raised to 4,000 aspens; in the more recent capitulations with Belgium and the United States it was fixed at 500 piasters; but the adoption of a commercial code and the institutions of mixed tribunals of commerce has done away with this stipulation. As for the precautions indicated concerning the necessity of a written deed or instrument to enable the native to proceed against an European, and concerning the prohibition of resorting to proof by oral witness, they are to be found in these capitulations; French, article 23; Russian, articles 9 and 68; Prussian, article 5; and English, article 58. These precautions are necessitated by the imperfection of Ottoman tribunals, and the defects of Moslem procedure, which is almost wholly founded upon proof by oral testimony. Usage further departed from the provisions of the capitulations and established the almost invariable rule in the provinces, and especially in Egypt, that the Ottoman plaintiff should in civil suits have recourse to the consular court of the defendant; which is supported by article 5 of the Austrian capitulations of 1718, which say: “If anything be due by a merchant of the Royal Caesarian Government to someone, the creditor must require his debt through the consuls and interpreters of his debtors, and through no one else.” See United States with Japan of 1858, article 6.

Page 66: After the year 1856, the first important step made in the direction of insuring to tenants holding state property on long leases the right of transmission of such property to their heirs is to be found in the Code for Real Property of the 21st of April, 1858 (7 Ramazan, 127). That code deals, however, only with state lands farmed out, rented, or sold under certain stringent conditions and restrictions, or with state lands dedicated by the Sultans; it does not touch the lands hold in fee-simple (mulk), nor the lands which, having ben originally mulk, have ben dedicated by the original owner for benevolent objects; for the two classes are subject to the provisions of the holy Moslem law as found in the treats on fiqh of Mahommdan law doctors. Furthermore, it abrogated all the previously existing rules and ordinances referring to the premises preserved in the bureau of the imperial divan, in the state archives, or elsewhere.

Page 75: It is here necessary to briefly call attention to the fact that the remolding of Turkey was not so easy a matter as had been thought, and, that disappointments would surely follow upon those sanguine hopes. During their endeavors to induce the Turkish ministers to adopt masseurs of reform of so radical a nature as to grate with equal harshness against the civil rights as well as the religious prejudices of the Turks, the ambassadors of the western powers found none of that enthusiastic readiness to meet them halfway, which they had considered themselves warranted to expect. They rather became aware that nothing would have been more agreeable to the Ottoman Divan than that, after Russia had been once driven back within her limits, the old slow and slipshod internal organization should be suffered to continue. In order to bring into existence that which had been nevertheless already recognized as necessary and indispensable, the diplomats, after having lost all hope of making the desired impression by friendly words of counsel, found themselves at last forced to adopt a tone that was more suited to an angry commander than to an ally. At the beginning of the complications it was undoubtedly the British ambassador who took the lead in the counsel of the Porte; later, owing to the brilliant display of French power that awaked great admiration in Constantinople, as also everywhere else, the representative of the Emperor Napoleon III took the place of the former.

Page 89: I have also given orders to my Bajuli, both in the past and in the future, that they cannot occupy themselves with any litigation or matter between the merchants without their consent, ….. [Footnote: Out of this provision sprung the privilege possessed by all European nations in the Levant of being exempt from the jurisdiction of the local tribunals in their lawsuits, and of bing judge by the consuls according to their own laws and customs. This privilege, which still continues, will be found more clearly set forth in the succeeding Italian capitulations, and in those of the other nations of Christendom. Beside this privilege the Pisans, the Venetians, and others, too, had obtained an exceptional jurisdiction when thy had suits with Moslems. It was not the Câdi or any other ordinary judge, but the lieutenant of the Sultan who had to decide in such cases. See Amari’s Arab Diplomas, introduction, p. 62. Compare also, treaty between United States and Algiers of 1795, article 15. A reproduction of such concession may be seen in the capitulations afterwards entered into with the Ottoman Porte, where it is stipulated that every suit involving more than 4,000 aspens is to be adjudicated by the Divan of Constantinople.

Page 92: Article 41 of French capitulations says: “Suits exceeding 4,000 aspers shall be heard at my imperial divan, and not elsewhere.

Page 97: Art. 7. No vice consul or consular agent shall be able to exercise his functions without obtaining a Bérat from the Imperial Divan through the superior foreign authorities, which Bérat shall serve him as hitherto as exequatur.

Page 112: In vain did the young sect appeal against this oppression to the protection of the administrative council of the Armenian nation, an assembly consisting of twelve influential laymen and, in matters of civil government, having coordinate functions with the patriarch; in vain did it appeal to the Porte itself; both here and there it met with a repulse. The notables, no less than the clergy, found it for their interest to uphold intact the ecclesiastico-civil unity of the nation; and the Ottoman Divan, having in and of itself no sympathy for the matter, was guided in its resolutions in the premises by a few personages belonging to the higher class of Turkish functionaries, whom the Armenians had gained over by money. And once the Neo-Protestants betook themselves to the last resort within their reach; they appealed for help to the representatives of those powers whose confession of faith was similar to their own, and found, more especially in Sir Stratford Canning, the British ambassador, a warm support. Still the earlier results were but small; for, although it was possible to obtain freedom in isolated cases for those who were lying in prison for the sake of their faith and deter the Turkish authorities from fresh deeds of violence, yet the influence of the chiefs of the Armenian people was nevertheless able, though the secret support of Russian diplomacy, to do this much, namely, to hinder the ordering and settlement of the civil status of the seceders, and hence prevent the forming of a systematic and lasting shelter against the oppression of which they were the victims.

Page 119: Suits of Frenchmen exceeding 4,000 aspens to be heard at the divan of the Great Lord, 41. ….. Suits once tried to be heard at the divan in case of a revision; formalities in this respect, 71.

Page 124: In the long run it could not but come about that the various engagements that had been wrung forth from the Divan by the religious solicitude of Christendom should compromise its independence even more seriously than the judiciary concessions decreed by the capitulations.

Page 125: It is not for me to enter here into the discussion of the titles by which the Greek Church in particular sought to, and in a certain measure was able to, justify in the eyes of the Porte its claims to the holy places. [Footnote 2: Firman of Omar Ibu el Kattab declared apocryphal by the Divan in 1630; firman of Murad IV, revokd by a later firman, etc etc.]

Page 126: Later on English and American evangelical corporations betook themselves to an active propaganda in Asia Minor and Syria, gaining proselytes particularly among the Gregorian Armenians, who are more accessible than the Moslems or orthodox Greeks to the preachings and liberalities of the missionaries. Their zeal became so enterprising that a few months ago the Divan thought fit to insist, at the Cabinet of St. Jams, upon the necessity of putting an end to an organized intermeddling that aroused the fanaticism of the Moslems against the Christians. …….. Nevertheless, up to about the middle of this century foreign intervention in questions of worship rested only upon particular concessions of varying importance, which, moreover, when judged as to their spirit, in no way aid at the native Christian communities in general; it was consequently reduced to individual acts, which, by the fact of their isolation, found the Divan less disarmed.

Page 128: I have indicated the starting point of this new era in the regular relations of the Porte with the great powers by citing an extract of the note hand in to the divan by the British ambassador in that very year of 1856. In this memorable document, that revealed, in order not to despise it, the authority and assurance of a diplomat always listened to, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe brought out the necessity of consecrating by one and the same charter, and “of racing in the same compass,” the religious privileges of the Christians and the administrative reforms that were to elevate their social and political condition; and upon this basis he drafted, together with France, the programme of the Hatti-Hamayoun, which, after a month’s interval, was officially communicated by the Porte to the congress of Paris.

Page 129: In reality, since 1856, foreign diplomacy took so active and stay a part in the regulating or in the controlling of Ottoman affairs, that one day the Grand Vizier was heard to complain bitterly of a systematic intermeddling that deprived his government of every initiative [action], and of all authority.

I shall not here insist upon the notorious acts of intervention, official and collective, that have followed the Paris congress; they are written down and sufficiently illustrated in the protocols and periodical publications for which the Eastern question has, during the last twenty-five years, been the inevitable topic or theme. Whether it was a matter of the relations of the Sultan to the provinces place under his suzerainty, or that the Turkish authorities were at variance with the provinces directly subjected to their laws, no event of any gravity has com up in the sphere of the internal policy of the empire but what it has brought the Divan into collision with the foreign cabinets. The latter have intervened, either as co-signataries of a convention-instrument or as guardians of the gnarl principle that govern the European commonwealth, or even simply as defenders of the rights of mankind.

Page 130: Beyond and outside of these divers initiative actions, sealed by public treaties or by more or less solemn protocols, that are either common or individual, and by which the great powers of Europe have imposed their wills upon Turkey, whether in the regulating of her social and political difficulties or in the fulfillment of her humanitarian duties, there is not one governmental interest as to matters internal but what the Divan has received, in relation thereto, more or less imperative directions from without [in the French, de l’étranger].

Page 131: There exists, nonetheless, since the treaty of 1856, a formal text that forbade the guaranteeing powers from mixing themselves up in the relations of the Sultan with his subjects, and in the internal administration of the empire; and the Porte did not fail to invoke it, as occasion required, against foreign undertakings.

This resource, it is true, did not at all avail the Porte in its great straits; but it formed a portion of the arsenal of means that the Divan brought into play for dividing, as occasion required, its ordinary counsellors. So inoffensive as it had remained, the Sultan had one day to give up this weapon that the Paris congress had left in his hand. On the 31st of March, 1877, the London conference put into a protocol the following declaration:

“The contracting parties propose to watch over, though their representative at Constantinople, and their local agents, the manner in which the promise of the Turkish government shall be executed. If their hope should again be deceived, such a state of things would be considered by them as incompatible with their interests and the interests of Europe in general. In such a case, they will take counsel in common as to the means that they may deem to be the most fitted to secure the well being of the Christian populations and the interests of the general peace.”

Page 133: Thus (and it is on this account that I thought fit to annex this chapter to the short historical sketch of the interventions that the Divan has successfully “provoked, tolerated, or sustained”), Turkey, reinstated by Europe in its former Danubian territory, has had to give up to Europe the care of therein undertaking and therein carrying out a technical, administrative, and financial work, whereof she was deemed incapable of working up the plan, or of foreseeing and overcoming the difficulties.

Page 134: Additional Note. — Since the pages were written, the foreign missions accredited to Constantinople have addressed an identical note to the Porte, wherein the insist upon the speedy execution of the clauses of the Berlin treaty relating to the frontiers of Greece and of Montenegro, and to the reforms to be introduced into the provinces inhabited by the Armenians. That same note informs the Ottoman Government of the convocation of a conference interested with resolving, by mediation, the territorial question upon which the Divan has not been able to come directly to an understanding with the cabinet of Athens.

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Great Britain, Accounts and Papers of the House of Commons, 1878

Ratification. — On account of the ancient and sincere friendship manifested by the Court of Spain for the Sublime Porte, the latter has thought proper to agree to the request which it had several times addressed to it, to give permission for Spanish ships to navigate, and carry on commerce in the Black Sea; and this negotiation, having been conducted by means of a sufficient number of discussions and deliberations between the Department for Foreign Relations of the Ottoman Divan and the illustrious Don Luis del Castillo, Chargé d’Affaires of His Catholic Majesty, has terminated in a Sened, or Convention, comprehending four Articles and a Conclusion, which was signed and sealed by both parties in the latter end of the month of Rebbi-ul-ewel, in the year of the Hegira 1243.

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Hammer, History of the Ottoman Empire v1, 1840

Page 135: The maneuvers of Timur to sow division among the enemies were favored by a spirit of discontent which reigned in the army of Bajezid, because of the rigors of the Sultan and the irregularity of the payment of the soldiers. In vain during the council of war, a divan on foot, had vizier Ali-Pascha and his son Ibrahim tried to repress his temerity and correct his parsimony; in vain had they represented to him that the superiority of the enemy was to prevent a pitched battle in the open country, and rather to search for the woods and canyons or ravines. 

Page 169: The day after his accident, the Sultan again showed himself to his army, which received him with the accustomed cries and cheers (alkisch); but the next day he suffered a second attack, which paralyzed his tongue, and in the evening he died. Ibrahim and Bajesid-Pascha, both viziers, resolved to hold the death of the sultan a secret, until the eldest son Murad was informed, and after he had taken possession of the throne at Brusa. Elwan-Bey, the first Esquire, was hastily dispatched to Amasia to inform him of the death of his father. The Divan, however, continued to be held regularly, and in order the separation in Europe of the army which might have been divided into parties for the various sons of Mohammed, in case the rumor of the sultan’s death should spread, and to strengthen within that corps the new sovereign in Asia, it was proclaimed in the name of the Sultan that an Asian campaign had been determined, and that the point of assembly of the troops had been fixed at Bigha (capital of Karasi). 

Page 301: 2. The Divan of Dschem, in the Royal Library of Berlin, under no. 129 of the manuscripts of Diez.

Page 334: Before the door of the empire are encamped the guards who protect it; it is near the sublime door through which the vizier enters. The door of happiness leads to the sanctuary of bliss, inside the courtyard, in the women's apartment. In the interior of the house is the room where the treasure is kept; the administration of the finances is in charge of keeping the house, and in the room is the sofa (the divan), on which sit the high dignitaries of the state; finally, the most distant apartments are assigned to the courty itself. 

Page 335: Neglecting the funeral feasts of husein and the newrus, or the celebration of the renewal of the Persian year, the Ottomans halved the solemnized days in the Persian calendar; but he added a new splendor to the two bairam festivals, surrounding them, with the pomp of the court. "It is my imperial will," said he, "that for the feasts of the bairam a throne be set up in the public square, in front of the Divan room, and that the hand-kissing ceremony be performed. My viziers, my kadiaskers, and my defterdars must stand behind me; my chodscha (preceptor) is standing in front of the viziers, the kadiaskers and the defterdars; the tschauschs kiss my hand, as well as sandschakbegs and mute-ferrikas, whether they are soldiers or not, etc."

Page 336: The first columns of the empire and the support of the Divan are the viziers, that is to say the porters, so called because on their shoulders rests the weight of the state. First, there was only one; then there were two; then three under the first sultans. The conqueror brought their number to four, of which the first, the grand vizier, raised much above the others by rank and power, invested with unlimited power, is the visible image of the Sultan, his representative, the supreme leader of all branches of administration, center and levier or taxer of the whole government.

