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CHAP. gotten, their ambassadors purfued his camp, to demand the payment, and even the encrease, of their annual ftipend: the divan was importuned by their complaints, and the vizir, a fecret friend of the Chriftians, was conftrained to deliver the fense of his brethren. "Ye foolish and miferable Ro"mans," faid Calil," we know your devices, "and ye are ignorant of your own danger! the fcrupulous Amurath is no more; his throne "is occupied by a young conqueror, whom no "laws can bind and no obftacles can refift: and "if you efcape from his hands give praise to the "divine clemency, which yet delays the chastise"ment of your fins. Why do ye seek to affright "us by vain and indirect menaces? Release the

t

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fugitive Orchan, crown him fultan of Ro"mania; call the Hungarians from beyond the "Danube; arm against us the nations of the "Weft; and be affured, that you will only pro"voke and precipitate your ruin." But, if the fears of the ambaffadors were alarmed by the ftern language of the vizir, they were foothed by

cocondyles (1. viii. p. 201—214.), and Leonardus Chienfis (Hiftoria C. P. a Turco expugnatæ. Norimberghæ, 1544, in 4to, 20 leaves). The last of these narratives is the earliest in date, fince it was compofed in the ifle of Chios, the 16th of Auguft 1453, only feventy nine days after the lofs of the city, and in the first confufion of ideas and paffions. Some hints may be added from an epiftle of cardinal Ifidore (in Farragine Rerum Turcicarum, ad calcem Chalcocondyl. Clauferi, Bafil, 1556) to pope Nicholas V. and a tract of Theodofius Zygomala, which he addreffed in the year 1581 to Martin Crufius (Turco-Græcia, l. i. p. 74–98. Bafil, 1584). The various facts and materials are briefly, though critically, reviewed by Spondanus (A. D. 1453, N° 1-27.). The hearsay relations of Monftrelet and the distant Latins, I shall take leave to difregard.

the

the courteous audience and friendly fpeeches of CHA P. the Ottoman prince; and Mahomet affured them LXVIII. that on his return to Adrianople he would redress the grievances, and confult the true intereft, of

the Greeks. No fooner had he repaffed the Hellefpont than he issued a mandate to fupprefs their penfion, and to expel their officers from the banks of the Strymon: in this measure he betrayed an hoftile mind; and the fecond order announced, and in fome degree commenced, the fiege of Conftantinople. In the narrow pass of the Bofphorus, an Afiatic fortress had formerly been raised by his grandfather in the oppofite fituation, on the Eu ropean fide, he refolved to erect a more formidable caftle; and a thousand masons were commanded to assemble in the spring on a spot named Afomaton, about five miles from the Greek metropolis Perfuafion is the refource of the feeble; and the feeble can feldom perfuade: the ambaffadors of the emperor attempted, without fuccefs, to divert Mahomet from the execution of his defign. They represented that his grandfather had folicited the permiflion of Manuel to build a caftle on his own territories; but that this double fortification, which would command the ftreight, 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 fubfiftence of the

12

12 The fituation of the fortrefs, and the topography of the Bofphorus, are beft learned from Peter Gyllius (de Bofphoro Thracio, l. ii. c. 13.), Leunclavius (Pande&t. 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 fent to the French minifter of the marine. The reader may turn back to vol. iii. ch. 17. of this Hiftory.

city.

LXVIII.

CHAP. city. "I form no enterprife," replied the per fidious fultan, "against the city; but the empire "of Conftantinople is meafured by her walls. "Have you forgot the diftrefs to which my fa"ther was reduced, when you formed a league "with the Hungarians; when they invaded our ઃ country by land, and the Hellefpont was oc"cupied by the French gallies? Amurath was "compelled to force the paffage of the Bof"phorus; and your ftrength was not equal to 66 your malevolence. I was then a child at Adri

anople; the Moflems trembled; and for a while "the Gabours 3 infulted our disgrace. But when 26 my father had triumphed in the field of Warna, "he vowed to erect a fort on the western fhore, "and that vow it is my duty to accomplish. "Have ye the right, have ye the power, to con❝trol my actions on my own ground? For that ground is my own: as far as the shores of the Bofphorus, Afia is inhabited by the Turks, and Europe is deferted by the Romans. Return, and "inform your king that the prefent Ottoman is far "different from his predeceffors; that his refolu"tions furpafs their wifhes; and that he performs more than they could refolve. Return in fafety "but the next who delivers a fimilar meffage After this de

'

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66

may expect to be flayed alive."

