In this new war, their late General Morsini again had the command of the fleets and armies of the republic, and sustained the great reputation he had acquired in Candia. He conquered the Morea, which was ceded formally to Venice, with some other acquisition, at the peace of Carlowitz, in the last year of the last century. During the war of the succession, the State of Venice observed a strict neutrality. They considered that dispute as unconnected with their interests, taking care, however, to keep on foot an army on their frontiers in Italy, of sufficient force to make them respected by the contending Powers. But, soon after the peace of Utrecht, the Venetians were again attacked by their old enemies the Turks; who, beholding the great European Powers exhausted by their late efforts, and unable to assist the republic, thought this the favourable moment for recovering the Morea, which had been so lately ravished from them. The Turks obtained their object, and at the peace of Passarowitz, which terminated this unsuccessful war, the Venetian State yielded up the Morea; the Grand Seignior, on his part, restoring to them the small islands of Cerigo and Cerigotto, with some places which his troops had taken during the course of the war in Dalmatia. Those, with the islands of Corfou, Santa Maura, Zante, and Cephalonia, the remains of their dominions in the Levant, they have since fortified, at a great expence, as their only barriers against the Turk. Since this period no essential alteration has taken place in the Venetian government, nor has there been any essential increase, or diminution, in the extent of their dominions. They have little to fear at present from the Turks, whose attention is sufficiently occupied by a more formidable enemy than the republic and the House of Austria united. Besides, if the Turks were more disengaged, as they have now stripped the republic of Cyprus, Candia, and their possessions in Greece, what remains in the Levant is hardly worth their attention.