Page 337: When, at the end of a year, the sultan appointed a new grand vizier, he confided to him only the conduct of the army, as to the generalissimo, but he himself presided over the Divan in person; it was only under the administration of Keduk-Ahmed-Pascha, the conqueror of Kaffa, Karamania, and Otranto, that one day a Turkman, covered with rags, appeared in the Divan room, and asked, in the rude language of his compatriots: Which of you is the blessed emperor? Mohammed was inflamed with anger, and the grand vizier took this opportunity to represent to the Sultan that, in order not to expose in the future his sacred person to such a mistake, it would be better to abandon the care of the affairs of the Divan to the viziers. The conqueror welcomed the proposal; and from that moment on, the administration remained exclusively with the viziers, and particularly in the hands of the first of them. For four consecutive days, on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, the grand vizier, preceded by other viziers, kadiaskers, defterdars, and nischandschis, went to the Divan room, at the seraglio: to the entrance to the council chamber, where the first comers stopped, the others did the same, all crossing their arms on their chests, and carefully hiding their hands in their sleeves; the grand vizier then crossed their double ranks, and entered the room first; the other members of the Divan then entered two by two, so that the first to arrive at the door crossed the threshold last; as they pass the ranks of the councilors, the grand vizier gives them a salute, which they render to him in return. Upon the sofa where he sits, on his right, sit the other viziers and kadiaskers, on his left, the defterdars and the nischandschis; before him stand the masters of the petitioners, who present their affairs; the reis-effendi, or secretary of state, is at the foott of the sofa; the grand chamberlain and the marshal of the court, with their procession of chamberlains and lower tschauschs, add to the pomp of these sittings, and the tschaucsch-baschi, or marshal of the court, who maintains the order, is called the bey of the Divan. 

Page 337: The insignia of the dignity of vizier are the three ponytails, of which the beglerbegs wear only two; a single tail distinguishes sandschak-begs. To viziers alone belongs the salvation of blessing (alkisch), which completely replaced the Byzantine salvation of long years. In the summer, they wear velvet overcoats, with buttons and gold piping; in the winter, this calf is lined with furs. The annual revenues of the viziers were at first 100,000 asperes; then they were raised to 200,000; the fiefs with which they were besides invested produced five or six times this sum. An immense distance between the viziers or paschas with three tails and the great vizier is marked by prerogatives exclusively reserved for this high dignitary: 1. the guard of the imperial seal, with which, on days of the Divan, are sealing the doors of the treasury and Chancery; 2, the right to hold a particular Divan in the afternoon, in his palace, which is called the high door; 3. the escort of the marshal of the court and all the tschauschs, from his palace to the seraglio, and the imperial palace at his house, and Fridays when he goes to the mosque; 4. the visit of the kadiaskers and defterdars every Wednesday, wearing the turban of ceremonies, with whom he goes to the court; 5. the appearance of the officers of the imperial elector, every Monday, in the divan; 6. the solemn procession, when he goes to pray at the mosque on Friday, under the escort of tschauschs (messengers of state), tschaschnegirs (sharp squires), and muteferrikas (couriers of the court), with their ceremonial hats; 

Page 338:  The second columns of the empire and the Divan, are the kadiaskrs, or judges of the army. From the founding of the Ottoman Empire to the madness of Mohammed's kingdom, a single judge of the army had been tasked with resolving the disputed issues in Turkey and Asia; in the last year of the conqueror, when Mesih-Pascha, after the unhappy departure from Rhodes's headquarters, upon his return to Constantinople, was deposed of his expected dignity, with which the judge of the Magnesia-Tschelebisi army was invested, and while Molla-Kastelani replaced the latter, the grand vizier Mohammd-Pascha-Karamani, under whom most of the provisions of the kanunname were arrested, and who was Kastelani's personal enemy, represented to the sultan that, since there were four viziers on the Divan In the future, it could well establish two military judges, one of whom would decide on European affairs, while the other would be given those of Asia. His proposal was adopted, and Hadschi-Hasansade became Kastelani's colleague, as Anatolia’s first army judge.

Page 338: These dignitaries then had the right to be admitted to the sultan's audience on the days of the Divan, immediately after the vows, and to present to him directly their report of affairs; on Tuesdays and Wednesdays excepted, every afternoon they held a special Divan in their own home, where the judges and rectors of the colleges went. They appointed all of the offices of the Kadis and the Muderris, in their respective departments, with the exception of the places of kadis whose daily product was above 150 Aspres, and of muderris with a revenue of 40 asperes, as at Constantinople, Adrianople, and Brusa, the grand vizier had reserved to occupy or fill these posts. 

Page 339: Finally, the fourth column of the empire is the nischandschis, or secretaries for the signature of the sultan, who were originally true secretaries of state, and as such members of the Divan. Then the reis-ul-kutlab, or chief of scribes, had no place in this council; it was only a long time after that he succeeded in occupying that rank superior to nischandschi, whose place, nowadays without any action in the course of affairs, is no longer anything but a purely honorary title. The nischandschi was first  obliged to affix himself the tughra, or the figure of the Sultan, at the head of the firmans and documents; now it is his assistants who are doing this. This formality is still called today, as under the caliphs, tewkii, that is, sanction of the fact; at the time of the caliphate, this was filled by the vizier; later, this was left to the care of the Secretary of State, who was named Secretary of State for the expediting. In accordance with the first dispositions of the Ottoman kanun, the nischandschi revised and confirmed the plans and orders prepared by the chancellors; he has, he has the sultan's signature stamped on it, after the draftsman (the mumejis), the referendary or mediator (beghkdschi), and the chancellor (reis) put their visa on them (ssahh).

Page 341: The kapidschilerkiajasi and the tschausch-baschi, on the days of divan and solemn hearings, march forward, carrying sticks garnished with silver, which they make resounding by striking on the ground. The first has kapidschibaschis under his orders; the other orders tschauschs (state quartermasters and messengers); bostandschi-baschi still exercises his authority over the numerous garden guards who are responsible for cultivating and maintaining the imperial gardens, and who train the crews of the sultan's galleys and boats. The harem is the stay of women; he is placed under the supervision of the black eunuchs, whose chief, the kislar-agasi (aga of the girls), is often shown by his most powerful influence of all agas from outside, from inside and from outside. Such was the organization of justice, treasury, army, city, and court. The provinces were administered by begs, paschas of a tail, and beglerbegs, paschas with two tails, chiefs of the feudal cavaliers who gather under their banners (sandschaks). 

Page 351: When Keduk-Ahmed-Pascha, launched in pursuit of Dschem, had arrived at Heraclea, he received the order of the Sultan to bring back the army, to leave four banners to Prince Abdallah, and to go to Constantinople, where he sat in the Divan as a vizier. By his indocile and arrogant humor, by the too lively memories of his former power, as a great coming and victorious lieutenant of the conqueror, he had fallen into the disgrace of Bajezid, and he was shut up in the apartment of the guards of the door of the seraglio from which one is ordinarily led to the place of executions. At the urging of the great coming Ishak-Pascha, Bajezid set him free, received him in grace, and restored him to the place of vizier; for he needed his vigorous arm to contain Karamania.

Page 377: This first dignitary was then Hersek Ahmed-Pascha, brother of the Duke Ulrich of Herzogevina, formerly Christian and noble Venetian, now brother-in-law of the Sultan. The other paschas, columns of the divan and the empire, were Ibrahim, an old man of seventy-five, Jakub-Pascha, son-in-law of the sultan, conqueror of Derencseny, and Iskender-Pascha, who was to awaken the memory of terror from which he had struck Venice twenty-four years before, when his ravages had reached the Tagliamento. The couch was held on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, in the presence of the sultan; Wednesday and Thursday were spent resting; On Fridays, there was prayer in the mosque.]

Page 385: Members of the Divan

Page 392: The Sultan, no longer confiding in the walls of his palace, stood for ten days in the garden, under a tent planted in the open air. Then they escaped the ruins of Constantinople, and fled to the second capital of the empire. But soon after his arrival, the land was violently shaken also at Adrianople, and six days later a furious storm broke out [November 16]. The Tundscha overflowed its bed, and covered the heaped ruins with waves and mud. Then the Sultan summoned a Divan on foot, that is to say, a council whose members had their feet on the ground; he attended it himself. It was a question of deliberating on the means of restoring the walls of Constantinople. The sovereign opened the council with the following words, addressed to the vows: "Your injustices and your cruelties have brought up to heaven the sighs of the oppressed, and the divine wrath has fallen on the city and the country. 

Page 395: Elegy of Metchi, on his Divan. 

Page 399: The fleet was usually strong with seventy galleys; the revenues of the governments of princes amounted to 80,000 livres; the revenues of the viziers to 2,000,000 ducats; the emoluments of the Beglerbegs of Asia and Enropé were fixed at 30,000, of the two judges of the army at 5,000, of the two defterdars at 4,000, of the two kapidschibaschis at 1,000 ducats. Three viziers with three tails, with the two kadiaskers, two defterdars, and the secretary of state for the signature of the sultan, formed the Divan, which opened on Saturday, continued the following three days, in the morning, in the palace of the sultan; twenty-five scribes, who were afterwards the presidents of so many offices of the chancery, kept the registers, and fifty persons in charge of the scales weighed the gold and the money brought to the treasury. After the opinions had been expounded, the viziers took their meals, and then successively reported their affairs. 

Page 400: After the opinions had been expounded, the viziers took their meals, and afterwards successively reported their respective affairs to the Sultan's audience. Sixty tschauchs or messengers of state, submitted to the marshal of the court (tschauschbaschi), awaiting, at the doors of the Divan, the orders of the council, to dispatch couriers, or to bring the persons called, or to transmit the sums ordered or to return the objects claimed; three hundred kapidschis guarded the doors of the palace. Six cavalry generals of the spahis, desilihdars of the mercenaries, and foreigners, of the right wing and the left wing, the aga of the Janissaries and turks, four lieutenants generals, and the aga of the artillery, formed the state command of the army. The three thousand horses of the stables of the palace and their horsemen were under the orders of the grand equerry of the court. When the Sultan went out on horseback, he was surrounded by two hundred archers (ssolak) and three hundred valets; in the field, his people stood beside him, encamped near his person, while the tents of the janissaries formed a circle around the sovereign's pavilion. 

Page 401: Under this abundant dew were the sciences to bear fruit; some of the leading jurists were employed in the most important embassies and negotiations: thus, Ssarigurs brought proposals from Bajesid to Selim; Imam Ali was first sent to Kaitbai in Egypt, and the second to Sultan Korkud. To others was entrusted the direction of the libraries attached to the mosques, and whose treasures grew daily, as it happened to the chronicler Nigisari and Jusuf Schuneid. Some who, in the exercise of the first offices of the magistracy, had acquired great wealth, consecrated them to the acquisition of collections of books. Thus Muejeddin, the judge of the army, the friend of the poets, to whom the great poet Nedschati dedicated his Divan, and who maintained a love trade with Mihri, famous for his verses, left a library larger than any of those which exist today at Constantinople: for it contained seven thousand volumes. 

Page 402: The other princes of the blood did not give themselves up to the commerce of the muses; but they gladly surrounded themselves with friends. Thus Sekai was secretary to Prince Aalem-Schah-Sehini, defterdar of Prince Mohammed-Schah; Fighani, author of an epic on the exploits of Alexander, was the panegyrist of Prince Abdullah; Afitabi and Muniri were engaged in the service of Prince Ahmed, as well as Nedschati, the greatest poet of his time, famous for his lyrical and romantic compositions, and for his translations of Persian works into Turkish. After the death of Prince Abdallah, Nedschati and Fighani entered the service of Prince Mahmud, and formed part of his house with the poets Ssanii, Thalii, and Andelibi; Thalil, as defterdar, Ssanii, as secretary of the divan, and Nedschati, as nischandschi; Fighani and Andelibi practiced as panegyrists and novelists. With Fighani and Nedschati competing in the romantic epic, two poets decorated with the title of divine: Bihischtl, the first Ottoman poet who, like the Persians, published a collection of five romantic poems; and Firdwesi, nicknamed Long, to distinguish him from the great Persian poet, whose epic contains sixty thousand couplets. 

Page 405: Finding few charms in the harem, disdaining the pleasures of the table, but loving movement and hunting, he spent the day exercising arms or pursuing wild beasts; he often spent nights reading stories and poems, especially in Persian, and even left a divan of Persian odes. When Giovio assures of this prince, as of Mohammed II, that he had read in Turkish the lives of Caesar and Alexander, it is not necessary to hear by that the commentaries of Caesar and Pansa, nor the stories of Quintus-Curtius and Arrian, but only the books written about the ancient Caesars, or Persian emperors, and the Persian and Turkish poems known as the life of Alexander, true romances of chivalry, like the poems of the Round Table and the exploits of Roland. 

Page 406: The execution of the grand vizier was only the prelude to a bloody tragedy. Unsamedi, when the Divan was resumed after four days of suspension, Selim presided over the council on horseback, then passed the review of his troops united under arms. Five captains of the janissaries were ordered to remove the five nephews of the sultan from Brusa and bring them to the palace: they were the three sons of Mahmud, the son of Aslem-Schall, Osman, and the son of Schehiti. Sehāh Mohammed; the latter was only seven years old, the others were aged fourteen to one-year-old. 

Page 410: Ismail gave the Diarbekr's government to his most valiant Muhammad Ustadschlu, and Baghdad's to a eunuch, instituted by him to issue from the Divan and clothed with the title of the caliph of caliphs, as if to insult the memory of the ancient rulers of Baghdad. In 1509 he crossed Farsistati and Aserbeidshan, depicting the shores of the Persian Gulf as far as the shores of the Caspian Sea from Schusler in the Chusistan. as far as Baku, in the Schirwan, where he spent the winter, subjecting the castles of these places.

Page 414: After having made the sword fall upon the unarmed heretics in the interior of the empire, it was time to turn it outside; for Scbab-Ismail advanced as avenger of his co-religionists and protector of the fugitive prince Murad. In an extraordinarily convoked Divan, the Sultan announced his resolution, and pointed out the plain of the Janissary as a place of memento for the army. Three times already the Sultan had repeated these words, without one of the trembling slaves before his eyes daring to raise his voice, when a simple Janissary Abdallah advanced, prostrated his face to the ground, and, after the accustomed vows for the long life of the master, expressed to him the gratitude of his companions in arms, “I can finally be led by their padishah against Ismail.” 

Page 420: The next morning [August 24, 1514], in a solemn Divan, Selim received the congratulations of the viziers and the army; the rest of the day was devoted to rest; and, on the 25th, they set out for Tebris, where Selim did not arrive until after thirteen days, because he had deliberately taken long detours. 

Page 426: The Sultan savored Piri's advice, and followed him into the Divan. On leaving the assembly, the viziers, with Piri at the head, went to the site of the current arsenal, on the other side of the port, where there had been yards during the time of the Byzantines. Since the conquest, it was a common cemetery. At the moment, the viziers began the clearing on the edge of the sea; several hundred tombs were searched, and the bones were deposited in a large mass grave. The arsenal and the galleys were set in motion, and Piri's prediction was partly fulfilled; for, before the expiration of the year, Naples and Venice renewed the capitulations; Hungary and Wallachia imitated this example.

