238
I'HE DECLINE AND FALL
CHAP.LX VIII.
the execution of the great duke and his two sons;and his death is ascribed to the generous refusalof delivering his children to the tyrant’s lust.Yet a Byzantine historian has droptan unguard-ed word of conspiracy, deliverance, and Italiansuccour: such treason maybe glorious; but therebel who bravely ventures, has justly forfeited,his life; nor should we blame a conqueror fordestroying the enemies whom he can go longertrust. On the eighteenth of June, the victorioussultan returned to Adrianople ; and smiled atthe base and hollow embassies of the Christianprinces, who viewed their approaching ruin inthe fall of the Eastern empire .
Constantinople had been left naked and de-solate, without a prince or a people. But shecould not be despoiled of the incomparable situ-ation which marks her for the metropolis of agreat empire; and the genius of the place willever triumph over the accidents of time and for-tune. Boursa and Adrianople , the ancient seatsof the Ottomans , sunk into provincial towns;and Mahomet the second established his own re-sidence, and that of his successors, on the samecommanding spot which had been chosen byConstantine . 1 The fortifications of Galata,which might afford a shelter to the Latins,were prudently destroyed; but the damage of
1 For the restitution of Constantinople and the Turkish foundations,see Cantemir (p- 102-109), Ducas (c. 42), with Thevenot, Tournefort ,and the rest of our modern travellers. From a gigantic picture of tiegreatness, population, &c. of Constantinople and the Ottoman empire (Abrege de l’Histoire Ottomane, tom.i, p. 16-21), we may learn, thatin the year 1586, the Moslems were less numerous in the capital thanthe Christians, or even the Jews .