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stay their vessels on the water, though the effect obtained was always the same, the instrument was various. The most ancient anchors were large stones, bored through the middle; sometimes they were made of wood, having lead inserted. In some places, baskets of stones, or sacks of sand, suspended by cords in the sea, served as anchors, by impeding the course of the ship by their weight. At length the anchor was made of iron, with one tooth, or fluke; and soon after two-fluked anchors became general. Sometimes they employed an anchor with four claws, or flukes; which seems to be what is meant in Acts xxvii. 29; although the ancients used more anchors than one, and usually dropped them by boats from the stern, contrary to the practice of the moderns, who let them down from the prow. The boat, being fastened to the stern, was usually towed along after the ship, unless in case of a heavy sea coming on, when it was drawn close up to the ship; as in Acts xxvii. 16. We learn from Bruce that the four-fluked anchor is still used by the Egyptians; and we should observe that St. Luke mentions that St. Paul was voyaging in an Egyptian vessel. Of the several anchors belonging to each ship, one exceeded the rest in size and strength. This was called the sacred anchor, and was used only in extreme danger; so that the phrase, to throw out the sacred anchor, was in process of time proverbially applied to those who were driven to their last shifts.

We find, upon one or two occasions, mention made of iron chains in use for dropping the anchor. Cables, however, were generally employed, made at first from leather thongs, or the sinews of animals. They then used flax, hemp, broom, rushes, or sea-weed. The ancient Greeks procured from Egypt ropes and cables manufactured from rushes and sea-willow. We must not omit to mention the ancient practice of undergirding the ship, mentioned in Acts xxvii. 17. By this is meant the passing of ropes several times round the hull, to prevent the timbers from starting and giving way, when the ship, in a very rough sea, is strained, and apt to lurch. It is even done now, upon occasion, when the vessel is not very large; as we find in Walter's account of Lord Anson's voyage, who relates the undergirding of a Spanish ship with six turns of a cable, during a violent

storm.

It seems to have been the ordinary practice of the ancients, to place at the head or prow of the vessel an image, called the sign; which we see also in modern times. This gave then, and usually gives now, a notion of the ship's name. The sides of the prow were called cheeks, as this part of the vessel generally showed a human face, and was decorated with paint and gilding (see the engraving in page 35). The part of the vessel which cut the water, was called the goose; a great similarity being fancied to exist between the ship and this bird, while on the water. At the stern, often carved into the form of a shield, and elaborately painted, were small streamers. Here also was set, or in some way delineated, a representation of the deity to whose tutelary favour the ship was committed. To this deity daily prayer and sacrifice were offered, and this was the naval sanctuary. Taking this into consideration, and that ancient vessels were universally named after some beast, bird, or fish, we shall easily resolve many stories of antiquity, which contain facts under absurd and unnatural guises.

dolphin at the prow. Arion, the famous musician o Lesbos, having made great wealth in foreign parts by his profession, was returning home by ship, when the sailors resolved to kill him and seize upon his riches. Playing once again, at his last request, a favourite tune, he leaped into the sea. A dolphin, attracted by the melody, received him safely on its back, and carried him again to the court of the prince, whence he had set out. Arion, doubtless, escaped by a boat, the fore part of which consisted of a dolphin. The flight of Phryxus with his sister Helle, into Asia, on the back of a ram having a golden fleece, and her falling through giddiness into that part of the sea afterwards named the Hellespont, or Sea of Helle, now the straits of the Dardanelles, is explained by considering that Phryxus absconded with an immense treasure in the ship Aries or Ram, and that his sister Helle, who accompanied him, fell overboard by some accident or other. The ship in which St. Paul sailed away from the island of Malta, had the twin sons of Leda for its sign. The Gemini were the patrons of mariners, and were deemed to be present with mortals, when a sacred light played around the tops of the masts. This light is now known by the people of the Mediterranean coasts, as St. Elmo's fire, and is due to electricity, which is attracted by points. Many of the signs of the Zodiac, and other constellations, received their names from the ships of early days, which the unaffected admiration of the times resolved to honour with immortal remembrance, by a belief in their translation to the skies.

The people of Ægina, an island in the Egean, and of Crete, an island of the Levant, are among the earliest people, who pursued navigation. The inhabitants of Corinth and Corcyra were the first to form a fleet; but the Cretans are said to have been the first to possess the empire of the sea.

