popular indignation. They instantly occupied the debateable CHAP. land; and by the labour of a whole people, of either sex and LXIII. of every age, the wall was raised, and the ditch was sunk, with incredible speed. At the same time, they attacked and burnt two Byzantine gallies; while the three others, the remainder of the Imperial navy, escaped from their hands: the habitations without the gates, or along the shore, were pillaged and destroyed; and the care of the regent, of the empress Irene, was confined to the preservation of the city. The return of Cantacuzene dispelled the public consternation: the emperor inclined to peaceful counsels; but he yielded to the obstinacy of his enemies, who rejected all reasonable terms, and to the ardour of his subjects, who threatened in the style of scripture, to break them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Yet they reluctantly paid the taxes, that he imposed for the construction of ships, and the expenses of the war; and as the two nations were masters, the one of the land the other of the sea, Constantinople and Pera were pressed by the evils of a mutual siege. The merchants of the colony, who had believed that a few days would terminate the war already murmured at their losses; the succours from their mother-country were delayed by the factions of Genoa; and the most cautious embraced the opportunity of a Rhodian vessel to remove their families and effects from the scene of hostility. In the spring, the Byzantine fleet, Destrucseven gallies and a train of smaller vessels, issued from the mouth of the harbour, and steered in a single line along the A.D.1349. shore of Pera; unskilfully presenting their sides to the beaks of the adverse squadron. The crews were composed of peasants and mechanics: nor was their ignorance compensated by the native courage of Barbarians: the wind was strong, the waves were rough; and no sooner did the Greeks perceive a distant and inactive enemy, than they leaped headlong into the sea, from a doubtful, to an inevitable peril. The troops that marched to the attack of the lines of Pera were struck at the same moment with a similar panic; and the Genoese were astonished, and almost ashamed, at their double victory. Their triumphant vessels, crowned with flowers, and dragging after them the captive gallies, repeatedly passed and repassed before the palace: the only virtue of the emperor was patience; and the hope of revenge tion of his fleet, LXIII. CHAP. his sole consolation. Yet the distress of both parties interposed a temporary agreement; and the shame of the empire was disguised by a thin veil of dignity and power. Summoning the chiefs of the colony, Cantacuzene affected to despise the trivial object of the debate; and, after a mild reproof, most liberally granted the lands, which had been previously resigned to the seeming custody of his officers." Victory of the Ge noese over the Vene tians and Greeks, A. D. 1352. Feb. 13. But the emperor was soon solicited to violate the treaty, and to join his arms with the Venetians, the perpetual enemies of Genoa and her colonies. While he compared the reasons of peace and war, his moderation was provoked by a wanton insult of the inhabitants of Pera, who discharged from their rampart a large stone that fell in the midst of Constantinople. On his just complaint, they coldly blamed the imprudence of their engineer; but the next day the insult was repeated, and they exulted in a second proof that the royal city was not beyond the reach of their artillery. Cantacuzene instantly signed his treaty with the Venetians; but the weight of the Roman empire was scarcely felt in the balance of these opulent and powerful republics." From the streights of Gibraltar to the mouth of the Tanais, their fleets encountered each other with various success; and a memorable battle was fought in the narrow sea, under the walls of Constantinople. It would not be an easy task to reconcile the accounts of the Greeks, the Venetians, and the Genoese;" and while I depend on the narrative of an impartial historian," I shall borrow from each nation the facts that redound to their own disgrace, and the honour of their foes. The Venetians, with their allies the Catalans, had the advantage of number; and their fleet, with the poor addition of eight Byzantine gallies, amounted to seventy-five sail: the Ge 50 The events of this war are related by Cantacuzene (1. iv. c. 11.) with obscurity and confusion, and by Nic. Gregoras (1. xvii. c. 1...7.) in a clear and honest narrative. The priest was less responsible than the prince for the defeat of the fleet. 51 The second war is darkly told by Cantacuzene (1. iv. c. 18. p. 24, 25. 28...32), who wishes to disguise what he dares not deny. I regret this part of Nic. Gregoras, which is still in MS. at Paris. 52 Muratori (Annali d'Italia, tom. xii. p. 144.) refers to the most ancient Chronicles of Venice (Caresinus, the continuator of Andrew Danduluș, tom. xii. p. 421, 422.) and Genoa (George Stella, Annales Genuenses, tom. xvii. p. 1091, 1092); both which I have diligently consulted in his great Collection of the Historians of Italy. 53 See the Chronicle of Matteo Villani of Florence, l. ii. c. 59, 60. p. 145 ...147. c. 74, 75. p. 156, 157. in Muratori's Collection, tom. xiv. LXIII. noese did not exceed sixty-four; but in those times their CHAP. ships of war were distinguished by the superiority of their size and strength. The names and families of their naval commanders, Pisani and Doria, are illustrious in the annals of their country; but the personal merit of the former was eclipsed by the fame and abilities of his rival. They engaged in tempestuous weather; and the tumultuary conflict was continued from the dawn to the extinction of light. The enemies of the Genoese applaud their prowess: the friends of the Venetians are dissatisfied with their behaviour; but all parties agree in praising the skill and boldness of the Catalans, who, with many wounds, sustained the brunt of the action. On the separation of the fleets, the event might appear doubtful; but the thirteen Genoese gallies, that had been sunk or taken, were compensated by a double loss of the allies; of fourteen Venetians, ten Catalans, and