Note 86 — Chapter II · THE OTTOMAN RULING INSTITUTION: AS A SLAVE-FAMILY
Reading edition
Ramberti and Junis Bey (below, pp. 254, 270) say that 10,000, or 12,000 were taken every 4 years. Geuffroy, 242, and Postel, iii. 23, give the same estimate. Ricaut, 74, says he is “given to understand” that about 2000 were collected yearly in the middle of the seventeenth century. The exigencies of war probably increased the number greatly at times. Bérard, 12, naming no authority, says that in some years Suleiman took 40,000 boys.