298 RHODES vention assembled in November and adjourned to February, 1842, when they agreed upon a constitution, which was submitted to the peo- ple on March 21, 22, and 23, and rejected. In June the legislature called another convention, which met at Providence in September and subsequently adjourned to East Greenwich, where on Nov. 5 it agreed upon the present constitution, which was ratified by the people almost unanimously. It went into effect on the first Tuesday of May, 1843. In 1861 a con- troversy respecting the boundary with Massa- chusetts, transmitted from colonial times, was settled by the cession on the part of Rhode Island of that portion of the town of Tiver- ton containing the village of Fall River, in ex- change for the town of Pawtucket and a part of Seekonk (now known as East Providence). In 1861 Rhode Island sent off a body of troops for the defence of "Wfashington three days after President Lincoln issued his proclamation call- ing upon the states for troops. During the war she furnished 23,711 men to the federal armies, equivalent to 17,878 for three years. RHODES (ancient and modern Gr. Rhodes, from <Wov, a rose). I. An island of Turkey in the Mediterranean, off the S. W. coast of Asia Minor, from which it is separated by a chan- nel 10m. wide. It is between lat. 35 50' and 36 30' N., and Ion. 27 40' and 28 20' E. ; area, about 452 sq. m. ; pop. about 84,000, of whom about 7,000 are Turks, 2,000 Jews, and the remainder Greeks, with a few hundred Franks or Europeans. It is ruled by a pasha, who holds office for life, governing also the adjoining islands belonging to Turkey, and who farms the revenues. It is the seat of an archbishop of the Greek church. The island is divided lengthwise, N. and S., by a mountain chain or ridge. The loftiest summits are Ar- tamiti, the ancient Atabyris, about 6,000 ft. high, and Attairo, 4,000 ft. The most consid- erable river is the Fisco. The well watered and fertile valleys are not fully cultivated. Some cotton is grown, and a tract of low bills next to the coast district still produces the perfumed wine for which the island was once celebrated. The climate is said to be the finest in the Mediterranean. Commerce is carried on in oil, oranges, citrons, coral, sponges, leather, and marble. The earliest historical inhabitants of Rhodes were of Doric race, and the three most ancient towns of the island, Lindus, laly- sus, and Camirus, formed, together with Cos, Cnidus, and Halicarnassus on the mainland, the confederation called the Doric hexapolis. At a remote period Rhodes was populous and prosperous. It was one of the stations of Phoenician commerce, and though in a state of decadence at the time of the fall of Sidon, it continued for several centuries to be one of the principal centres of trade, and sent colonies to Spain, Italy, and .Sicily, as well as to the coasts of Asia Minor. In conjunction with Asiatic Greeks and Cnidians, the Rhodians es- tablished in 578 B. C. a colony on the N. E. coast of Spain, to which was given the name of Rhoda (now Rosas.) The island did not take a prominent position among the Grecian states till 408, when the three cities before named joined in building the city of Rhodes, which thenceforth became the capital. The island fell under the dominion of Alexander the Great, but after his death the Macedonian garrison was expelled, and Rhodes entered upon the most glorious epoch of her history, during which her power was admitted by all the surrounding nations, and her dominion, in consequence of her alliance with Rome against Antiochus the Great and others, established for a time over a portion of the adjacent coast of Asia Minor. The Rhodians remained faith- ful to Rome during the Mithridatic wars, en- tered actively into her civil wars, and their adhesion to the party of Cresar was severely punished by the capture and plunder of the city of Rhodes in 42 B. C. From this period the island rapidly declined in political power, though it long continued to be famous as a seat of learning. It was finally deprived of its autonomy by the emperor Vespasian. In 330 the city was made the metropolis of the Provincia Insularum. Upon the ruin of the empire of the East the island fell successively into the hands of the caliphs, the crusaders, and the Genoese; and in 1309 the knights of St. John of Jerusalem, who had been compelled to evacuate Palestine, landed at Rhodes, and under the grand master Foulque de Villaret vanquished the Moslems and Greeks in several encounters, and made themselves masters of the city and the island. The knights held the place for two centuries, and in 1522 Sultan Solyman tho Magnificent advanced against it with an army numbering upward of 200,000. There was on the island to oppose this only a force of 6,000, headed by the grand master Villiers de 1'Isle-Adain. After a siege that lasted through the whole summer, almost in- numerable assaults, and a most heroic defence, the city capitulated in October, and has ever since remained under its present masters. The surviving defenders were allowed to leave the island. (See SAINT JOHN OF JERUSALEM, KNIGHTS OF.) Rhodes has many times been visited by earthquakes; that of April 22, 1863. ruined hundreds of dwellings and destroyed thousands of lives. There are now on the island about 44 villages, thinly populated. II. The chief city and capital of the island, on the N. E. coast ; pop. about 20,000, Turks, Greeks, and Jews. It is built in the form of an am- phitheatre upon a bay between two capes, and is surrounded by ancient walls and towers built by the knights of St. John. There are two harbors, separated by a narrow quay. The palace of the grand master was a large and handsome building and commanded the city; it was much injured by the explosion of a pow- der magazine in 1856, and the earthquake of 1863 completely destroyed it, as well as the once magnificent church of St. John, then f-
