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 nation, gave them a great commercial preponderance in the south of Europe. To assert these rights and to protect the freedom of their subjects, they are said to have been able to equip at very short notice one hundred galleys; but their usual policy was essentially that of merchants, and was almost wholly regulated by their trading interests. In their religious dogmas the Venetians avoided the schism of the Greeks without yielding a servile obedience to the Roman pontiff; while an unrestrained intercourse with the Muhammedans, as well as with other nations, encouraged in her people a spirit of toleration unknown to the Crusaders.

Venice was, therefore, in no haste to launch into a holy war, and the appeal of the pilgrim ambassadors, "sent by the greatest and most powerful barons of France, to implore the aid of the masters of the sea for the deliverance of Jerusalem," though ultimately successful, was granted only with reservation and mainly on selfish conditions. The Crusaders, after considering these (they had, indeed, little option), determined to assemble at Venice, so as to start on their expedition on the feast of St. John of the ensuing year; the Venetians, at the same time, engaging to provide flat-bottomed vessels enough for the conveyance of four thousand five hundred knights and twenty thousand foot, with the necessary provisions for nine months, together with a squadron of fifty galleys. The pilgrims, on the other hand, promised to pay the Venetians, before their departure, eighty-four thousand marks of silver; any conquests by sea and land to be equally divided between the confederates. These exorbitant demands were acceded to, the enthusiasm of the people enabling fifty-two thousand marks to be collected and paid within a short time.