264 THE REPUBLIC OF RAGUSA
the ports of the Infidel, for the purpose of conveying pilgrims thither, and of trading; to maintain consuls, erect churches, and establish cemeteries in those countries.” That Ragusan trade extended as far as England is proved by the letter of Barbarigo, the Venetian ambassador to the Porte, who in 1513 passed through the city on his way to Constantinople. He wrote that in the harbour was a ship which “ had come from England laden with 9000 pieces of cloth worth 85,000 ducats, besides tin and various kinds of stuff valued at 13,000 ducats, all belonging to Ragusans; and to-day, the third day, another ship of 5000 botti has departed laden with silks and Zambeloti worth 100,000 ducats, besides 12,000 ducats’ worth of gropi, all belonging to Ragusans and Florentines.” He adds that the wealth of Ragusa was very great and incredible.1 In 1526 Clement VII. addressed a Brief to the Chancellor and Councillors of the Duchy of Brittany, who had seized a Ragusan ship coming from England laden with English goods, believing it to be English property.2 Part of the cargo was recovered, but the loss amounted to 70,000 ducats, which caused a number of bankruptcies at Ragusa.3
   Ragusan trade with the Greeks continued down to the fall of the last Greek despotates in the Morea. In June 1451, only two months before the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, the Republic received a Golden Bull from the Emperor Constantine Palaeologus, decreeing that the Ragusans in the capital might build themselves a church and an official residence for the
1 Valentinelli’s extracts from Sanudo, i. 297.
2 Theiner, Mon. Slav. Mer., i. 805.	3 Ragnina.