The speech to which I have alluded was delivered not very many years after the time when a number of seats in the Grand Council had been sold in order to meet the expenses of the Turkish war. In 1775, in order to increase the numbers of the Council, it was proposed to admit to it forty noble families from the provinces, provided they could prove that they had a yearly income of ten thousand ducats. The proposal was energetically opposed by a Contarini. If the sons of ancient families showed so little zeal for the public welfare, he argued, what could be expected of strangers? Was it wise to display to all Europe the evils from which the Republic was suffering? Moreover, even if the bill were passed, would it be easy to find forty families willing to leave their homes and establish themselves in the capital to the great damage of their fortunes? And if they were found, would their admission not result in impoverishing the provinces by the amount of their incomes which would be spent in Venice? It was luxury and extravagance that were ruining the country, he said. A lively discussion followed. ‘Beloved sons,’ cried one old noble, ‘for us who are old there may be a little of the Republic left, but for you children it is completely finished!’ The bill passed, but Contarini had been right; only about ten families asked to be inscribed in the Golden Book. Satirists and lampooners made merry with the proceedings of the Great Council. After the stormy sittings just referred to, the caricatures of the five patricians entrusted with framing measures of reform were to be seen everywhere in the city, and a copy of the cut is still in the Archives. It [Sidenote: _Rom. viii. 211._] represents the most eloquent and zealous of the committee, Alvise Emo, urging his horse against an enormous marble column; two of his colleagues follow him in a post-chaise and observe his movements with a spy-glass; a fourth, who is lame, is trying to follow the carriage on foot, and the fifth comes after him, beating him to make him mend his pace. On the twenty-second of May 1779 the secretary of the Inquisitors of State wrote to his brother Giuseppe Gradenigo, then in France: ‘If these gentlemen do not seriously think of taking measures to meet the events which are brewing, if they do not introduce some order into the affairs of the army and navy, the Republic will be lost as soon as an enemy appears on land or by sea.’