The Latins, who had thus seized on the capital, usurped the whole of the Grecian territories, and divided it among themselves. Five sovereigns, of the western invaders, occupied the throne in succession, till it descended to Baldwin. Michael Palæologus was destined to restore the ancient and rightful dynasty. In the year 1261, Alexius, a noble Greek, who was dignified with the name of Cæsar, commanded a body of troops in his service. He crossed the Hellespont into Europe, and advanced cautiously under the walls of the city. There was a body of hardy peasantry, at that time cultivating the lands of Thrace, of very doubtful allegiance. They were called volunteers, for they gave their services freely to any one who paid them. These bold men were induced to join themselves to the forces of Alexius; and, by stratagem, they entered the town. They gained the co-operation of a Greek, whose house communicated with the wall by a subterranean passage. Through this, Alexius was introduced with some of his volunteers; but he had scarcely passed the golden gate, when the peril of the enterprise struck him, and his heart failed him. He was pushed on, however, by his bolder companions, and at length emerged from the dark passage into the Greek house in the heart of the city. From hence they suddenly issued, and, though few in number, soon filled the streets with terror and dismay, from the suddenness of their attack, and the unknown extent of the danger. But every one was predisposed to join the enterprise. They looked upon the Latin conquest with irrepressible and increasing horror, and the streets were soon filled with shouts for Michael. Baldwin, utterly unapprehensive and unprepared, was suddenly roused from his sleep: he made no attempt to preserve his usurped power. He escaped to Italy, where he lived a private life for thirteen years, an object more of contempt than pity, vainly soliciting aid to recover a kingdom which he had neither right to keep, nor courage to defend.

The Greeks were thus restored to their capital, after their Latin allies had held an unrighteous possession of it for fifty-seven years. As the ravages of their hands were irreparable and permanent records of their oppression, so the memory of them was indelible. It caused that irreconcilable animosity between the eastern and western people of the same faith, which has widened, to an unapproachable distance, the separation of the two churches, so that it is likely nothing within the probability of human events will ever diminish it. To such an extent had it reached, and so deeply did it rankle in the minds of the Greeks, that, two centuries after, when they were about to be overwhelmed by the resistless power of the Turks, they had rather trust to the tender mercies of the followers of Mohammed, than seek a perilous aid from their fellow-christians. To this day the memory of these events is recent in the minds of the people of Constantinople, and it has generated a lasting hostility to the Latin church, which seems only to increase and strengthen with revolving years.

Immediately after the restitution of the city to the Greeks, a new feature was added to it: another western people were received into it, not as allies with arms in their hands, but as something still more useful−merchants, to cultivate the arts of peace, and enrich the Eastern empire by their opulence and activity. These were the Genoese. This enterprising little state had already penetrated to the remotest extremity of the Black Sea, and the commodities brought from thence were particularly valuable to the Greeks. The Oriental church prescribes a vast number of fasts, in the observance of which it is very rigorous. The Genoese had established an extensive fishery at Caffa, in the Crimea; and sturgeon, strelitz, and other fish brought down by the current of the Tanais, and fed in the flat and slimy bottom of the Palus Mæotis, were of the utmost value to the strict disciplinarians of the Eastern church. To vend this necessary commodity, and always to keep a supply for the demands of the Greek capital, they were allowed to establish a commercial mart in its vicinity.

