Two witnesses are required to establish a fact, and never more. If it be a case of debt, the simple promise of the debtor is sufficient, either written and marked with his seal, or, if verbal, attested by witnesses. The parties generally plead their own cause; the judges, without reference to any code but the Koran, consider the simple facts. Having decided, they give sentence, which is submitted to the grand vizir; and, if it coincide with his own opinion, which is generally the case, he writes at the bottom of the arzuhal the word Sah, “surely.” If, on the contrary, he dissents, he writes his own decree, and the parties are dismissed with a hujet, or “sentence of the grand vizir,” which is final. It is on these occasions only, that disputation takes place in a Turkish court of justice; for if the cadileskers are supposed capable, either through ignorance or design, of pronouncing an unjust decree, they are degraded, and never suffered again to hold any place of trust. They, therefore, defend their opinions with obstinacy, and the court resounds, not with the pleadings of lawyers, but the disputation of the judges. Proceeding thus from left to right, the cases are summarily decided till it is dark, or they are all disposed of; and as justice may not be deferred by the intervention of any avoidable delay, the members of the court dine where they sit. A frugal meal is brought in at midday and despatched in a few minutes. Such is the process when the Divan is a court of justice; but when it becomes a Galibé Divan, or “council chamber,” all the affairs of state become objects of its deliberation or discussion. This is held on Sundays and Mondays. Here the grand vizir and cadileskers also sit, assisted by the reis effendi, or “minister for foreign affairs,” the mufti, or “chief of ecclesiastical affairs,” and the agas, “or heads of the military departments.” When the first dawn of European light opened upon Turkey, this council of despotism made some approximation to a popular representation. In the difficulties that surrounded the state at the commencement of the Greek revolution, the embarrassed but enlightened Sultan invited the mutelins or “paymasters” of the different Janissary corps, and also deputies from the esnaffs or “corporations” of trades, to become members, and, as these were taken from the respectable class of citizens, they were fair representatives of their opinions to a certain extent, and so formed the first Turkish parliament.