landing upon the island of Negropont, which he carried by assault. A second attempt upon Rhodes, executed, it is stated, at the head of a hundred thousand men, by one of his ablest lieutenants, was a failure, with loss to the assailants. Mohammed was preparing to go to that point himself with an immense army assembled on the shores of Ionia, which Vertot estimates at three hundred thousand men; but death closed his career, and the project was not carried into effect.
About the same period England began to be formidable to her neighbors on land as well as on the sea; the Dutch also, reclaiming their country from the inroads of the sea, were laying the foundations of a power more extraordinary even than that of Venice.
Edward III. landed in France and besieged Calais with eight hundred ships and forty thousand men.
Henry V. made two descents in 1414 and 1417: he had, it is stated, fifteen hundred vessels and only thirty thousand men, of whom six thousand were cavalry.
All the events we have described as taking