On the northern shore of the Golden Horn rises a promontory, similar to that on which the city is built, and called for that reason by the Greeks pera, because it stood on the “other side,” or beyond the harbour. The extreme point of this peninsula, and just opposite the ancient Byzantium, was called Galata, for, as some say, it was the “milk market” of the Greeks, and it was assigned to these merchants, as the most convenient site for their imports, having the Bosphorus on one side to receive them, and the harbour on the other to distribute them through the city. In process of time their town increased, and, in consequence of some attempt made by their rivals, the Venetians, they were permitted by the Greek emperor, Cantacuzene, to surround the city with a wall having turrets and battlements. It ran from sea to sea, shutting up this little enterprising community in a secure asylum, and still continues in a very perfect state. They were also allowed to use their own form of government, to elect their podesta, or chief magistrate, and to practise the forms and discipline of their own worship. Thus the mart of a few fishermen assumed the port and bearing of a considerable city. Though their independent estate has been abolished by the absorbing despotism of the Turks, they have left behind them another memorial of their consequence, beside the walls of their city: they introduced the Italian language into the East, and it is that Frank tongue that is now most universally spoken by all classes. The most respectable portion of the present inhabitants are the descendants of those merchants, and they are selected as dragomans, or interpreters, by the several European embassies.

But a new power was now preparing to overrun and astonish the world, not by the sudden and transitory inroad of a barbarous multitude, carrying with it the destruction of an inundation, and, like it, passing on, and remembered only by the ravages it left behind; this was a permanent invasion of a stubborn and persevering race, destined to obliterate the usages of former ancient people, and establish, in their place, its own. On the banks of the Oxus, beyond the waters of the Caspian Sea, there dwelt a nomadic people engaged only in the care of their flocks and herds, and for that reason called Turks, from their rude and rustic habits. They had embraced the Islam, or true faith of Mohammed, and changed the appellation of Turks, which was a term of reproach, to Moslemûna, or “the resigned.”¹ From their remote obscurity in the centre of Asia, they issued, to carry the desolation of Islamism into the Christian world.

The first of this race who penetrated into the Greek possessions in Asia Minor was Othman. He seized upon the passes of Mount Olympus, and instead of razing, he strengthened all the fortified places behind him. His son Orchan conquered all the Christian cities established there, and finally made himself master of Brusa, the capital of Bythinia, which became the seat of the Turkish empire in Asia. The Seven Churches of the Apocalypse shared the same fate. Those lights of the world, swarming with a Christian people, were reduced to small villages, with a few Moslem inhabitants; even Ephesus, the great emporium of Asia, celebrated for its noble temple, had “its candlestick so removed,” that the village of Aysilûk (its modern name) now consists of a few cottages among its ruins, and contains a Christian population of only three individuals. Philadelphia was the only city that made an effectual resistance: though remote from the sea, and abandoned by the feeble Greek emperors, it maintained its Christian independence for eighty years, against the Moslem invaders. From the fame of this first conqueror, his race adopted the patronymic as their civil designation, and called themselves, ever after, Osmanli, or “the children of Othman.”

The first passage of the Turks into Europe was attended with a romantic adventure. Soliman, the son of Orchan, was engaged in a hunting excursion, and was led by the chase to the shores of the Hellespont. An insatiable curiosity induced him to wish to cross to the other side, and visit, for the first time, this new quarter of the globe. But the terror of the Turkish name had so alarmed the Greeks, that strict orders were issued, under the severest penalties, to remove every conveyance by which they could pass from the opposite shore into Europe. Under these circumstances, Soliman formed a raft of inflated ox-bladders, and, availing himself of a moonlight night, he floated over with some of his companions. When they landed, they seized on a passing peasant, who happened to be acquainted with a subterranean entrance into the town of Sestos. He was induced, by threats and bribes, to point it out, and so a few energetic Turks seized by surprise on this first European city. By this exploit a communication was at once established with their companions in Asia. Fresh succours crossed over and seized on Gallipoli, and thus the Turk first planted his foot in Europe.

