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thirty guns, or that it discharged one hundred and thirty bullets. Yet, in the power and activity of the sultan, we may discern the infancy of the new science. Under a master who counted the moments, the great cannon could be loaded and fired no more than seven times in one day.* The heated metal unfortunately burst: several workmen were destroyed; and the skill of an artist was admired who bethought himself of preventing the danger and the accident, by pouring oil, after each explosion, into the mouth of the cannon.

The first random shots were productive of more sound than effect; and it was by the advice of a Christian, that the engineers were taught to level their aim against the two opposite sides of the salient angles of a bastion. However imperfect, the weight and repetition of the fire made some impression on the walls; and the Turks, pushing their approaches to the edge of the ditch, attempted to fill the enormous chasm, and to build a road to the assault.+ Innumerable fascines, and hogsheads, and trunks of trees, were heaped on each other; and such was the impetuosity of the throng, that the foremost and the weakest were pushed headlong down the precipice, and instantly buried under the accumulated mass. To fill the ditch was the toil of the besiegers; to clear away the rubbish was the safety of the besieged; and, after a long and bloody conflict, the web that had been woven in the day was still unravelled in the night. The next resource of Mahomet was the practice of mines; but the soil was rocky; in every attempt, he was stopped and undermined by the Christian engineers; nor had the art been yet invented of replenishing those subterraneous passages with gunpowder, and blowing whole towers and cities into the air. A circumstance that distinguishes the

* Near a hundred years after the siege of Constantinople, the French and English fleets in the channel were proud of firing three hundred shot in an engagement of two hours. (Mémoires de Martin du Bellay, 1. 10, in the Collection Générale, tom. xxi. p. 239.)

I have selected some curious facts, without striving to emulate the bloody and obstinate eloquence of the Abbé de Vertot, in his prolix descriptions of the sieges of Rhodes, Malta, &c. But that agreeable historian had a turn for romance; and, as he wrote to please the order, he has adopted the same spirit of enthusiasm and chivalry.

The first theory of mines with gunpowder appears in 1480, in a MS. of George of Sienna. (Tiraboschi, tom. vi. p. 1, p. 324.) They were

siege of Constantinople, is the re-union of the ancient and modern artillery. The cannon were intermingled with the mechanical engines for casting stones and darts; the bullet and the battering-ram were directed against the same walls; nor had the discovery of gunpowder superseded the use of the liquid and unextinguishable fire. A wooden turret of the largest size was advanced on rollers; this portable magazine of ammunition and fascines was protected by a threefold covering of bulls' hides; incessant volleys were securely discharged from the loop-holes; in the front, three doors were contrived for the alternate sally and retreat of the soldiers and workmen. They ascended by a staircase to the upper platform, and as high as the level of that platform, a scaling-ladder could be raised by pulleys to form a bridge, and grapple with the adverse rampart. By these various arts of annoyance, some as new as they were pernicious to the Greeks, the tower of St. Romanus was at length overturned; after a severe struggle, the Turks were repulsed from the breach, and interrupted by darkness; but they trusted, that with the return of light they should renew the attack with fresh vigour and decisive success. Of this pause of action, this interval of hope, each moment was improved by the activity of the emperor and Justiniani, who passed the night on the spot, and urged the labours which involved the safety of the church and city. At the dawn of day, the impatient sultan perceived, with astonishment and grief, that his wooden turret had been reduced to ashes; the ditch was cleared and restored; and the tower of St. Romanus was again strong and entire. He deplored the failure of his design; and uttered a profane exclamation, that the word of the thirty-seven thousand prophets should not have compelled him to believe that such a work, in so short a time, could have been accomplished by the infidels.

first practised at Sarzanella, in 1487; but the honour and improvement, in 1503, is ascribed to Peter of Navarre, who used them with success in the wars of Italy. (Hist. de la Ligue de Cambray, tom. ii. p. 93-97.) [The massive tower (der dicke Thurm) of Heidelberg Castle, cleft in twain by its French besiegers in the year 1688, is a permanent monument of this desolating art. Another most formidable effort in which it was employed, was the attempt, made also by the French, to blow up the citadel of Montjuich at Barcelona, during the Spa.

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The generosity of the Christian princes was cold and tardy; but in the first apprehension of a siege, Constantine had negotiated, in the isles of the Archipelago, the Morea, and Sicily, the most indispensable supplies. As early as the beginning of April, five* great ships, equipped for merchandise and war, would have sailed from the harbour of Chios, had not the wind blown obstinately from the north t One of these ships bore the imperial flag; the remaining four belonged to the Genoese; and they were laden with wheat and barley, with wine, oil, and vegetables, and above all, with soldiers and mariners, for the service of the capital. After a tedious delay, a gentle breeze, and, on the second day, a strong gale from the south, carried them through the Hellespont and the Propontis; but the city was already invested by sea and land; and the Turkish fleet at the entrance of the Bosphorus, was stretched from shore to shore, in the form of a crescent, to intercept, or at least to repel, these bold auxiliaries. The reader who has present to his mind the geographical picture of Constantinople, will conceive and admire the greatness of the spectacle. The five Christian ships continued to advance with joyful shouts, and a full press both of sails and oars, against a hostile fleet of three hundred vessels; and the rampart, the camp, the coasts of Europe and Asia, were lined with innumerable spectators, who anxiously awaited the event of this momentous succour. At the first view that event could not appear doubtful: the superiority of the Moslems was beyond all measure or account; and, in a calm, their numbers and valour must inevitably have prevailed. But their hasty and imperfect navy had been created, not by the genius of the people, but by the will of the sultan; in the height of their

