Ch. x. the Turkish Dominions and Persia. 185 



general meet with better treatment, but may hope 

 to acquire a species of wealth which he can more 

 easily conceal from the eyes of his rapacious 

 masters.* 



To complete the ruin of agriculture, a maximum 

 is in many cases established, and the peasants are 

 obliged to furnish the towns with corn at a fixed 

 price. It is a maxim of Turkish policy, originat- 

 ing in the feebleness of the government and the 

 fear of popular tumults, to keep the price of corn 

 low in all the considerable towns. In the case of 

 a failure in the harvest, every person who pos- 

 sesses any corn is obliged to sell it at the price 

 fixed, under pain of death ; and if there be none 

 in the neighbourhood, other districts are ransacked 

 for it.f When Constantinople is in want of pro- 

 visions, ten provinces are perhaps famished for a 

 supply.;}; At Damascus, during the scarcity in 

 1784, the people paid only one penny farthing a 

 pound for their bread, while the peasants in the 

 villages were absolutely dying with hunger.^ 



The effect of such a system of government on 

 agriculture need not be insisted upon. The causes 

 of the decreasing means of subsistence are but too 

 obvious ; and the checks, which keep the popula- 

 tion down to the level of these decreasing re- 

 sources, may be traced with nearly equal certainty, 

 and will appear to include almost every species of 

 vice and misery that is known. 



* Voy. de Volney, torn. ii. c. xxxvi. p. 369. 

 f Id. c. xxxviii. p. 38. 

 % Id. c. xxxiii. p. 345. 

 § Id. c. xxxviii. p. 381 . 



