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To thefe ^erlei his Excellency James Porter, Efq ; 
his Majejifs Amhajfador at Conftantinople, and 
Fellow of this Society ^ was pie afed to make the foU 
lowing Anjwer: 
1. The only plague, which I obferved at Conftan- 
tinople, in the courfe of feven years, was that of the 
year 1751 : there are almoft annually difperfed acci- 
dents, fome perhaps real, fome fuggefted by trick 
and delign, to ferve hnifter purpoles. 
I attempted that year to throw fome obfervations 
on paper ^ but all that I could make out of them 
was fo unfatisfaflory, trite, and imperfed:, that i 
thought them, on a review, fcarce worth notice. 
I am convinced, that whatever is told us of that 
didemper is fcarce to be depended on ; rather con- 
jedure than obfervation, rather the play of imagina- 
tion than fad. However, 1 had made it a prinpipa’l 
fludy to attain to fome data, whereby I could draw 
a probable conclufion concerning the number of the 
dead, that year, which might alfo have led me to 
have afeertained that of the inhabitants at Conllan- 
tinople. 
2. The Turks have no regifter, no bills of mor- 
tality : they are prohibited, by their law, to enume- 
rate the people. I applied to the Reis Effendi, and 
other minifters of the Porte, to know what probable 
calculation they could make concerning the num- 
ber of dead ; but they all concurred in one general 
anfwer, that they had no other but what was founded 
on the decreafe of the confumption of the quantity 
of corn, or bread ; and in general talked of about 
ifoooo. I therefore betook myfelf, with all my 
VoL. 49. O care 