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ANCIENT SHIP, SHOWING THE SIGN, OR IMAGE, AT THE PROW

WAR AND MERCHANT SHIPS.

THUS far respecting naval affairs in general. We must now observe that the vessels of the ancients were distin

Ships were very usually termed horses among the ancients, which sets off in a clearer light the story of Neptune and Minerva contending for the honourable guardianship of the city of Athens. The horse, which the former gave, was a symbol of maritime affairs; as the olive, given by the latter, was of agricultural peace and quiet. Though the victory was at the time adjudged to Minerva, we read of her being an early patroness of Navigation. We are told that the poorer people of Gades, (now Cadiz,) a Phoenician colony in the south of Spain, called their small barks horses; and we know that the Nubian savages, at the pre-guished into two chief classes; each possessing its own sent time, call a sailing-boat " a water-mare." About 1500 years B.C., the Princess Europa, we are told, was carried off from Phoenicia to Crete, by Jupiter, who had assumed the form of a bull: the credible version of which story is, that Asterius, King of Crete, whose wife she afterwards became, went to her father's court, prevailed upon her to elope with him, and conveyed her across the sea in a vessel having the sign of the bull at its head, and the shrine of Jupiter at its stern. The chariot with winged dragons, in which Medea fled from the vengeance of her husband, was only a ship with sails. The Elder Pliny tells us of a boy, who was carried by water some miles on the back of a dolphin to school; the vessel, in all probability, having a

characteristic features; war ships, and ships of burden. The former generally had no sails, but were impelled by oars, and were of great length; so that long ships was a term equivalent with ships of war. The latter were of a rounder shape, and were mainly propelled by sails.

The people most distinguished for naval warfare before the Christian era, were the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, and Romans. One illustration of their war-ship and mode of fighting applies to all; as each one seems to have been tutored by its predecessor in political existence.

War-ships were chiefly rowed with oars, that they might be able to tack about, and approach the enemy at pleasure. The number and appointment of oars became more nume

rous, as navigation improved. There were, according to the size of the vessel, rows, tiers, or banks of oars; not placed on the same level, but having the seats fixed at the back of each other in the manner of stairs. The most usual number of these rows was three, or four, or five. There were, however, many vessels, which had more tiers; and the ship's class was determined by this property. The first long ships were rowed, we are told, with fifty oars, in the thirteenth century B.C., and the notion of them was derived from Egypt. The size of this species of vessel, as depending upon the extent of the rowing-banks, became, we read, after many ages, enormous.

In the reign of Ptolemy Philopater, King of Egypt, about 200 years B.C., a ship of forty tiers of oars was constructed, each tier containing one hundred rowers. This ship carried, moreover, its complement of sailors and soldiers, and was called the Isis. A still more wonderful vessel was constructed about the same time by Archimedes, at the command of Hiero, King of Sicily. This ship had in it banqueting-rooms, galleries, stables, baths, and fish-ponds; it had also a temple of Venus, the floors and sides of which were painted with scenes from the Iliad of Homer. There seems to have been a rage at this time for constructing these huge machines, which the deficient nautical skill of the times could not apply to any useful purpose. They resembled floating islands, and, indeed, we are told that these, and such like fabrics, were too unwieldy for use, and served merely for show and ostentation. In a word, if there be no exaggeration, which is much suspected, and we be under no misapprehension, which is much feared, respecting these accounts, they serve, at least, to show that human nature often impotently attempts to outdo itself. The most usual size for vessels, in the more perfect condition of ancient navigation, allowed five tiers of oars, holding three hundred rowers, above whom were two hundred fighting men. The oars of those who were at the lower part of the vessel, and, consequently, nearer the water, were shorter than those of the rowers above, whose oars increased in length proportionally as they ascended. We are not well informed of the manner of applying the oars from so many tiers as we have here mentioned, or even more; and how the mechanical force, necessary for working the upper and longest oars, was effectively brought into play, but such we see on several coins and other fragments of antiquity. Two large holes at the prow of a vessel, occasionally used for oars, were called the ship's eyes. It has been noticed by voyagers, that in the fishing-boats of the Society Islands, these eyes are made of shells. To bear up into the wind, Acts xxvii. 15, means, when literally translated, to present its eyes to the wind,in modern nautical language, to loof up against the wind. Ships of war had at the prow a wooden projection, covered with brass, termed a beak; the use of which was to dash violently against an enemy's vessel, and sink or shatter it. Pieces of wood, placed on each side of the prow of a vessel, to ward off or counteract the force of the enemy's beak, were termed the ship's ears. The Romans, having defeated the Carthaginians in several naval encounters, carried home as prizes the beaks of the enemy's ships which they had captured. These they hung up in the Forum, about the tribunal from whence the public orators harangued the citizens. This pulpit was, therefore, called the rostrum, which is the Latin for beak. Hence, a person about to speak publicly, is said to mount the rostrum.

