became the
moving spring of the Ottoman Porte. The inmates formed a faction hostile
to the ministers of religion. The administration was transferred to
Greeks, Jews, and Armenians, who filled the treasury of the sultan and
enriched themselves by impoverishing the people, who, since they could
no longer enjoy the fruits of their labor, became indolent. The army was
more eager for booty and captives than for glory; slaves were
multiplied; the higher classes revelled in wealth and luxury, while the
poorer classes with difficulty obtained a livelihood.

It would be strange, indeed, if in an empire so extensive and with an
immense and motley population, we did not find it difficult to introduce
reforms, and instruct the people in the arts of more civilized nations,
and remove old abuses, guarded by the fanaticism of the clergy.
Political reforms can be made only by those in high places of authority;
and to be sanctioned by the prejudiced and infatuated Ottoman they must
assume the garb of religion. The sultan himself, wielding the sceptre
over millions of subjects, uniting in his own person all the powers of
the state, claiming to reign by divine commission, and profanely styling
himself the shadow of God--even he dares not venture to vary one iota
from the teachings of the Koran and the Sunnah.

Selim III was the first royal reformer. While Europe was shaken to its
very centre, and the continental monarchs trembled on their thrones, he
applied himself assiduously to those civil and military reforms, which
his successors promoted, and without which Turkey could not have
maintained her position as a European power. Selim made a new
organization of the army, made innovations in the judicial and
administrative branches of the government, changed the system of
taxation, and gave a decidedly new organization to the divan, where
reform was most needed. He also attempted to make innovations in the
financial department, but by depreciating the coin, in order to fill an
exhausted treasury, signally failed. He deposed the then reigning
hospodars of the Moldo-Wallachian provinces, and established others more
favorable to his work of reform. Russia and England remonstrated at this
measure, and war was declared. The Turkish army was defeated and driven
across the Danube. The Janissaries, ignorantly attributing their defeat
to Selim's reforms in military discipline, rose in rebellion. The
well-meant but too mild sultan fell a victim to t