230 CLAHKE'S TRAVELS. 
tians, during their wars in the Holy Land, have seldom'-bees- 
surpassed. Every treaty was violated ; and the most disho¬ 
nourable practices were said to be justified by the interests of 
religion. Acre, during almost two centuries, was the principal 
theatre of the crusades, and it had been long memorable on ac¬ 
count of perfidies committed thereby men who styled them¬ 
selves its heroes. The history of their enormities we derive 
from their own historians: nor is it possible to imagine what 
the tale would be, if an Arabic writer were presented to us 
with the Mahometan records of those times.* After a most 
solemn covenant of truce, guarantied, on the part of the Chris¬ 
tians, by every consecrated pledge of honour and religion, they 
massacred, in one day, nineteen of the principal Saracen mer¬ 
chants; who, upon the faith of the treaty, resorted to Acre for 
commercial purposes.! And this, although it led to the down¬ 
fall of the place,| was but a specimen of transactions that had 
passed upon many a former occasion. Fuller,§ describing the 
state of the garrison previous to its last siege, gives us the fol¬ 
lowing animated picture of its condition : “ In it,” says he,|j v 
* c were some of all countreys; so that he who had lost, his na¬ 
tion, might find it here. Most of them had several courts to 
decide their causes in; and the plentie of judges caused the 
scarcite of justice, malefactours appealing to a trial! in the 
courts of their own countrey. It was sufficient innoceucie for 
any offender in the Venetian court, that he was a Venetian. 
Personal acts were entituled nationall, and made the cause of 
die countrey. Outrages w T ere everywhere practised, nowhere 
A manuscript, which the author brought to England, of “ Sheikabbeddin’s history 
of the reigns of Noureddin and Salahcddin ,” commonly called Saladine, now deposited 
in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, might possibly afford information of this nature. 
t Marin. Sanut. lib. iii. pars xii. t c.21. 
^Sultan Serapha, indignant at this outrage, laid siege to Acre, with an army of 
1 60,000 infantry, and 60,000 cavalry, and took the city, A. D. 1291. This event took 
place upon the fifth of April, during so great a tempest, that the fugitives from the 
garrison, unable to reach the ships in the bay, perished in the waves. The spirited 
description of the confusion and slaughter that ensued upon the capture of the city, 
together with the moral reflections of its author, preserved in the “ Oesta Dei per 
Francos,” ; (Hanov. 16 11 .) are well worthy of notice. ” Undique erat tremor, et.pav.or , 
ft gemitus mortis. Soldams quoque ad qvatuor partes civ it alls fecit ignes accendi, ut 
ferro et igne consumer et universe. Nunc hat peccqta, sed non abluit civitas seel er at a , 
gratiis divinis ingrata. Adipsam coiifluebaht reges et principes terra :; ad ipsam mitte - 
bant succursuni tribalariae cunciae partes occiduae ; ct nunc contra earn pvpiant omnia ele- 
menta. Terra enim ejus sanguinem devorat quae Christiano sanguine tola viadescit ; 
mare absorbet populum \ aedificia consum'd ignis; aer fumo, et caligine tenebratur." 
Marin. Sanut. Secret. Fidel. Cruc. lib. iii. pars xii. cap. 21. 
§ Historic of the Holy Wane, Camb. 1651. Fuller thus quaintly describes the pre¬ 
parations made in Acre to sustain the siege. “ And now Ptolemais being to wrestle her 
fast fall, stripped herself of all cumbersome clothes: women, children, aged persons, weak 
folks (all such hindering help, and mouthes without arms ) were sent away, and twelve 
thousand remained, conceived competent to.make gGOd the plate." Boo-k iv. c 33. 
Historic of the Hbly Wane, b. iv. c. 32. 
