uty has call'd him from the--(Note in the published book: _here
several words of the manuscript are effaced._)--Two day's after the
battle, the town surrendered. The consternation, which this defeat
has occasioned here, is inexpressible; and the sultan, apprehending a
revolution, from the resentment and indignation of the people,
fomented by certain leaders, has begun his precautions, after the
goodly fashion of this blessed government, by ordering several
persons to be strangled, who were the objects of his royal suspicion.
He has also ordered his treasurer to advance some months pay to the
janizaries, which seems the less necessary, as their conduct has been
bad in this campaign, and their licentious ferocity seems pretty well
tamed by the public contempt. Such of them as return in straggling
and fugitive parties to the metropolis, have not spirit nor credit
enough to defend themselves from the insults of the mob; the very
children taunt them, and the populace spit in their faces as they
pass. They refused, during the battle, to lend their assistance to
save the baggage and the military chest, which, however, were
defended by the bashaws and their retinue, while the janizaries and
spahis were nobly employed in plundering their own camp.

You see here, that I give you a very _handsome_ return for your
obliging letter. You entertain me with a most agreeable account of
your amiable connexions (sic) with men of letters and taste, and of
the delicious moments you pass in their society under the rural
shade; and I exhibit to you, in return, the barbarous spectacle of
Turks and Germans cutting one another's throats. But what can you
expect from such a country as this, from which the Muses have fled,
from which letters seem eternally banished, and in which you see, in
private scenes, nothing pursued as happiness, but the refinements of
an indolent voluptuousness; and where those who act upon the public
theatre live in uncertainty, suspicion, and terror? Here, pleasure,
to which I am no enemy, when it is properly seasoned, and of a good
composition, is surely of the coying kind. Veins of wit, elegant
conversation, easy commerce, are unknown among the Turks; and yet
they seem capable of all these, if the vile spirit of their
government did not stifle genius, damp curiosity, and suppress an
hundred passions, that embellish and render life agreeable. The
luscious passion of the seraglio is the only one almost that is
gra