Gospel, that it shall be fulfilled, point by point, from
the first to the last. And now, to renew and make more
complete your Grandeur's sense of security, and to re-
move every vestige of doubt from your heart, and
strengthen and deepen your conviction of my sincerity,
I, the said Sultan Bajazet, do hereby swear by the true
God who made heaven and earth, and all things that
are therein, I swear, I say, by the only God in whom we
believe and whom we adore, that I will scrupulously and
religiously hold to what I have said herein, and that I
will neither do nor attempt anything in future to the
prejudice of your Grandeur.
" Done in our palace at Constantinople, the twelfth
of September of the year 1494 since the birth of Christ."

This letter caused the Holy Father unbounded satis-
faction. A paltry four or five thousand Turks would
be of little service in his then plight, and would be
likely to compromise the cause of the supreme head of
Christendom rather than assist it ; whereas three hun-
dred thousand ducats, that is to say, almost a million
lire, was a very convenient thing to receive under any
circumstances. To be sure, so long as Djein lived Alex-
ander received an income of a hundred and eighty
thousand lire, which represented a capital of nearly two
millions ; but when one is in need of money, one must
make a sacrifice for cash. Notwithstanding, Alexander
did not come at once to a determination, other than to
act as circumstances might dictate.