13 The opprobrious name which the Turks bestow on the Infidels, is expreffed Kaßoug by Ducas, and Giaour by Leunclavius and the moderns. The former term is derived by Ducange (Gloff. Græc. tom.i. p. 530.) from Kaßcugov in vulgar Greek, a tortoife, as denoting a retrograde motion from the faith. But, alas! Gabour is no more than Gheber, which was transferred from the Perfian to the Turkish language, from the worshippers of fire to thofe of the crucifix (d'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 375.).

LXVIII.

claration, Conftantine, the first of the Greeks in CHAP. fpirit as in rank 14, had determined to unfheathe the sword, and to refift the approach and establishment of the Turks on the Bofphorus. He was difarmed by the advice of his civil and ecclefiaftical minifters, who recommended a fyftem lefs generous, and even lefs prudent, than his own, to approve their patience and long-suffering, to brand the Ottoman with the name and guilt of an aggreffor, and to depend on chance and time for their own fafety and the destruction of a fort which could not long be maintained in the neighbourhood of a great and populous city. Amidst hope and fear, the fears of the wife and the hopes of the credulous, the winter rolled away; the proper bufinefs of each man, and each hour, was postponed; and the Greeks fhut their eyes against the impending danger, till the arrival of the spring and the fultan decided the affurance of their ruin.

a fortrefs on the

rus,

Of a mafter who never forgives, the orders are He builds feldom difobeyed. On the twenty-fixth of March, the appointed spot of Afomaton was covered with Bosphoan active fwarm of Turkish artificers; and the AD. materials by fea and land, were diligently tranfported from Europe and Afia ". The lime had been burnt in Cataphrygia; the

timber was cut

down

14 Phranza does juftice to his. mafter's fenfe and courage. Calliditatem hominis non ignorans Imperator prior arma movere conftituit, and ftigmatifes the folly of the cum facri tum profani proceres, which he had heard, amentes spe vâna pafci. Ducas was not a privy-counfellor.

15 Inftead of this clear and confiftent account, the Turkish Annals (Cantemir, p. 97.) revived the foolish tale of the ox's

hide.

1452, March.

LXVIII.

CHAP. down in the woods of Heraclea and Nicomedia; and the stones were dug from the Anatolian quarries. Each of the thousand mafons was affifted by two workmen; and a measure of two cubits was marked for their daily task. The fortrefs" was built in a triangular form; each angle was flanked by a ftrong and maffy tower; one on the declivity of the hill, two along the fea-fhore: a thickness of twenty-two feet was affigned for the walls, thirty for the towers; and the whole building was covered with a folid platform of lead. Mahomet himself preffed and directed the work with indefatigable ardour: his three vizirs claimed the honour of finishing their refpective towers; the zeal of the cadhis emulated that of the Janizaries; the meaneft labour was ennobled by the fervice of God and the fultan; and the diligence of the multitude was quickened by the eye of a defpot, whofe fmile was the hope of fortune, and whose frown was the meffenger of death. The Greek emperor beheld with terror the irresistible progrefs of the work; and vainly strove, by flattery and gifts, to affuage an implacable foe, who fought, and fecretly fomented, the flightest. occafion of a quarrel. Such occafions muft foon and inevitably be found. The ruins of stately churches, and even the marble columns which had been confecrated to St. Michael the archangel,

hide, and Dido's ftratagem in the foundation of Carthage. These annals (unless we are fwayed by an antichriftian prejudice) are far lefs valuable than the Greek hiftorians.

16 In the dimenfions of this fortrefs, the old caftle of Europe, Phranza does not exactly agree with Chalcocondyles, whofe defcription has been verified on the fpot by his editor Leunclavius.