Page 441: The Divan was summoned on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If the Sultan went out on horseback, he was given a silk parasol over his head, and the ends of his turban, on which his titles were embroidered in gold, floated behind him.

Page 445: All of these respects of Selim are explained by hypocrisy, and more by his penchant for the mysticism he held of his father. The Divan of his own Persian poetry contains scarcely anything but mystic compositions; and, in this respect, it is a singular phenomenon in literary history, not only of the Ottomans, but of all the peoples who counted writers among their kings. Selim would have also shown great respect to distinguished scholars in his new conquests; but then neither Syria nor Egypt had great men to quote from the empire of intelligence. 

Page 446: During the winter Selim made preparations for the march through the desert that separates Syria from Egypt. Several thousand camels were bought to carry bottles full of water, and two million aspres were distributed as a reward among the soldiers. Sinan-Pascha was commissioned to march with five thousand men to Ghasa, to support the pascha of this place. A saim, possessor of one of the great fiefs of cavalry, Tscherkes-Murad, and another personage, go, as sent to the new sultan of the Mamelukes, to offer him peace by means of the recognition of the Ottoman suzerainty. Tuman-Beg received the two envoys with honors due to their rank, but as they left the audience, they found themselves in front of'Alan-Beg, who, transported with fury at their appearance, shot down their heads. then endeavored, in the Divan, to justify his action, by the indignation he felt at this humiliating proposal of subjection, and by his contempt for the Ottomans, who, far inferior in courage to the Mamelukes, had not, as at the artillery, their triumph of Merdschdabik.

Page 460:  Hasandschan was master enough of himself to run after the great treasurer who would publish the death of the sultan, and to determine the great chamberlain to keep the secret, and to summon the viziers in the Divan at the usual time. Then he began to pray all night with the treasurer, and to recite the Sura-Jes. At daybreak came the great Piri-Pascha, Mustapha-Pascha, and the beglerbeg Ahmed-Pascha, the former great sultan's squire. Piri-Pascha shed tears, and thanked Hasandschan for his actions; without these precautions, the clamor of the eunuchs would have provoked the movements of the janissaries, and the empire would have been precipitated in the greatest perils. 

Page 461: If he does not want to give up such a practice, is his extermination legitimate? Such were the words of the mulfti. In spite of the fanaticism which breaks out in these three answers, the love of the equity of Dschemali stopped, more than once, the acts of bloody tyranny, which the fierce Selim liked. One day, the sultan had ordered the execution of one hundred and fifty employees of the treasury; Dschemali went to the Divan, although his quality of mufti did not permit him to enter, and asked to be introduced to the sultan. The duty of the mufti, he says, is to watch over the future life of the sultan of Islam; I therefore come to solicit from you the grace of the employees of the treasury, condemned to an unjust death. "The ulemas," replied the Sultan, "must not meddle in the affairs of the government; the masses are only contained by rigor.”

Page 462: The grand vizier, surprised by this sanguinary order, consulted with the mufti, whose fetwa had just given a pretext for such acts. They secretly transmitted to the patriarch the council to solicit an audience of the sultan; and Selim, after some difficulty, agreed on the representations of the vizier and the mufti. The patriarch, accompanied by all the clergy, appeared before the Divan at Andrinoplc, and invoked the solemn engagement of Mohammed II, who had promised, at the time of the conquest of the city, not to transform the churches into mosques, to put no obstacle to the exercise of worship, and to let the feast of Easter be publicly celebrated, besides, the violent conversion was condemned by the Koran, which assures the toleration of the non-Moslem peoples, by payment capitation. 

Page 474: The next day the grand master went to the camp with Suleiman; for two days after the signing of the capitulation, Ahmed Pascha had come on horseback to the Spanish breach, and had told him, among other things, that the Sultan wished to see him and speak to him. The men of Isle Adam began with repugnance at daybreak, and it was necessary for him to wait a long time, exposed to rain and snow, before the tent of the victor; because it was Friday and Divan day.  

Page 484: All things being well disposed, Suleiman left Constantinople on Monday, April 25, Chisr's day, with more than a hundred thousand men and three hundred cannons (April 13, 1526). The march was settled with the greatest order; the most severe discipline prevailed; it was forbidden under pain of death to tread the sown fields, to let go of the horses, to bring the inhabitants. Offenders were beheaded or hanged; even judges were struck by the last punishment. On halting days the troops were reviewed, or a Divan was held; at one of these councils appeared the Moldavian envoys with the tribute; in another, the son of Achi-Tschelebi, last physician of Selim I, Seifullah was admitted as a doctor of the court, with 60 asperes of daily treatment.

Page 485: Three hundred of the defenders were taken prisoner; five hundred heads were cut in the rest of the garrison. Preceded by these trophies, the grand vizier went to meet the Sultan, who had already given 1000 pieces of gold to the messenger carrying the news of the conquest; now, in an extraordinary Divan, Suleiman rewarded the feuding begs; those who enjoyed an income of more than 400,000 aspresen, received in present 300,000; to others was given half of this sum. At the same time the rumor spread that the Bosnian begs had conquered the castles of Syrmium.

Page 487: The grand vizier repeated the request of the Sultan. The veteran replied, with the old Turkish rudeness, "My Emperor, take care that the sow does not chastise his little ones." Suleiman laughed, and gave him some ducats. The next day Suleiman held a solemn Divan under a red tent, seated on the throne of gold brought from Constantinople, and there he received the congratulations of the viziers and beglerbegs. With his own hand he placed on the head of the grand vizier a heron feather adorned with diamonds, and the others received the garments of honor. Two thousand heads, among which were those of seven bishops and many Hungarian magnates, were planted like trophies in front of the tent of the Divan. 

Page 490: The head of this chief and that of Weli-dumdar, of the noble house of Sulkadr, were suspended from the saddles of the conquerors. Then the grand vizier called the beglerbeg of Anatoli and the beys to a Divan, to instruct the trial of the cowards who fleeing had previously caused the shame and defeat of the army. Addressing the beglerbeg: Why, he said to him, full of indignation, did you escape to a party of half-naked derwischs, wretches without confession? The beglerbeg remained silent. He asked the beys, who, entering into long quarrels, rejected the fault of each other. The grand vizier had already made a sign to the executioners to approach, when the son of the last grand vizier Mohammed-Beg, sandschakbeg of Itschil, who had hitherto remained silent, spoke abruptly: "Nosaieux," he says, " such circumstances were used to put their trust in God, and to take counsel of the aged, we did neither; pride and blindness have drawn upon us these misfortunes: we must punish these faults, here is the sword and our heads!” 

Page 490: Three months after the return of the grand vizier, a religious question was agitated, which occupied the attention of the sultan and soon of the whole town. A well-known lawyer, Kabis, had been brought before the couch under the accusation of having recognized the preeminence of the prophet Jesus over the prophet Mohammed. The two army judges, Fcnarisade-Mohijeddin Tschelebi and Karidi-Tschelebi, felt helpless in their fight against Kabis' arguments in support of his heresy, and found it easier and more expeditious to sentence him to death. The gland vizier forbade them to be carried away by anger, and enjoined them to triumph over the heretic by reasoning, instead of striking him with a capital punishment dictated by resentment. These dignitaries only knowing how to oppose this declaration, the viziers sent away the accused and accusers from the Divan.

Page 491: The judge of Constantinople Seadeddin and the learned mufti Kemal-Paschasade sat the next day in the Divan; instead of the judges of the army, they disputed with Kabis, and if they could not refute him, at least they fought him, and pronounced the capital punishment with all the calm and formalities which are proper to the organs of the law; Kabis suffered his pain without faltering, without abjuring his belief, and died as a martyr of Christian doctrine. The rigor of Suleiman, which had sacrificed an isolated heretic to the maintenance of orthodoxy, was soon exalted to fury when it came to taking atrocious measures for the preservation of repose and inner tranquility.

Page 491: Soon Suleiman forgot his anger at the success of Chosrew-Beg, governor of Bosnia and Iahja-Oghli de Semendra, against the castles of Bosnia and Dalmatia. In the last winter, at each Divan, so to speak, was brought the bulletin of the taking of a Bosnian place or a happy race in the Syrmium. Jaicsa could not long resist the combined forces of the governors of Semendra and Bosnia, and surrendered on the condition that the cowardly commander, Stephen Gorbonogh, could withdraw freely; as for the brave warrior Blas Chery, he was absent, and Jean Hobordansky was still suffering from an injury received in a duel with the waiwode Kasim.

Page 494: Suleiman's answer to Ferdinand was an ironic challenge; for, three days before, had been solemnly notified, in the public Divan, the document which affected to the great vizier Ibrahim with the unprecedented treatment of 60,000 ducats, and appointed him serasker or general-in-chief for the coming war. Here is how this remarkable piece ended: "I hereby order that, from this day and forever, you will be my great vizier, instituted as such by my majesty in all my states. My viziers, beglierbegs, army judges, legislators, judges, minions, sheikhs, court dignitaries and supporters of the empire, sandschak-begs, generals of cavalry or infantry, alaibegs (colonels of feudatories' troops) , subaschis, tscheribaschis (officers of the feudatories' troops), all my victorious soldiers, great and small, all the high or low servants, all the inhabitants of my states and provinces, cities or countryside, rich and poor, all finally that they may be, must recognize my said grand vizier as serasker, respect and honor him in this quality, go to meet him to pay homage, consider his thoughts and words as orders from my own mouth, to listen to his words with all possible attention, to receive them with a submissive countenance, and, in all the affairs of the State, not to deviate in any way from his recommendations.”

Page 495: At Mohacs, Jean Zapolya came to present his homage to the Sultan, accompanied by his ambassador Lasczky, and followed only by six thousand horses. The grand vizier went to meet him with five hundred horsemen of his suite and as many janissaries, mounted on horseback. The next day was fixed for the solemn audience of Zapolya, as king of Hungary, recognized by Suleiman. In the tent of the Divan were the agas of the court and the army; behind them the bodyguards (ssolak), having in their hands their bows and arrows, then the cups and the quartermasters; outside, the tent was surrounded by janissaries: on the right, behind the janissaries, were the spahis, then the troops of Rumili; on the left, the silihdares, then the soldiers of Anatolia.

Page 498: At Ofen, King Janusch (name which the Turks gave to Zapolya) came to meet him, and he himself saw all the peasants coming forward to receive him [October 29]. Three days later, Zapolya, in a solemn Divan, kissing the Sultan's hand, congratulated him on his victorious campaign, and received ten kaftans and three horses covered with gold harnesses. The next day 2,000 ducats were given to Gritti. Due to a lack of guides, and ignorance of the terrain, we lost a lot of luggage every day and even that of the grand vizier in the middle of bridges and marshes. In punishment for this abandonment, six thousand warriors were deprived of their pay, many saw their fiefs diminished; previously the Sultan, having seen no alai-beg appear in the assembled escort to render him honor, had arrested thirty of these officers.

[divanquotes]

William Deans, History of the Ottoman Empire, 1854

Page 28: A religious war was the unanimous cry of the Polish and Hungarian diets; and Ladislaus passing the Danube, led an army of his confederate subjects as far as Sophia, the capital of the Bulgarian kingdom. In this expedition they gained two signal victories, which are ascribed to the valour and conduct of Hunniades. The mountains of Hsemus arrested the progress of the hero. The confederate army retraced its steps; and the entrance into Buda, which was graced by nine standards and four thousand captives, was at once a military and religious triumph. The most solid proof of victory was a deputation from the divan to solicit peace, to restore Servia, to ransom the prisoners and evacuate the Hungarian frontier. A truce of ten years was concluded; and the followers of Jesus and Mahomet, who swore on the Gospel and Koran, attested the word of God as the guardian of truth and the avenger of perfidy.

Page 100: The Greeks, subtle and presuming by nature, plumed themselves upon this source of intrigues as ardently as if it were a renewal of their ancient lustre. For more than two hundred years, the Greeks, bowed under the Ottoman yoke, had devoted themselves to commerce and the mechanical arts, when Achmet Kiuperli bestowed on the Greek Panajotte the office of interpreter, or dragoman, of the Ottoman Porte. This piece of good fortune awakened among the Greeks the natural spirit of intrigue and ambition which has marked them at every period of their history. Hence arose a race of adroit, ambitious, and intellectual men, who by the necessity of employing their talents upon the divan, and by skilful arrangements and submissive compliances, succeeded in the functions of confidential or diplomatic agents. This portion of the Turkish government henceforth became more enlightened, and more ably administered for the true interests of the state.

Page 162: The gold and agents of Russia excited domestic troubles in his territory, and Saim Guary appealed to the Empress, which brought about the very crisis which the Cabinet of St. Petersburg desired. The divan itself was no stranger to these feuds; but the Turks were so far behind the Muscovites in diplomatic intrigue, that they were not aware that the Russians were the chief agents in stirring up the quarrels in the territory of the Khan. The Porte certainly would not have aided in fomenting dissensions in the government of Guary, had it been aware that Russia alone would gather the fruits.

Prince Potemkin, the favourite of Catherine II., appeared on the scene at the head of sixty thousand troops. The divan, on its part, despatched a Pasha to secure possession of the isle of Taman, which was merely a precautionary measure; but Saim Guary, at the instigation of Russia, summoned the Pasha and his troops to retire; the fierce and impolitic Ottoman, as an answer to the Khan, decapitated his envoy, upon which, Prince Potemkin declared, that the insult thus shown to the ally of his sovereign, should be punished, and he demanded a passage through the peninsula to the isle of Taman. The Khan had no sooner opened the passage of the Crimea than the Russian troops spread themselves over the whole country.

Page 163: The natural fury of the Turks was excited with these transactions, and a general cry for war arose; but the divan was not prepared to risk his armies against the formidable preparations of Russia. A new treaty was therefore signed at Constantinople, in 1784, whereby the Tartars were recognised as subjects of the Empress. Russia thus acquired dominion over a million and a half of warlike Tartars, and Catherine ennobled her acquisitions by the titles of Taurida and the Caucasus.

The Khan soon became an object of contempt to both parties, and after remaining a while in the suite of Potemkin, he was enticed by the insidious invitations of the divan to visit Constantinople. No sooner had he arrived at the capital, than the Ottomans revenged the loss of their Tartar provinces by his execution.

Page 168: Towards the mouths of the Danube the Russians passed on from triumph to triumph. Bender opened her gates; Koutoukai, Galatz, and Akerman were occupied by Suwaroff, whose army formed the siege of Ismail-. In these disastrous circumstances, all the states of Europe secretly or openly espoused the interests of the divan against the ambitious projects of Russia. They might well be alarmed, for the court of St. Petersburg intended nothing short of the total subversion of the Ottoman power. At- this period Joseph II. descended to the tomb, and by this event the dangers of Turkey were averted. Leopold, discovering that the treasures and strength of his empire had been exhausted in the pursuit of objects foreign to the interests of his people, resumed merely a defensive position.

