under legitimate refuse of normal work, but points plainly to the voluntary destruction of undamaged and precious material.” It is scarcely surprising that with so little care for the preservation of discipline in the Arsenal and for the efficiency of its workmen Venice fell behind. The Arsenal had indeed become, as Martinelli says, “a monument of the generous conceptions of the past--a monument, like the church and campanile of San Marco, beautiful, admirable, glorious, but as completely incapable as they of offering any service to the State.” Similar abuses existed also in the manning of the ships. The officers were for the most part idle and incompetent, and the despatches of the Provveditori are a tissue of lamentable statements as to the depression of that which had been, and while Venice was to retain her supremacy, must ever be, the mainstay of her power. There is desertion among the crews and operatives; the outfit provided for them is unsuitable and inadequate. Nicolò Erizzo, Provveditor Extraordinary to the Islands of the Levant, concludes a despatch, dated October 30, 1764, as follows: “Thus it comes about that your Excellencies have no efficient and capable officers of marine, and if an occasion were ever to arise when it were necessary to send them to some distant part, let me not be deemed presumptuous if I venture frankly to assure you that they would be in great straits. I had a proof of the truth of this when I launched the galley recently built; for the officers themselves begged me to put a ship’s captain on board, since at a little distance from land they did not trust themselves, nor did they blush to confess it in making this request.”