was the aim of Michael
Palaeologus to deliver himself from a foreign aid; and his vigorous
government contained the Genoese of Galata within those limits which
the insolence of wealth and freedom provoked them to exceed. A sailor
threatened that they should soon be masters of Constantinople, and slew
the Greek who resented this national affront; and an armed vessel, after
refusing to salute the palace, was guilty of some acts of piracy in the
Black Sea. Their countrymen threatened to support their cause; but the
long and open village of Galata was instantly surrounded by the Imperial
troops; till, in the moment of the assault, the prostrate Genoese
implored the clemency of their sovereign. The defenceless situation
which secured their obedience exposed them to the attack of their
Venetian rivals, who, in the reign of the elder Andronicus, presumed to
violate the majesty of the throne. On the approach of their fleets, the
Genoese, with their families and effects, retired into the city: their
empty habitations were reduced to ashes; and the feeble prince, who had
viewed the destruction of his suburb, expressed his resentment, not by
arms, but by ambassadors. This misfortune, however, was advantageous
to the Genoese, who obtained, and imperceptibly abused, the dangerous
license of surrounding Galata with a strong wall; of introducing into
the ditch the waters of the sea; of erecting lofty turrets; and of
mounting a train of military engines on the rampart. The narrow bounds
in which they had been circumscribed were insufficient for the growing
colony; each day they acquired some addition of landed property; and the
adjacent hills were covered with their villas and castles, which they
joined and protected by new fortifications. [44] The navigation and trade
of the Euxine was the patrimony of the Greek emperors, who commanded the
narrow entrance, the gates, as it were, of that inland sea. In the reign
of Michael Palaeologus, their prerogative was acknowledged by the sultan
of Egypt, who solicited and obtained the liberty of sending an annual
ship for the purchase of slaves in Circassia and the Lesser Tartary:
a liberty pregnant with mischief to the Christian cause; since these
youths were transformed by education and discipline into the formidable
Mamalukes. [45] From the colony of Pera, the Genoese engaged with
superior advantage in the lucrative trade of the Black Sea; and their
industry supplied the Greeks with fish and co