immunities, which united them in the sense of a common 

 interest, and nourished among them a spirit of mutual 

 support, even after they had ceased to assemble in the field. 

 Machiavel, in his " Prince," (a work, by the way, which 

 was translated into Turkish by the desire of Mustaphalll.) 

 ascribes the solidity of the sultan's power to his reliance 

 on a fierce soldiery, who, he says, are more easy to be 

 pleased than the people, and to please whom all the cares 

 of government may be confined. He did not perceive that 

 the Janizaries, from their numbers and immunities, united 

 the interests of citizens to the power of arms ; and the neces- 

 sity of their suppression proceeded, in fact, from those 

 very honours and rewards to which our early writers ascribe 

 their superiority. Their odas, or regiments, at first formed 

 of slaves and captives, were soon filled by the bravest of 

 the Osmanlis ; and as a military brotherhood affords some 

 chance of protection from arbitrary power, all crowded to 

 the muster-roll of the Janizaries. This immense multi- 

 tude, however, was not subjected to military discipline, 

 and only served to fill the empire with turbulence and con- 

 fusion, without increasing its strength. The number of 

 Janizaries enrolled at the close of the last century was 

 400,000; pay was issued for 60,000, but not more than 

 25,000 men could at any time be mustered during the 

 Russian wars. The danger to which the sovereign was 

 exposed from a pampered and licentious soldiery was very 

 soon felt, and Bajazet II., within less than a century and 

 a half after the creation of the Janizaries, formed a plan for 

 their destruction : the idea was often revived by his suc- 

 cessors, and Amurath IV. murdered a great number of 

 them. Selim III. was satisfied with forbidding the recruit- 

 ing the corps, and his moderation cost him his life. 'The 

 suppression of the Janizaries, however, had become obvi- 

 ously necessary to the security of the prince and of the 

 State. Mahmoud, the present Sultan, when he ascended 

 the throne, had been careful to preserve the arms and 

 accoutrements of the Nizam Gedid, or new troops, who were 

 at that time disbanded ; and while maturing his designs he 

 had imported 50,000 stand of arms from Liege, and 

 secretly stored them in the Seraglio. At length the time 



25 A 4 



