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LXVIII.

the exaggerations of a vanquished people. He CHAP. calculates, that a ball, even of two hundred pounds, would require a charge of one hundred and fifty pounds of powder; and that the stroke would be feeble and impotent, since not a fifteenth part of the mass could be inflamed at the same moment. A stranger as I am to the art of destruction, I can discern that the modern improvements of artillery prefer the number of pieces to the weight of metal; the quickness of the fire to the sound, or even the conse-. quence of a single explosion. Yet I dare not reject the positive and unanimous evidence of contemporary writers; nor can it seem improbable, that the first artists, in their rude and ambitious efforts, should have transgressed the standard of moderation. A Turkish cannon, more enormous than that of Mahomet, still guards the entrance of the Dardanelles; and if the use be inconvenient, it has been found on a late trial that the effect was far from contemptible. A stone bullet of eleven hundred pounds weight was once discharged with three hundred and thirty pounds of powder; at the distance of six hundred yards, it shivered into three rocky fragments, traversed the streight, and, leaving the waters in a foam, again rose and bounded against the opposite hill *.

While Mahomet threatened the capital of the East, the Greek Emperor implored with fervent prayers

04

The Baron de Tott, (tom. iii. p. 85-89.), who fortified the Dardanelles against the Russians, describes in a lively, and even comic strain, his own prowess, and the consternation of the Turks. But that adventurous traveller

does not possess the art of gaining our confidence.

LXVIII.

the siege

of Constantinople. A. D.

1453.

April 6.

CHAP. prayers the assistance of earth and heaven. But the invisible powers were deaf to his supplicaMahomet tions; and Christendom beheld with indifference II. forms the fall of Constantinople, while she derived at least some promise of supply from the jealous and temporal policy of the Sultan of Egypt. Some states were too weak, and others too remote; by some the danger was considered as imaginary, by others as inevitable. The Western princes were involved in their endless and domestic quarrels ; and the Roman Pontiff was exasperated by the falsehood or obstinacy of the Greeks. Instead of employing in their favour the arms and treasures of Italy, Nicholas the Fifth had foretold their approaching ruin; and his honour was engaged in the accomplishment of his prophecy. Perhaps he was softened by the last extremity of their distress; but his compassion was tardy; his efforts were faint and unavailing; and Constantinople had fallen, before the squadrons of Genoa and Venice could sail from their harbours *. Even the princes of the Morea and of the Greek islands affected a cold neutrality. The Genoese colony of Galatia negociated a private treaty; and the Sultan indulged them in the delusive hope, that by his clemency they might survive the ruin of the em

pire.

Non audivit, indignum ducens, says the honest Antoninus; but as the Roman court was afterwards grieved and ashamed, we find the more courtly expression of Platina, in animo fuisse pontifici juvare Græcos, and the positive assertion of Æneas Sylvius, structam classem. &c. (Spond. A. D. 14531 No. 3.).

LXVIII.

pire. A plebeian crowd, and some Byzantine CHAP. nobles, basely withdrew from the danger of their country; and the avarice of the rich denied the Emperor, and reserved for the Turks, the secret treasures which might have raised in their defence whole armies of mercenaries *. The indigent and solitary prince prepared, however, to sustain his formidable adversary; but if his courage were equal to the peril, his strength was inadequate to the contest. In the beginning of the spring, the Turkish vanguard swept the towns and villages as far as the gates of Constantinople: submission was spared and protected; whatever presumed to resist was exterminated with fire and sword. The Greek places on the Black Sea, Mesembria, Acheloum, and Bizon, surrendered on the first summons; Selybria alone deserved the honours of a siege or blockade; and the bold inhabitants, while they were invested by land, launched their boats, pillaged the opposite coast of Cyzicus, and sold their captives in the public market. But on the approach of Mahomet himself, all was silent and prostrate; he first halted at the distance of five miles; and from thence advancing in battle-array, planted before the gate of St Romanus the Imperial standard; and, on the sixth

day

* Antonin. in Proem.-Epist. Cardinal. Isidor. apud Spondanum; and Dr Johnson, in the tragedy of Irene, has happily seized this characteristic circumstance:

The groaning Greeks dig up the golden caverns,
The accumulated wealth of hoarding ages;
That wealth which, granted to their weeping Prince,
Had rang'd embattled nations at their gates.

CHAP. day of April, formed the memorable siege of Constantinople.

LXVIII.

Forces of the Turks;

The troops of Asia and Europe extended on the right and left from the Propontis to the harbour; the Janizaries in the front were stationed before the Sultan's tent; the Ottoman line was covered by a deep entrenchment; and a subordinate army inclosed the suburb of Galata, and watched the doubtful faith of the Genoese. The inquisitive Philelpus, who resided in Grece about thirty years before the siege, is confident, that all the Turkish forces, of any name or value, could not exceed the number of sixty thousand horse and twenty thousand foot; and he upbraids the pusillanimity of the nations, who had tamely yielded to a handful of barbarians. Such, indeed, might be the regular establishment of the Capiculi, the troops of the Porte, who marched with the Prince, and were paid from his royal treasury. But the bashaws, in their respective governments, maintained or levied a provincial militia; many lands were held by a military tenure; many volunteers were attracted by the hope of spoil; and the sound of the holy trumpet invited a swarm of hungry and fearless fanatics, who might contribute at least to multiply the terrors, and in a first attack to blunt the swords, of the Christians. The whole mass of the Turkish powers is magnified

by

The palatine troops are styled Capiculi, the provincials, Seratculi: and most of the names and institutions of the Turkish militia existed before the Canon Nameh of Soliman 11. from which, and his own experience, Count Marsigli has composed his military state of the Ottoman empire.

by Ducas, Chalcondyles, and Leonard of Chios, to CHAP. the amount of three or four hundred thousand men; LXVIII.

Greeks.

but Phranza was a less remote and more accurate judge; and his precise definition of two hundred and fifty-eight thousand does not exceed the measure of experience and probability *. The navy of the besiegers was less formidable; the Propontis was overspread with three hundred and twenty sail; but of these no more than eighteen could be rated as gallies of war; and the far greater part must be degraded to the condition of storeships and transports, which poured into the camp fresh supplies of men, ammunition, and provisions. In her last of the decay, Constantinople was still peopled with more than an hundred thousand inhabitants; but these numbers are found in the accounts, not of war, but of captivity; and they mostly consisted of mechanics, of priests, of women, and of men devoid of that spirit which even women have sometimes exerted for the common safety. I can suppose, I could almost excuse, the reluctance of subjects to serve on a distant frontier, at the will of a tyrant; but the man who dares not expose his life in the defence of his children and his property, has lost in society the first and most active energies of nature. By the Emperor's command, a particular inquiry had been made through the streets and houses, how

many

*The observation of Philelphus is approved by Cuspinian in the year 1508, (de Cæsaribus, in Epilog. de Militia Turcicâ, p. 697.). Marsigli proves, that the effective armies of the Turks are much less numerous than they appear. In the army that besieged Constantinople, Leonardus Chiensis reckons no more than 15,000 Janizaries.

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