and to be called the pregadi: this too was approved. The grand council of four hundred and ſeventy, the ſenate of ſixty, the ſix counſellors, and eleven electors, were accordingly all choſen, and the laſt were ſworn to chooſe a doge, without partiality, favour, or affection: and the new-choſen doge, having taken care to diſtribute money among the multitude, was received with univerſal acclamations. In his reign was inſtituted, by permiſſion of the pope, the curious ceremony of wedding the ſea, by a ring caſt into it, in ſignum veri et perpetui imperii. Under the next doge the avogadors were inſtituted, to ſee that the laws were fully executed.
In the thirteenth century, ſix new magiſtrates, called correctors, were created by the ſenate, to enquire into all abuſes during the reign of a deceaſed doge, and report them to the ſenate; and it was enacted, that the fortune of the doge ſgould indemnify the ſtate for whatever damage it had ſuffered during his adminiſtration: and theſe correctors have been appointed, at the deceaſe of every doge ſince that time. In the next reign, a new tribunal of forty was erected, for the trial of civil cauſes. In the thirteenth century, a new method of appointing the doge, by the famous ballot of Venice, a complicated mixture of choice and chance, was adopted.
Each of the grand counſellors, now augmented to forty-one to avoid the inconvenience of an equal diviſion, draws a ball out of a box, containing thirty gilt, and the reſt white; thoſe who draw the gilt ones go into another room, where is a box with thirty balls, nine of which are gilt; draw again, and thoſe who obtain the gilt balls are the firſt electors; who chooſe forty, comprehending themſelves in that number; the forty,
