they were the culprits, and uselessly sheds the blood of its agents for
a crime of which it is the accomplice.

Oh wretches, monarchs or ministers, who sport with the lives and
fortunes of the people! Is it you who gave breath to man, that you dare
take it from him? Do you give growth to the plants of the earth, that
you may waste them? Do you toil to furrow the field? Do you endure the
ardor of the sun, and the torment of thirst, to reap the harvest or
thrash the grain? Do you, like the shepherd, watch through the dews of
the night? Do you traverse deserts, like the merchant? Ah! on beholding
the pride and cruelty of the powerful, I have been transported with
indignation, and have said in my wrath, will there never then arise on
the earth men who will avenge the people and punish tyrants? A handful
of brigands devour the multitude, and the multitude submits to be
devoured! Oh! degenerate people! Know you not your rights? All authority
is from you, all power is yours. Unlawfully do kings command you on the
authority of God and of their lance--Soldiers be still; if God supports
the Sultan he needs not your aid; if his sword suffices, he needs not
yours; let us see what he can do alone. The soldiers grounded their
arms; and behold these masters of the world, feeble as the meanest of
their subjects! People! know that those who govern are your chiefs, not
your masters; your agents, not your owners; that they have no authority
over you, but by you, and for you; that your wealth is yours and they
accountable for it; that, kings or subjects, God has made all men equal,
and no mortal has the right to oppress his fellow-creatures.

But this nation and its chiefs have mistaken these holy truths. They
must abide then the consequences of their blindness. The decree is past;
the day approaches when this colossus of power shall be crushed and
crumbled under its own mass. Yes, I swear it, by the ruins of so many
empires destroyed. The empire of the Crescent shall follow the fate
of the despotism it has copied. A nation of strangers shall drive the
Sultan from his metropolis. The throne of Orkhan shall be overturned.
The last shoot of his trunk shall be broken off; and the horde of
Oguzians,* deprived of their chief, shall disperse like that of the
Nagois. In this dissolution, the people of the empire, loosened from the
yoke which united them, shall resume their ancient distinctions, and a
general anarchy shall follow, as happened in