two Greeks; and even the grief of the conquerors expressed the assurance and habit of more decisive victories. Pisani confessed his defeat, by retiring into a fortified harbour, from whence, under the pretext of the orders of the senate, he steered with a broken and flying squadron for the isle of Candia, and abandoned to his rivals the sovereignty of the sea. In a public epistle," addressed to the doge and senate, Petrarch employs his eloquence to reconcile the maritime powers, the two luminaries of Italy. The orator celebrates the valour and victory of the Genoese, the first of men in the exercise of naval war: he drops a tear on the misfortunes of their Venetian brethren; but he exhorts them to pursue with fire and sword the base and perfidious Greeks; to purge the metropolis of the East from the heresy with which it was infected. Deserted by their friends, the Greeks were inca- Their trea ty with the pable of resistance; and three months after the battle, the empire, emperor Cantacuzene solicited and subscribed a treaty, May 6. which for ever banished the Venetians and Catalans, and granted to the Genoese a monopoly of trade, and almost a right of dominion. The Roman empire (I smile in transcribing the name) might soon have sunk into a province of 54 The abbé de Sade (Memoires sur la Vie de Petraque, tom. iii. p. 257... 263.) translates this letter, which he had copied from a MS in the king of France's library. Though a servant of the duke of Milan, Petrarch pours forth his astonishment and grief at the defeat and despair of the Genoese in the fol lowing year (p. 323...332). VOL. VII. 3 M LXIII. CHAP. Genoa, if the ambition of the republic had not been checked by the ruin of her freedom and naval power. A long contest of one hundred and thirty years was determined by the triumph of Venice; and the factions of the Genoese compelled them to seek for domestic peace under the protection of a foreign lord, the duke of Milan, or the French king. Yet the spirit of commerce survived that of conquest; and the colony of Pera still awed the capital and navigated the Euxine, till it was involved by the Turks in the final servitude of Constantinople itself. CHAP. LXIV. CHAP. LXIV. Conquests of Zingis Khan and the Moguls from China to Poland. Escape of Constantinople and the Greeks....Origin of the Ottoman Turks in Bithynia....Reigns and Victories of Othman, Orchan, Amurath the First, and Bajazet the First....Foundation and Progress of the Turkish Monarchy in Asia and Europe.... Danger of Constantinople and the Greek Empire. FROM the petty quarrels of a city and her suburbs, from the cowardice and discord of the falling Greeks, I shall now ascend to the victorious Turks; whose domestic slavery was ennobled by martial discipline, religious enthusiasm, and the energy of the national character. The rise and progress of the Ottomans, the present sovereigns of Constantinople, are connected with the most important scenes of modern history: but they are founded on a previous knowledge of the great eruption of the Moguls and Tartars; whose rapid conquests may be compared with the primitive convulsions of nature, which have agitated and altered the surface of the globe. I have long since asserted my claim to introduce the nations, the immediate or remote authors of the fall of the Roman empire; nor can I refuse myself to those events, which, from their uncommon magnitude, will interest a philosophic mind in the history of blood. 1 1 The reader is invited to review the chapters of the third and fourth vo lumes; the manners of pastoral nations, the conquests of Attila and the Hung the Moguls tars, A. D. From the spacious highlands between China, Siberia, and CHAP. the Caspian Sea, the tide of emigration and war has repeat- LXIV. edly been poured. These ancient seats of the Huns and Zingis Turks were occupied in the twelfth century by many pasto- Khan, first ral tribes, of the same descent and similar manners, which emperor of were united and led to conquest by the formidable Zingis. and TarIn his ascent to greatness, that Barbarian (whose private ap- 1206.... pellation was Temugin) had trampled on the necks of his 1227. equals. His birth was noble: but it was in the pride of victory, that the prince or people deduced his seventh ancestor from the immaculate conception of a virgin. His father had reigned over thirteen hords, which composed about thirty or forty thousand families: above two-thirds refused to pay tithes or obedience to his infant son; and at the age of thirteen, Temugin fought a battle against his rebellious. subjects. The future conqueror of Asia was reduced to fly and to obey: but he rose superior to his fortune, and in his fortieth year he had established his fame and dominion over the circumjacent tribes. In a state of society, in which licy is rude and valour is universal, the ascendant of one man must be founded on his power and resolution to punish his enemies and recompense his friends. His first military league was ratified by the simple rites of sacrificing an horse and tasting of a running stream: Temugin pledged himself to divide with his followers the sweets and the bitters of life; and, when he had shared among them his horses and apparel, he was rich in their gratitude and his own hopes. After his first victory, he placed seventy chaldrons on the fire, and seventy of the most guilty rebels were cast headlong into the boiling water. The sphere of his attraction was continually enlarged by the ruin of the proud and the submission of the prudent; and the boldest chieftains might tremble, when they beheld, enchased in silver, the skull of the khan of the Keraites; who, under the name of Prester John, had corresponded with the Roman pontiff and po which were composed at a time when I entertained the wish, rather than the hope, of concluding my history. 2 The khans of the Keraites were most probably incapable of reading the pompous epistles composed in their name by the Nestorian missionaries, who endowed them with the fabulous wonders of an Indian kingdom. Perhaps these Tartars (the Presbyter or Priest John) had submitted to the rights of baptism and ordination (Assemaun. Bibliot. Orient. tom. iii. P. ii. p. 487 ....503). |