The independence of Venice was not built on usurpation, nor cemented with blood; it was founded on the first law of human nature, and the undoubted rights of man. About the middle of the fifth century, when Europe formed one continued scene of violence and bloodshed; a hatred of tyranny, a love of liberty, and a dread of the cruelty of Barbarians, prompted the Veneti, a people inhabiting a small district of Italy, a few of the inhabitants of Padua, and some peasants who lived on the fertile banks of the Po, to seek an asylum from the fury of Atilla, amongst the little islands and marshes at the bottom of the Adriatic Gulph. Before this time some fishermen had built small houses, or huts, on one of these islands, called Rialto. The city of Padua, with a view to draw commercial advantages from this establishment, encouraged some of her inhabitants to settle there, and sent every year three or four citizens to act as magistrates. When Attila had taken and destroyed Aquileia, great numbers from all the neighbouring countries fled to Rialto; whose size being augmented by new houses, took the name of Venice, from the district from which the greater number of the earliest refugees had fled. On the death of Attila, many returned to their former habitations; but those who preferred freedom and security to all other advantages, remained at Venice. Such was the beginning of this celebrated republic. Some nice distinguishers pretend, that this was the beginning of their freedom, but not of their independency; for they assert, that the Venetians were dependent on Padua, as their mother city. It is certain that the Paduans claimed such a prerogative over this infant state, and attempted to subject her to some commercial restrictions; these were rejected by the Venetians, as arbitrary and vexatious. Disputes arose very dangerous to both; but they ended in Venice entirely throwing off the jurisdiction of Padua. It is curious, and not unworthy of serious attention in the present age, to see the parent now totally subjected to the child, whom she wished to retain in too rigorous a dependence. The irruption of the Lombards into Italy, while it spread havoc and destruction over the adjacent country, was the cause of a great accession of strength to Venice, by the numbers of new refugees who fled to it with all the wealth they could carry, and became subjects of this state.