UNDER HUNGARIAN SUPREMACY 203
town of Scutari, but the castle held out (1404). With the help of Sandalj Hranic and the Albanian magnates Venice soon recovered all that she had lost, and by June, 1407, Balsa and his ambitious mother Helena had to sue for peace and give way on all points. Balsa, however, did not carry out his engagements, and Venice resorted to the threat of calling in the help of Bayazet to force him to do so (January, 1409) ; in June of the same year the Venetian fleet sailed down the Adriatic and put in at Ragusa, where the Capitano in Golfo met the envoy of Sandalj.1 Balsa, being now thoroughly frightened, went to Venice with his mother and signed a further agreement. But in 1410 he again raided the Venetian possessions and attacked Scutari with a large force. Benedetto Contarini defended the town with great skill, and received much assistance from a Ragusan flotilla operating on the lake.2 Balsa having also threatened Cattaro, that town offered itself to the Venetians, who were ready to occupy it; but now Sandalj came forward with his claims on it, which caused further complications. Ragusa, although allied to Venice, tried to better her relations with Balsa on account of her Albanian trade. But this ambiguous attitude was not quite successful, and Ragusan merchants ended by suffering molestations both from the Venetians and from Balsa’s subjects. In 1412 peace was concluded, and Balsa restored everything.
   Once the danger from Balsa was passed Ragusan hostility against Venice revived again, and the Senate wrote to protest against Venetian depredations in Albanian and Sicilian waters. The Republic still desired the
    1 Ref. 1407-1411, fol. 245.	2 Gelcich, Balia, 271.