2© TURKEY IN ASIA. 



Porte, nearly upon these terms ; terms which, considering the ill suc- 

 cess of the war, cannot be accounted very disadvantageous to the 

 Turks, who lost a fortress more useful for the purpose of annoying 

 Russia than for defending their own territories; but certainly of con- 

 siderable importance to Russia, which, by this cession, secured the 

 peaceable possession of the Crimea. 



It is computed that in this war Turkey lost 200,000 soldiers ; Rus- 

 sia 100,000; the Austrians, who fell in the battle, or in the unhealthy 

 marshes, are supposed to exceed 130,000. 



The treacherous and wanton invasion of Egypt by the French, in 

 1798, without even the pretence that the Porte had given them any 

 cause of offence, justly provoked the Turks to declare war against 

 France; but of the hostilities which took place between these pow- 

 ers, and which have been almost entirely confined to the attack on, 

 Egypt, and some towns in Syria, an account is given elsewhere : it is 

 therefore unnecessary to repeat it here. 



Selim III, born in 1761, succeeded to the throne of Turkey on the 

 death of his uncle, the late sultan, Apiil 7, 1789, 



