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1482 The coast of Guinea discovered by the Portuguese. A court of inquisition erected in Seville.

1483 Richard III., of England, defeated and killed at the battle of Bosworth, by Henry VII.

1486 Henry establishes fifty yeomen of the guards, the first standing army.

1489 Maps and sea-charts first brought to England by Barth. Columbus. 1490 William Groceyn introduces the study of the Greek language into England. The Moors subdued by Ferdinand V. of Spain, and become his subjects.

1492 America discovered by Columbus. The Moors expelled from Granada, which they had possessed for more than 800 years.

1496 The Jews and Moors banished out of Portugal.

1497 The Portuguese first sail to the East Indies, by the Cape of Good Hope. South America discovered by Americus Vesputius.

North America discovered by Cabot, employed by Henry VII.

IN 1453, the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks, fixed that wandering people to one place; and though they now possess very large regions in Europe, Asia, and Africa, an effectual stop has long been put to their further progress.

About this time, learning also began to revive in Europe, where it had long been lost; and the invention of printing, which happened at the same time, rendered it impossible for barbarism ever to take place in such a degree as formerly. All nations of the world, indeed, seem now to have laid aside much of their former ferocity; and though wars have by no means been given up, they have not been carried on with such circumstances of fury and savage cruelty as before. Instead of attempting to enrich themselves with plunder, and the spoils of their neighbours, mankind in general have applied themselves to commerce, the only true and durable source of riches. This soon produced improvements in navigation; and these improvements led to the discovery of many regions formerly unknown. At the same time, the European powers being at last thoroughly sensible that extensive conquests could never be permanent, applied themselves more to provide for the security of those dominions which they already possessed, than to attempt the conquest of one another; and this produced the policy to which so much attention was lately paid, namely, the preventing any one of the nations from acquiring sufficient strength to overpower another.

In the end of the fifteenth century, the vast continent of America was discovered; and about the same time, the passage to the East Indies, or the Cape of Good Hope. The discovery of these rich countries gave a new turn to the ambition of the Europeans. To enrich themselves either by the gold and silver produced in these countries, or by traffic with the natives, now became their object. The Portuguese had the advantage of being the first discoverers of the Eastern, and the Spaniards of the Western countries. The former did not neglect so favourable an opportunity of enriching themselves by commerce. Many settlements were formed by them in the East India islands, and on the continent; but their avarice and perfidious behaviour towards the natives proved, at last, the cause of their total expulsion. The

Spaniards enriched themselves by the vast quantities of precious metals imported from America, which were not obtained but by the most horrid massacres committed on the natives. These possessions of the Spaniards and Portuguese soon excited other European nations to make attempts to share with them in their treasures, by planting colonies in different parts of America, and making settlements in the East Indies. Thus the rage of war was in some measure transferred from Europe to those distant regions; and after various contests, the British at last obtained a superiority both in America and in the East Indies.

In 1492, the Moors and Saracens were expelled from Spain, by the taking of Granada,

GOVERNMENT.

ROME.

JOHN VII., Palæologus, emperor of the East, succeeded his father Emanuel in 1425. He was unsuccessful against the Turks, and solicited the assistance of the Latins. To secure the support of the princes of the west, he meditated a union between the two churches, and the pope called a council at Ferrara, where the emperor himself attended, and a reconciliation took place in 1439, but did not long continue. John died in 1448, after a reign of twenty-nine years.

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CONSTANTINE XIII.*, surnamed Dracoses, the son of Palæologus, was placed on the throne by the sultan Amurath II., in 1448; but Mahomet II., his successor, resolving to dethrone him, laid siege to Constantinople, by sea and land. Constantine being summoned, for the last time, to deliver up the city, with promise of his life and liberty, answered, that he was unalterably determined either to defend that city or to perish with it. The attack began at three in the morning, on the 29th of May, 1453; such troops were first employed as the sultan valued least, and designed for no other purpose than to tire the Christians, who made a prodigious havoc of that disorderly multitude. After the carnage had lasted some hours, the Janizaries and other fresh troops advanced in good order, and renewed the attack with incredible vigour. The Christians, summoning all their courage and resolution, twice repulsed the enemy; but being, in the end, quite spent, they were no longer able to stand their ground, so that the enemy broke into the city in several places. In the mean time, Justiniani, the commander of the Genoese and a select body of the Greeks, having received two wounds, one in the thigh and the other in the hand, was so disheartened

This emperor is denominated XIII., because, in the imperial catalogue, a son of Constantine XI. is ranked as Constantine XII., though he enjoyed no more than the title under his elder brother Michael,

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that he caused himself to be conveyed to Galata, where he soon after died of grief. His men, dismayed at the sudden flight of their general, immediately quitted their posts, and fled in the utmost confusion. However, the emperor, attended with a few of the most resolute of the nobility, still kept his post, striving, with unparalleled resolution, to oppose the multitude of barbarians, that now broke in from every quarter. But being, in the end, overpowered with numbers, and seeing all his friends dead on the ground, "What! cried he aloud, is there no Christian left alive, to strike off my head?" had scarce uttered these words, when one of the enemy, not knowing him, cut him across the face with his sabre, and another coming behind him, with a blow on the back part of his head, laid him dead on the ground. After the death of the emperor, the few Christians who were left alive, fled; and the Turks, meeting with no further opposition, entered the city, which they filled with blood and slaughter. They gave no quarter, but put all they met to the sword, without distinction. Many thousands took refuge in the church of St. Sophia, but they were all massacred in their asylum by the enraged barbarians, who, prompted by cruelty, revenge, and love of booty, spared no place nor person. Most of the nobility were, by the sultan's order cut off, and the rest kept for purposes more grievous than death itself. Many of the inhabitants, among whom were some men of great learning, escaped, while the Turks were busied in plundering the city. These, embarking in five ships then in the harbour, arrived safe in Italy, where, with the study of the Greek tongue, they revived the liberal sciences, which had long been neglected in the west. After the expiration of three days, Mahomet commanded his soldiers to forbear all farther hostilities, on pain of death; and then put an end to as cruel a pillage and massacre as any recorded in history. The next day he made his triumphal entry into Constantinople, and chose it for the seat of the Turkish empire, which it has continued to be ever since. Thus terminated the empire of the East, 1123 years after its establishment at Constantinople.

