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 MAHOMET'S CHARACTER: AS CONQUEROR 389 during the first years after the conquest of the city was always ready to aid in the execution of his designs against other states. His energy and ambition allowed him little time for rest and as the years went by wore out the strength and even the patience of his followers. He kept his army — which included almost every available man of the Turkish race under his sway — occupied almost continually for nearly twelve years after 1453, until at length, worn out with long marches, weakened by constant labour, and having sacrificed their goods, their horses, and their health for their master, his soldiers, including the very Janissaries themselves, be- came discontented and clamoured for rest. Critobulus, who makes this statement, records that an expedition into Illyria was reluctantly postponed because Mahomet was compelled to recognise at last that rest was absolutely necessary for troops who had not known it for years. From the moment of his conquest of the city he saw the He im- importance of keeping up a strong fleet. He maintained Turkish and enlarged that which he had prepared for the blockade fleet * of the city, and was at all times able, upon any sign of revolt, to send a sufficient force by sea to maintain his rule. Indeed, it may be said that once he had imposed his peace upon all the districts round the Marmora and the Aegean, his fleet enabled him to preserve it. With its aid, too, he succeeded in exacting tribute from Egypt and Syria. Critobulus notes that his master, having observed that the Venetians and Genoese had gained their success in the Mediterranean by means of large ships, constructed a number of new vessels which were able to cope with them, and raised a sufficient number of oarsmen to resist their attacks on the Turkish coasts. Nor was Mahomet less active in improving the civil Mahomet organisation of his government. We have already seen that former of before his conquest of the city, he commenced reforms in the ^m^tra- collection of the taxes. He dismissed incompetent pashas tion - and replaced them by others distinguished by their intel- ligence, their honesty, and their military capacity, for it must always be remembered that militarism was and is the