The Dutch now almost monopolised the carrying trade of the Mediterranean, and it became cheaper not only to obtain northern products, but even the spices of the East from Amsterdam, where they arrived by the Cape route, than directly overland and distributed by Italian or Dalmatian ships. Neither Spain nor Ragusa paid attention to his proposals, and both allowed the fatal decay to continue. But still the Ragusans continued to distinguish themselves in the Spanish service, especially the members of the Tuhelj family. One of them, Don Antonio, when he heard of the terrible earthquake at Ragusa, gave up his brilliant career in Spain and came to the help of his distressed fatherland. He was subsequently sent as Ragusan envoy on a number of diplomatic missions. His branch of the family finally entered the Austrian service, and received high emoluments from the Emperor Leopold. The reason of these favours lies in the fact that the Tuhelj still claimed their ancestral estates at Castelnuovo, Risano in the Herzegovina, and at Kastoria in Macedonia, and were therefore likely to prove useful in the Austrian campaigns against the Turks. Don Antonio Damiano, in fact, served for five years in the frontier wars, and ended his military career after a severe wound at the battle of Dervent in Bosnia (September 5, 1688). He was then appointed Imperial Resident at Ragusa, and devoted himself to the cause of the emancipation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina from the Turkish yoke. He visited those provinces repeatedly, and when he himself could no longer travel he arranged an elaborate system of secret information. In 1701 he was created Knight of Justice and Commissary-General of the Order of St. George, the object of which was to redeem Christian lands from the Infidel, and he took up his residence in Vienna to prepare his plan. But in his old age he retired to Ragusa once more, and spent his last days in studying the city archives, reconstructing the history of his own family. He too tried to revive the practice of inducing his countrymen to enter the Spanish service, and wished to enrol numbers of experienced Ragusan officers and sailors to man the navies of Spain, saying that they were far better fighters than the Neapolitans. “Ten Ragusans,” he wrote, “are worth more than a hundred Lazzaroni.”[488] But it was now too late, and decadence had gone too far. The large number of Ragusan vessels lost in the service of Spain discouraged the citizens, while the population and wealth of Ragusa was greatly reduced by the earthquake. The Republic was now suffering from the vexatious attitude of the Venetians and the Turks, who were conspiring together for the destruction of the last “Antemurale Christianitatis” in the Balkan peninsula, and the citizens actually proposed to ask for a Spanish-Neapolitan “Governatore delle Armi.” Don Antonio’s scheme having fallen through, he returned to his historical studies, and collected a mass of more or less unreliable information, chiefly culled from local traditions and native historians.

CHAPTER XII
FROM THE EARTHQUAKE TO THE NAPOLEONIC WARS (1667-1797)

OF all the Ragusan aristocracy, in whom the whole power of the Republic was vested, only twenty-five adult males survived this terrible calamity, and not all of these were eligible for the highest offices. They organised themselves into a provisional Government, and after some demur decided to ennoble eleven burgher families and receive them into their order. They did not, however, grant them full privileges nor admit them to all the offices, and this exclusion subsequently led to internal difficulties. The question of depopulation was now a serious one. According to Coleti, 600 Orthodox Christian families from the neighbouring districts applied to the Senate for permission to settle in Ragusa to fill up the gaps, and offered to pay 2500 ducats each to the State treasury. But even the earthquake had failed to make the Republic more tolerant of schismatics, and permission was refused.[489]

Very slowly Ragusa rose from her ruins, and the work of rebuilding began. Help came to the stricken city from all parts of Christendom. The church of the patron saint was the first edifice to be repaired, and then the Sponza, the chief source of the Republic’s revenues. But it was a very different Ragusa to that which existed before the earthquake. The merchant navy, save for a few coasting vessels, had now disappeared, and with it the sea-borne trade, while the land trade was also reduced.

On September 29, 1669, after one of the most memorable and heroic sieges in history, lasting twenty-five years, the Venetian garrison at Candia surrendered to the Turks. For this irreparable loss Venice obtained some poor compensation in Dalmatia, viz. Clissa, Novigrad, and a few other towns. The Venetians tried to improve their Dalmatian trade at the expense of Ragusa by inducing the Porte to direct the Bosnian caravans towards Spalato and Castelnuovo instead of to Ragusa and Stagno. The Turks, although their power was on the wane, had become more arrogant than ever after the conquest of Candia. Kara Mustafa, who was Grand Vizier, a fanatical hater of Christians, took it into his head to make an end of Ragusa, and as a pretext blamed the citizens for having resisted the bands of armed marauders from the Herzegovina who had come into the town to plunder after the earthquake, and accused them of having sold goods to the Turks during the late war at famine prices. As a punishment he raised the tribute and demanded in addition 146,000 ducats, threatening to annex the Republic in case of non-compliance. The Ragusans in vain declared themselves too poor to pay owing to the earthquake; but Kara Mustafa remained firm, and even supported the extortionate demands of the Pashas of Bosnia and the Herzegovina. The Senate assembled hurriedly and decided to send two ambassadors to Constantinople and two envoys to Bosnia to try to appease the brutal Turks. But the difficulty was to find the men, for no one relished the idea of this very dangerous mission—the Ragusans well knew the way in which recalcitrant diplomats were treated by the Ottoman when he lost his temper. At last four courageous nobles offered to go for their country’s sake, namely, Marino Caboga and Giorgio Bucchia for the mission to Constantinople, and Niccolò Bona and Marino Gozze for Bosnia. The life of Caboga is so romantic that it deserves some mention. He was born in 1630, and after a youth of riot and dissipation, at the age of twenty-five he was engaged in a law-suit with a relative, whom he accused of having defrauded him. The trial took place before the Senate, and the accused reproached Caboga with his disorderly life and cast doubts on his honour. Stung to the quick, the young man drew his sword and murdered the slanderer. Flight to a sanctuary saved him from capital punishment, but he was condemned to perpetual imprisonment. During his confinement his only book was a Latin Bible, and he covered the walls of his prison with verses expressive of the deepest contrition. When the earthquake occurred he escaped from prison with difficulty; but instead of trying to get away he devoted himself to the work of rescue, and displayed great energy in repelling the attacks of the Morlachs, whom he drove from the city. When some sort of order was re-established and the Council met, he presented himself before the Conscript Fathers. One of them at once declared him disgraced and incapable of sitting, but the majority decided that as a reward for his great services in this time of danger he should be forgiven; he was thereupon readmitted to all his privileges. It was this same man who now offered to risk his life for his city once more. On their departure he and his companions bade farewell to their friends as though they were going to certain death.

Caboga and Bucchia reached Constantinople on August 8, 1667. The former showed so much diplomatic skill in the negotiations that Kara Mustafa had him and his colleague cast into prison on December 13, in a building that served as a lazaret for plague patients. But even then they refused to advise the Republic to consent to the Turkish demands. When asked if he would advise the Senate to agree to annexation by the Porte, Caboga replied that “he was sent to serve, not to betray his country”; and he succeeded in sending a message to the Senate encouraging them to hold out to the last regardless of his own fate, and only showing anxiety that his children should receive a sound religious education. The ambassadors were transferred from one dungeon to another, and threatened with all manner of punishments, but in vain.

Worse befell the envoys to Bosnia. When the Pasha heard that they had not brought the money demanded he threw them into an unhealthy dungeon, and after a few months transferred them to Silistria at the mouth of the Danube, where the Sultan Mohammed IV. was residing, and here they were kept in still severer detention. But they too held firm, and advised the Senate not to give way. In 1678 Bona fell ill, and, being utterly untended, died.