It is the custom of the Turks to begin by seizing those ministers against whom they declare war. Strict observers of hospitality in every other respect, in this they violate the most sacred of international laws. They act thus unfairly under the pretext of fairness, persuading themselves and trying to persuade others that they never undertake any but a just war, because it is consecrated by the approbation of their Muphti. Thus they look upon themselves as armed to chastise the violation of treaties (which they often break themselves), and argue that the ambassadors of kings at variance with them are to be punished as accomplices of their masters’ treachery. Besides this, they affect a ridiculous contempt towards Christian princes and their ambassadors, whom they regard as only consuls and merchants. The Kan of Crimean-Tartary had orders to be ready with 400,000 Tartars. This Prince rules over Nagai, Bulziac, part of Circassia and all the Crimean district called by the ancients the Tauric Chersonese, whither the Greeks carried their commerce and their arms, building large cities there; and whither the Genoese afterwards penetrated, when they were masters of the trade of Europe. In this country there are the ruins of Grecian cities, and some Genoese monuments still subsisting in the midst of desolation and savagery. The Kan is called Emperor by his own subjects, but in spite of this grand title he is a mere slave to the Porte. The fact that they have Ottoman blood in their veins, and the right they have to the Turkish Empire on the extinction of the race of the Sultan, make their family respected and their persons formidable even to the Sultan himself: that is why the Sultan dare not destroy the race of the Kans of Tartary; but he hardly ever allows them to continue on the throne to an advanced age. The neighbouring pashas spy on their conduct, their territories are surrounded by janissaries, their wishes thwarted by the Grand Vizir, and their designs always suspected. If the Tartars complain of the Kan, this is an excuse for the Porte to depose him; if he is popular among them it is regarded as a crime, for which he will be even more readily punished. Thus all of them leave the throne for exile, and finish their days at Rhodes, which is generally both their place of exile and their grave. The Tartars, their subjects, are the most dishonest folk in the world; yet, at the same time (inconceivable as it seems), the most hospitable. They go a fifty leagues’ journey to fall upon a caravan and to destroy towns, but if any stranger happens to pass through their country, he is not only received and lodged everywhere, and his expenses paid, but everywhere the inhabitants strive for the honour of having him as guest.