Only two months after this audience the Sultan accomplished his long-cherished plan of destroying the Janissaries, as his Viceroy in Egypt had fifteen years before destroyed the Mamelukes. It is not easy at this day to realize how large a place this body filled in the life of the people of Constantinople. We are accustomed to think of them as soldiers, as they were in the early history of the Ottoman Turks, the sad tribute of Christian children exacted by the Mohammedan conqueror to extend the influence of Islam. But this terrible blood-tax ceased in 1675, and the Janissaries became a caste or a guild, entrance into which was eagerly sought by the wealthiest Mohammedan families, and the majority of them seldom did any military service. In the time of Mahmoud II. they were at once a source of terror to the Sultan and to the people of the country. They were above all law, and the lives and property of the Christians especially were at their mercy. Those who still remember those days can hardly speak of the Janissaries without a shudder. They lived in constant fear of them; night and day, at any hour, they might enter the house, strip it of its furniture, and torture the family until every place of concealment was revealed and every valuable given up. They were universally feared and hated, and it was this fact which made it possible for the Sultan to destroy them. He proceeded with caution, for he could not hope to destroy them by the cruel and treacherous means adopted by the Pacha of Egypt. He obtained a _Fetva_ from the Sheik-ul-Islam approving of the drafting of a certain number of Janissaries into a new military force which was organized on the principle of European armies. These men rebelled against the strict discipline, and some of them were quietly strangled. Finally, on the 14th of June, 1826, the whole body revolted, murdered their officers, plundered the palace of the Grand Vizier, and prepared to attack the Sultan next day if he did not yield to their demands.