Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/371

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 349 the annoyance of the Franks. Nine battles, not unworthy of the nanie^ were fought in the neighbourhood of Mount Carmel, with such vicissitude of fortune that in one attack the sultan forced his way into the city ; ""^^ that in one sally the Christians penetrated to the royal tent. By the means of divers and pigeons a regular correspondence was maintained with the be- sieged ; and, as often as the sea was left open, the exhausted garrison was withdrawn, and a fresh supply was poured into the place. The Latin camp was thinned by fainine, the sword, and the climate ; but the tents of the dead were replenished with new pilgrims, who exaggerated the strength and speed of their approaching countrymen. The vulgar was astonished by the report that the pope himself, with an innumerable crusade, was advanced as far as Constantinople. The march of the emperor filled the East with more serious alarms ; the obstacles which he encountered in Asia, and perhaps in Greece, were raised by the policy of Saladin ; his joy on the death of Barbarossa was measured by his esteem ; and the Christians were rather dis- mayed than encouraged at the sight of the duke of Swabia and his wayworn remnant of five thousand Germans. At length, in the spring of the second year, the royal fleets of France and England cast anchor in the bay of Acre, and the siege was more vigorously prosecuted by the youthful emulation of the two kings, Philip Augustus and Richard Plantagenet. After every resource had been tried, and every hope was exhausted, the defenders of Acre submitted to their fate ; a capitulation was granted, but their lives and liberties were taxed at the hard con- ditions of a ransom of two hundred thousand pieces of gold, the deliverance of one hundred nobles and fifteen hundred inferior captives, and the restoration of the wood of the holy ci-oss. Some doubts in the agreement, and some delay in the execu- tion, rekindled the fury of the Franks, and three thousand Moslems, almost in the sultan's view, were beheaded by the command of the sanguinary Richard. ^^ By the conquest of Acre the Latin powers acquired a strong town and a convenient liarbour ; but the advantage was most dearly purchased. The 7«a [More than once.] ^^ Bohadin, p. i8o ; and this massacre is neither denied nor blamed by the Christian historians. Alacriter jussa complentes (the Enghsh soldiers), says Galfridus a Vinesauf (1. iv. c. iv. p. 346), who fixes at 2700 the number of victims ; who are multiplied to 5000 by Roger Hoveden (p. 697, 698). The humanity or avarice of Philip Augustus was persuaded to ransom his prisoners (Jacob, a Vitriaco, 1. i. c. 98 [ieg. 99], p. 1122).