nish war in Queen Anne's reign. The opening and reclosing of the rock is one of the most awful scenes in history.-ED.] * It is singular

that the Greeks should not agree in the number of these illustrious vessels; the five of Ducas, the four of Phranza and Leonardus, and the two of Chalcocondylas, must be extended to the smaller, or confined to larger, size. Voltaire, in giving one of these ships to Frederic III. confounds the emperors of the East and West. [Finlay (ii. 635) remarks that Phranza and Leonard, who were both present, agree in the number of four ships, and that Ducas, whom Gibbon followed, was not an eye-witness. -ED.] In bold defiance, or rather in gross ignorance, of language and geography, the President Cousin detains them at Chios with a south, and wafts them to Constantinople with a north, wind.

prosperity, the Turks have acknowledged, that if God had
given them the earth, he had left the sea to the infidels;*
and a series of defeats, a rapid progress of decay, has estab-
lished the truth of their modest confession. Except eighteen
galleys of some force, the rest of their fleet consisted of
open boats, rudely constructed and awkwardly managed,
crowded with troops, and destitute of cannon;
and since
courage arises in a great measure from the consciousness of
strength, the bravest of the janizaries might tremble on a
new element. In the Christian squadron, five stout and
lofty ships were guided by skilful pilots, and manned with
the veterans of Italy and Greece, long practised in the arts
and perils of the sea. Their weight was directed to sink
or scatter the weak obstacles that impeded their passage;
their artillery swept the waters; their liquid fire was poured
on the heads of the adversaries, who, with the design of
boarding, presumed to approach them; and the winds and
waves are always on the side of the ablest navigator. In
this conflict, the imperial vessel, which had been almost
overpowered, was rescued by the Genoese; but the Turks,
in a distant and closer attack, were twice repulsed with
considerable loss. Mahomet himself sat on horseback on
the beach to encourage their valour by his voice and pre-
sence, by the promise of reward, and by fear, more potent
than the fear of the enemy. The passions of his soul, and
even the gestures of his body,t seemed to imitate the
actions of the combatants; and, as if he had been the lord
of nature, he spurred his horse with a fearless and impo-
tent effort into the sea. His loud reproaches, and the
clamours of the camp, urged the Ottomans to a third attack,
more fatal and bloody than the two former; and I must
repeat, though I cannot credit, the evidence of Phranza,
who affirms from their own mouth, that they lost above twelve
thousand men in the slaughter of the day. They fled in
disorder to the shores of Europe and Asia, while the

The perpetual decay and weakness of the Turkish navy may be observed in Ricaut (State of the Ottoman Empire, p. 372-378), The venot (Voyages, p. 1. p. 229-242), and De Tott (Mémoires, tom. iii.); the last of whom is always solicitous to amuse and amaze his reader.

+ I must confess, that I have before my eyes the living picture which Thucydides (1.7, c. 71,)has drawn of the passions and gestures of the Athenians in a naval engagement in the great harbour of Syracuse.

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Christian squadron, triumphant and unhurt, steered along the Bosphorus, and securely anchored within the chain of the harbour. In the confidence of victory, they boasted that the whole Turkish power must have yielded to their arms; but the admiral, or captain bashaw, found some consolation for a painful wound in his eye, by representing that accident as the cause of his defeat. Baltha Ogli was a renegade of the race of the Bulgarian princes; his military character was tainted with the unpopular vice of avarice; and under the despotism of the prince or people, misfortune is a sufficient evidence of guilt. His rank and services were annihilated by the displeasure of Mahomet. In the royal presence, the captain bashaw was extended on the ground by four slaves, and received one hundred strokes with a golden rod;* his death had been pronounced; and he adored the clemency of the sultan, who was satisfied with the milder punishment of confiscation and exile. The introduction of this supply revived the hopes of the Greeks, and accused the supineness of their Western allies. Amidst the deserts

of Anatolia and the rocks of Palestine, the millions of the crusades had buried themselves in a voluntary and inevitable grave; but the situation of the imperial city was strong against her enemies, and accessible to her friends; and a rational and moderate armament of the maritime states might have saved the relics of the Roman name, and maintained a Christian fortress in the heart of the Ottoman empire. Yet this was the sole and feeble attempt for the deliverance of Constantinople; the more distant powers were insensible of its danger; and the ambassador of Hungary, or at least of Huniades, resided in the Turkish camp, to remove the fears, and to direct the operations, of the sultan.†

It was difficult for the Greeks to penetrate the secret of the divan; yet the Greeks are persuaded, that a resistance,

* According to the exaggeration or corrupt text of Ducas (c. 38, this golden bar was of the enormous and incredible weight of five hundred libræ or pounds. Bouillaud's reading of five hundred drachms, or five pounds, is sufficient to exercise the arm of Mahomet and bruise the back of his admiral.

Ducas, who confesses himself ill-informed of the affairs of Hungary, assigns a motive of superstition, a fatal belief that Constantinople would be the term of the Turkish conquests. See Phranza (1. 3, c. 20) and Spondanus.

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