The maritime strength of the Italian republics, especially of Genoa and Venice, corresponded to their vast commercial interests and the number of colonies they were expected to enlarge and defend. Thus, the Pisans in 1114 sent an armament, consisting of 300 vessels of various sizes, carrying 35,000 men and 900 horses, to the conquest of the Balearic Islands, which had become a nest of Moorish pirates. A great part of these troops were mercenaries procured from all parts of the world, and contingents drawn from their possessions in Sardinia. In 1293 the Genoese fitted out in a single month, against the Venetians, 200 galleys, each of which bore from 220 to 300 combatants recruited within the continental limits of the republic; and in the vast arsenal of Venice during the fourteenth century 800 men were continually at work, and 200 galleys, not to count the smaller craft, were kept ready in port for any emergency that might arise. Such formidable fleets were manned either by voluntary enlistments or impressment; the hope of heavy plunder, according to the barbarous war-system of those days, which the church strove against but could not wholly change, appealing to young men to serve as sailors or soldiers. The furious rivalry between Genoa and Venice began to show itself soon after the taking of Constantinople by the Franks in 1244, each desiring to reap alone the profits of the Levant trade. After many bloody encounters a peace was patched up in 1298, by which the latter was excluded for thirteen years from the Black Sea, along whose shores the former had colonies, forts, and factories, and was forbidden to send armed vessels to Syria. Terms so propitious raised the pride and influence of Genoa to the utmost; and feared by all, and claiming to be mistress of the seas, she upheld the honor of her flag with extravagant solicitude. In 1332 she wasted the coast of Catalonia with a force of 200 galleys, and inflicted great injury on the commerce of Barcelona; and two years later, having captured twelve ships of the enemy, heavily freighted with merchandise, in the waters of Sicily, Cyprus, and Sardinia, with an example of ferocious cruelty which only the “accursed greed of gold” and a determination to exclude the Catalans from any share in Eastern commerce could prompt, six hundred prisoners were hanged at a single execution. She was resolved to command the seas, and consequently the trade of the world; but her rival, although crippled, was not prostrate, and the fourth war broke out between them in 1372 for possession of the classical island of Tenedos, so valuable as a naval station and renowned for its wheat and excellent red wine. The Genoese actually got into the lagoons of Venice, vowing to reduce her to the stagnant level of the waters, and approached so near to the city that their admiral could shout to the affrighted people on the quays, _Delenda est Carthago_! but by a singular freak of fortune they