A. D, 1321, 493 



the Saracens and thofe perfidious Chriflians who mfringe this mojl hlejjhd 

 command: and let him take efpecial care that no iron be carried to Ar- 

 menia, which is adjacent to the fultan's country. Let ten gallies be 

 commi/Iioned, till your Holinefs can provide more. They will cofl 

 15,000 florins, and, allowing 250 men for each galley, the whole ex- 

 penfe, including pay, provifions, and other neceflaries, for nine months, 

 will amount to 70.000 florins : and, in order to quicken their diligence, 

 let all prizes be fliared entirely among themfelves. 



He proceeds to fl;atc the complement of men of every defcription for 

 a galley, and gives many efl:imates and nautical inftrudlions, together 

 with a vaft deal of information refpeding the vefl^els of the age, which 

 the brevity neceflarily ftudied in this work will not permit me to enter 

 upon any further than jufl; to note the places, from which he propofes 

 to draw the befl: feamen for manning his fleet. Befidcs thofe of Italy, 

 he fays, good feamen may be found in Germany, and efpecially in the 

 farthefl: parts of the archbiflioprick of Bremen, in Frifeland, Holland, 

 and Zeland, Holfl;ein, and Slavia (where he himfelf had been, probably 

 Slefwick) Hamburgh, Lubeck, Wifmar, Rofl:ock, Xundis, Gufpinal, and 

 Sedin *, and alfo in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway f . He has alfo 

 an eftimate of the expenfe of a land army, which, however, mufl: be 

 carried by water; and he gives ample direftions for providing arms, and 

 warlike engines ; fo that he may jufl:ly be called the Vegetius of the 

 middle ages. 



But his projedt of depriving the Mohamedans of their trade by the 

 operation of ten gallies, which were to keep the fea only nine months, 

 and only during the day-light, w^hile he acknowleges the fultan's marine 

 to be very llrong, is much like Captain Bobadil's fcheme, in the play, 

 of killing a whole army by the prowefs of twenty gentlemen like him- 

 felf. Both forget, that their adverfaries will not confetti to be driven out 

 of their trade or to be killed. — But fuppofing it had been pofllble for 

 the pope, by the fl:rength of his own treafury, or by drawing the princes 

 of Europe into a new crufade, to have muftered a fufficient force, what 

 was the objeft to be accomplifhed ? To pervert the free courfe of trade, 

 which as naturally flows in the channel which prefents the lighteft 

 charge or cheapefl; purchafe (and that by his own account was Alex- 

 andria) as water glides into the vallies \. It is furprifing that a Vene- 

 tian fliould have conceived fuch contraded anticommercial ideas, fo un- 



* Xuiidis and Gufpinal are places unknown to and made tlie emperors of Conftantinople tremble 



me. Sedlin is probably Stettin. for the exiftence of their empire, are entirel)' omit- 



f The natives of our Britifli iflands, and even ted in his enumeration of maritime nations, 

 the Catalans, who, as Mediterranean navigators, + A iimile ufed (I mean abufedj by himfelf, 



ought to be well known to him, and who had on p.,2 5- 4 



feme occafions rode mafters of the Mediterranean^ 