Amurath availed himself of all the benefits of his brother’s adventurous enterprise. He appointed a singular custom at Gallipoli. The marauding Turks, now established on the European side of the Bosphorus, made slaves of all the Christians they could seize on, and sent them over to Asia by this passage. Amurath claimed for his share a certain portion as toll. Of the young males so obtained, he formed that tremendous militia that were afterwards to terrify and control their own country. He caused them to undergo the rite, and be instructed in the doctrines and discipline, of his own prophet. A Dervish named Hadgee Bectash, of great sanctity and influence, was then called in, to give this corps his benediction. Laying his hand on the head of the foremost, the sleeve of his coat fell over his back, and he blessed them by the name of yeni cheri, or “new soldiers.” Both circumstances afterwards distinguished them−the sleeve of the dervish was adopted as part of their uniform, and the name of janissary, corrupted from yeni cheri, was the terror of Europe for more than five centuries. With these young and vigorous apostates to Islamism, he subdued all the country to the base of the Balkan mountains, and having obtained possession of Roumeli, the “country of the Romans,” as the territory of the modern Greeks was called, he finally established himself at Adrianople, which now became the Turkish capital of Europe.

This prince was succeeded by Bajazet, called, from his impetuosity, and the awful destructiveness of his career, Ilderim, or “the thunderbolt.” He extended his conquests into the heart of Europe, penetrated into the centre of Hungary, and threatened to proceed from thence to Rome, to feed his horses with oats on the altar of St. Peter; but first he resolved to possess himself of the Christian capital of the East. To this end he advanced against Constantinople, and for ten years pressed it with a close siege. Its fate, however, was yet delayed by the sudden appearance of another extraordinary power, which, having subdued the remote parts of the East, and left nothing there unconquered, in the restlessness of ambition turned itself to the west in search of new enemies. This was the power of the Tartars, led on by Demur beg, or “the Iron Prince.”² To oppose this new enemy, the siege of Constantinople was raised, and its fate suspended while the legions of barbarians encountered one another, and the Thunderbolt was to resist the Man of Iron. The battle was fought on the plain of Angora, where Pompey had defeated Mithridates. After a conflict of two days, the Turks were totally routed. Bajazet fell into the hands of the conqueror, and the treatment he experienced was such as one execrable tyrant might expect, or a still more execrable might inflict. He whose custom it was to celebrate his massacres by pyramids of human heads, erected at the gates of every city he conquered, would not hesitate to treat the rival whom he hated, and had subdued, without pity or remorse. He enclosed his captive in a cage, like a wild beast exposed to public view, and, as he was lame, made him and his cage a footstool to mount his horse. The end of Bajazet corresponded with his life; impatient of control, and stung with desperation, he beat out his brains against the bars of his prison. Tamerlane possessed one redeeming quality, which distinguished him, in some measure, from his fellow-barbarians. He entertained no hostility to Christianity: on the contrary, he allowed a temple, dedicated to its worship, to be erected in Samarcand, his capital. He did not follow up his conquest by renewing the siege of Constantinople; so that this Christian capital, by his interference, was spared for half a century longer.

But the time at length arrived, when the man was born who was permitted by Providence to inflict this destruction. This was Mahomet II., endued with such opposite and contradictory qualities, that he may be esteemed a monster in the human race. He was the second son of Amurath II., by a Christian princess; his father had imbibed so deep an enmity to Christianity, that he brought his son, like Hannibal’s, to the altar, and made him vow eternal hostility to its professors. He succeeded to the throne at the age of twenty-one, and his first acts were to strangle all his brothers, to the number of twenty-two, and to cast into the sea all the wives of his father who might be likely to give birth to posthumous offspring. The progress of his reign was in conformity to this commencement. His fixed and never interrupted intention was, to possess himself of Constantinople, and to convert the great capital of the Christian world into the chief seat of Islamism, and there was no effort of force or fraud which he did not use to accomplish it.

He is represented, by historians, as starting from his sleep, excited by dreams of conquering the city, and as passing his days in devising means for its accomplishment. Among others, he caused to be cast, at Adrianople, those enormous pieces of battering cannon, capable of projecting balls of 800 pounds weight, which have been the wonder and terror of future ages. They still lie at the fortresses which line the Dardanelles; and the English fleet, under Admiral Duckworth, in modern times, experienced their tremendous efficacy.

