severe manner.  About two months ago, there was found at day break, not very far from my house, the bleeding body of a young woman, naked, only wrapped in a course sheet, with two wounds of a knife, one in her side, and another in her breast.  She was not quite cold, and was so surprisingly beautiful, that there were very few men in Pera, that did not go to look upon her; but it was not possible for any body to know her, no woman’s face being known.  She was supposed to have been brought, in the dead of the night, from the Constantinople side, and laid there.  Very little inquiry was made about the murderer, and the corpse was privately buried without noise.  Murder is never pursued by the king’s officers, as with us.  ’Tis the business of the next relations to revenge the dead person; and if they like better to compound the matter for money (as they generally do) there is no more said of it.  One would imagine this defect in their government should make such tragedies very frequent, yet they are extremely rare; which is enough to prove the people are not naturally cruel.  Neither do I think, in many other particulars, they deserve the barbarous character we give them.  I am well acquainted with a Christian woman of quality, who made it her choice to live with a Turkish husband, and is a very agreeable sensible lady.  Her story is so extraordinary, I cannot forbear relating it; but I promise you, it shall be in as few words as I can possibly express it.

SHE is a Spaniard, and was at Naples with her family, When that kingdom was part of the Spanish dominion.  Coming from thence in a felucca, accompanied by her brother, they were attacked by the Turkish admiral, boarded and taken.—­And now how shall I modestly tell you the rest of her adventure?  The same accident happened to her, that happened to the fair Lucretia so many years before her.  But she was too good a Christian to kill herself, as that heathenish Roman did.  The admiral was so much charmed with the beauty and long-suffering of the fair captive, that, as his first compliment, he gave immediate liberty to her brother and attendants, who made haste to Spain, and, in a few months, sent the sum of four thousand pounds sterling, as a ransom for his sister.  The Turk took the money, which he presented to her, and told her she was at liberty.  But the lady very discreetly weighed the different treatment she was likely to find in her native country.  Her relations (as the kindest thing they could do for her in her present circumstances) would certainly confine her to a nunnery for the rest of her days.—­Her infidel lover was very handsome, very tender, very fond of her, and lavished at her feet all the Turkish magnificence.  She answered him very resolutely, that her liberty was not so precious to her as her honour; that he could no way restore that, but by marrying her; and she therefore desired him to accept the ransom as her portion, and give her the satisfaction of knowing,