board such boats and vessels as they find at hand, will endeavour to fly to Anatolia and elsewhere. The residue of the inhabitants, who remain at Constantinople, being left to themselves in this calamity, and overwhelmed with astonishment, having no water to bake bread, or to drink, will, in the course of two days, be reduced to the last extremity. So that the Russian troops, gradually advancing and entering the city, will make themselves entire masters of it.” The Sublime Government having received intelligence of this conversation, and of the decision taken in consequence of it[72], the infernal treachery of the aforesaid wicked person, seemed really to have conceived a feasible project. Water sleeps, and enemy is sleepless.[73] It is especially to be considered, that the distance from the peninsula of the Crimea to the channel of the Black Sea, is such, that a ship may cross it without altering a sail; and whatever confidence we may place in our own strength, yet, God forbid that so cunning an enemy should find us in an unguarded posture; particularly since we are instructed by the example of so many States, that owed their loss of reputation and ruin to the want of care in observing the machinations of their enemies, and in neglecting to provide in proper time efficient troops and military stores. From this source their calamities have arisen, as is written and set forth, as well in other histories, as in that which treats of the misfortune of the Sublime Person, who has received the mercy of[74]God, and of the peace which he concluded. The Russian infidels having withal greatly improved the state of their dominions within the space of seventy or eighty years, and manifested their thirst of glory by their arrogant and insolent interference in the interior affairs of other States, and having annexed several foreign countries to their own dominions, especially the kingdom of Poland, we must not, by any means, consider ourselves secure from so treacherous and deceitful a nation. Besides all this, the upright and provident ministers of the Sublime Government, who are aware of the evil designs of the enemy, having represented to the Emperor, (who is at the summit of power, and inhabits the mansions of wisdom and understanding,) that if such an attempt as that suggested to the Cralyä by the before-mentioned reprobate, should actually take place against the reservoirs, (which God forbid!) as there had been no care taken to provide either money or troops, it would be utterly impossible to dispatch with expedition against the enemy forces that were under no discipline, or to repulse them with such soldiers; and that the people of the Empire of Islam, reposing entirely on the protection of Providence, would not make the least resistance. That therefore, as it was a maxim established that in an urgent case, when some remedy must be sought, resources must be found in the whole body of those who are attached to government, without