The squadron from the southward have brought in three Russian Privateers, and since there is reason to hope that Oczakow[8] will hold out, this campaign has, upon the whole, exceeded the most sanguine expectations of the Turks. I am astonished that they have made it out so well, for their army is really little better than an animated mob under the command of a popular leader. I have searched in vain for field-days or reviews, even among the standing forces. The only thing like military exercise, that I could ever discover, was now and then two or three men firing at a mark, or practising themselves in throwing the lance on horseback. At present the grand army is elated with victory, and formidable by the spirit infused by success; but as one or two defeats will destroy that religious confidence and enthusiastic fury, which, for a time, supply the want of discipline and skill, the third campaign, I am afraid, will shake this very capital, unless England and Prussia forbid such a catastrophe, and by resolute measures, confirm the expectations of the Porte, and of all those who wish well to the honor and interest of the Triple Alliance. Footnote 8: A magazine having blown up, and made a practicable breach, the Russians immediately advanced to the assault, and, after sacrificing four thousand men, carried the town. --- ADVERTISEMENT. It was the Author's original intention to publish his work in two volumes, one of which was to contain the whole of his first voyage to the Levant, with his return to Italy, describing all the places he visited previous to his departure from Palermo, whence he set out on his second voyage to Turkey. This voyage would have formed the second volume, but finding the time allowed him on leave of absence insufficient to complete his design, he has been obliged, for the present, to withhold the latter part of it; and therefore, to make the first in some degree a complete work in itself, he has curtailed his journal, and added a brief account of Constantinople, and of the leading events in the present war between the Porte and the two Imperial Courts. Convinced that these would never be so interesting as at the present moment, he could not think of withholding them from the public till he should have leisure to publish his second volume. And indeed, even in the time since his letters on these important transactions were written, the scene, as he foresaw, is entirely changed, and the Russian and Austrian armies are now advancing towards Constantinople with such success, that the safety of that capital seems no longer to depend upon the Turks, but on those Powers, without whose countenance, it is to be supposed, the Porte would never have engaged against such superior enemies.