386 the republic of ragusa
and imploring him to free them from Ragusa’s yoke and take them under his protection. At the same time the Republic sent two envoys to Vienna to explain the situation from the Ragusan point of view, and to represent Brady as an accomplice of the Turks and the schismatics and a protector of rebels; and also an envoy to the Divan, to say that Austria was meditating an invasion of the Herzegovina.1 The Emperor ordered Brady to pacify the insurgents, but without using force. When the Austrian Foreign Office heard of the mission to Constantinople it was much incensed, but dAjala managed to hush the matter up. The Senate then redressed the grievances of the Canalesi, and succeeded in restoring order. But the leaders of the movement were subsequently punished on various pretexts, and this led to further trouble in future. The deficit was met by the suppression of the rich monastery of Lacroma, and the seizure of its property.
   These immediate troubles and dangers having been warded off, there follows a period of five years (1800-1805) which is perhaps the most prosperous in the whole history of the Republic. All the other States of the Mediterranean, large or small, were involved in war ; Ragusa alone remained neutral, and therefore enjoyed almost a monopoly of the carrying trade. Her ships were more numerous than they had ever been before, and her income enormous. English privateers harried French commerce, and French ones that of England ; Venice was no longer of any mercantile importance; the Turks plundered all Christian ships except those of Ragusa. The Senate, 1 R. P. Pregadi, July; Pisani, ibid.