at its very doors,-by the troops of one of the minor powers of Europe,-likely to reduce all Europe to a humiliat. iag servitude? 4. Granting that the authors of the sixteenth century were fully justified in representing the Turks as far superior to the Christians, both in the knowledge and in the practice of the art of war;* yet it is to be remembered, that at that time standing armies had begun to be introduced into the European system, and that, while their military institutions partook of the general progressive improvement, those of the Turks stood still, or retrograded. The Greeks and Romans surpassed all other nations as much in the occupa tions of war, as in those of peace; but in modern times, the advantages on the side of the more civilized people are still more decided. The invention of gun-powder has enabled the art of war to derive assistance from the sciences of mathematics, chymistry, and mechanics; and if an army of barbarians be inferior in discipline, in skill, in personal intelli gence, how much more in these sciences, which are acquired, not in the field, but in the closet; not in the hurly-burly of war, but in the bosom of peace? Judging from the present ignorance of the Turks, they must have been totally unacquainted with these sciences, and even with their names, in the sixteenth century; and yet, with a military establishment greatly outnumbering that which any Christian state could then command, and with all the superiority in "dis"cipline and military improvements of every kind,” that Busbequins contends for, whom have they subdued in Eu.‹ rope, except the degenerate Greeks, and the effeminate inhabitants of some adjacent provinces? In the middle of the sixteenth century, how miserably did they suffer at the famous siege of Malta! Six years later, their whole navy was destroyed at the equally famous battle of Lepanto. In the

*

* Dr. Robertson, Charles V. vol. i. pp. 229. 476.

+ Eton's Survey of the Tur. Emp. Mem. of the Baron de Tott.

middle of the succeeding century they took Candia, by capi tulation, after a 20 years siege, occasionally interrupted. Poland and Hungary have still been preserved from their yoke. In 1683 Tekeli, a Hungarian Nobleman, excited a revolt, and went over to Mahomet IV, who declared him King of upper Hungary. To avenge Tekelis cause, the Turks advanced through Hungary with an army of 140,000 men, exclusive of 30,000 Crim Tartans, up to the gates of Vienna, which they laid siege to: but though the town was weakly garrisoned, and indifferently fortified, this powerful army remained before it till John Sobieski King of Poland, (who had defeated them before, at the battle of Chokzim in 1674,) came and chased them away, with the loss of their baggage and effects. In short, Europe has never wanted, and never will want, a John of Austria, a John De la Valette, a Sobieski, a Montecuculi, a Eugene, a Suwarrow, to repell their arms, or turn the tide of war upon their own territory.

With respect to the future we are safe: but if ever, in times past the light of European civilization was saved from utter extinction, it was in 451, when Ætius and Theodoric defeated Attila at Clalons: in 732, when Charles Martel scattered the host of Saracens between Tours and Poitiers; and again, when Henry the Fowler, in 934, and Otho the Great, in 955, for ever broke the power of the Hungarians.*

"Had it not been for the voyage of Vasco de Gama, Ve"nice would soon have become the principal power in Europe!" When one considers the unwarlike character of the Italians, which, since the beginning of the sixteenth century, has made them a prey to the nations of the North and West; that during a long antecedent period Italy had been divided into a number of independent states, of various interi. or constitutions, whose quarrels were dicided, when the war of negotiation failed, by the parade of mercenary armies,

* Gibbon's hist, vol. x. p. 23–25. p. 212–218. Pinkerton's Diss, on the Goths, p. 196.

