[58] In 1587, when the armada was in preparation, Queen Elizabeth tried to draw Sultan Amurath III. into an alliance with her against Philip and the Pope. Von Hammer gives the letters written on the occasion. With characteristic astuteness she appealed to the religious sympathies of the Turk, making common cause with him as the “destroyer of idolatry,” and declaring that together they could “strike down the proud Spaniard and the lying Pope with all their adherents.” Such were the representations made by the English envoy as to the religious belief of his queen and nation, that one of the Turkish ministers remarked to the Austrian ambassador, that “nothing more was wanted to turn the English into good Mussulmans than that they should lift a finger and recite the Eshdad” (or creed of Mahomet).
[59] Von Hammer makes the Turkish fleet consist of 240 galleys and 60 vessels of smaller size, just 300 in all. His account of the Christian fleet is as follows: 70 Spanish galleys, 6 Maltese, 3 Savoy, 12 Papal, 108 Venetian; in all 199 galleys, to which he adds 6 huge galeasses contributed by Venice; making the sum-total 205 vessels.
[60] Vertot. Von Hammer, as has been said, mentions six.
[61] Von Hammer says that Ouloudj Ali struck off Giustiniani’s head with his own hand. Contarini, on the contrary, writes that he was “so badly wounded that he was all but killed.”
[62] All the members of the order did not live in community; some were scattered about, and were liable to be called in, in case of emergencies—e. g. we find several Knights of St. John among the early governors and settlers of Canada.
[63] “A trifling price to pay (he says in the Preface to the second part of Don Quixote) for the honour of partaking in the first great action in which the naval supremacy of the Ottoman was successfully disputed by Christian arms.”
[64] Von Hammer says fifteen; and that the Turks lost 224 vessels, of which 94 were burnt or shattered on the coast; the rest were divided among the allies. But this calculation leaves 36 vessels unaccounted for, after reckoning the 40 which Ouloudj Ali succeeded in saving. The number of prisoners he estimates at 3468.
[65] Sutherland, vol. ii. p. 244.
[66] Cervantes calls it “that day so fortunate to Christendom, when all nations were undeceived of their error in believing the Turks to be invincible at sea.” Don Quixote.
[67] It was calculated by contemporary writers of credit that, in this very expedition, the Turks carried off into slavery from Austria 6000 men, 11,000 women, 19,000 girls—of whom 200 were of noble extraction—and 56,000 children.