8626. TURKEY, Terra incognita.—
I cannot think but that it would be desirable to
all commercial nations to have Turkey and all
its dependencies driven from the seacoast into
the interior parts of Asia and Africa. What a
field would thus be restored to commerce! The
finest parts of the old world are now dead in
a great degree to commerce, to arts, to sciences,
and to society. Greece, Syria, Egypt, and the
northern coast of Africa, constituted the whole
world almost for the Romans, and to us they
are scarcely known, scarcely accessible at all.—
To John Brown. Washington ed. ii, 396.
Ford ed., v, 18.
(P.
1788)
See Constantinople.
