DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.55699#0030
12 THE LANDSCAPE ANNUAL.
Thus left free to conjecture, the populace was not
long in determining on whom to fix their suspicions, and
the Spanish ambassador was obliged to save himself from
their fury by a precipitate flight. His escape served to
confirm them in this opinion of his guilt, and whether the
idea was false or true, the council still left them without
any clue to resolve the mystery. To increase, however,
both their wonder and their doubt, another Spanish ambas-
sador was allowed to settle in Venice—the whole affair
remained unexplained, and no public documents ap-
peared to record its occurrence; but when the agitation
caused by the circumstance had nearly subsided, and
about five months after it happened, the senate gave or-
ders for a public thanksgiving to Providence for having
saved the republic from destruction.
This extraordinary occurrence, it is strange to relate,
was never cleared up, and what is still stranger, many of
the politicians of the time believed it to be altogether a
fabrication of the Council of Ten to favour its secret
policy with regard to Spain, and its other suspected
allies. In a letter from the French ambassador to his
brother, quoted by the historian of Venice, in his re-
lation of these events, we find him broadly asserting his
belief, that no conspiracy whatever had existed, and that
the council had only suffered the report to gain ground
to colour its own barbarous acts.
But the deep and hitherto successful projects of this
mysterious government were in a few years to be proved
altogether unequal to meet the new spirit of enter-
prise then abroad in the world. The instability of the
government, and an universal corruption of manners, con-
Thus left free to conjecture, the populace was not
long in determining on whom to fix their suspicions, and
the Spanish ambassador was obliged to save himself from
their fury by a precipitate flight. His escape served to
confirm them in this opinion of his guilt, and whether the
idea was false or true, the council still left them without
any clue to resolve the mystery. To increase, however,
both their wonder and their doubt, another Spanish ambas-
sador was allowed to settle in Venice—the whole affair
remained unexplained, and no public documents ap-
peared to record its occurrence; but when the agitation
caused by the circumstance had nearly subsided, and
about five months after it happened, the senate gave or-
ders for a public thanksgiving to Providence for having
saved the republic from destruction.
This extraordinary occurrence, it is strange to relate,
was never cleared up, and what is still stranger, many of
the politicians of the time believed it to be altogether a
fabrication of the Council of Ten to favour its secret
policy with regard to Spain, and its other suspected
allies. In a letter from the French ambassador to his
brother, quoted by the historian of Venice, in his re-
lation of these events, we find him broadly asserting his
belief, that no conspiracy whatever had existed, and that
the council had only suffered the report to gain ground
to colour its own barbarous acts.
But the deep and hitherto successful projects of this
mysterious government were in a few years to be proved
altogether unequal to meet the new spirit of enter-
prise then abroad in the world. The instability of the
government, and an universal corruption of manners, con-