AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE 337
and of the Revolution, would naturally tend to exaggerate,1 the Republic of Ragusa very favourably impressed an Englishman, Thomas Watkins, who visited the town in 1879. “Of the Ragusans I cannot write too favourably, especially of the nobles and superior order of citizens, who, generally speaking, possess all the good qualities that virtuous example and refined education can bestow, without those vices which prevail in countries more open to foreign intercourse, and consequently more practised in deception. They have more learning and less ostentation than any people I know, more politeness to each other, and less envy. Their hospitality to strangers cannot possibly be exceeded; in short, their general character has in it so few defects that I do not hesitate to pronounce them (as far as my experience of other people will permit me) the wisest, best, and happiest of States.”2 Later the author compares the condition of the Ragusans to those of the Dalmatian subjects of Venice, very unfavourably to the latter. “ I discovered that the wretched Government of Venice had, by sending out their Barnabotti or famished nobility to prey upon the inhabitants, rendered ineffectual the benefits of nature. What a contrast between them and the citizens of Ragusa, who live protected and exempt from all taxes, while they can scarcely subsist upon the rich lands they inhabit, being harassed by every species of extortion that avarice can devise and power exe-
    1	Also the fact that France had destroyed the liberties of the Republic would tend to make Frenchmen of the time dwell on its defects, just as they did in the case of the Venetian Republic.
   2	T. Watkins, Travels through Swisserland ... to Constantinople, vol. ii. Letter xlii. p. 331 sqq.