748 
JANISSARIES. 
on against the Armenians of the city ; all appearing to share the 
imputed guilt, with the religion of the original offenders. 
The corps of Janissaries was first instituted by Sulieman the 
Magnificent, as a kind of regular force, intended to oppose the 
better disciplined troops of Europe, then doubly formidable from 
their practised use of fire arms. At first, the newly established 
corps was most vehemently disapproved by the general prejudice 
against every species of innovation ; but the firmness and power 
of the monarch soon fixed it decidedly as the standing army of 
the empire. Its force is immense, when heartily directed against 
one object; and the consequence is, it knows its power, and for 
many generations has held the deposition of ministers, the lives 
of the sovereigns, and even the gift of succession, at the com¬ 
mand of its simultaneous movement. But in proportion as this 
influence has become exorbitant over circumstances at home, the 
corps, as a military force, appears to have lost the awe of its 
name abroad ; and indeed it is not improbable, that, from the 
various callings of its constituent parts, the least of which is the 
duty of a soldier, the disorder of its multitudes would at any 
time make the conquest of all the Turks possess in Europe the 
affair of only a few days. The common men of the Janissaries 
are composed of almost every trade in Constantinople, such as 
grocers, pastry-cooks, water-carriers, coffee-venders, boatmen, 
porters, &c. besides renegadoes, and other more respectable 
recruits. Those who have businesses, follow them in the city as 
actively as if they had never had any thing to do with a kettle, but 
to put in their flesh-hooks and eat out of it; while their less 
industrious brethren congregate together in the vast barracks 
prepared for them by their sublime master, but whence they 
often sally with something of the overawing spirit of the old 