Over these vessels were certain raised platforms; at their sides were projecting stages, and on their forecastles were towers, on which the soldiers stood and levelled their missive weapons with greater force and certainty against the enemy: whereas the rowers, by their position in the hull of the vessel, were always secure from damage. Sometimes an attempt was made to sink the enemy by discharging a heavy weight of stone or lead into his ship. In the case of a siege on the sea-side, ships were connected together, along the circuit of water surrounding the walls; on which ships high towers were erected at intervals, to enable the besiegers to annoy the townsmen, and perchance to scale the walls, (see p. 40.) The besieged would, by means of a long lever, invented by Archimedes, lift the invading ships up out of the water; and suddenly letting them go, dash them to pieces. Towers made so as to be quickly raised, or let down, were used also in general naval engagements. Many ships had coverings of hides or skins, to protect all who were in the vessel from the darts of the enemy. The shields of the soldiers were usually hung upon the railing (see p. 40) which begirt the ship, and above which the stages appeared,

In the event of an engagement, everything was put out of the vessel which would not be wanted in battle. If the ship had sails, they were furled and put away; and it is to be observed that the ancients always avoided fighting in stormy weather. The order of battle was generally that of a half-moon, the best men and ships being stationed at the horns, or wings, for the purpose of breaking the enemy's line by beaking. Sometimes the semi-circle was directed convexly towards the enemy; at other times concavely. Upon some occasions the fleet was drawn up in a circle, as with the Peloponnesians; at others, in the form of the letter V, for the purpose of penetrating the body of the adverse squadron.

Prayer and sacrifice preceded the battle, accompanied with the exhortations of the admiral. The signal for engaging was given by sound of trumpet, which was repeated round the fleet, as also by hanging out a gilded shield, or banner, from the admiral's galley; which vessel was moreover distinguished by a red flag. The battle continued as long as the shield, or banner, was elevated. A pæan, or war-song, to Mars was chaunted by the party which made the attack; and a hymn to Apollo was sung by the victors.

The admiral's galley would begin the engagement by endeavouring by a sudden, close, and parallel movement, to break, or sweep off, the whole set of oars on one side of a hostile vessel, which would thereby be disabled from performing any further manoeuvres; or they might seek to disorder the enemy's line by attacks with the beaked prow, while the soldiers assailed their rivals with slings and darts, and eventually with swords and spears. In fact, the latter part of the battle would more nearly resemble a landfight; for, when the ships came to close quarters, one party or the other would throw out iron grapnels, by which the vessels were locked together, and the weaker prevented from escape. This plan was usually resorted to by the party which was the inferior of the two in naval tactics. We find boarding-pikes mentioned by Homer as being used in naval encounters.

To enter more into detail of this sort would lead us insensibly from our subject. We may remark, however, that if the country which a fleet was sailing to, was hostile, or if there was no good harbour, they would draw their ships on land and form a naval camp.

The naval business of Athens had very great reference to war; but as conquest and the extension of dominion was the sole object proposed by the Romans in their as sumption of naval tactics, all the proper business of navigation, from the master to the rower, was allowed to lie in the hands of slaves, or of the lowest classes. Hence the Romans make no figure in maritime history.

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We have now to make a few remarks on the trading- | shores of the Mediterranean, the first civilized portion of vessels of the ancients; premising that, in natural order, the West, be still the limits witl.in which the naval art was this should have come first: as marine vessels originated practised. in the necessity for transport, either of person or goods. Piracy, or robbery by sea, deemed to be an honourable employment in the infancy of a nation, was excited and encouraged by the convenience thus afforded; and then followed naval war.

The oval form of the merchant ship is, of course, to be referred to the accommodation of passengers, and the stowing away of baggage. It seems to have been flatfloored, broad, and of small draught of water, not very dissimilar to the Chinese junk seen in our day, which is thought by the best reasoning to be only a counterpart of the ancient ship of commerce. The length of the trading vessel was four times its breadth, while the war galley was eight times longer than broad. As the war ship, which had a mast, was distinguished by a helmet thereupon, and a banner at its bow, so a basket, emblematic of its nature, was suspended from the mast of the trading vessel.

