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 372 DESTEUCTION OF THE GEEEK EMPIEE sent word to Chios to the merchants and other refugees that if they returned they would receive their property. 1 Mahomet, as a pledge of his sincerity and as the best means of convincing the Genoese of his desire to be at peace with them, granted 1 capitulations ' by which they were to retain most of the customs and privileges which they had pre- viously obtained from the empire. They were to retain the fortress of Galata and their own laws and government ; to elect their own podesta ; to have freedom of trade throughout the empire, and keep their own churches and accustomed worship — but subject to the prohibition of bells — and their private property and churches were to be respected. 2 Mahomet's The massacre had been limited to the first day. The CoiSan- 0 permission to pillage had been granted for three days. On tmopie. afternoon of the day of the capture, or possibly on the following day, Mahomet made his triumphal entry into the city. He was surrounded by his viziers and pashas and by a detachment of Janissaries. He came into the city through the gate now called Top Capou, rode on horseback to the Great Church, descended and entered. As he passed up the church he observed a Turk who was forcing out a morsel of marble from the pavement, and asked why he was 1 Angeli Johannis Zachariae Potestatis Ferae Epistola. Leonard, p. 100. Ducas says that Mahomet had an inventory made of the property of those who had fled, and gave the owners three months within which to return, failing which, it would be confiscated. 2 Zorzo Dolfin, p. 1040. See also Sauli's Colonia dei Genovesi in Galata, vol. ii. p. 172, and Von Hammer, vol. ii., where the treaty is given in full in the appendix. Usually Dolfin's narrative is taken from Leonard, but the para- graphs relating to the capitulations are an exception. Dolfin uses the word Privilegio. The capitulations are called at different times by different names : grants, concessions, privileges, capitulations, or treaties. I have already pointed out, in the Fall of Constantinople, that the system of ex-territoriality, under which, in virtue of capitulations, foreigners resident in Turkey are always under the protection of their own laws, is the survival of the system once general in the Eoman empire. Of course it is ridiculous to speak of the capitulations as having been wrongfully wrung from the Turks by Western nations, and equally absurd to claim that their grant shows the far-reaching- policy of the Turks in their desire to attract foreign trade. The Turks found the system of ex-territoriality in full force and maintained it, being unwilling, as they still are, to allow Christians, whether their own subjects or foreigners, to rank on an equality with Moslems.