AS A PERMANENT RESIDENCE, 271 



country, and so magnificent a port for trade, con- 

 structed, as it were, by Nature herself, for the 

 purpose of being the capital of an extensive em- 

 pire, which, from its locality, ought, if properly 

 dealt with, to be one of the leading powers of the 

 world, should be thrown away, as it now is, on a 

 set of idle, worthless drones, who do nothing but 

 feed upon the honey made by the working bees 

 of the population; where anarchy is rule, and 

 wholesale murder the administration of justice ; 

 where millions are squandered, and tens of thou- 

 sands of human creatures lose their lives to keep 

 a childish old debauchee, or an imbecile young 

 rake, on the throne of the sultans ; and where a 

 grinding, savage, irresponsible despotism pre- 

 vails, which heeds not the welfare of its subjects, 

 exercises no paternal or fostering care over them, 

 but seeks only its own aggrandizement, or the fur- 

 therance of its own mad schemes, and robs those 

 of its sons that are industrious of their hardly - 

 earned savings. 



No one can, I think, visit Constantinople, with- 

 out lamenting its present condition. It is the 

 last hold of Islamism in Europe. It is that cor- 

 ner of the civilized world into which Christianity 



