a Swede, named Rode : the great natural resources of the 

 empire the forests of Taurus, and the mines of Trebizond, 

 were put in requisition, and Brun, Benoit, and Spurring 

 launched in the port of Constantinople some of the finest 

 vessels of which any nation could boast. This ardour of 

 the Porte to increase the naval strength of the empire did 

 not abate on the death of Hassan. His successor, Kutchuk 

 Hussein, was equally severe, active, and indefatigable ; 

 but both these men were ignorant barbarians, destitute of 

 even the first elements of science ; their improvements ex- 

 tended no further than the skill of the intelligent agents 

 they employed : they created a fleet externally imposing ; 

 but what was its real strength ? We refer to Navarino for 

 an answer. Cool intrepidity, strict discipline and science, 

 are the ingredients of naval superiority ; but the battles of 

 Lepanto, of Chesme, and finally of Navarino, are memor- 

 able proofs how incompatible these qualifications are with 

 the Turkish character. 



It deserves to be remarked, as a proof of the repulsive 

 bigotry that exists under the Ottoman government, that 

 almost all the European Christians who engage in its ser- 

 vice retire from it in disgust; while the renegades, from 

 whose intelligence a more permanent benefit might be 

 derived, are generally put to death for slight offences : such 

 was the fate of Soliman, the Prussian engineer, and of the 

 Russian who instructed the army of Bairactar in European 

 manoeuvres. Ingliz Mustapha (so Campbell was called) 

 died not long ago in misery and want ; and the end of Selim, 

 a man of wit and accomplishments, who had been, we sus- 

 pect, a distinguished member of the Irish bar, was still 

 more wretched. 



Coeval with these attempts to improve the Ottoman 

 army and marine, an innovation of a more important but 

 less ostentatious nature was made by the introduction into 

 Turkey of the art of printing. A Turkish printing press 

 was, for the first time, established in Constantinople, in the 

 year 1726, under the protection of the Sultan Ahmed III., 

 by Ibrahim Motaferrika, a Hungarian renegade. Toderini 

 insists that the types were cast in Constantinople; but of 

 this there is no direct proof, and we prefer the authority of 



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