Page 179: Such was the ability of Talleyrand, who had been appointed ambassador at Constantinople, that he succeeded in 'impressing upon the Divan the perfidious delusion of Napoleon and the Directory. Proportionally great was the general indignation when accounts arrived of the invasion of Egypt. Preparations for war were made with the utmost activity; the French charge-d'affairs, Ruffin, was sent to the Seven Towers; and the indignation of the Divan brought forth one of those eloquent manifestoes, which a sense of perfidious injustice seldom fails to produce among the honest though illiterate rulers of mankind. After pointing out the treachery and dissimulation practiced by the French on the Turkish government, the manifesto says, "And now, as if to demonstrate to the world that France makes no distinction between its friends and its enemies, it has in the midst of a profound peace with Turkey, and while still professing to the Porte the sentiments of friendship, invaded, without either provocation, complaint, or declaration of war, but after the usage of pirates, Egypt, one of the most valuable provinces of the Ottoman empire, from which, to this hour, it has received only marks of friendship."

Page 181: The consequences of the battle of the Nile were to the last degree disastrous to France. It revived in Europe a coalition against the Republican government; and in the East, it brought on the army of Egypt the whole weight of the Ottoman empire. The Sultan was not so foolish as to be persuaded that it was an act of friendship on the part of France to invade one of the most important provinces of the Ottoman empire. No sooner therefore was the divan at liberty to speak its real sentiments, by the destruction of the armament which had spread terror throughout the Levant, than the Turks gave vent to their indignation.

Page 189: Notwithstanding the restoration of the Waiwode, the army continued to advance. Thus an opportunity was afforded to the Russian emperor of extending his frontiers towards the Danube, and of advancing his schemes of conquest in the direction of Constantinople. The victories of Napoleon in Prussia increased the French influence at the Divan; and the Sultan was persuaded, that as the Russian armies were hard pressed on the Vistula, the time had arrived when, by throwing his weight into the scale, he might regain those possessions which had been wrested from the Turkish empire during a century of previous misfortunes. But the Porte was far from being in a condition to oppose the Russians. Forty thousand troops overran Moldavia and Wallachia, and made themselves masters of all the Ottoman territory to the north of the Danube.

Page 190: The fortifications of these important straits had fallen into disrepair. The ramparts of the castles of Europe and Asia, at the narrowest part of the passage, were antiquated, the guns dismounted, and those which remained, although of enormous calibre, were little calculated to answer the rapidity and precision of a British broadside. Meantime, the Divan declared war against England. The religious enthusiasm of the Turks was now fully awakened; but deaf to the remonstrances of the French ambassador, and judging of the future only by the past, they believed that their only danger lay on the side of the Danube, and thither they directed all their disposable troops. Nothing was done to repair the fortifications of the straits; meanwhile, the squadrons of Sir John Duckworth and Admiral Louis, consisting of seven line of battle ships, two frigates and two bomb-vessels, effected a junction off Tenedos. With this force the British admiral resolved to force the passage; and having taken his measures with much skill, he advanced with his ships in single file, at moderate intervals, with a fair wind. On the 19th February the fleet entered the Dardanelles.

Page 205: The Turks now resolved to attempt the deliverance of Roustchouk, and Beglerbeg who had recently been appointed Seraskier, or commander-in-chief of his province, was ordered by the Divan to assemble a force for that purpose. Thirty thousand men, for the most part undisciplined militia, were forthwith concentrated on the river Jantra, about forty miles from the fortress. Sensible that these troops would be wholly unable to withstand the Russian army in the open field, Beglerbeg took post on the river near Battin, and immediately proceeded to fortify his camp. The situation was well selected, being a half deserted plain intersected by several rocky ravines, at the confluence of the Jantra and the Danube, with a few fruit-trees scattered over its surface, and watered on two sides by these ample streams. The neck of land by which access could be obtained to the camp, was strengthened by two redoubts, and covered in the interval between them, with thick bushes and underwood. Nevertheless, Kamenskoi, desirous to wipe off the disgrace of the repulse at Roustchouk, resolved to hazard an attack.

Page 211: The Divan no longer hesitated, and on the 28th of May 1812, the peace of Bucharest was concluded. It was stipulated that the Pruth was henceforth to form the boundary of the two nations. Although the Cabinet of St. Petersburg lost Moldavia and Wallachia, which they had declared part of their empire, they gained Bessarabia, which gave them the advantage of commanding the mouths of the Danube. Tchichagoff, who had been sent from St. Petersburg to conclude the treaty, set off from Bucharest for the Vistula at the head of forty thousand men, who appeared with fatal effect on the great theatre of Europe, at the passage of the Beresina.

Page 216: The power and talents of Ali Pasha, rendered him an object of importance to the Sultan as well as to the Greeks, and he was courted alike by both parties. He turned his hostility, at the instigation of the Porte, against the Souliotes, who had taken up arms in favour of the Russians, and reduced them to subjection with great slaughter; and at the request of the Sultan, on the occasion of his conflicts with the Janizaries, he advanced to the gates of Adrianople at the head of eighty thousand men. Such was the influence of Ali at this time with the Divan, that his two sons, Veli and Mouctar, were appointed to important commands in the Morea; while he himself, secure in his inaccessible fortress in the lake of Janina, revolved in his mind dark schemes of conquest and independence. His influence extended over all Thessaly; and the position of the Pashalik and its contiguity to the Ionian isles, invested Ali with the rank and consideration of a respectable potentate.

Page 222: On the 18th of November, 1818, Abdallah was presented to Mahomet Ali, the Viceroy of Egypt. During the interview he held a small ivory box in shape of a writing case, and the Viceroy demanded what it was: he replied that it contained what Sahoud, his father, had taken from the tomb of the Prophet. On opening the box, there appeared three magnificent copies of the Koran, garnished with rubies on the envelope, and adorned with three hundred pearls of large dimensions, and an emerald attached to a cord of gold. Abdallah sailed for Constantinople. The Viceroy had solicited his pardon, but the divan were implacable, and Abdallah was sacrificed to gratify the resentment of an ignorant and fanatical people. This prince, after being paraded along the streets of the capital for three days, was, together with his unfortunate companions, beheaded in the square of St. Sophia. Thus perished Abdallah elm Sahoud, the faithful and devoted chief of a brave and warlike race.

Page 223: While the Greek states of the Ottoman empire were involved in civil commotion, it was evident to the Turks that the agency of Russia was secretly at work in those parts of their dominions. Although the designs, perhaps, of immediate conquest were laid aside, the foundation was established for future inroads, by a crooked and stealthy policy, covered in their right of intervention, stipulated between the Russians and the Turks in the affairs of Moldavia, Wallachia, Servia, and the islands in the Archipelago, by the treaties of Kainardji in 1774, Jassay in 1792, and Bucharest in 1812. The Divan did not foresee the use which might be made of this right; but it placed in the cabinet of St. Petersburg the means of availing itself at any time of some real or imaginary grievance, under which the Christian inhabitants of Turkey might be thought to labour, to declare war upon the Porte. All the subsequent wars between the two powers have taken their rise from these treaties. The pretext of Russia for the present war, which seems likely to involve all Europe in a conflagration, has arisen out of this right of intervention and a supposed protection of the Christian subjects of the Porte. But a disinterested interpretation of these treaties does not confer upon Russia any of those extraordinary privileges to which she lays claim.

Page 234: The intelligence of these events fell like a thunderbolt upon the populace of Constantinople. Roused to fresh exertions and inspired with more sanguinary passions by the continual passage of armed and fanatical Turks from Asia towards the Danube, death to the Christians was the universal cry of the Mussulmans. They could not at first believe that the slaves of Greece would boldly court destruction from the strong arm of their Ottoman masters. The Divan, in the hope of crushing the insurrection in the bud, resolved on an atrocious act, which greatly tended to spread and perpetuate the insurrection. This was the murder of Gregory, Patriarch of Constantinople. He was eighty years of age, and was seized on Easter Sunday, as he was descending from the altar, and hanged at the gate of his archiepiscopal palace amid the ferocious cries of a vast crowd of Mussulmans. After hanging for three hours, his body was cut down and delivered to a few abandoned Jews, by whom it was dragged through the streets and thrown into the sea. Many others shared the same fate.

Page 235: During these convulsions which were shaking to the centre the Ottoman throne and awakening the indignation of all Europe, Sultan Mahmoud was revolving in his mind the organization of a more efficient military force in the capital. The Janizaries had taken the lead in all the massacres that had been committed; and discontented with the removal of their former vizier, who had given full reins to their fury, loudly demanded his recall to office, and the heads of six of their principal enemies in the council. The Sultan tried to subdue them by firmness; but having no other armed force, he soon found that such a course would lead to his own destruction. He was more than ever convinced of the necessity of a change: in the meantime he resolved to dissemble till his preparations for their thraldom were complete. It was resolved and agreed to in full Divan that a large body of troops should be organized, clothed, and drilled in the European fashion, and that the name of NisamDjedeb, which had cost Sultan Selim his life, should be for ever abolished.

Page 239: The execution of the Patriarch, and the massacres in Constantinople and in other chief towns of the empire, were next made the subject of complaint on the part of the Russian ambassador. The Divan replied by complaining that Russia had afforded an asylum at Odessa to the 'Greeks who had escaped from them; and urged that every government had a right to repress rebellion among its subjects by every means in its power. M. Strogonoff next protested against the entry of the Turkish forces into the Principalities, which the Porte entirely disregarded; and he declared that as long as the Turkish government continued, the Russians would never refuse an asylum to any Greek who might demand it; and that if the system of violence continued, he would break off all diplomatic intercourse with the Porte.

Page 240: These complaints, so arbitrary on the part of M. Strogonoff, were constantly answered by the Divan, that no foreign power had a right to interfere between the Turkish government and its own subjects, and that the insurrection could not be subdued in any other way.

Matters at last came to such a point, that M. Strogonoff delivered the ultimatum of the Russian government to the Porte, which was required to be accepted unconditionally within eight days, failing which, he was to take his departure with his whole suite. he conditions demanded by Russia, were reparation for the insults offered to the Greek religion, expiation for the murder of its Patriarch, and the adoption of a more humane system of warfare in the contest with its Christian subjects. If these terms were not acceded to within the prescribed time, the Porte was openly threatened with the utmost hostility of Russia, and the support of the Greeks by the entire forces of Christendom. No answer was returned by the Divan to this menacing communication, and Baron Strogonoff applied for his passports, which were delivered to him, and he set sail for Odessa on the last day of July, with his whole suite, and several Greek families who had taken refuge in the Russian embassy.

Page 241: The commencement of the year 1822, was signalised by the formation of a regular government, and the proclamation of the national independence of Greece. The cause of the Greeks, however, sustained a grievous blow in the early part of the year, in the destruction of Ali Pasha. Although a Mahometan, he was at open war with the Sultan; and although distrusted by the Greeks and Souliotes, he had caused a most important diversion, by retaining a large proportion of the Ottoman forces around his impregnable walls. The Divan made extensive preparations for the approaching campaign. Chourchid Pasha was to unite the forces employed in the siege of Janina, and conjointly with the Pasha of Salonica, to invade the Morea with sixty thousand men. With the view of keeping the Russians in check, with whom a rupture was hourly expected, the army of the Grand Vizier, divided into two columns, was to move on Brahilow and Roustchuck. Thirty thousand men were collected among the warlike tribes of Asia to protect the frontiers of Georgia. At the same time, a respectable fleet was fitted out for the purpose of revictualling the forts which held out in the Morea, and afterwards to carry reinforcements to Candia and Crete. The fleet accomplished its destined purpose, but the forces of Chourchid were completely defeated with the loss of their whole artillery, baggage, and stores, and above 4,000 men slain and wounded.

Page 245: Far from being intimidated by the bad success of their former expeditions, the Divan fitted out a vast armament of ninety sail, including four line of battle ships, which set sail for Napoli di Romania, with ample stores to victual all the fortresses in the Morea. The Greek squadron, consisting of sixty sail, the largest of which carried only twenty guns, watched this formidable force at a distance; and the Turkish admiral was so much intimidated that he did not venture to enter the gulf of Napoli. But an opportunity, fatal to the Turks, soon occurred, in which Canaris displayed all the energy and daring of his character. The Turkish fleet was lying at anchor in the bay of Tenedos, waiting orders from Constantinople.

Page 247: The Greek government made an earnest application to the Congress of Verona to be admitted into the European family, and taken under the protection of the Western powers. It met, however, with no success. The dread of encouraging the revolutionary principle was a reasonable pretext for refusing the demands of the Greeks, for it had met to combat that very principle in Spain and Italy. Humanity called for the interference of the different European powers to put an end to the bloodshed which desolated Greece. Such an interference would have been as reasonable now as at a subsequent stage in the struggle ; but the Congress decided, and formally acknowledged, the right of the Sultan to exclude all foreign intervention between himself and his subjects, whether Christian or Mahometan. This seemed decisive; but Russia had her own separate grounds of discussion with Turkey. She demanded the performance of certain stipulations of the treaty of Bucharest, with reference to the internal government of the Christian provinces of Turkey in the north-east, to which the Divan in part conceded; and on the other hand, the Porte called upon the Emperor to surrender the fortresses on the Black sea, which, by the same treaty, he had engaged to deliver up, but which, for fourteen years, had been retained in violation of these engagements. It appeared evident that these disputes would form the ground of future quarrels

Page 249: The plan for the next campaign, arranged by the Divan, was on a very magnificent scale; but the execution was far from equalling the design. The Greeks were to be attacked on all sides with an overwhelming force, while a fleet of a hundred and twenty sail was to sweep the Aegean sea, and reduce the revolted islands to subjection. Two circumstances, however, were overlooked of vital importance to the issue of the campaign; the danger of famine in a country desolated by civil war, and the exhaustion of the Mussulman population, from whom alone the soldiers were drawn. In consequence of the operation of these two circumstances, the Greeks were saved from destruction, at a time when their own divisions brought them to the very verge of ruin.

Page 264: As soon as the battle had ceased, the correspondence with the admirals was renewed, and it was agreed that there should be no further hostilities. The visions of Grecian conquest were at an end with Ibrahim, and he wisely prepared to take his departure. Such of his ships as had escaped destruction were repaired, and in December he took the first step towards the evacuation of the country by despatching his harem and five thousand sick and wounded soldiers. The firm attitude of the Divan, however, was not in the least shaken by the news of the misfortune; and the allies having pressed for an answer to their note, received the following. "My positive, absolute, definitive, unchangeable, eternal answer is, that the Sublime Porte does not accept any proposition regarding the Greeks, and will persist in his own will regarding them, even to the day of the last judgment."

