There was now open hostility between the inhabitants and the invaders, and each side prepared to opposites com the other. The Greeks made a milts attempt to burn the Venetian fleet. They prepared seventeen boats, set fire to the wood and various combustibles with which they had been loaded, and at midnight on New Year’s Day, when a strong southerly wind was blowing, turned them adrift. The attempt, however, failed. A few persons were injured, and a Pisan merchantman was burned, with her cargo; but the Venetians with their boat-hooks managed to push the burning ships away from them to the mouth of the harbor, where the strong current which is always running soon carried them out of the way of doing harm. A week after the Greeks made a sortie with their cavalry, but were repulsed.
The people Revolution
Within the city the confusion increased daily. The people Revolution in were convinced that they had nothing to hope the city. from either emperor. They had at length awakened to a sense of danger. The question was no longer one of a mere change of rulers, but one of fulfilling a contract to which they were no party, of paying a band of robbers who were without the walls for a service which their young emperor had requested, but which they had not desired, and for which they certainly had no reason to be grateful. What they wanted was a ruler who would not allow them to be plundered. They saw an enemy which had already done them grievous wrong, and were burning to be delivered from him. The policy of Alexis seemed to the citizens to be to sacrifice everything in order to keep on good terms with their enemies. Even the Crusaders admitted that he was doing what he could for them. He was divided between loyalty to his own subjects and fear of displeasing Philip of Swabia and his late companions.
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