Constantine was, in the year 1453, besieged in Constantinople, by Mahomet the Second, with an army of 300,000 men, when, after a bloody siege of about six week, on the 29th of May, 1453, it fell into the hands of the infidels, after being an imperial christian city for some centuries; and the Turks have, to this day, retained possession of it, as well as of the adjoining suburb of Pera.
On entering Constantinople, the Turks exercised on the wretched christians the most unremitting barbarity, destroying them by every method the most hellish cruelty could invent, or the most unfeeling heart could practise: some they roasted alive on spits, others they flayed alive, and in that horrid manner left to expire with hunger; many were sawed asunder, and others torn to pieces by horses.--For full three days and nights the Turks were striving to exceed each other in the exercise of their shocking carnage, and savage barbarity; murdering, without distinction of age or sex, all they met, and brutishly violating the chastity of women, of every distinction and age.
During the year 1529, Solyman the First retook Buda from the christians, and showed the most horrible persecution of the inhabitants; some had their eyes torn out, others their hands, ears, and noses cut off, and the children their privities, the virgins were deflowered, the matrons had their breasts cut off, and such as were pregnant had their wombs ripped open, and their unborn babes thrown into the flames. Not content with this, he repeated these horrid examples all the way on his march to Vienna, which he ineffectually besieged, during which, this diabolical barbarian, having made a body of christians prisoners, he sent three of them into the city to relate the great strength of his army, and the rest he ordered to be torn limb from limb by wild horses in sight of their christian brethren, who could only lament by their cries and tears their dreadful fate.
In many places the tender children were in sight of their wretched parents torn to pieces by beasts, others dragged at horses' heels, some famished with hunger, and others buried up to their necks in earth, and in that manner left to perish. In short, were we to relate the innumerable massacres and deplorable tragedies acted by the infidels, the particulars would at least make a volume of themselves, and from their horrid similarity be not only shocking, but disgusting to the reader.
_Persecutions and Oppressions in Georgia and Mingrelia._
The Georgians, are christians, and being very handsome people, the Turks and Persians persecute them by the most cruel mode of taxation ever invented, namely, in lieu of money, they compel them to deliver up their children for the following purposes.
The females to increase the number of concubines in their seraglios, to serve as maids of honour to sultanas, the ladies of bashaws, &c., and to be sold to merchants of different nations, by whom the price is proportioned to the beauty of the purchased fair one.
The males are used as mutes and eunuchs in the seraglio, as clerks in the offices of state, and as soldiers in the army.
To the west of Georgia is Mingrelia, a country likewise inhabited by christians, who are persecuted and oppressed in the same manner as the Georgians by the Turks and Persians, their children being extorted from them, or they murdered for refusing to consent to the sale.
_An Account of the Persecutions in the States of Barbary._
In Algiers the christians are treated with particular severity; as the Algerines are some of the most perfidious, as well as the most cruel of all the inhabitants of Barbary. By paying a most exorbitant fine, some christians are allowed the title of Free christians, and these are permitted to dress in the fashion of their respective countries, but the christian slaves are obliged to wear a coarse gray suit and a seaman's cap.