Page 267: When the Emperor Nicholas agreed to join the allied powers in erecting Greece into an independent state, he reserved, as has already been mentioned, his right to settle his own differences with the Porte, without the mediation of the other powers. It might not have been difficult to see the meaning of this reservation. The interminable negociations between the Russian and Turkish governments, during the year 1826, regarding the clauses in the treaties of Kainardji and Bucharest, in favour of the Christian subjects of the Porte, reached an extraordinary and unlooked for issue. Contrary to what might have been expected, but, under the circumstances, what the Porte only could do, the Divan gave in an entire and unqualified adherence to the demands of the cabinet of St. Petersburg.

Page 270: This sanguinary revolution, destined to produce the most lasting effects upon the Ottoman empire, could not at first be expected to realise the sanguine anticipations of Sultan Mahmoud. The Janizaries were too deeply interwoven with its ancient and venerated institutions to be at once overthrown with impunity. A dreadful fire, the work of incendiaries, broke out in Constantinople in August, which, in a few hours, consumed six thousand houses, and involved altogether a loss of £5,800,000. Instead of 250,000 recruits, upon which the Sultan had calculated, not fifteen thousand had rallied round the standard of the Prophet. The most severe denunciations were pronounced and carried into, execution against those who used expressions tending to disturb the public peace. The Sultan was equally vigorous in the prosecution of civil reforms, and many important regulations were made in the internal economy of the state. The Divan, however, gave strong proof that they did not intend to abate the distinctions between races and religions. The reforms which the Sultan had accomplished, were nearly all hostile to the inveterate usage of the empire, and they were perhaps as extensive as could be safely accomplished at once; for no regulations made for the direction of a people can ever be successful, if too suddenly and strongly urged against the feelings and habits of a nation.

Page 312: The civil government of Turkey is carried on by a Vizier and other ministers, who form a divan, or grand council of state, which, on solemn occasions, is called upon to direct the sovereign by their advice. The Grand Vizier, the Lord High Admiral, two military judges, the Grand Treasurer, the Chief of the war department, the Grand Purveyor, and the Nishandji Effendi, who affixes the seal of the Grand Seignior to public acts, are the members of this body. All the affairs of the empire come under the inspection of the Grand Vizier. He is the supreme judge in civil and criminal affairs, from whose sentence there is no appeal. But his responsibility is in proportion to his duty. He is held responsible alike by the people and the sovereign for all the misfortunes which befall the state, and such is the danger to which this minister is exposed, that, especially during the decline of the Turkish empire, he rarely escaped confiscation or exile, or a sudden death. Some remain a day, a week, and a month; others protract the thread to a year or two; "but at length," said a Grand Vizier, "they are like the ant, to which God gives wings for its speedier destruction."

[divanquotes]

Turkey, Treaties Between Turkey and Foreign Powers, 1855

Page 137: And His Majesty the Most Majestic, Most Powerful, and Most Beautiful Sultan, Abdul Medjid, Emperor of the Ottomans, Chekib Effendi, decorated with Nichan Iftihar First Class, Beylikdgi of the Imperial Divan, Honorary Advisor of the Department of Foreign Affairs, his Ambassador Extraordinary near His Britannic Majesty: Who, having reciprocally communicated their Full powers, found in good and due form, have arrested and signed the Buivans Articles: 

Page 145: And His Majesty the Most Majestic, Most Powerful, and Most Beautiful Sultan Abdul Medjid, Emperor of the Ottomans, Chekib Effendi, decorated with Nichan Iftihar First Class, Beylikdgi of the Imperial Divan, Honorary Advisor of the Department of Foreign Affairs, His Extraordinary Ambassador to His Majesty British Majesty; Who, having reciprocally communicated their full powers, found in good and due form, have arrested and signed the following Articles: …

Page 271: The object of this faithful and authentic instrument is as follows: Notwithstanding the appearances of a misunderstanding which arose as a result of the events of the time between the Court of Great Britain and the Sublime Ottoman Porte, these two Powers, equally animated by the sincere desire to restore the old friendship which subsisted between them, named for this purpose their respective Plenipotentiaries, namely: His Majesty the Most August and Most Honored George III, King (Padisha) of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland appointed for His Plenipotentiary Robert Adair, Esquire, Member of the Royal Parliament of Great Britain; and His Majesty the Most Majestic, Most Powerful, and Most Beautiful Sultan Mahmoud Han II, Emperor of the Ottomans, appointed for His Plenipotentiary, Scyde-Mehmed-Emin-Vahid, Effendi, Director and Inspector of the Department called Mercoufat, and assumed rank of Nichangi Divan Imperial; who, having communicated to each other their full powers, have, after several conferences and discussions, concluded the peace also desirous of the two Powers, and have agreed upon the following Articles: ...  

Page 552: Thus, in order amply to remunerate the Servian nation for the firm submission and fidelity which they have always shown to the Ottoman Throne, the Sublime Porte has deemed it proper to fulfil now all the promises and provisions contained in the Eighth Article of the said Treaty of Bucharest, in favour, and for the benefit of the Serbian nation and country, and to communicated with the Serbian Deputies now at Constantinople, upon the method and arrangement of the accomplishment and execution of those points, which were necessarily postponed for a period of Eighteen Months for further consideration and investigation; and as, in accordance with the tenor of a separate agreement, these points, after conferring with the said Serbian Deputies, have been brought to a final arrangement and method, it became necessary that an Imperial Firman, detailing and specifying those points and provisions, should be issued from our Imperial Divan, without delay, and be made public, and known to the Court of Russia, We, therefore, in fulfillment of the said Eighth Article of the Treaty of Bucharest, as well as of the contents of the before-mentioned separate Agreement, have given our Imperial permission to the said Serbian Deputies, to represent to us the wishes and claims of their nation, and we have likewise decreed, and given leave to these Deputies, that the Serbians might freely exercise in their country their mode of worship, and follow their own religion; that they might elect their own chiefs from amongst themselves;

Page 559: Issued from Our Imperial Divan, the latter end of Rebi-ul-Akhir, 1246. (About the end of October, 1830.)

Page 614: Ratification.—On account of the ancient and sincere friendship manifested by the Court of Spain for the Sublime Porte, the latter has thought proper to agree to the request which it had several times addressed to it, to give permission for Spanish Ships to navigate, and carry on Commerce, in the Black Sea; and this Negotiation, having been conducted by means of a sufficient number of discussions and deliberations between the Department for Foreign Relations of the Ottoman Divan and the illustrious Don Luis del Castillo, Chargé d'Affaires of His Catholic Majesty, has terminated in a Sened or Convention, comprehending 4 Articles and a Convention, which was signed and sealed by both Parties in the latter end of the month of Rebbi-ul-ewel, in the year of the Hegira 1243.

Page 616: It is some time since, that, in virtue of the Royal Will, a Convention was concluded, having for its object the permission for Spanish Commerce to be carried on in the Black Sea, upon payment of a certain Duty, to be exacted, on passing through the Bosphorus, by the Marine Department. The said Convention having been agreed upon and ratified, the Papers received in exchange from the King of Spain, were registered in the Office of the Imperial Divan; and in consequence thereof, the necessary Orders were sent to the Department of Marine, and to the Custom House, and a Decree was issued, directing the President of the former to proceed to the levying of the Duty in question.

Page 669: My Divan is responsible for drafting the Decree on this permission.

[divanquotes]

Sir Edward Creasy, History of the Ottoman Turks v2, 1858

Page 5: At this very time grave tidings of troubles in the provinces and on the frontiers had reached Constantinople. Intent on the matters, Kara-Moustafa neglected to send the faggots for the ladies. A few days afterwards, while he was presiding in the Divan, he received, two hours before the usual time of the council’s rising, a message from Ibrahim commanding him immediately to dismiss the Divan and appear before the Sultan.

Page 6: The Vizier obeyed, and hastened before his royal master. Ibrahim instantly demanded of him, “Why have not the 500 loads of wood for the Harem been supplied?” “They shall be sent,” replied the Vizier. Then, with more courage than prudence, he added, “My Padischah, is it wise or proper for thee to call on me to break up the Divan, and to confuse and delay the weightiest affairs of state, for the sake of attending to 500 loads of wood, the whole value of which does not amount to 500 aspres? Why, when I am before the, dost thou question me about firewood, but sayest not a word about the petitions of thy subjects, the state of the frontier, and of the finances?”

Page 10: He dreamed all night of sables; and in the morning he commanded in the Divan that letters should be sent to all the governors and great men of the empire, enjoining each of them to collect and forward to Constantinople, a certain number of sable skins. A similar requisition was made on all the Ulema, and all the civil and military officers in the capital. Some of them were driven to desperation by this mad tyranny, and only gave vent to the indignation which it inspired.

Page 11: A colonel of the Janissaries, named Black Mourad, to whom the five hundred men of his regiment were devotedly attached, at this time returned from the Candian wars, and was met on landing by a treasury officer, who, in conformity with the resolution of the Divan, demanded of him so many sable skins, so many ounces of amber, and a certain sum of money.

Page 23: Khan Ghirai read the letter, and coldly replied — “I and all here are the Sultan’s servants. But the Russians only desire peace in appearance; they only ask for it while they feel the weight of our victorious arms. If we give them breathing time, they ravage the coasts of Anatolia with their squadrons. I have more than once represented to the Divan that there were two neglected strong places in this neighborhood, which it would be prudent for us to occupy. Now, the Russians have made themselves masters of them; and they have raised more than twenty little fortified posts. If we are to remain inactive this year, they will seize Akkrmann, and conquer all Moldavia.” With this answer the Sultan’s messengers were obliged to return to Constantinople.

Page 34: Like his father, Ahmed Kiuprili commenced his administration by securing himself against any cabals of the Ulema; and he gave at the same time a noble rebuke to the chief of that order, who spoke in the divan against the memory of the late Grand Vizier. Ahmed Kiuprili said to him, “Mufti, if my father sentenced men to death, he did so by the sanctions thy Fetva.” The Mufti answered, “If I gave him my Fetva, it was because I feared lest I should myself suffer under his cruelty.” “Effendi,” rejoined the Grand Vizier, “is it for thee, who art a teacher of the law of the Prophet, to fear God less than his creature?” The Mufti was silent. In a few days afterwards he was deposed and banished to Rhodes; and his important station given to Sanizadé, a friend on whom Ahmed Kiuprili could reply.

Page 76: In the November of 1689, the Sultan convened an extraordinary Divan at Adrianople, and besought his councillors to advise him as to what hands h should intrust with the management of the State. In the hour of extreme peril the jealous spirit of intrigue and self-advancement was silent; and all around Solyman II advised him to send for Kiuprili-Zadé-Mustapha, brother of the great Ahmed Kiuprili, and to give the seals of office to him as Grand Vizier of the Empire.

Page 77: His authority was greatly increased by the deserved reputation which he enjoyed of being a strict observer of the Mahometan law, and an uncompromising enemy to profligacy and corruption. After having paid homage to the Sultan on his appointment, he summoned to Divan all the great dignitaries of the empire, and addressed them on the state of the country. He reminded them in severe terms of their duties as Moslems, of their sins; and he told them that they were now undergoing the deserved chastisement of God. He described to them the extreme peril in which the empire was placed.

Page 90: The deliberation of the Divan on this summons lasted for three days. Many thought that the presence of the Sultan in the camp was undesirable. Others feared that he had only addressed them with a view of learning their thoughts. Finally, they all resolved that the departure of the Padischah to assume the command-in-chief of the army, would not only expose the sacred person to too much risk and fatigue, but would involve excessive expense. Consequently, the Divan represented to the Sultan, that his Majesty ought not to commit his imperial person to the chances of a campaign, but ought to leave the care of war to the Grand Vizier.

Page 112: The Grand Vizier, Tschuli Ali, was in favor of maintaining peace with the Czar, and opposed vehemently the demands of Charles, who wish the Sultan to furnish him with 30,000 Spahis and 20,000 Janissaries to escort him across Poland towards his own dominions. To have sent such an army as this with Charls, would have necessarily involved the Porte in hostilities with both Poland and Russia; and Tschudi Ali bade the Divan remember the sufferings of Turkey in the last war, as decisive arguments against such a measure. On the other hand, the Sultana Validé, who admired the chivalrous courage of Charles, pleased his cause warmly with the Sultan, and often asked of her son, “When would he aid her lion against the bear?”

Page 114: One measure of foreign policy, that marked Nououman Kiuprili’s brief administration, was singularly unfortunate with regard to the effect which its author wished it to produce. Nououman Kiuprili was as desirous of maintaining peace as his predecessors in office had been; and he endeavored earnestly, but in vain, to persuade the King of Sweden to retire quietly from the Sultan’s dominions. But he thought that it would be politic at the same time to create a general impression that the resources and warlike spirit of the Turkish empire were undiminished; and he accordingly issued orders for the assembling a large army, and caused a resolution of the Divan to be circulated, that the Sublime Porte intended to conduct the Swedish king back to his own country with a host equal to that which Kara Mustafa had led against Vienna. The effect of this boast, and of the military display with which it was accompanied, was to excite to an irrepressible ardour the warlike spirit of the Ottoman troops, who were generally zealous in behalf of the King of Sweden against Russia, and who were also eager for an opportunity of effacing the dishonors of the last war.

Page 115: Besides these causes of complaint against Russia, the partisans of Charles in the Divan referred to the growing ascendancy of that power in Poland, where the troops of the Czar had now seized and garrisoned the important fortresses of Kamienee. Other causes why Turkey should suspect Russia were also mentioned; such as the Czar’s subjugation of the Cossacks Potkal and Bersbach, and the Russian occupation of Stanileschti, a fortress over against Jassy.

Page 135: The Grand Vizier had shown in previous divans that he would brook no opposition to his martial policy, and he now addressed them thus: “We are not met here to waste idle words about the necessity of a war, which we have already resolved on, but to excite ourselves to conduct it in a fitting manner, and in accordance with the word of the Prophet, ‘Fight against the unbelievers, and be wrathful with them.’ Ye, Sirs, who are learned in the law, what say ye?” Some of the Ulemas, whom the Grand Vizier thus addressed, replied, “God sped you and give you success.” Others refried to the generals present, as the fit persons to answer. The Grand Vizier glanced at the military members of the Divan, and they all protested in loud and strong words that thy were the Padischah’s slavs, and that they were ready to offer themselves, body and soul, in the service of the Faith and the Empire.