whose mock battles were truly "sine cæde, sine sanguine, "sine dimicatione;" that the universal impotence prevented any of these states from considerably disturbing the general balance; that no sooner had a King of France found himself at liberty to undertake such an expedition, than Charles VIII, at the head of 20,000 men, marched through the heart of the country, and quietly took possession of the kingdom of Naples, having had the way opened before him by the mere terror of his arms; that when a combination of nearly all the states of Italy, assisted by the Emperor Maximilian and Ferdinand King of Aragon, attempted with an army of 30,000 men to intercept his return, he cut his way through, and gained a signal victory with only 8000 men; and that the whole of Italy, in the days of her greatest relative importance, was thus at the mercy of France, as it were in her maiden enterprize; it will be allowed that a prognosti cation, which assigns, but for the Portuguese discoveries, a preponderation of power to one of the Italian states over all the nations of Europe, is one of the wildest that ever was thrown out. The question formerly put, applies here; if the Venetians had had "that within," them, which fitted them to take a distinguished station among the powers of Europe, why did they not, since they owed every thing to their naval and commercial greatness, follow in the track which Vasco De Gama had pointed out, and divide with the Portuguese, if they could not exclusively occupy, a commerce on which the welfare and consequence of their state so intimately depended? But instead of contending for superiority in the Persian Gulf, they soon saw their own Adriatic ploughed by bolder prows than theirs. If the continuance of this gainful commerce was to exalt Venice to such pre-eminence in the European system, it will be granted that, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, before the

* A. D. 1494.

*

Portuguese had reaped the full fruits of their discoveries, and while part of the Indian, and all the other branches of her trade, were prosecuted with vigour, rendering her the most opulent state in Europe, she must have attained to her maximum of relative power, and from its nature and extent at that time, as evinced by historical facts, we may judge what would have been the consequence if De Gama's voyage had been postponed. The proposition of Voltaire implies that riches are the sinews of war, but never was that maxim more signally refuted than at the period, and at the expence of the very state, to which he refers. Their great wealth, which was viewed with envy by the greatest Monarchs," and with fear by their Italian neighbours, occasioned the league of Combray, which, with a force much disproportioned to its object, quickly stripped them of all their continental dependencies, and drove them within the walls of their capital. It did not require a series of wars, nor even a series of campaigns; one campaign, one battle shattered their hollow greatness and exposed their real weakness. Yet, at this time, Voltaire tells us, Venice was as rich as all the confederated powers together, and on his principles should have been able to meet their united strength on equal terms: but all their curious arms, and gold, and silver, and silks, and camblets, and looking-glasses, could not save them from those who made a better use of iron. Why should their foreign mercenaries sacrifice themselves in defence of property, privileges, dignities, in which they nowise participated? Such soldiers can be of no real service to a state, either for offensive, or defensive, operations, for this plain reason, that if they were capable of preserving the independence of the state against all its enemies, they could no longer remain servants, but must become masters of the state; let their employers" entrench themselves in parchment up to the

* League of Combray, A. D. 1509. De Gama's Voyage, A. D. 1498.

"teeth, the sword would find a passage to the vitals of their "constitution;" not only the government, but all public and private property would be at their disposal; and they would then defend their own rights and acquisitions against all the world. But if Venice has ever been, from the maxims of her civil policy, and the character of her people, disqualified for having any other than an inefficient army of mercenaries, it follows irresistibly that she has ever been completely disqualified for becoming a principal power of Europe, and that, in fact, she has only existed by the jealous collisions of other powers. On this subject, Dr. Robertson is as reasonable, as he was not so in this speculation on Turkish Supremacy: "The Venetian nobles distrusted "their own subjects, and were afraid of allowing them the use of arms." "The military force of the republic con"sisted entirely of foreign mercenaries. The command of "these was never entrusted to poble Venetians, lest they "should acquire such influence over the army as might en"danger the public liberty." "A common wealth, with "such civil and military constitutions, was not formed to "make conquests. While its subjects were disarmed, and "its nobles excluded from military command, it carried on its warlike enterprizes with great disadvantage." [Is that all?] This ought to have taught the Venetians to rest "satisfied with making self-preservation, and the enjoyment "of domestic security, the objects of their policy. But re"publics are apt to be seduced by the spirit of ambition, as

well as Kings. When the Venetians so far forgot the in❝terior defects in their government as to aim at extensive "conquests, the fatal blow, which they received in the war "excited by the league of Combray, convinced them of the

imprudence and danger of making violent efforts, in opposition to the genius and tendency of their constitution."*

* Charles V. vol. i. p. 160-161.