The Turkish menace was notified to the Pope and to the King of Bosnia, while at the same time the Senate tried to bribe the Sultan by offering to raise the tribute to 1400 ducats. According to local historians, Murad desisted from his proposals out of admiration for the magnanimity of the citizens in respecting the laws of hospitality; but the real reason is probably to be found in his alarm at the attitude of Hungary, and in the fact that the city’s defences promised a long and difficult siege. In any case Murad was pacified, and in 1443 Ali Beg arrived at Ragusa, and a treaty of peace was signed which returned to the _status quo_.[384] King Sigismund had been operating against the Turks in various directions, and obtained the loan of some Ragusan ships to transport the Sultan’s rebellious son (or brother) from Segna to Albania.[385] But he was not very successful in any direction, and it seemed as though the end of the Bosnian kingdom were at hand. On his death he was succeeded by Albert, who died soon after, and then the Polish King Ladislas came to the throne, and to the rescue. It is interesting to note that in the embassy sent to him by Tvrtko to ask for help allusion was made to the common origin of the Bosnians and the Poles—an early expression of pan-Slavism.[386] Ladislas was assisted by the famous leader John Hunyadi, who in 1442 defeated the Turks again and again in the Carpathians. In June 1443 Ladislas and Hunyadi, with an army of Hungarians, Serbs, Bosnians, and Bulgarians, invaded the enemy’s country and defeated Murad at the Kunovica Pass near Philippopolis. Peace was signed between Hungary and the Turks soon after, by the terms of which Servia was given back to the Despot George Branković, and Bosnia freed from the invaders, but Stephen Tvrtko died before this was accomplished. He was succeeded by Stephen Thomas, who in September 1444 held a Diet of the Magnates at Kreševo, where the Ragusan envoys came to greet him on his accession. He confirmed the Republic in possession of the Primorije and of Canali, for which he was to receive the Servian tribute of 2000 _ipperperi_ on St. Demetrius’s day, and the Bosnian tribute of 500 on that of San Biagio. This shows that Bosnia was once more the chief South-Slavonic State and had annexed all the western part of the former dominions of the Servian Tsars. Servia itself was little more than a vassal State of the Turks. During the war Ragusa had made gifts and paid tribute to the Sultan to secure immunity for the Ragusan merchants in Turkish territory and obtain the renewal of the privileges. To this the King of Hungary does not seem to have taken much exception.[387]