The Greek empire, at this time, was confined to a limited space. The emperor Athanasius had, some years before, betrayed his weakness by his apprehension. A rude and fierce people from the shores of the Volga, and thence called Bolgarians, had crossed the Balkan mountains, and carried their inroads to the walls of the city. As a protection against their incursions, a wall was commenced at Derkon on the Euxine, and continued across the peninsula to Heraclea, on the Propontis, enclosing an area of about 140 miles in circumference, called “the Delta of Thrace,” and beyond which the feeble Byzantine power could hardly be said to extend. The Turks trampled it down, and, to cut off all communication by sea, seized upon and rebuilt the castles of the Bosphorus, and then beleaguered the city with an army of 200,000 men. Where were now the fanatics of the Cross, to uphold it in its utmost need? they were applied to, and they affected to sympathize with their brethren in the East; but not one came to support this great bulwark of that faith, which the Osmanli had every where suppressed, to establish the intolerant creed of the Koran. The sovereign pontiff had predicted the fall of the heretic Eastern church, and withheld his aid till his predictions were accomplished. The whole force, therefore, to defend the walls, a circuit of twelve miles, and oppose the countless numbers that surrounded them, was 8000 men.

The invincible courage of this handful of Christians repulsed the Turks in all their fierce assaults. The fortifications on the land-side were formed of a double wall, with an interval between. In vain did the enormous artillery of Mahomet batter large breaches in the outside; there was still another, to which the defenders retired, and from which they could not be dislodged; and after fruitless attempts to penetrate this last retreat, Mahomet was about to abandon the siege in despair, when he thought of an expedient as incredible as apparently hopeless. The city had been defended on the sea-side by a series of iron chains, drawn across the mouth of the harbour, which effectually excluded the Turkish fleet. He now conceived the idea of conveying his ships by land, from the Bosphorus, across the peninsula; and this he effected. Having prepared every thing, as soon as it was dark his machinery was laid−the ships were hauled up the valley of Dolma-Bactché and across the ridge which separated it from the harbour; and the next morning the astonished Greeks, instead of their own, beheld the Turkish fleet under their walls. A general assault was now commenced on all sides, the good and gallant Palæologus, the last and best of the Greek emperors, was killed in one of the breaches, and the Turks poured in over his body.

The Greeks now rushed in despair to the church of Saint Sophia. They were here assured that an angel would descend from heaven with a sword, and expel their enemies from the city, and they waited for the promised deliverance; but the Turks, armed with axes, battered down the outer gates, and rushed in among the infatuated multitude. The city was given up to plunder, and those who escaped the carnage were sold as slaves. Among them were 60,000 of the first families−females distinguished for their beauty and accomplishments, and men eminent for their rank and literary attainments. Poets, historians, philosophers, and artists, all were reduced to a common level, and sold as slaves, to hew wood and draw water for the rude and brutal barbarians who bought them. Such was the end of the great Christian empire of the East, which was extinguished by the downfall of Constantinople, after it had flourished, from its first dedication to Christ, 1123 years. It was founded in May 330, and it terminated in May, 1453. The feebleness of its government, the vices of its emperors, and the weak superstition of its people, were natural causes to accelerate its fall, and induce us the less to regret it; while, by the arrangements of a good providence, the lights of literature, the arts and sciences which improve social life, and the gentle courtesies which endear us to our kind, hitherto shut up exclusively in this city, were now diffused over a wider sphere; and the fugitives that escaped, and the slaves that were sold, brought with them those qualities into various countries, and so were instruments which, no doubt, tended to improve and ameliorate society wherever they were scattered.

When Mahomet had thus obtained the full fruition of his wishes, he speedily gave a greater latitude to that selfish cruelty, and disregard for human life, which had always distinguished him. Some acts of this kind are recorded of him, from which the ordinary feelings of our nature revolt as altogether incredible. He was particularly fond of melons, and cultivated them with his own hand. He missed one, and in vain attempted to discover who took it. There was a certain number of youths, educated as pages, within the walls of the seraglio, called Ichoglans