is, at least, there is one distinct lesson
to be learnt, that however it may be natural for nations to lose a
superiority, owing to arts, inventions, or foreign trade, yet, if the
minds of the people and their manners remain pure, they will not be
degraded, by falling a prey to an enemy. When Holland was not rich
[end of page #67] it resisted Spain in all her glory, during a very hard,
arduous, and continued struggle; but then the people were united as
one man: there were no traitors to raise a voice for Spain against their
country. When Holland was wealthy, it did not even attempt to resist
France when invaded; but then Holland was divided, and there were in
every city men, who wished more for the plunder than the prosperity
of their country.

In viewing the fall of those nations that sunk before the discovery of
America, the eastern empire was the last that attracted attention. It had
been reduced by the Turks, with a vigour and energy that promised a
renovation, which, however, it did not effect. The Turks brought with
them the Mahometan religion, which has debased the manners and
degraded the minds of every people. Constantinople, by this change,
lost the remains of ancient learning and of commerce, which even the
weakness of the emperors, and the repeated wars, had not been able
entirely to destroy. The Greeks were reduced to a state of
subordination and slavery, but the Turks were not civilized. They
adopted what was luxurious and effeminate of Grecian manners, yet
still retained their former ignorance and ferocity. Amongst modern
nations, the Turkish government is, in form, a monster, and its
existence an enigma; yet it extended its sway over all that was most
valuable or most splendid in the ancient world. Greece, Egypt,
Phoenicia, Syria, the three Arabias, and countries then but little
known, are subject to a brutish people, who do not even condescend to
mix with the inhabitants of the country, but who rule over them in a
manner the most humiliating and disgraceful. {65}

The Turkish government has never been powerful. The city of Venice
was always its equal at sea; and, as it disdains to adopt the systems of
other nations, it is every day becoming weaker, in comparison with
them. It has formerly maintained successful struggles against

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{65} In all other conquests, the conquered and the conquerors have
become, at last, one people, when they have settled in the same
country, whether Christians or Pagans;