2 



CAUSES OF THE WEAKNESS AND DECLINE 



In examining the causes which have produced this decline, we 

 may first advert to one deserving of more consideration, than it has 

 generally received. We allude to the discovery of the navigation to 

 India by the Cape of Good Hope. Before that great event took 

 place, the Venetians had formed establishments in the ports of Syria 

 and Egypt, to which the productions and manufactures of the East 

 were brought ; they had received various privileges of trade from the 

 Mamelukes, which Selim the First afterwards confirmed. The va- 

 luable commodities of China and India would have continued to 

 reach these coasts, or would have been conveyed over land to the 

 Black Sea, and thence by a short navigation to Constantinople. It 

 was fortunate for the security and happiness of Europe, that the 

 communication with the East was directed at that time into a differ- 

 ent channel ; the throne of Turkey was filled by sovereigns of great 

 energy and enterprise, and the Christian states would not have 

 resisted that power which the increasing wealth of their enemies 

 might have enabled them to create and maintain. But when Turkey 

 no longer continued mistress of the commerce of that age*, her 

 national strength began to be impaired ; her armies were no longer 

 supported by the great means which were essential to the promotion 

 and extension of her views against the peace of the Christian world, 

 and her importance in the political system of Europe was greatly 

 diminished. 



2. The change occasioned by this circumstance has been followed 

 by another in the constitution of the government of equal importance. 

 The Turkish empire could only be supported by vigour and absolute 

 power in the centre, by a promptness and decision which should 

 pervade the whole system of administration, by a quick communi- 

 cation with the remotest parts of the provinces, by an army ready 



* " About the year ] 620, the voyages by sea to the East Indies had so lowered the 

 prices of Indian merchandise, that the trade between India and Turkey, by the Persian 

 Gulph and the Red Sea, having much decayed, the Grand Signior's customs were greatly 

 lessened." Anderson, xi. 3. 



