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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE. XXUJ
and then thrown into the river, where he perished. The new mufti, with his son, were
seized, tortured, and executed; and the sultan himself was soon after deposed in 1703,
and his brother Achmet set on his throne. This military revolt was the most serious
that had afflicted the empire since its foundation, and v/as a prominent feature of that
principle of total disorganization, which seemed inherent in the political and moral state
of this people.
Achmet III. was called to succeed his brother, and his first act was to avenge himself
on the conspirators, who had placed him on the throne in a truly Turkish manner. He
disarmed their suspicions by rewards and promises, and, having separated them into
various situations of trust and profit, caused every man of them to be strangled in
detail.
Notwithstanding the state of insecurity of every thing in Turkey, it nevertheless
became in his reign the asylum of the Christian monarchs of Europe. Charles XII. of
Sweden, and Stanislaus the king of Poland, whom he had set up, both fled thither for
protection: yet, violent and outrageous as was the conduct of " Macedonia's madman,"
whom the Turks for folly and obstinacy called " Ironhead," both kings wrere treated with
kindness and hospitality. They were followed by their great enemy, the czar Peter,
whose usual sagacity seemed to have deserted him. He was shut up behind the Pruth
by the Turks, and they had now the opportunity of holding three Christian monarchs in
their hands, and dictating what terms they pleased: but avarice, that ruling passion of the
Osmanli, saved Peter and his army—Catherine, his wife, who had accompanied him,
brought in the night all her personal jewels, and as much money as she could collect, to
the czar, who immediately sent them to the grand vizir: he was not able to resist the
offer, and the Russian monarch and his army were allowed to depart in peace.
Another circumstance distinguished the reign of Achmet III., even still more
important than his being the arbiter of the fate of three Christian kings. The art
of printing had now been invented for more than two hundred and fifty years, and every
other state in Europe had adopted the important discovery, The Turks alone rejected
it, and assigned, as a reason, that it was an impious innovation. They allowed no book
but the Koran; they affirmed that it contained every thing necessary for man to know,
and any other knowledge was worse than useless. Such was their veneration for this
book, that it was strictly forbidden to sit, or lay any weight, upon a copy of it; and if a
Frank was detected in the act of doing so, even unwittingly and by accident, he was
immediately put to death. This veneration they extend to paper of any kind, because
it is the material of which the sacred book is composed, and that on which the name
of Allah is written; and hence they strictly prohibit its being desecrated by any common
use, and carefully lay up any fragment of it which they accidentally find. The process
of printing they consider as compressing and defiling a sacred book, and the mufti
denounced it. It was not, then, till the year 1727, that this innovation was tolerated,
and a press established at Constantinople. Even then it was done in such a way as was
attended with no advantage to an ignorant people. It was still prohibited to print the
Koran, and, as that was almost the only book read in the empire, little was added to |
