416 THE REPUBLIC OF RAGUSA
the people to sign a counter-protest. This was done, and Bosdari requested the General to liberate all the nobles who were willing to sign a declaration of submission to the Emperor. Milutinovic agreed, and included the fugitives in the amnesty, on condition that they returned within eight days. The nobles signed the oath, and on September 15 an assembly of the people elected a deputation to go to Zara and swear fealty in the name of all. Milutinovic then addressed a very severe admonition to the nobles, and all of that order who occupied judicial positions were dismissed.1
  The Ragusan archipelago remained under British protection until July 16, 1815. On August 3, 1816, Dalmatia and Ragusa received a definite organisation by Imperial rescript, and Baron Tomasic was appointed Statthalter or Military and Civil Governor, and Milutinovic departed from Ragusa. The Emperor assumed the title of Duke of Ragusa, which his successors still bear.
   Thus ends, after more than twelve hundred years, the history of the Republic of Ragusa. Its Government and citizens may have had their defects, but they were full of a real, if somewhat narrow, patriotism. The State conferred a prosperity and happiness on its inhabitants which have fallen to the lot of few peoples during that long and troubled period, while the peculiar, and almost unique, position occupied in European history and polity by the tiny Commonwealth may perhaps justify the appearance of this volume.
1 Pisani, passim.