Page 158: Sultan Mahmoud was recognized by the mutineers, as well as by the court officials; but for some weeks after his accession the empire was in the hands of the insurgents. Their chief, Patrona Khalil, rode with the new Sultan to the Mosque of Eyoub, when the ceremony of girding Mahmoud with the sword of Othman was performed; and many of the chief officers were deposed, and successors to them are appointed at the dictation of the bold rebel, who had served in the ranks of the Janissaries, and who appeared before the Sultan bare-legged, and in his old uniform of a common solider. A Greek butcher, named Yanaki, had formerly given credit to Patrona, and had lent him money during the three days of the late insurrection. Patrons showed his gratitude by compelling the Divan to make Yanaki Hospodar of Moldavia.

Page 159: The insolence of the rebel chiefs became at length insupportable. The Khan of Crima, whom they threatened to depose, was in Constantinople; and with his assistance the Grand Vizier, the Mufti, and the Aga of the Janissaries, succeeded in freeing the government from its ignominious servitude. Patrons was killed in the Sultan’s presence, after a Divan in which he had required that war should be declared against Russia. His Greek friend Yanaki, and 7000 of those who had supported him were also put to death. The jealousy which the officers of the Janissaries felt towards Patrona, and their readiness to aid in his destruction, facilitate greatly the exertions of the Sultan’s supporters in putting an end to the reign of rebellion, after it had lasted for nearly two months.

Page 211: The Divan resolved, on the 4th of October, 1768, that Russia had broken the peace between the two empires, and that a war against her would be just and holy. But it was determined that the Grand Vizier should have a final interview with M. d’Obresskoff, the Russian Minister at Constantinople, and inform him that peace might be preserved, but solely on condition that Russia should bind herself under the guarantee of her four allies, Denmark, Prussia, England and Sweden, to abstain from all future interference with elections to the crown of Poland, or in the religious differences in that kingdom; that she should withdraw her troops from Poland, and no longer hinder the Poles from enjoying full liberty and independence.

Page 212: The Vizier required him to sign instantly a paper containing the pledge on which the Divan had determined. Obresskoff replied that he had not sufficient authority for such an act. The declaration of war was then pronounced, and the Russian minster was sent to the prison of the Seven Towers; an impolitic as well as unjustifiable act of violence on the part of the Turks, which enabled the Russian Empress to represent herself to the world as the injured party; although the war had been sought by her, and all the acts of aggression which caused it, had been deliberately planned by the Russian Cabinet.

Page 221: The same Mufti, Pirizadi Osman Effendi, who was the author of the fetus against the Poles and the Moldo-Wallachians, endeavored also in his rabid fanaticism to excite the Sultan to a general massacre of all the Christians in the empire. This atrocious project had twice before been mooted, in the reigns of Selim I and Mahomet III. It was now revived for the last time; but the Mufti found no seconders or sympathizers in the Divan. He was universally abhorred for his violence and cruelty; and his death at the end of the first year of the war was the subject of general rejoicing to his brethren, and to the great body of the Mussulman as well as the Christian subjects of the empire.

Page 224: The report that a Russian fleet was on its way along the Atlantic to liberate Greece, spread as far even as Constantinople. But the Turkish statesmen refused all credence to the rumor, and would not believe that there could be any communication between the Baltic and the Mediterranean Seas. The fact of this astounding ignorance is attested by Massif, the Turkish historian himself. When afterwards, early in 1770, indisputable tidings reached the Divan that the Russian ship were actually approaching Greece, the Ottoman ministers made a formal complaint to the representative of Vienna that the Venetian government had promoted the Russian felt to pass into the Mediterranean by way of the Adriatic.

Page 243: Atallah Bey was sent to Constantinople with these resolutions of the council of war. After a long discussion in the Imperial Divan it was resolved to reject the terms. The Turkish plenipotentiaries endeavored to protract the negotiations, and to induce the Russians to relax some of their demands. The Sultan (who was sincerely desirous for peace) sent an autograph letter to the Reis Effendi, authorizing him to offer to Russia a sum of 70,000 pilasters if Russia would forego the possession of Kertch and Yenikale.

Page 254: Sick in body as in mind, he complained that he was weary of the mode in which his Seraskiers carried on war; and when the news of the second defeat at Karason reached Constantinople, Mustapha exclaimed that he would repair to the army in prison. His ministers represented to him that such an important step ought not to b taken without consulting the Divan; and the Ulema declared that the departure of the Sovereign for the army might be attended with evil consequences in the actual state of circumstances, especially having regard to the bad state of his health.

Page 315: Seventy-two Livas were under the immediate command of Pachas with two horse-tails, and these, as well as the Eyalets, were generally, though not accurately, spoke of as Pachalics. In general the appointments to the Pachalics were annual; though the same individual often retained his post for many years, and sometimes for life, if h was too strong for the Porte to depose him, or if he provided a sufficient sum of money from time to time to purchase his reappointments from the venal ministers of the Imperial Divan. Twenty-two of the Livas are held by Pachas on life appointments.

Page 323: The Imperial Divan was now generally convened not oftener than about on in six weeks. The ordinary Divan of the Grand Vizier sat much more frequently; and formed a court of justice, at which, besides the Vizier, the Kapitan Pacha, the two Kadiaskrs, and the Nischandjis and Deftendars attended. On important occasions a grand council was summoned, consisting of nearly forty members, and comprising the chiefs of all the orders of the State.

Page 324: In extreme emergencies the members were called together to what was termed a standing Divan, and deliberated without taking seats.

Page 330: The Pachas were to pillage the subjects, and impoverish the provinces. The Divan was to follow its maxims of haughtiness and intolerance. The gnarls to carry on war without intelligence, and continue to lose battles, until this incoherent edifice of power, shaken to its basis, deprived of its support, and losing its equilibrium, should fall, and astonish the world with another instance of might ruin.

Page 332: Another reform was proposed, from which the provincials would have derived still greater benefits. All farming of the taxes was to be abolished; and the revenue was to be collected by officers of the Imperial treasury. In the General Central Government the Grand Vizier's power was restrained by making it necessary for him to consult the Divan on all important measures. The Divan was to consist of twelve superior ministers; one of whom was bound to attend especially to the collection of the funds by which the new troops were to be kept on foot. The spread of intelligence, and the advancement of education among all classes of his subjects, were earnestly encouraged by Selim III.

Page 334: The Sultan, hearing of them, expressed a wish to see “how the infidels fought battles,” and went to one of their parades. He instantly saw the superiority of their fire to that of the ordinary Turkish troops, and appreciated more than ever the advantages which the arms and discipline of his Christian enemies had long given them over the Ottoman troops. The little band was kept on foot; and Omer Aga, as its chief was called, was enabled to recruit it by enrolling other renegadoes, and also a few indigent Turks, who consented to learn the exercise and wield the weapons of the Giaour. The Divan was required by the Sultan to consider the policy of introducing the new system among the Janissaries; but this produced a mutiny, which the Sultan appeased for the time by fair promises, and by desisting from any further measures, though Omer Aga's company was still kept together.

Page 349: The Serbians gladly obeyed the summons of the Pacha against their old tyrants, the rebel Janissaries, and victoriously defended the pachalic. But the other Janissaries of the empire, and socially those at Constantinople, received the tidings of the events in Serbia with the highest indignation, with which the Ulema and the Mahometan population in general largely sympathized. “The pride of the Mussulmans revolted at the idea that old Moslems of the True Faith should be banished from the pachalic, and that Rayas and Giaours should be armed and set up against them.” Selim found it necessary to give way; Hadschi Mustapha received an order of the Divan to readmit the Janissaries to Belgrade. Thy were restored accordingly; and they recommenced their sway the by murdering on of the chief Serbian officers, and soon proceeded to overpower and murder the Pacha.  

Page 358: The period when these demands were laid before the Porte, was an important crisis in Selim’s reign. The rival influences of France and Russia in the Divan, and also the conflicting spirits of reform and conservatism in the Ottoman nation, were now engaged in a trial of strength, with which the Serbian question became closely connected.

Page 360: These requisitions of M. Italinsky were made at the same time, that the demands of the Serbian deputation were laid before the Sultan on the avowed recommendation of Russia. It is said that when Sultan Selim heard that Russia required the Protectorate of all the inhabitants of the Turkish Empire, who professed the faith of the Greek Church, he shed tears of anger and humiliation. For many days he remained in silent gloom; he then called to him such members of the Divan, as were not notoriously influenced by Russian bribes, and he took counsel with them in this emergency. All agreed that it would be better to bury themselves beneath the ruins of Constantinople, than to sign a treaty which would annihilate the Ottoman power.

Page 392: Having attain the rank of Pacha of the provinces, he strove sedulously to free the country and himself from the lawless tyranny of the Mamelukes. He effected this in 1811 by a stroke of the vilest treachery and most ruthless cruelty. Under the show of reconciliation and hospitable friendship he brought those formidable cavaliers to his palace; and then caused them to be shot down by his Albania guards, while cooped helplessly together in a narrow passage between high walls. [The following account (in Walpole’s Travels, p. 32,) of the massacre of the Mamelukes, was written by an English gentleman who was at Cairo at the time: — “Nothing can be imagined more dreadful than the scene of the murder. The Mamelukes had left the Divan, and were arrived at one of the narrow passages in their way to the gates of the citadel, when a fire from 2000 Albanians was poured in on them from the tops of the walls, and in all directions. ..

Page 404: A Fetva was forthwith issued, by which Ali was declared Fermanlı (or outlaw), and all loyal viziers and other subjects of the Padischah were ordered to make war upon the rebel. In the conflict which ensued, Ali had at first some success; but Mahmoud inspired his generals with some portion of his own energy; and by sternly declaring that he would put to death any one who dared to speak in favour of the outlaw, the Sultan checked the usual efficacy of the bribes which Ali dispensed among many members of the Divan. Cooped up in Jannina, Ali prolonged his resistance till the beginning of 1822, when he was lured into the power of his enemies by pretended terms of capitulation, and put to death by Churchid Pacha, who commanded the besieging army. But while the “old Lion of Jannina” (as Ali was called) thus long held at bay the Sultan's forces, and detained one of the ablest, though most ferocious, of the Sultan's generals,  almost all Greece had risen and beaten back the Ottomans; and a similar insurrection had been for a time successfully attempted in the trans-Danubian provinces.

Page 435: Invigorated by such success, she could (notwithstanding the Asiatic exploits of Paskievitsch) have maintained the struggle against Russia during 1830; and, before that year was over, the second French Revolution had broken out ; Poland had risen against the Emperor Nicholas; and the obstinate struggle had commenced, in which Diebitsch perished, and in which the full power of Russia was taxed to the utmost, even by the unaided Poles. The whole current of the world's history would have been changed. Poland might now be an independent state ; there would have been no Egyptian revolts; the name of Hunkiar Iskelessi would be unknown in the West ; and France and England might never have been required to join in a Russian war, if a single messenger of truth from Adrianople could have been heard in the Divan, or at Pera, in the August of 1829; or, if Sultan Mahmoud, in happy obstinacy, had resisted a little longer the solicitations of those, who urged on him “Peace, peace,” when there should have been no peace.

Page 448: About the same time that Mahmoud ordained these just and humane changes, he set personally an example of reform, by regularly attending the Divan, instead of secluding himself from the labours of state, according to the evil practice, which had been introduced so long ago as the reign of Solyman Kanoumi, and which had been assigned as one of the causes of the decline of the empire by a Turkish historian nearly two centuries before Mahmoud's time.Page 513:

Page 512:  October 7th. Separate Act concerning the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. The Hospodars of Moldavia and Wallachia being chosen from among the native Bojars, their election will henceforth be made in each of these provinces according to the consent and the will of the Sublime Porte, by the general assembly of the Divan, in conformity with the old use of the country.

The Bojars of the Divan of each province, being the body of the country and with the general agreement of the inhabitants, will make choice for the dignity of Hospodar, one of the oldest Bojars and the most able to fill it well, and they will present to the Sublime Porte, by an application (Arz Mahsar) the elected candidate, which, if approved by the Sublime Porte, will be named Hospodar and will receive his investiture.]

Page 513: Any Hospodar who has been dismissed after having finished his term or who has abdicated, will incur the forfeiture of his title and may return to the class Bojars provided they remain peaceful and quiet, but without power or become a member of the Divan or perform any function public, and without being able to be reelected Hospodar.

The sons of the dismissed or abdicated Hospodars will retain the quality of Bojars, will be able to occupy the positions of the country and be elected Hospodars. In the event of the dismissal, abdication, or death of a Hospodar, and until a successor is given to him, the administration of the principality shall be entrusted to Kaïmacans appointed by the Divan of the said principality.

The Hatti Chérif of 1802, having ordered the abolition of the taxes, royalties, and requisitions introduced since the year 1198 (1783), the Hospodars with the Bojars of the respective Divans will determine and fix the taxes and the annual charges of Moldavia and Wallachia, taking as a basis the regulations which were established following the Hatti Cherif of 1802; the Hospodars | shall in no case be wanting in the strict fulfillment of this provision, they shall have regard to the representations of the Minister of His Imperial Majesty, and to those which the Consuls of Russia shall send to them by his orders, both on this object, and on the maintenance of the privileges of the country, and especially on the observance of the clauses and articles inserted in the present act.]

[divanquotes]

Samuel Neil, The Student’s Handbook of Modern History, 1859

Turkish Empire. Jan. 3, 1840. The Ottoman divan abolish the farming of imposts.

[divanquotes]

Phillips, The Dictionary of Biographical Reference, 1871

Mavrocordato, Nicolas, grand interpreter of the Ottoman divan; d. 17:30.

[divanquotes]

Sutherland Menzies, History of the Ottoman Empire in Europe for Junior Classes, 1877

Page 116: Revolt of Bajazet's Sons—His Death.—The last years of the reign of Bajazet II. were troubled by the ambitious pretensions of his sons. He had had eight, of whom three survived him—Korkud, Ahmed, and Selim. The first, passionately fond of letters and the arts, a protector of learned men, and a friend of peace, displeased the soldiers; the Sultan even was little disposed to designate him as his successor, and leaned visibly in favour of Ahmed. Ahmed reckoned, besides, among his partisans the grand vizier, Ali Pacha, and the most influential personages of the divan. But the third son of Bajazet, Selim, by his martial bearing, by his decided inclination for war, and also by his marked attention to the soldiery, had won the favour of the army, and especially of the Janissaries. A struggle appeared imminent. Bajazet, to prevent it breaking out, distributed the chief governments amongst his sons: Korkud had that of Tekieh, Ahmed that of Amasia, Selim that of Trebizonde. Solyman, the young son of Selim, was also made governor of Kaffa.

Page 151: The Sultan's death was kept concealed for three weeks; the letters announcing victories were despatched in his name; the Divan assembled as usual; and the vizier directed affairs until the moment when he learned that the heir to the throne had arrived in Constantinople.

