Postel says: “The Seigneur [or sultan] has four or several principal personages for all the business of his empire, whether in war or justice, and they are promoted to this honor by degrees from lower offices, always mounting and giving good examples of living, unless by some extraordinary favor the prince raises them from some low place, which is very perilous.”[268] Speaking of the pages in the palace, he adds: “When they have lived there a long time and done well, they are given a place where they receive pay, and they are made Castellans and given other offices used among them. If there are some who have the ability to make themselves known, they may have the best fortune in the world, and become governors of the land and Pashas; for there they judge of nobility by the worth which they see appearing in a man, and they give honors according to the evidence of his past.”[269] Of Suleiman, Tanco says, “He sows hope of certain reward in all conditions of men, who by means of virtue, may succeed in mounting to better fortune”; and of the Janissaries, “Each has his good and real fortune in his hand.”[270] Among all observers, Busbecq seems to have been most impressed with the system of advancement by merit. “The Turks,” he tells us, “do not measure even their own people by any other rule than that of personal merit. The only exception is the house of Ottoman; in this case, and in this case only, does birth confer distinction.”[271] Referring to his audience with Suleiman, he says: “There was not in all that great assembly a single man who owed his position to aught save his valour and his merit. No distinction is attached to birth among the Turks; the deference to be paid to a man is measured by the position he holds in the public service. There is no fighting for precedence; a man’s place is marked out by the duties he discharges. In making his appointments the sultan pays no regard to any pretensions on the score of wealth or rank, nor does he take into consideration recommendations or popularity; he considers each case on its own merits, and examines carefully into the character, ability, and disposition of the man whose promotion is in question. It is by merit that men rise in the service, a system which ensures that posts should only be assigned to the competent. Each man in Turkey carries in his own hand his ancestry and his position in life, which he may make or mar as he will. Those who receive the highest offices from the sultan are for the most part the sons of shepherds or herdsmen, and so far from being ashamed of their parentage, they actually glory in it, and consider it a matter of boasting that they owe nothing to the accident of birth; for they do not believe that high qualities are either natural or hereditary, nor do they think that they can be handed down from father to son, but that they are partly the gift of God, and partly the result of good training, great industry, and