The Eighteenth Century: the Westernizers 409
Austrian army. He somewhat misleadingly describes the Austrian measure of
sending home a third of the soldiers and of manufacturing uniforms and weap-
ons with the money that would otherwise be used for their salaries (one might
discern a subtle suggestion for the janissaries). The “conclusion” of the first
part concerns the military forces of other states (Russia, Prussia, and France).
As for the second, much smaller part (about a fifth of the total text), this deals
with the Austrian government; its only chapter concerns the administration
of towns and villages, as well as taxation, and describes in less detail the judi-
cial system, the medical institutions, the police, the mines, and other revenues
of the Austrian state. The conclusion of the second part, however, continues
by citing other types of revenue (posts, banknotes, stamps, and lotteries). In
this part, Ratıb Efendi straightforwardly accuses the Ottomans of neglecting
trade with their own subjects; while other states tax foreign merchants more
than domestic ones, the Ottoman rulers, out of pride and generosity, granted
exemptions to foreigners and increased the toll duties paid by Ottoman mer-
chants, with the ruin of the latter being the result. Moreover, cloth and textiles
are imported from India and Europe instead of being produced in Ottoman
lands; Ratıb Efendi specifically proposes that cloth manufactuing centres be
founded in the Ottoman Empire, assuring the reader that the overall profit will
be more than the custom dues lost from imports. This emphasis on the im-
portance of local production was, as seen in Penah Efendi’s and, later, Behic
Efendi’s work, a recurrent theme of late eighteenth-century thought.
Ratıb Efendi’s intention of using this description to promote his ideas on
Ottoman reform is evident, particulary since another, more concise and pri-
vate report on his embassy shows a different image of Austria, one much less
well-ordered and prosperous.55 However, Stanford J. Shaw’s assertion that
Ratıb Efendi “praised the freedom left to individuals to do what they wanted
without restriction by the state” and that he was an advocate of secular justice
seems to stem from an overestimation of Ratıb Efendi’s observations, which,
after all, end with the remark that “the European states are in such a form that
they can no longer be called people of the book”.56 Carter V. Findley’s assess-
ment sounds more balanced, when he says that57
he presented Ottoman policy and intentions in a way that reflected his
adhesion to the new trends of Ottoman political thought in an age when
men of scribal background, like himself, were beginning to introduce into55 Findley 1995, 63–66.
56 Shaw 1971, 95–97.
57 Findley 1995, 54–55.