In spite of the treaty, however, the Venetians never did well in the East after that, and their old enemies the Genoese got the better of them in the trade of the Black Sea, for the Turks were by no means satisfied yet with what they had taken, and Venice was more or less engaged during the next twenty years in trying to protect her Mediterranean colonies. She had suffered considerably in her fortunes, though her credit appeared inexhaustible. Romanin has unearthed some curious figures. He estimates the loss of property by the fall of Constantinople at three hundred thousand ducats, and says that there were a number of bad commercial failures in Venice in consequence, notably that of Andrea Priuli, for twenty-four thousand ducats. The aggregate estimated value of the houses in Venice diminished between 1425 and 1445 by thirteen thousand ducats, which does not seem very disastrous where the whole reached three hundred and sixty thousand; but the war with Milan alone cost seven million ducats in ten years, in 1428 the Venetian Chamber of Commerce owed nine millions, and Romanin adds that in 1440 the bonds of the public debt were only worth eighteen and a half per cent of their nominal value, a statement in which there seems to be some mistake, unless that extreme depression was merely momentary. There can be no doubt but that the acquisition of extensive territory by warfare, and the reckless extravagance which became only too common in Foscari’s brilliant reign, had led to a serious diminution of wealth and population, and had burdened the Republic with a debt from which she was never to free herself again. An attempt was made by Pope Pius II. to send a crusade against the Turks, and as such an expedition, if it had resulted in the expulsion of the Turks, would have been much to the advantage of Venice, she lent her support readily. The Pope, however, died suddenly when he was about to bless the united fleet on its departure from Ancona, and the result was that the whole alliance broke up at once, and those who had composed it departed for their homes without delay.