THE FALL OF THE REPUBLIC 413
from the police to quit the town within a fortnight. He then departed, leaving a dignified protest against the insults offered to him, and against the denial of justice to the claims of his fellow-citizens.
   At Ragusa the nobles continued in their opposition, and assailed all the magistrates who did not belong to their own order. General Tomasic, to please them, dismissed three officials who were of the bourgeoisie and put nobles in their places. Emboldened by this concession, they went about declaring that the Congress of Vienna was going to proclaim the independence of Ragusa, like that of the Republic of Cracow. “ The Ragusans,” as Pisani writes, “ had but too much reason to compare their own fate to that of Poland, and in seeking the causes of their misfortunes one may find more than one feature of resemblance between them and the Poles.” 1
   At last General Milutinovic lost patience, and when a deputation of nobles came to propose a series of administrative reforms which would have prepared the way for the restoration of the Constitution, he threatened to imprison all who took part in secret conclaves, and in his report of April 4 he denounced the nobles for their correspondence with the Turks. But when he departed to attack Cattaro for the second time, he left a Hungarian officer named Wittman, a weak and incapable person, in charge, and under his feeble rule the plots began again. The nobles succeeded in winning back Caboga to their side, by showing him (according to Pisani) some forged documents, in which it was stated that the Congress really intended to re-establish Ragusan 1 Pisani, pp. 457-58.