The common burden of their best and largest tradingvessels seems to have been fifty or sixty tons, though much larger ones are alluded to; to the accounts of which there is attached the same uncertainty as we previously spoke of in the case of the rowing-galleys. An obelisk of fifteen hundred tons' weight was brought from Egypt to Rome, and placed in the Circus by Constantius, where it now stands. The same vessel carried, we are told, more than eleven hundred tons of pulse, placed at one end of the ship to balance the stone at the other. Such vessels as these, called Etnas, or moving mountains, were not valued for ordinary use, being too cumbrous and unmanageable, Merchant-vessels having to pass from one country to another, were chiefly governed by sails, as mere transports were towed along the banks of rivers by cords.

We are not well informed what convenience the ancient mariners had for sleeping in their ships. Berths, for the convenience of passengers on board the foreign tradingships, seem to have been made at the sides of the vessel, as with us; see Jonah i. 5: but we infer that the restingplaces of the sailors themselves were of a chance-like nature, and no wonder that it should be so, as ancient navigation did not permit vessels to be long out at sea, or far from land. Ulysses, we read in Homer, slept on skins at the stern, and the rowers who, in the course of time, were selected from slaves or malefactors, reposed upon the benches where they had toiled. Any superior accommodation seemed likely to deteriorate the hardihood of the sailor; and Alcibiades the Athenian commander, Plutarch tells us, was censured for having on board a bed hung upon cords!

AN ANCIENT VOYAGE.

HAVING hitherto confined ourselves, in great measure, to the vessel and its detail, we pass on to the consideration of the ship, or fleet of ships, when making way over the waters; so that the observations which we shall here make will not relate to any particular order of shipping, unless so far as shall be specified at the time

The invariable time for sailing was that of Summer, when the heavens were genial, and the light of day exceeded the darkness of night; the means and experience of the ancient mariners did not permit it to be otherwise. Even with a smooth sea and fair wind, they could not for ages venture out of sight of the land, lest, in the apparently interminable waste of waters, they might be drifted about for ever: their voyages, therefore, to which they were tempted by trade and commerce, were a continual coasting; and vessels were, in certain circumstances, even towed along: being also often necessitated to land for provisions, they would not be long at a time out at sea, a thing which even the superstition of the sailors would have forbidden. Superstitious fears seem to have haunted sailors from the earliest to the present time; but these are, we trust, fast fading before the cheering light of the Divine Word.

It was an article of belief among the ancients, that a soul which had departed from a body unhonoured with the rites of sepulture, was condemned to wander in sorrow for a hundred years on the banks of the infernal river Styx, ere it could be admitted to a resting-place of bliss; being, therefore, in their landskirt voyages, at the mercy of the people of the coast, and impatient at the close confinement and restriction of the ship, having also their religious dread of the unfathomable and heaving deep, we need not be surprised that ages upon ages should pass away, and the

When a voyage was contemplated, the ships, whien nad in all probability been hauled up on dry land, were pushed into the sea by the shoulders of the mariners, or by levers; or latterly, by means of a rolling-machine called a helix, invented by Archimedes, about 200 years B.C.

A fleet, or number of ships, being, therefore, about to set sail, every proceeding connected therewith became matter of religious parade and solemnity. Sacrifices having been performed, and each ship committed to the care of some deity, omens and prognostics were observed, and the trivial nature of some of them is such as to create a smile. The perching of a swallow on the mast, or the sneezing of any person to the left, would so perturb the minds of these enterprising sailors, as to delay the departure till the following day. When, however, nothing had occurred to mar the resolution of the voyagers, the ships were unmoored, and departed with oars or sails, or, perhaps, both, decked with flowers and garlands, and attended with prayers to Neptune and the other gods, from the voyagers and their friends remaining at home. When they had got a little out to sea, doves were let loose from the ships, which flying back to land, were hailed as omens of the safe return of the crew. The ship of the commander usually sailed on foremost, conspicuous for its gaudy ornaments: the others followed in order, and, when fairly out at sea, sailed three or more abreast, or alongside of each other, unless the weather grew rough and the sea unsteady; in which case they would keep off from one another, in order that the manœuvres of each vessel might not be hindered. Excepting under very favourable circumstances, they did not continue sailing through the night, but anchored in some cove or sheltered spot; or they drew up their ships on the beach, that all in the vessel might repose until the returning dawn. If they actually got out of sight of land, it was with the view of directing their course towards some headland, which they knew to lie in a certain direction.

