g; with an empty
purse and a modest air, all I said appeared dull and insipid. If I had
become rich again, how soon I would have been again accounted the eighth
wonder of the world! Oh, men! oh, fortune! Everyone avoided me as if the
ill luck which crushed me down was infectious.

We left Corfu towards the end of September, with five galleys, two
galeasses, and several smaller vessels, under the command of M. Renier.
We sailed along the shores of the Adriatic, towards the north of the
gulf, where there are a great many harbours, and we put in one of them
every night. I saw Madame F---- every evening; she always came with her
husband to take supper on board our galeass. We had a fortunate voyage,
and cast anchor in the harbour of Venice on the 14th of October, 1745,
and after having performed quarantine on board our ships, we landed on
the 25th of November. Two months afterwards, the galeasses were set aside
altogether. The use of these vessels could be traced very far back in
ancient times; their maintenance was very expensive, and they were
useless. A galeass had the frame of a frigate with the rowing apparatus
of the galley, and when there was no wind, five hundred slaves had to
row.

Before simple good sense managed to prevail and to enforce the
suppression of these useless carcasses, there were long discussions in
the senate, and those who opposed the measure took their principal ground
of opposition in the necessity of respecting and conserving all the
institutions of olden times. That is the disease of persons who can never
identify themselves with the successive improvements born of reason and
experience; worthy persons who ought to be sent to China, or to the
dominions of the Grand Lama, where they would certainly be more at home
than in Europe.

That ground of opposition to all improvements, however absurd it may be,
is a very powerful one in a republic, which must tremble at the mere idea
of novelty either in important or in trifling things. Superstition has
likewise a great part to play in these conservative views.

There is one thing that the Republic of Venice will never alter: I mean
the galleys, because the Venetians truly require such vessels to ply, in
all weathers and in spite of the frequent calms, in a narrow sea, and
because they would not know what to do with the men sentenced to hard
labour.

I have observed a singular thing in Corfu, where there are often as many
as three thousand galley sl