Page 157: Relations with Venice and France.—Venice had less cause of complaint, thanks to the dominant influence of the favourite Sultana, the Venetian Baffa. She obtained the renewal of the capitulations and greater security for her commerce. As for the alliance with France, it was respected; the Baron de Germigny, then ambassador, succeeded in acquiring great influence in the Divan. An embassy from the Sultan to the French Court had a magnificent reception, and it presented a letter to Henry III., in which Amurath offered him, with his friendship, "his naval army, comprising eighty galleys." "I have made him," says Germigny in his report, "a reciprocal offer of yours, but in general terms, to make him relish and prize the grandeur and power of your Majesty." The restriction was necessary with Henry III., who was compelled, from the want of a navy, to send his ambassadors to Constantinople on board a Venetian vessel.

Page 168: The unimportant reign of Sultan Achmet I., with whom Austria had concluded the peace of Sitvatorok, was closed by his death (22d November 1617). Nothing can more stiongly testify the sunken state of the Turkish power, than that it was possible to raise from a dungeon to the throne Achmet's imbecile brother, Mustapha I. It was one of the pastimes of this prince to throw gold to the fishes of the Bosphorus; but the kizlar-aga persuaded the Divan that the precious metal would be better employed in furnishing the donatives customary on a new reign. After three months' enjoyment of the sceptre, Mustapha was led back to his prison, and, on the 26th of February 1618, Osman II., a boy of fourteen, the eldest of the seven sons of Achmet, was saluted Padischah by the venal troops. Osman, however, displayed a spirit and ambition beyond his years. Strong and active of body, and inured to all soldier-like exercises, Osman was a bold rider and an unfailing marksman with the bow; but, with all his energy, he lacked the perseverance without which nothing great can be accomplished, while his meanness alienated from him the hearts of the rapacious Janissaries.

Page 177: The Catholic world was stirred up by the insults of the Turks; and the religious zeal which then animated France found vent in cries for war against the infidels. Mazarin beheld with complacency the perils of the Venetians, with whom the French were in rivalry for the commerce of the Levant; but he was unwilling that the Turks, whose friendship for France had so strangely cooled, should succeed in dominating the Mediterranean by the possession of Candia. Pursuing his wily policy, he resolved to maintain openly the Ottoman alliance, to allow French commerce to profit by the embarrassments of the Venetians, and at the same time to hinder the success of the Turks by underhand hostility which should make them repent of their bad conduct towards France, and should satisfy Catholic opinion. He sent to Constantinople an ambassador extraordinary, M. de Varennes, to offer the Divan the mediation of France; the mediation was haughtily rejected. He then offered to the Venetians the co-operation of the French navy; but he limited that co-operation to three fire-ships, yet on such conditions that the senate refused them. Afterwards he sent to Venice a subsidy of 10,000 crowns, but secretly and in his own name.

Page 179: More than once, during the war against Venice, they compromised the honour of the crescent by their revolts, in presence even of the enemy. In 1649 they refused to continue the siege of Candia, and the Seraskier Hussein was constrained to cease the operations. In 1651 a new sedition cost the life of the grandfather of Mahommed IV. Five years after, the Janissaries and spahis, irritated at the delay in the payment of their arrears, were seen to re-assemble upon the hippodrome, the ordinary theatre of their insurrections, and to call with loud outcries for the death of the members of the Divan. The Sultan obeyed: the lords of the hippodrome (atmeidani-aghalari) handed him a list of proscription; he delivered into the hands of the executioner his dearest servants, and the whole administration was overthrown (1656). Encouraged by the example of the army, the incorporation of handicraftmen rose also and caused the grand vizier to be deposed. Finally, revolts broke' out in the Asiatic provinces: Ahmed Pacha, governor of Anatolia, was overcome, taken, and slain by the rebels (1649).

Page 180: The vizier was not long in finding an occasion for giving vent to his resentment. From the commencement of the war against Candia, France had secretly assisted the Venetians, and De la Haye was expected to keep up a secret correspondence with the Venetians, and make them acquainted with the designs of the Turks. He had written to them advising that they should not yield to the demands of the Divan, giving them to understand that they ought to hope everything from the protection of Louis XIV., and that his master would not be the mediator of a peace disadvantageous to the Christians. Kupruli, having been apprised of this correspondence by a renegade who delivered up to him the despatches to the ambassador, written in cipher (1659), became greatly infuriated, being naturally passionate and sanguinary; and ordered De la Haye to repair to Adrianople, where the court then was. The ambassador, being ill, sent his son in his place. The vizier received him haughtily, and ordered him to decipher the letters. The latter replied that "the secrets of the King, his master, must be kept."

Page 183: The Divan was ready to open negotiations; but Kara Mustapha energetically opposed that course; and, as the Russians demanded the cession of the Ukraine as far as the Dniester, the Sultan listened to the warlike counsels of the grand vizier. Kara Mustapha himself took the command of the expedition; 30,000 Tartars sent by the Khan of the Crimea, and 4000 Cossacks collected by Kiemielniski, joined with the Ottomans in the attack upon Cehryn. They only took it after a long and murderous siege (1678). To that was limited the success of that campaign. The retreat of the Turks almost resembled a rout: continually harassed by the Russians, who waited for them at all the difficult passes, they lost a great portion of their artillery and baggage. - The war dragged on its lengthened course till 1681. At last a peace was concluded at Radzin, through the mediation of the Khan of the Crimea.

Page 200: Louis XIV., exhausted by the struggle which he had unstained against one-half of Europe, was at that moment meditating the desirableness of peace. Of this he apprised the Divan, and offered his intervention to obtain its admission to the negotiations he was about to open. That offer met with a decided refusal from the Sultan, who hoped to recover the provinces which he had lost during the war; and, moreover, he distrusted the ambassador who made those propositions on the part of France. That ambassador was M. de Feriol, who had succeeded Chateauneuf. Badly instructed in the usages of the Porte, notwithstanding the seven campaigns he had made with the Turks, he had offended the Ottoman court by his conceitedness of manner, and had insulted the Grand Seignior by presenting himself at an audience wearing a sword at his side.

Rupture between the Porte and France.—Though Louis XIV. had signed the treaty of Byswyck in 1698, yet he now advised the Divan to continue the war, urging that the peace which he had just concluded was only a truce, and that the approaching demise of Charles II. of Spain was about to re-open a struggle in which France would deploy all her strength against the House of Austria. The Porte was dissatisfied with the conduct of the French king, whom it regarded as abandoned by the other powers of Europe. It listened to the solicitations of William of Orange, who won over by dint of gold, it was said, the members of the Divan to accept the mediation of England and Holland; and, finally, it made overtures of peace to Austria. Louis XIV. remonstrated with the Divan upon the error it was about to commit: representing that "Turkey conquered could only obtain peace under conditions upon, which depended its very existence; for the Turks, in all their wars with the Christians, had never receded; and should they now do so, the prestige attached to their power would be dissipated." He therefore advised the Porte to prolong the war until France could take up arms again; and he engaged not to lay them down until Turkey had recovered Hungary and all her lost provinces.

Page 201: But these representations of the great monarch were transmitted by Feriol, a man in whom the Divan had no confidence, and even regarded as imbecile; moreover, the ambassadors of William had made themselves masters of the chief ministers, either through intrigue or fear. Louis XIV. was answered that France made peace at 'her own time and will, and that the Porte would do the same. Thereupon negotiations were opened through the mediation of England and Holland, which Feriol attempted to traverse. "He set every engine to work to that end," says Cantemir, "but he did not succeed. The Divan ended even by inviting him not to give himself needless trouble; that peace was determined upon, and peace would be made." And it was, in fact, signed at Carlowitz (1699).

Page 204: Neutrality of the Porte.—Since the treaty of Carlowitz, the party of peace prevailed in the Divan. When Louis XIV. began the great straggle of the Spanish Succession, he gave orders to Feriol to demonstrate to the Porte that the opportunity was decisive for avenging itself for its past defeats, and for resuming its old position; that Spain and Italy having fallen to the House of Bourbon, doubled the advantages and the resources of the French alliance; that there was nothing to fear from the renewal of the Holy League of 1685, for the Venetians and the Poles desired to remain neutral; finally, it was only required of the Turks that they should enter Hungary, which was still in revolt, and

Page 205: allow the Tartar Khan to attack the Russians. But the sanguinary troubles which marked the end of the reign of Mustapha II. rendered all negotiation at first impossible, and, when they were appeased, the Sultan Achmet, immersed in the pleasures of the seraglio, obstinately refused to mix himself up in a war in which he saw that the only profit to be derived from it by the Turks was by allowing the infidels to slaughter each other. When France experienced reverses, she renewed her solicitations by pointing out to the Divan the danger and disgrace of its absurd repose. It was altogether useless: the bad success attending the French arms proved injurious to her representations, and the overtures of her ambassador were thwarted victoriously by the intrigues and money of England and Holland.

Page 207: However, it secretly led the King of Sweden to hope that the Khan of the Crimea would march to his assistance. Reckoning upon that futile promise, Charles XII. adventured into the interior of Russia with an army of 16,000 men; he was conquered at Pultowa (1709), sought a refuge in Turkey, established himself at Bender, and from thence he intrigued with the Divan to draw Achmet III. into the war against Peter I. On his side the Czar complained of the hospitality accorded to his enemy, and demanded the extradition of Mazeppa, hetman of the Cossacks, who had delivered up the Ukraine to the King of Sweden. The French ambassadors joined their remonstrances to the solicitations of Charles XII.; but they would have remained without result, as well as the urgency of the Tartar Khan, if the embassy of the Czar had not come by way of the Black Sea on board a squadron which cast anchor before the windows of the Seraglio! Mussulman pride was irritated at the appearance of infidels in the seas interdicted to Christian commerce, and regarded as sacred by the fanaticism of the Osmanli. War was declared.

Rupture between the Porte and Russia.—Peter the Great appeared at first surprised at that energetic resolution. He reckoned upon the artifices of Tolstoi, his ambassador, upon the corruption of the viziers, upon the dilatorinesa of the Divan, and the weakness of Achmet III . But, in reality, he had only been anticipated, as, for some time past, he had taken measures to begin the war and to secure to himself partisans in the states of the Grand Seignior. His emissaries, traversing secretly Moldavia and Wallachia, excited everjwhere the inhabitants to revolt. The hospodars whom the Porte had nominated to administer these provinces were sold to Russia. Immediately after the rupture there appeared a proclamation of the Czar, which guaranteed to the Moldo-Wallachians the exclusive exercise of the Greek religion, and enfranchisement from Turkish domination.1 Finally, a bishop, the chief agent of these intrigues, was seen at Jerusalem circulating a report that a prophecy had been found within the tomb of Constantine, which announced that the Turks would be driven out of Europe by the Russian nation. Peter I., reckoning upon the revolt of all the peoples of the Greek religion, flattered himself that he was about to plant the Russian eagle upon the minaret of the Seraglio.

Page 214: Treaty of Passarowitz (1718).—At this epoch, the Regent Duke of Orleans and the King of England, George I., had entered into an alliance to constrain the King of Spain and the Emperor to respect the stipulations of Utrecht, and a war between France and Austria appeared imminent. The Marquis de Bonac, the French ambassador at Constantinople, solicited the Turks to continue hostilities, by promising them the assistance of his court. But Charles VI. of Austria hastened to yield to the exigencies of the Regent and King George; and England having offered her mediation to the Divan, peace was signed at Passarowitz (21st July).

Page 216: The Ottoman court became uneasy at the Czar's visit . Since it had become mixed up in all the affairs of Europe, it began to recognise the necessity of penetrating deeper into the policy of the Christian states, and in order to form an exact idea of the situation of the West, it sent to France (1721) an extraordinary embassy, to conduct which it selected one of the negotiators of Passarowitz, Mahommed Effendi, a sensible and well-informed man. The pretext of his mission was to present to the King, with gifts from the Sultan, firmans which gave validity to the demands of France concerning the Holy Places. That embassy made a great noise, but led to no result. Mahommed Effendi met with a gracious reception; all the necessary instructions were given him wherewith to enlighten the Divan as to its true interests; a project even was brought forward of an alliance offensive and defensive between the two powers. But all this did not succeed in arousing the Ottoman court from its apathy, its ignorance, and its prejudices; and France, being desirous at that juncture of inducing it to intervene in the Northern war to save Sweden from the grasp of Russia, found it only turned a deaf ear to every argument, and was herself compelled, at a cost of millions and by her menacing mediation, to prevent the complete destitution of that power by the treaty of Nystadt (1721).

Page 217: Mahmoud I.—The capital and empire remained for some time in the power of Patrona Khalil, who, whilst still wearing his uniform of a common Janissary, dictated his will to the Divan, imposed decrees for the relief of the people, and, through the favour of the soldiery and the populace, seemed sole heir of Achmet III. This energetic ruler was got rid of by treason; he was assassinated in an ambush, under the eyes of Mahmoud and hia ministers. His partisans rose in arms, but the insurrection had no longer a head; it was stifled in the blood of several thousand victims.

Page 219: France promised assistance to the Poles, declared war against Austria, and solicited the Porte to avenge the insult which Russia had just given her, by intervening in a country, the independence of which the treaties of Falksen and Constantinople placed under its protection. To the Marquis d'Andrezel had succeeded the Marquis de Villeneuve, a minister full of talent and activity; he had several conferences with the grand vizier, in which he explained to him the situation of Europe, the necessity for the Porte to return to the policy of Charles XII., that is to say, to an alliance with Sweden and Poland, the isolation in which Turkey would soon find herself by the abasement or weakening of those two states. The vizier was moved by those representations; he addressed a protestation to the two imperial courts against the entrance of the Russians into Poland, and demanded with threats the execution of the treaty of Constantinople. But that protestation and those threats were alike sterile, and a year passed without a declaration of war, without even the assembling of an army; the Divan kept in reserve against Persia all the forces of Turkey.

Page 220: Whereupon Villeneuve, to extricate the Ottoman court from its error, despatched to the Khan of the Tartars, the inveterate enemy of the Russians, an Hungarian gentleman, a refugee in France, the Baron de Tott, adroit and well-informed, who incited him to invade the Ukraine for the enforcement of the tribute which the Russians had formerly paid him. The Khan entered readily into the views of the agent of France, and declared boldly that he would willingly give all he possessed to see the Russians driven out of Poland. But then Augustus II. flung gold lavishly into the Divan; the declaration of war was still delayed, and a prohibition was given the Tartars against entering the Ukraine. The Russians thus found themselves masters in Poland, and Stanislas was driven therefrom. France directed all her efforts against Austria, and incited anew the Porte to attack Russia, by pointing out that that enemy was preparing to besiege Azof. The Divan still continued deaf to these instances. The court of Versailles then, to arrive at its ends, employed the offices of a French renegade, the Count de Bonneval, who was during fourteen years the secret soul of the Ottoman policy in its relations with the European cabinets.