In the progress of ages, as the knowledge of astronomy advanced, and various observations of the heavenly bodies were made and collected, the situations and bearings of places were, by these means, naturally attempted to be surmised. To navigate safely, and to trust oneself with confidence upon the pathless ocean, it is necessary to have always ready at hand, a safe and uninterrupted guide to the relative situations of places. Though it appears that the general principles of the loadstone were well known many ages before the Christian era, yet the polarity of a suspended needle was never dreamed of among the active nations on the western side of the ancient hemisphere, until within the last five hundred years. The early missionaries to China found that the compass had long been in use in that country; but that curious people seem to have been the first to attain, in ancient times, a certain point of civilization, beyond which they have never since advanced. So that the ancient sailor, who had the greatest skill and means which his art afforded, could look only to the heavens for assistance; and they, oftentimes, in the midst of his greatest difficulties, were obscured. To navigate in such circumstances would be similar to walking with the eyes shut; it was natural for him, therefore, to cling to the coast, and scarcely venture off from the earth by night. But, after awhile, in addition to the motions of the sun and moon, it had been observed that certain stars towards the north never sunk below the horizon, but seemed to move continually round a definite point. The ancient Greeks noticed the constant revolution of the seven conspicuous stars, forming the hinder part of the Great Bear; but it appears that the commercial Phoenicians had already more closely tracked up the northern point of the sky by directing their attention to a set of stars, which kept on revolving in smaller circles than those observed by the Greeks. This was the constellation called the Little Bear; at the tip of the tail of which animal is situated a star, now called the Pole Star. This is the nearest plainly visible star to that point which is in a line with the pole of the earth, infinitely extended northward. When the use of these observations had been made familiar by practice, the nautical art advanced considerably, and various schemes of enterprise were formed, and effected with more or less

success.

It has been well observed that it is a distinctive feature

See Saturday Magazine, Vol. III., p. 115.

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in modern Navigation, as compared with that of the ancients that the method of conducting a ship now from place to place, as depending upon definite and distinct rules, is much more safe and simple, and requires, perhaps, less training and study, while it effects much more than the method of the ancients. The naval officers particularly offering themselves to our notice by their official variation from the moderns, are the master of the rowers, and the pilot. It was the business of the former to attend to the rowing department of the vessel, to assign their places to the rowers, to encourage them in their labours, and to keep time to the motion of the oars, by the strokes of his mallet, or the musical intonations of his voice. The other officer, who especially claims our attention, is the pilot, or master of the ship; to whom belonged the duty of navigating the vessel, and who was consequently responsible for the safety of the ship, and all on board. His place was at the stern; and to excel in his vocation, he had to possess an exact knowledge of his art, which consisted chiefly in skill in steering, in managing the sails, and in the use of other nautical appurtenances, together with a knowledge and experience of the winds, of the heavenly bodies, as indicating the seasons, portending the weather, and directing the course of the ship, and of the site of commodious ports and harbours; when rocks and quicksands were to be dreaded, and how they might be avoided. The ancients retired into harbour when they saw the Winter signs begin to rise; where they remained till the constellations of Spring invited them upon the waters. It was not usual, therefore, for them to prosecute their voyages long after the Autumnal Equinox. The gales which then prevailed in the Mediterranean, formerly called Euroclydons, or Tuffoonest, but now Levanters, or Michaelmas flows, being hazardous to shipping, made them lie by for the Winter. The necessity of this is alluded to in Acts xxvii. 9. The Jewish fast of expiation, which is there meant, was on the 25th of September. It was also necessary for the pilot to understand and explain the signs and prognostics which offered themselves from the sea-birds, the fishes, the surge, the billows dashing upon the shore, and the waving of the woods on the impending heights. A seaman, unapt in the solution of any novelty of this sort, could not attain to the reputation of a good pilot.

It was also expected that this personage should have procured an ample supply of favourable winds; as the Lap

lander captain of our times buys of the wise women a quantity of this necessary material for navigation. We are told that Ulysses, having procured a bag of wind, was returning home to Ithaca with a prosperous sail. When his native isle was just in sight, and the hero had fallen asleep through fatigue, the bag was opened by the sailors, who suspected that treasure was concealed in it: whereupon the winds rushed forth with awful violence, and drove the ship backward a distance of ten days' sail.