DAVID, of the imperial family of Comnenus, the last emperor of Trebizond, succeeded John, his brother. He was dethroned by Mahomet II., emperor of the Turks, who gave him his choice, either to embrace the Mahometan religion, or to suffer death. He preferred the latter, and was exposed to dreadful torments. This took place in 1461.

PAUL ERIZZO, was governor of Negropont. When obliged to capitulate to the Turks, on condition of having his life spared, Mahomet II. ordered him, in 1469, to be sawn in two, and cut off, with his own hands, the head of his daughter, who refused to gratify his passion.

GEORGE, prince of Servia, was exposed to the attacks of Mahomet II., to whom he had given his daughter Mary in marriage. After seeing his children cruelly treated by the enemy, and his cities depopulated, he died, in consequence of a wound which he had received, in 1457, in a battle against the Hungarians.

TURKS, &c.

AMURATH II., emperor of the Turks, was the eldest son of Mahomet I., and succeeded his father in 1421. He besieged Constantinople and Belgrade without success; but he took Thessalonica from the Venetians, and compelled the prince of Bosnia and John Castriot, prince of Albania, to pay him tribute. He obliged the latter to send his three sons as hostages; among whom was George, celebrated in history by the name of Scanderbeg. John Huniades defeated Amurath's troops, and obliged him to make peace with the princes, in 1442. The princes afterwards breaking their peace, Amurath defeated them in the famous battle of Varna, November 10th, 1444, which proved so fatal to the Christians, and in which Ladislaus, king of Hungary, was killed. He afterwards defeated Huniades, and killed about 20,000 of his men; but George Castriot, better known by the name of Scanderbeg, being established in the estates of his father, defeated the Turks several times, and obliged Amurath to raise the siege of Croia, the capital of Albany. Amurath died, chagrined with his ill success, in 1451, at Adrianople. He left behind him a very high character among his subjects, as well for civil as military virtues; and his piety and munificence in building mosques, caravanseras, colleges, and hospitals, and in bestowing alms on the devotees of his religion, are much extolled. He had too much of the Mahometan conqueror, in whose estimation cruelty and violence are sanctioned in the propagation of the faith; yet it is generally acknowledged, that he seldom drew the sword without previous provocation, and that he observed his treaties with inviolable fidelity.

SCANDERBEG, or Lord Alexander, whose proper name was George Castriot, king of Albania, a province of Turkey in Europe, was born in 1404. He was delivered up with his three elder brothers, as hostages, by their father, to Amurath II., sultan of the Turks, who poisoned his brothers, but spared him on account of his youth, being likewise pleased with his juvenile wit and amiable person. In a short time, he became one of the most renowned generals of the age; and revolting from Amurath, he joined Huniades, a most formidable enemy

of the Turks. He defeated the sultan's army; took Amurath's secretary prisoner, obliged him to sign and seal an order to the governor of Croia, the capital of Albania, to deliver up the citadel and the city to the bearer of that order, in the name of the sultan. With this forced order, he repaired to Croia, and thus recovered the throne of his ancestors, and maintained the independency of his country against the numerous armies of Amurath and his successor, Mahomet II., who was obliged to make peace with this hero in 1461. He then went to the assistance of Ferdinand of Arragon, at the request of pope Pius II.; and by his assistance Ferdinand gained a complete victory over his enemy, the count of Anjou. Scanderbeg died

in 1467.

Scanderbeg was one of the greatest warriors of his time. Possessed of uncommon strength and dexterity, his prowess in the field resembled that of a hero of romance; whilst his enterprise and military skill placed him amongst the ablest and most successful of generals. His Jesuit historian, Poncet, has painted him as a genuine Christian hero; but there was too great a mixture of perfidy and cruelty in his character, to render this title applicable in any other view than as the perpetual antagonist of the Christian name. His morals in private life, are, however, said to be pure, and he inculcated sobriety and continence to his soldiers. The Turks gave a singular proof of their admiration of his valour; for when they took Lissa, they dug up his bones with great respect, and made use of them as relics, set in gold and silver, to be worn about their persons, as an amulet.

MAHOMET II., surnamed the Great, emperor of the Turks, was born at Adrianople, the 24th of March, 1430, and succeeded his father Amurath II., in 1451. He took Constantinople in 1453, and thereby drove many learned Greeks into the West, which was a great cause of the restoration of learning in Europe, as the Greek literature was then introduced here. He was one of the greatest men upon record, considered merely as a conqueror; for he conquered two empires, twelve kingdoms, and 200 considerable cities. He was very ambitious of the title of Great, which both Turks and Christians have given him. He was the first of the Ottoman emperors whom the western nations dignified with the title of Grand Seignior, or Great Turk, which posterity has preserved to his descendants. Italy had suffered greater calamities, but had never felt a terror equal to that which this sultan's victories imprinted. The inhabitants seemed already condemned to wear the turban; and the pope, Sixtus IV., dreading the fate of Constantinople, thought of escaping into Provence, and transferring the holy see to Avignon. Hence, the news of Mahomet's death, which happened on the 3d of

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