18 



CAUSES OF THE WEAKNESS AND DECLINE 



the Turkish empire are constantly engaged in interchanging various 

 articles. The rice and flax of Egypt are exported to Syria, whence 

 cotton and silk* are remitted in return. Both these provinces 

 receive annually from 10 to 15,000 quintals of iron from Smyrna, 

 Coffee and Indian goods are sent to Constantinople, and from this 

 city brass and copper manufactures are carried to Egypt. The in- 

 fluence of a great commercial town in humanizing and improving the 

 manners of a people is no where so evident in Turkey as on the 

 western coast of Asia. A sense of the advantages derived from 

 a safe and regular communication with Smyrna stimulates the 

 governors of the different towns to a discharge of their duty. The 

 roads are rarely infested by robbers, and travellers have litte reason 

 to complain of the manners and general conduct of the inhabitants. 



3. The trade of Salonica, the second city of mercantile im- 

 portance in the empire, excites a spirit of industry in the provinces 

 of the antient Thessaly and Macedonia. The Turks at Constanti- 

 nople, like the Romans under their Emperors, are so accustomed 

 to a low and fixed price of corn f, that nothing excites murmurs 

 and complaints in the city sooner than any rise or alteration of it. 

 It is the business of some commissaries sent every year into parts 

 of Greece, as well as to other provinces of the empire, to purchase 

 wheat for supplying the granaries of Constantinople. After this, 

 the orders of the government prohibiting the exportation of corn are 

 without difficulty evaded; and large cargoes are sent out from 

 different ports of Greece. This exportation t encourages the Beys 



* " This article is brought from Antioch ; more silk is produced in the neighbourhood 

 of that city, within the circuit of 30 miles than in the rest of Syria. It is sent to 

 Aleppo, and thence exported." Parsons' Travels, 77- 



f The neglect of agriculture in the vicinity of Constantinople towards the north, 

 arises from the same cause that formerly discouraged tillage near Rome : it is owing to the 

 quantity of corn sent from the provinces. The inhabitants of Rome were supplied with 

 corn at sixpence a peck. Adam Smith, W. of N. i. 233. 



X The evils which arose in consequence of a strict prohibition of the exportation of 

 corn from parts of the Turkish empire are stated by the author of the " Essay on the 

 « corn trade," 1766. « The Grand Vizir between 20 and 30 years ago suffered a 



