received by the Ottoman prince at the imperial court. Next, he virtually began the siege of the city. A fortress had been erected by his grandfather Bajazet on the Asiatic side of the Bosporus, where its waters are narrowest, and his father Amurath is said to have vowed, after his victory at Varna, the erection of a similar fortress to confront it on the European shore. Mahomet determined to fulfil this vow. He would thereby have a safe and easy passage from Europe to Asia, and thus his dominions in the two continents would be securely linked together. He would be free from apprehension as to the approach of an enemy's fleet from the west. As however the spot was but five miles distant from Constantinople, a fortress on it would be a direct menace to the city. It was natural that the emperor should remonstrate. The act could not possibly be reconciled with the sultan's peaceful professions. In his reply to the emperor's ambassadors Mahomet showed very clearly what was in his heart. "Have you the right or the power to contest my actions on my own ground?" It was his ground because, as he went on to say, "as far as the shores of the Bosporus Asia was inhabited by the Turks, and Europe deserted by the Europeans." He regarded it, it would seem, as bought with Turkish money, in consideration of the pension paid to the Ottoman prince, and as therefore Turkish property. "My resolutions," he added, "surpass the wishes of my predecessors." There could no mistake about the meaning of such language. The emperor saw now that he might as well draw the sword at once, and he would have done