At the termination of a voyage, the vessels were usually stranded by urging them stern foremost towards the land, when the crews drew them up out of the water by main force.

The notion of light-houses seems to have been generally adopted about the time of the Christian era from the Egyptians. The small island of Pharos, in the bay of Alexandria, had been joined to the continent by a causeway of a mile in length, about 284 B. C. At the extremity of this mole was built a white marble tower, at the top of which a fire was kept constantly burning, visible, we are told, at the distance of one hundred miles; but this would make it to have been somewhat more than a mile in height from the surface of the earth, unless, indeed, it were visible from some eminence a hundred miles distant. This part of the account seems apocryphal, and even the site of the celebrated Pharos is a matter of dispute. The pride of man has doubtlessly exaggerated the facts of many ancient narratives; and from this, perhaps, as well as from many other classical stories, we must make considerable deduction but, at any rate, we have accounts of various erections of this nature, and they seem at the later period of ancient navigation to have been not uncommon, when ample experience had made nocturnal sailing less formidable. We find them accordingly erected at most of the harbours and naval stations which ships frequented; places where nature had been assisted by art, and where the larger-sized ships rode at anchor, secure from the swell of the seas around.

The ancients generally, as well as the barbarians of modern times, carried their idols with them on a voyage, thinking thereby to ensure the safety of the ship. Vows, therefore, which had been made previously to, or during the voyage, were now discharged, and especially was due reverence paid to Neptune, whose peculiar dominion they had just safely left. Those who had landed in safety after a storm, or any other of the manifold hazards of a seavoyage, hung up in one of the numerous temples surrounding the port, a picture of their disaster, together with the garments in which they had escaped it. This, with a multitude of other Pagan customs, has been exploded by time in most of the countries of the world; but we learn that this act of piety is still practised on the coasts of the Medi terranean, where the people profess the Roman Catholic faith. Happy would it have been for the human race, if no heathen custom more questionable than this, had received the sanction of the teachers of Christianity in the ages succeeding the times of the Apostles!

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ANCIENT ROMAN WAR GALLEY.

LONDON:

JOHN WILLIAM PARKER, WEST STRAND. PUBLISHED IN WEEKLY NUMBERS, PRICE ONE PENNY, AND IN MONTHLY PART PRIE SIXPENCE

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MASANIELLO, THE FISHERMAN, AND THE REVOLUTION OF NAPLES.

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PART THE FIRST.

THE LAZZARONI OF NAPLES.

THERE are few kingdoms in Europe which have undergone so many vicissitudes as that of Naples; and the chief source of its calamitous changes was the preposterous claims of the popes to dispose at their pleasure of the crown. After the overthrow of the Hohenstauffen, a dynasty remarkable for its uncompromising hostility to the papal usurpations, the sovereignty of Naples was bestowed upon the house of Anjou; but this French race of princes soon became unpopular, and after many changes and convulsions, the Neapolitan dominions were annexed to the kingdom of Spain, then rapidly rising into the foremost rank of European states. It remained quietly subject to Spain for nearly 150 years, until in the year 1647, a poor fisherman raised a revolt, which entailed upon it additional misery. The history of this extraordinary revolution is so very interesting, and so very instructive, that we shall relate it at full length, especially as some of the most important details have been hitherto hidden from English readers. To understand the causes of the revolution, it will be necessary to give a preliminary sketch of the Spanish tyranny over the Neapolitans. VOL. XII

When Spain first acquired dominion over Naples, the latter country, notwithstanding recent wars, was wealthy and populous; and its position afforded a reasonable prospect of increasing prosperity, for it possessed the finest ports in the Western Mediterranean, then the great high-road of commerce. Spain, on the other hand, was exhausted by long wars against the Moors, the recent discovery of America had seduced a large portion of the population to emigrate to the new countries, and the gold and silver imported from Mexico and Peru did not compensate for the abstraction of cultivation from the land, the emigration of the most industrious, and the consequent cessation of domestic improvement. Under these circumstances the Spanish government regarded its Neapolitan territory as a kind of reserved treasury by which all the pecuniary deficiences of Spain might be supplied and the chief object of their administration was to drain as much money from their Italian subjects, as they could obtain by fair means or by foul. Naples, of course, was governed by viceroys; the only object contemplated in the selection of these officers was their skill in extortion, and if they sent home money in plenty, no objection was made to any

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