Page 222: The Cardinal then directed Villeneuve to use every exertion to procure peace for the Turks; to prevent, as far as might be possible, the Russians from obtaining the navigation of the Black Sea; in fine, to declare plainly to the Divan that France would not make any diversion in its favour. The grand vizier complained at first to Baron de Tott that France, which three years before wished to arm the Turks against the House of Austria, was exhorting them at that moment to make a disadvantageous peace. The negotiator replied: "We exhorted you to war when the Russians had an army in Poland to support the election of King Augustus, when the Emperor, whom you now menace, was attacked at once by France, Spain, and Sardinia. You might then have hoped for success, and your efforts against the House of Austria might have been as useful to us as to yourselves. At the present time, King Augustus is tranquilly seated upon the throne of Poland; peace is firm between Austria and the confederate powers; the King of France neither wishes nor ought to make his subjects support the weight of a useless war; he owes you only good offices, and he will always render you them. We did advise war, three years since, for the common interests of our empire and yours. To-day, we advise peace solely for your advantage."

Page 226: Russia, Turkey, and Poland. — The Porte had at first manifested great indifference to the fate of Poland. During the vacancy of the crown, it had contented itself with presenting a moderate note to the Russian resident (12th April 1764), protesting against any interference in the election. When the tumults broke out, Count Vergennes, the French ambassador at the Porte, endeavoured to incite it in favour of the Polish patriots. Catherine II., stimulated by ambition and the desire of aggrandisement, had not confined her views to Poland. She had also cast her eyes on some of the Turkish provinces, and had marked them out for her future prey; but so long as the affairs of Poland remained unsettled, she wished to remain at peace with the Porte, and with this view she had bought with large sums the votes of some of the most influential members of the Divan. Hence, though Mustapha. who had been infamously deceived by Catherine in the affairs of Poland, was himself inclined for war, the counsels of his ministers were long undecided.

Page 240: At that epoch, the war of the allied monarchs against the French Revolution had commenced, and the coalition sought to strengthen itself with Turkey. The foreign ministers, and chiefly the representative of England, incited the Divan to break with France, by promising their good offices in inducing Russia to abandon its last conquests. The mission of Descorches, ex-Marquis of Sainte Croix, was therefore to combat the representations and solicitations of the coalesced powers. Owing to his persuasion, the Porte, which had, moreover, no interest to enter into the league of the absolute sovereigns, persisted in its neutrality, and continued to extend its protection to the merchants and establishments of France.

Page 242: Result of the Expedition to Egypt.—The French expedition to Egypt proved at the outset disastrous for their commerce, for their religious establishments, and their relations with the Porte. In effect, at the news of the landing of the French, the stupefaction of the Divan was extreme, and the English minister, supported by those of Russia and Austria, profited by it to excite Mussulman pride to take vengeance for such an insult. The court of Constantinople hesitated: it expected some explanation from France, and thought itself deceived by the ambassadors of the coalesced powers. - As for Ruffin, the French charge d'affaires, he found himself in a most critical position: being without instructions, he tried at first to deny the expedition, then to explain it. France, he said, had sent troops into Egypt, not to destroy, but to affirm the authority of the Grand Seignior against the Mamelukes, who, for more than a century, had not ceased to hinder the commercial relations of France and Egypt, and persecute French merchants. He was not listened to.

Page 243: Russo-Turkish Alliance.—At the news of the capture of Malta, the Russian fleet at Sebastopol was immediately ordered to prepare to join Nelson; while Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt gave rise to an alliance between Russia and the Ottoman Porte. Sultan Selim III. was naturally exasperated at this unprovoked and treacherous act on the part of the most ancient ally of Turkey. In order to deprecate an anger which he had foreseen, Bonaparte had no sooner taken possession of Alexandria, than he instructed the French charge d'affaires at Constantinople to convince the Porte of the firm resolution of the French to live on friendly terms with it. Bonaparte was at this time in hopes that Talleyrand would have accepted the embassy to the Porte, and on his diplomatic skill he relied to convince the Sultan and his Divan that the French invasion of Egypt was, in reality, a friendly act; in short, that black was white. But the Bishop of Autun (Talleyrand) was too sagacious to risk on so desperate a cast the chance of being shut up in the Seven Towers, and the embassy was conferred on Ruffin. The conquest of Egypt, however, was only part of the French general's machinations against Turkey. He contemplated nothing less than exciting a revolt in Macedonia, and all the Greek portion of the Turkish Empire; and with that view he despatched Lavalette, immediately after the conquest of Malta, to Ali Pacha of Janina; but AH turned a deaf ear to the proposal. Ruffin was placed in confinement, together with all the members of the legation. The grand vizier and the mufti, suspected of being the accomplices of the French, were deposed from their high dignities, and the former was banished to the Isle of Scio.

Page 269: Russian Dictation. — Mahmoud had vanquished his domestic enemies, but by the same act had rendered himself defenseless against external ones, and he now found himself compelled to submit to all the dictates of Russia regarding the points which had been left undecided by the treaty of Bucharest. By the treaty of Akerman (6th October 1826), the Porte consented that the Hospodars, though appointed by the Sultan for a period of seven years, should rule independently with the counsel of a divan, chosen from among the boyars, and should not be deposed without the sanction of the Czar. The Serbians were to elect their own princes; the Porte was to restore the districts that were taken from them, and to refrain from interfering in their affairs, Russia was to occupy the east coast of the Black Sea, and her vessels were to have free entrance into all the Turkish waters.

Page 274: Quarrel between the Porte and Mehemet Ali. — Under these circumstances the Divan resolved (27th July 1839) to give Mehemet hereditary possession of Egypt and Syria, with the exception of the Adana district, reserving to the Porte the administration of the Holy Places; but at the moment when that resolution was about to be put into execution, the five great Powers declared in a collective note that they had agreed upon the regulation of the Eastern Question, and they invited the Sultan to decide upon nothing without their concurrence. The Porte declared that it looked for its safety from Europe, and thanked the allies for their intervention.

Page 277: Admiral Napier next presented himself before Alexandria, traced a sad picture before the Pacha of his situation, and wrested from him a treaty, which, exceeding the conditions of pacification indicated before the war, reduced him to the possession of Egypt (27th November 1840). Mehemet hastened to execute it, evacuated Syria, Arabia, Candia, and gave up the Ottoman fleet. That abrupt evacuation proved calamitous to Syria: she fell immediately into anarchy, which proved that the so much decried authority of the Viceroy was not too heavy for that country. As for the Divan, victorious by the arms of her allies, she could have wished to push her triumph to the bitter end. A successor had even been assigned to the Pacha; but England compelled it to accept (2nd June 1841) the treaty signed by Admiral Napier.

Page 280: Dispute concerning the Holy Places. — Russia seized the opportunity of a dispute respecting the use and guardianship of the Holy Places at Jerusalem and in Palestine, to pick a quarrel with the Porte. Nicholas, as protector of the Greek Christians in the Holy City, complained that the Porte had, contrary to treaty, allowed undue privileges to the Latin Christians, especially by granting them a key to the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem; while France, on the other hand, as protector of the Latin Christians, maintained that all that had been done was only in conformity with ancient usage and agreement. Under these circumstances, the Emperor Nicholas, after mustering a Russian fleet at Sebastopol, as well as an army of 30,000 men, despatched Prince Menschikoff on a special embassy to Constantinople, to demand the exclusive protection of all members of the Greek Church in Turkey, and the settlement of the question respecting the Holy Places, on terms which would have left the supremacy to the Greeks. Menschikoff purposely delivered his message with marks of the greatest contempt, appearing in full divan in his great coat and dirty boots (May 5, 1853). Lord Stratford de Redcliffe and M. de la Cour, the English and French ambassadors, were unfortunately absent; but they returned in April, and on their assurance of vigorous support, the Sultan rejected the Russian demands. Menschikoff, after handing in an ultimatum that was disregarded, took his departure, 21st May, with the threat that he had come in his great coat, but would return in his uniform.

Page 283: The Divan, seeing the impossibility of sufficiently defending the coasts of the Black Sea against the attacks of the Russians, invokes the aid of the allied powers that have their fleets in the Bosphorus.

Page 285: The Divan demanded explanations from the court at Athens. It was answered that the movement which manifested itself was the result of the patriotic and religious sentiments of the Greek population, and that every government ought to treat with care and respect such sentiments.

Page 305: Abdul Medjid, son of Mahmoud II., succeeds in his seventeenth year; the French wish the Osmanli sceptre to be transferred to Mehemet Ali, but the proposition is opposed by England and Russia, 273; a lively commotion manifesting itself on the subject of the accession, it is promptly repressed by the Grand Vizier Khosrew, 274; the young Sultan is mostly guided by the counsels of England, ably conducted by Sir S Canning; the Czar's design against the "Sick Man," 278; the ulema summon the Sultan to declare war against Russia or abdicate in three days, 281; declares war in case the Russians refuse to evacuate the Principalities, 282; on the destruction of the Turkish fleet by the Russians at Sinope, the Divan invokes the aid of the fleets of the allied Powers in the Bosphorus, 283; England and France order their fleets to enter the Black Sea to protect therein the flag and territory of Turkey, 284.

Page 308: Amurath III. ….. the favourite Sultana, the Venetian Baffa, obtains the renewal of the capitulations with Venice and greater security for her commerce; the alliance with- France respected through the great influence of the French ambassador with the Divan; an embassy from the Sultan to Henry III. of France meets with a magnificent reception; in spite of concessions and professions of friendship, Germigny, the ambassador, appreciates at its proper value the alliance and benevolence of the Turks, and foresees the decadence of the empire, with no longer a Solyman to direct it;

Page 312: Bonaparte, Napoleon….. brings for the first time, angrily, in presence of each other, Turks and Frenchmen; his invasion of Egypt gives rise to an alliance between Russia and the Porte; his disappointment at Talleyrand's refusal to accept an embassy to the Porte with the view to convince the Divan of bis invasion being a friendly act, 243;

Page 313: Catherine II….marks out some of the Turkish provinces for her future prey, and bribes the Divan with large sums, 226;

Page 315: Charles XII, King of Sweden, tries by a terrible war to stifle Russia by giving new life to Poland; reckoning upon the futile promise of Turkey that the Khan of the Crimea would march to his assistance, he adventures into the interior of Russia with a small army, is conquered at Pultowa, seeks refuge in Turkey, establishes himself at Bnder, and thence intrigues with the Divan to draw Achmt III into the war against Peter the Great, 207;

Page 318: Germigny, Baron de, ambassador of Henry III. (France), acquires great influence with the Divan; appreciates at its proper value the alliance and benevolence of the Turks; foresees the decadence of the empire with no longer a Solyman to direct it, 157.

Page 324: Louis XIV. (France) having captured Strasbourg, all Europe is in alarm, thinking that France and the Porte are agreed upon the conquest of Germany, 191; advises the Divan to continue the war against Austria, but the Porte, dissatisfied with the French king, listens to the solicitations of William of Orange, and accepts the mediation of England and Holland, which brings about the peace of Carlowitz, 201.

Page 327: Mahommed IV. …… after the murder of Ibrahim the Porte experiences anew the domination of the soldiery; the Janissaries at first suppress an insurrection of itchoglans and spahis, but make the young Sultan pay dearly for their guardianship; during the war against Venice they compromise the honour of the Crescent by revolts in presence even of the enemy; they refuse to continue the siege of Candia, and constrain a cessation of the operations; another sedition costs the life of the Sultan's grandfather; irritated at the delay in the payment of their arrears, they call for death to the members of the Divan; the Sultan obeys, delivers to the executioner his dearest servants, and the whole administration is overthrown; the grand vizier next deposed; revolts break out in the Asiatic provinces; the governor of Anatolia is overcome and slain by the rebels; so long as internal anarchy prevails, the Sultan obtains no advantage without the realm; the Admiral Moncenigo obtains a complete victory over the Turkish fleet, and by a strict blockade of the Hellespont Constantinople is almost famished; Mahommed Kupruli being made grand vizier, restores order and discipline, 179;

Page 328: Mazarin, Jules, Prime Minister of Louis XIV., his wily policy alike towards the Venetians and Turks; beholds with complacency the perils of the Venetians, but is unwilling that the Turks should dominate the Mediterranean by the possession of Candia; sends an ambassador extraordinary to offer the Divan the mediation of France, which is haughtily rejected; offers to the Venetians the co-operation of tho French navy on such conditions that the senate refuses the offer; sends to Venice a subsidy of 10,000 crowns, but secretly, and in his own name; sends nine ships to fight under the Venetian flag, and allows more than 50,000 soldiers to be recruited in France, and accept the pay of Venice, 177;

Page 329: Menschikoff, Prince, sent by Nicholas I. on a special embassy to Constantinople to demand the exclusive protection of all members of the Greek Church in Turkey; he delivers his message to the Divan with marks of the greatest contempt; after handing in an ultimatum, departs with a significant threat, 280; takes up a position on the river Alma, and invites a party of ladies from Sebostopol to come and behold the destruction of the enemy; is defeated with the loss of 8000 men, 288.

Page 333: Patrona, Khalil — a Janissary, excites that corps to revolt against Ibrahim Pacha; they demand that the grand vizier, the mufti, and the capudan-pacha should be delivered up to them, who are put to death, and the Sultan Achmet III. acknowledges as Padischah his nephew Mahmoud I; the capital and empire remain for some time in the power of Patrona, who dictates his will to the Divan, 217; ……. Peter the Great (Russia) …… extends his projects upon the Black Sea; fortifies Azof and builds ships there; complains of the hospitality accorded to his enemy, Charles XII, by the Porte, and demands the extradition of Mazeppa, hetman of the Cossacks, who had delivered up the Ukraine to Charles XII.; the Porto declares war on the appearance of a squadron in the Black Sea, with an embassy from the Czar; he reckons in vain upon the artifices of his ambassador, Tolstoi, upon the corruption of the viziers, the dilatoriness of the Divan, and the weakness of Achmet III., 207;

Page 340: Tolstoi, ambassador of Peter the Great to the Porte, his artifices in corrupting the Divan, and securing partisans in the states of the Sultan; his emissaries in Moldavia and Wallachia everywhere excite the people to revolt; the hospodars sold to Russia; a proclamation of the Czar guarantees to the Moldo-Wallachians the exclusive exercise of the Greek religion and enfranchisement from Turkish domination, 207; on the Sultan declaring war against the Czar, he imprisons Tolstoi in the Seven Towers, 208.