Sir Paul Ricaut, a resident of Turkey for many years, issued late in the seventeenth century _The History of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire_. He explains that he obtained his information from Turkish records from high officials, from members of the Ulema, and from a Pole who had passed through the school of pages and had spent nineteen years in all at the Ottoman court. Ricaut was evidently a student of political philosophy; he seems to have relied especially upon Tacitus, the civil law, Machiavelli, and Lord Bacon. His book was printed in several languages, has been much quoted since, and deserves the fame it received. The sixth English edition, published in London in 1686, is used here. The book is also printed at the end of the second volume of his edition of Knolles’s _Turkish History_, London, 1687. Ignatius Mouradgea D’Ohsson, born in Turkey and long a resident there, prepared between 1788 and 1818 his great _Tableau Général de l’Empire Othoman_. He based his work on the _Multeka ol-ebhar_ (see above, p. 318) which with its comments he rearranged and translated, adding to it a great many observations of his own. The book appeared in two forms, the huge folio edition being a magnificent example of the bookmaker’s art. The smaller edition of the book (7 vols., Paris, 1788-1824) has been used here. The last three volumes were published under the supervision of his son after his death. Six of the seven volumes are based on the _Multeka_; the seventh contains a full description of the government, including the court, the ministers, the bureaus, the army, etc. Joseph von Hammer published at Vienna, in 1815, _Des Osmanischen Reichs Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung_, in two volumes. The former is very largely a collection of documents, such as _Kanuns_, _fetvas_, and extracts from the _Multeka_. A large amount of valuable material is presented; but it is only partly digested, and the author often does not indicate clearly whence he drew his extracts. The second volume goes over much the same ground as D’Ohsson’s seventh volume. Another work of Hammer’s, his _Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches_ (10 vols., Pest, 1827-1835), has furnished the historical background for this treatise. This work is extremely valuable from the fact that it is based upon numerous inaccessible Turkish sources; but it is largely uncritical, and it does not make sufficient use of Western authorities. Leopold Ranke published at Hamburg in 1827 the first volume of his excellent work, _Fürsten und Völker von Sud-Europa_. He was the first to discern the value of the Venetian reports, and by their aid he reached far greater accuracy than had yet been attained in attempts to describe these great South-European empires when at the height of their power. The English translation by W. K. Kelly, entitled _The Ottoman and the Spanish Empires in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries_ (London, 1843), has been used in the present treatise.