How is it possible for us without such a system, to avenge ourselves of our enemies, to defend our Empire, or to gain the least advantage? As the deep cunning of the Russian race was not at first so well known, our precious heroes of soldiers made use of such expressions. “The Muscovite infidels are dogs of fishermen, whom we can suffocate only by spitting upon them; if we each of us throw a stone, we shall destroy them all.” These Janissaries who are merely vain boasters, good only for swaggering on the pavements, falling by thousands into the hands of the Russians through their total ignorance of military affairs, at length saw and learned the power and stratagems of the enemies of our faith. But to what purpose? since the children and daughters of so many noble and pious persons of the Mahometan community have continued even to this day (a space of nearly forty years!) in the possession of the Russians; and the children whom they have produced remain depressed and afflicted, a weeping prey in the hands of soldiers, officers, and other reprobates.[100] If a rabble of men, ignorant of the world, who pass their whole time in festivity and play, or in buying and selling, or in idleness, were in the first place to learn thoroughly the things which belong to purity, and then, in order to preserve their religion unsullied, were to avoid discourse with infidels and designing men, and examine whether their own observance of it did not require some correction, there is no doubt that they might attain to the summit of the good things, both of this world and of the world to come. If they contend with us, saying, “We understand questions of purity, we preserve our religion, and there is no doubt of the validity of our marriage contract[101]”; in that case, although what they maintain be true, yet, as the knowledge of the affairs of this world is apt to occasion many great sins, let them not lengthen their tongues on a subject of which they certainly know nothing, and to which their understandings cannot reach. If this business of the Nizam-y-Gedid seem obscure to them, let them acquire information from men who, like this humble individual[102], have reached their eighty-seventh year, and have gained by experience a thorough knowledge of the world, and have brought to light what things have injured, and what have turned to the profit of, the Sublime Government. Let them not talk of things void of sense, for as the troubles of man proceed from his words, so reason is given him as a defence against his words. SECTION VIII.