120 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF A FUTURE STATE, 



flietion of torment, when under the influence of 

 a principle of malignity. 



In the war with Turkey and the states of Ve 

 nice, about the year 1571, the Venetians were 

 besieged by the Turks in the city of Famagosta 

 in the island of Cyprus. Through famine and 

 want of ammunition, the Venetian garrison was 

 compelled to enter upon terms of capitulation. 

 A treaty was accordingly set on foot, and hos 

 tages exchanged. The following terms were 

 agreed to by both parties : That the officers and 

 soldiers should march out with all the honours of 

 war, drums beating, colours flying, five pieces of 

 cannon, all their baggage, and be conveyed in 

 safety to Candia, under an escort of three Turk 

 ish gallies; and that the inhabitants should re 

 main in the free use of their religion, untouched 

 in their property, and in full possession of their 

 freedom. Next day Bragadino, the Venetian 

 commander, went to pay his compliments to 

 Mustapha, the Turkish general, attended by 

 some of his chief officers. At first they met 

 with a civil reception, Mustapha ordering a seat 

 to be placed for Bragadino on his own right hand. 



They soon entered into discourse about the 

 prisoners, and Mustapha taxing Bragadino with 

 some violences committed by the garrison during 

 the suspension granted for settling a capitulation, 

 Bragadino, with a generous disdain, denied the 

 charge. Upon which Mustapha, rising up in a 

 fury, ordered him to be bound hand and foot, and 

 the others to be massacred before his face, with 

 out regard to hospitality, their bravery, the 

 treaty subsisting, or their being unarmed. 



Bragadino was reserved for a more cruel 

 treatment : after being insulted with the most 

 vilifying and opprobrious language ; after under 

 going the most excrutiating tortures ; after having 

 his ears, nose, and lips slit, his neck was stretch 

 ed upon a block, and trampled upon by the das 

 tardly Mustapha, who asked him where was 

 now that Christ whom he worshipped, and why 

 he did not deliver him out of his hands ? At the 

 same time the soldiers on board the fleet were 

 despoiled of every thing, and lashed to the oars. 

 This day s work being finished, Mustapha enter 

 ed the city, where he gave immediate orders, 

 that Tiepolo, a person of high rank and authority, 

 should be hanged upon a gibbet. A few days 

 after, before Bragadino had recovered from the 

 wounds he had received, he was carried in deri 

 sion to all the breaches made in the walls, loaded 

 with buckets filled with earth and mortar, and 

 ordered to kiss the ground as often as he passed by 

 Mustapha , a spectacle that raised pangs of pity 

 in the callous hearts of the meanest Turkish sol 

 diers, but could not move compassion in the obdu 

 rate breast of Mustapha. Afterwards, the brave 

 Rcagadino was cooped up in a cage, and igno- 

 miniously hung to a sail-yard in one of the 

 gallies, where his intrepid soldiers were chained 

 to the oars. This sight rendered them almost 



furious : they exclaimed against the baseness, 

 the treachery of Mustapha; they called aloud fo 

 revenge, and desired to be set at liberty, that the] 

 might, even without arms, rescue their bravo 

 general, and inflict the deserved punishment 

 uoon their mean, dastardly, and cowardly foes. 

 Their request was answered with cruel lashes 

 Bragadino was taken down, conducted to the 

 market-place, amidst the din of trumpets, drums, 

 and other warlike instruments, where he was 

 Jlayed alive, and a period put to his glorious life. 

 His skin was hung, by way of trophy, to the sail- 

 yard of a galley sent round all the coasts to insult 

 the Venetians. His head, with those of Andrea 

 Bragadino, his brother, Lodovico Martinenga, 

 and the brave Gtuirino, were sent as presents to 

 Selim the Turkish Emperor.* 



Could an infernal fiend have devised more ex 

 cruciating tortures, or have acted with greater 

 baseness and malignity than this treacherous 

 and cruel monster ? What a horrible thing would 

 it be to be subjected to the caprice and under 

 the control of such a proud and vindictive spi 

 rit every day, only for a year, much more for 

 hundreds and thousands of years ! A group of 

 such spirits giving vent to their malevolent pas 

 sions without control, are sufficient to produce 

 a degree of misery among surrounding intelli 

 gences, surpassing every thing that the human 

 mind, in the present state, can possibly conceive. 



When the Norman barons and chevaliers, 

 under William the Conqueror, had obtained 

 possession of England, they displayed the most 

 cruel and malignant dispositions towards the 

 native inhabitants. They afflicted and ha 

 rassed them in every state, forcing them to work 

 at the building of their castles; and when the 

 castles were finished, they placed on them a 

 garrison of wicked and diabolical men. They 

 seized all whom they thought to possess any 

 thing men and women by day and night ; they 

 carried them off; imprisoned them ; and, to ob 

 tain from them gold or silver, inflicted on them 

 tortures such as no martyrs ever underwent. t | 

 Some they suspended by their feet, with their 

 heads hanging in smoke ; others were hung by 

 the thumb, with fire under their feet. They 

 pressed the heads of some by a leathern thong, so 

 as to break the bones, and crush the brain ; 

 others were thrown into ditches full of snakes, 

 toads, and other reptiles ; others were put in 

 the chambre ft crucit. This was the name given 

 in the Norman tongue to a sort of chest, short, 

 strait, and shallow, lined with sharp stones, into 

 which the sufferer was crammed to the disloca 

 tion of his limbs. In most of the castles was a 

 horrible and frightful engine used for putting to 

 the torture. This was a bundle of chains sc 

 heavy that two or three men could hardly lift 

 them. The unfortunate person upon whonr 



See &quot; Modern Universal History,&quot; voL 27, pp^ 

 405, 406. 



