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LXVIII.

prince; and Mahomet assured them that on his CHAP.
return to Adrianople, he would redress the grie-
vances, and consult the true interest of the Greeks.
No sooner had he repassed the Hellespont, than he
issued a mandate to suppress their pension, and to
`expel their officers from the banks of the Strymon.
In this measure he betrayed an hostile mind; and
the second order announced, and in some degree
commenced, the siege of Constantinople. In the
narrow pass of the Bosphorous, an Asiatic fortress
had formerly been raised by his grandfather. In
the opposite situation, on the European side, he re-
solved to erect a more formidable castle; and a
thousand masons were commanded to assemble in
the spring, on a spot named Asomaton, about five
miles from the Greek metropolis*. Persuasion is
the resource of the feeble; and the feeble can sel-
dom persuade. The ambassadors of the Emperor
attempted, without success, to divert Mahomet
from the execution of his design. They re-
presented, that his grandfather had solicited the
permission of Manuel to build a castle on his own
territories; but that this double fortification, which
would command the streight, could only tend to
violate the alliance of the nations; to intercept the
Latins who traded in the Black Sea, and perhaps
to annihilate the subsistence of the city. "I form

no

The situation of the fortress, and the topography of the Bosphorus, are best learned from Peter Gyllius (de Bosphoro Thracio, 1. ii. c. 13.), Leunclavius (Pandect. p. 445), and Tournefort (Voyage dans le Levant, tom. ii. lettre xv. p. 443. 444.); but I must regret the map or plan which Tournefort sent to the French minister of the marine. The reader may turn back to vol. iii. c. 17. of this history.

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CHAP.
LXVIII.

"no enterprise," replied the perfidious Sultan, against the city; but the empire of Constanti

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nople is measured by her walls. Have you for

got the distress to which my father was reduced, "when you formed a league with the Hungarians; "when they invaded our country by land, and the

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Hellespont was occupied by the French gallies? "Amurath was compelled to force the passage of "the Bosphorus; and your strength was not equal "to your malevolence. I was then a child at Adrianople; the Moslems trembled; and for a "while the Gabours insulted our disgrace. But "when my father had triumphed in the field of "Warna, he vowed to erect a fort on the western "shore, and that vow it is my duty to accomplish. "Have ye the right, have ye the power, to con"troul my actions on my ground? For that ground is my own: as far as the shores of the

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Bosphorus, Asia is inhabited by the Turks, and Europe is deserted by the Romans. Return, "and inform your king, that the present Ottoman " is far different from his predecessors; that his "resolutions surpass their wishes; and that he per"forms more than they could resolve. Return in safety; but the next who delivers a similar message 66 may expect to be flayed alive." After this declaration,

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* The opprobrious name which the Turks bestow on the Infidels, is expressed Kaßovg by Ducas, and Giaour by Leunclavius and the moderns. The former term is derived by Ducange (Gloss. Græc. tom. i. p. 530.) from Kaßougov, in vulgar Greek, a tortoise, as denoting a retrograde motion from the faith. But, alas! Gabour is no more than Gheber, which was transferred from the Persian to the Turkish language, from the worshippers of fire to those of the crucifix, (d'Herbelot, Bibliot, Orient. p. 375).

LXVIII.

tion, Constantine, the first of the Greeks in spirit CHAP. as in rank, had determined to unsheath the sword, and to resist the approach and establishment of the Turks on the Bosphorus. He was disarmed by the advice of his civil and ecclesiastical ministers, who recommended a system less generous, and even less prudent, than his own, to approve their patience and long-suffering, to brand the Ottoman with the name and guilt of an agressor, and to depend on chance and time for their own safety, and the destruction of a fort which could not be long maintained in the neighbourhood of a great and populous city. Amidst hope and fear, the fears of the wise, and the hopes of the credulous, the winter rolled away; the proper business of each man, and each hour, was postponed; and the Greeks shut their eyes against the impending danger, till the arrival of the spring and the Sultan decided the assurance of their ruin.

on the

Of a master who never forgives, the orders are He builds seldom disobeyed. On the twenty-six of March, a fortress. the appointed spot of Asomaton was covered with Bosphoan active swarm of Turkish artificers; and the rus A. D. materials by sea and land were diligently transport-ed from Europe and Asia †. The lime had been burnt in Cataphrygia; the timber was cut down in the

* Phranza does justice to his master's sense and courage. Calliditatem hominis non ignorans Imperator prior arma movere constituit, and stigmatizes the folly of the cum sacri tum profani proceres, which he had heard, amentes spe vanâ pasci. Ducas was not a privy-counsellor.

+ Instead of this clear and consistent account, the Turkish Annals (Cantemir, p. 97.) revived the foolish tale of the ox's hide, and Dido's stratagem in the foundation of Carthage.

These

3452,

March.

LXVIII.

CHAP. the woods of Heraclea and Nicomedia; and the stones were dug fro:n the Anatolian quarries. Each of the thousand masons was assisted by two workmen; and a measure of two cubits was marked for their daily task. The fortress was built in a triangular form; each angle was flanked by a strong and massy tower; one on the declivity of the hill, two along the sea-shore; a thickness of twenty-two feet was assigned for the walls, thirty for the towers; and the whole building was covered with a solid platform of lead. Mahomet himself pressed and directed the work with indefatigable ardour; his three vizirs claimed the honour of finishing their respective towers; the zeal of the cadhis emulated that of the Janizaries; the meanest labour was ennobled by the service of God and the Sultan; and the diligence of the multitude was quickened by the eye of a despot, whose smile was the hope of fortune, and whose frown was the messenger of death. The Greek Emperor beheld with terror the irresistible progress of the work; and vainly strove, by flattery and gifts, to assuage an implacable foe, who sought, and secretly fomented, the slightest occasion of a quarrel. Such occasions must soon and inevitably be found. The ruins of stately churches, and even the marble columns which had been consecrated to St Michael the archangel,

were

These annals (unless we are swayed by an antichristian prejudice) are far less valuable than the Greek historians.

In the dimensions of this fortress, the old castle of Europe, Phranza does not exactly agree with Chalcondyles, whose description has been verified on the spot by his edi. tor Leunclavius.

were employed without scruple by the profane and CHAP. rapacious Moslems; and some Christians, who LXVIII presumed to oppose the removal, received from their hands the crown of martyrdom. Constantine had solicited a Turkish guard to protect the fields and harvests of his subjects: the guard was fixed; but their first order was to allow free pasture to the mules and horses of the camp, and to defend their brethren if they should be molested by the natives. The retinue of an Ottoman chief had left their horses to pass the night among the ripe corn; the damage was felt; the insult was resented; and several of both nations were slain in a tumultuous conflict. Mahomet listened with joy to the complaint; and a detachment was commanded to exterminate the guilty village; the guilty had fled; but forty innocent and unsuspecting reapers were massacred by the soldiers. Till this provocation, Con- The stantinople had been open to the visits of com- war, merce and curiosity. On the first alarm, the gates June ; were shut; but the Emperor, still anxious for peace, released, on the third day, his Turkish captives *; and expressed, in a last message, the firm resignation of a Christian and a soldier. "Since neither ❝oaths, nor treaty, nor submission, can secure peace, pursue," said he to Mahomet, "your impious warfare. My trust is in God alone; if it "should please him to molify your heart, I shall

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rejoice in the happy change; if he delivers the VOL. XII.

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"city

Among these were some pages of Mahomet, so conscious of his inexorable rigour, that they begged to lose their heade in the city unless they could return before sunset.

Turkisit

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