Note 116 — Chapter III · VENETIAN SUPREMACY

We have often quoted this chronicle of “Esadastes,” not because of the value of its arguments, but as characteristic of Ragusan individuality, and of the way in which the Ragusans made every effort to prove and to secure their own independence. They regarded themselves not only as independent of Venice, but as distinct from the rest of Dalmatia, and they were always afraid that the great Republic might one day claim their alligiance. Hence their efforts to prove that that allegiance had never really existed, or at least that it had had no practical effect.