Presumptuous and ignorant men, who arrogate the earth to yourselves! if God were to gather all the generations past and present, what would be, in their ocean, the sects calling themselves universal, of Christians and Mussulmans?  What would be the judgments of his equal and common justice over the real universality of mankind?  Therein it is that your knowledge loseth itself in incoherent systems; it is there that truth shines with evidence; and there are manifested the powerful and simple laws of nature and reason—­laws of a common and general mover—­of a God impartial and just, who sheds rain on a country without asking who is its prophet; who causeth his sun to shine alike on all the races of men, on the white as on the black, on the Jew, on the Mussulman, the Christian, and the Idolater; who reareth the harvest wherever cultivated with diligence; who multiplieth every nation where industry and order prevaileth; who prospereth every empire where justice is practised, where the powerful are restrained, and the poor protected by the laws; where the weak live in safety, and all enjoy the rights given by nature and a compact formed in justice.

These are the principles by which people are judged! this the true religion which regulates the destiny of empires, and which, O Ottomans, hath governed yours!  Interrogate your ancestors, ask of them by what means they rose to greatness; when few, poor and idolaters, they came from the deserts of Tartary and encamped in these fertile countries; ask if it was by Islamism, till then unknown to them, that they conquered the Greeks and the Arabs, or was it by their courage, their prudence, moderation, spirit of union—­the true powers of the social state?  Then the Sultan himself dispensed justice, and maintained discipline.  The prevaricating judge, the extortionate governor, were punished, and the multitude lived at ease.  The cultivator was protected from the rapine of the janissary, and the fields prospered; the highways were safe, and commerce caused abundance.  You were a band of plunderers, but just among yourselves.  You subdued nations, but did not oppress them.  Harassed by their own princes, they preferred being your tributaries.  What matters it, said the Christian, whether my ruler breaks or adores images, if he renders justice to me?  God will judge his doctrines in the heavens above.

You were sober and hardy; your enemies timid and enervated; you were expert in battle, your enemies unskillful; your leaders were experienced, your soldiers warlike and disciplined.  Booty excited ardor, bravery was rewarded, cowardice and insubordination punished, and all the springs of the human heart were in action.  Thus you vanquished a hundred nations, and of a mass of conquered kingdoms compounded an immense empire.

But other customs have succeeded; and in the reverses attending them, the laws of nature have still exerted their force.  After devouring your enemies, your cupidity, still insatiable, has reacted on itself, and, concentrated in your own bowels, has consumed you.