The Truce.
1192
The result of the battle of Jaffa greatly strengthened and improved the condition of the Crusaders, and in the same proportion it weakened and discouraged Saladin and the Saracens. But, after all, instead of giving to either party the predominance, it only placed them more nearly on a footing of equality than before. It began to be pretty plain that neither of the contending parties was strong enough, or would soon be likely to be strong enough to accomplish its purposes. Richard could not take Jerusalem from Saladin, nor could Saladin drive Richard out of the Holy Land.
Richard and Saladin agree upon a three years' truce.
In this state of things, it was finally agreed upon between Richard and Saladin that a truce should be made. The negotiations for this truce were protracted through several weeks, and the summer was gone before it was concluded. It was a truce for a long period, the duration of it being more than three years. Still, it was strictly a truce, not a peace, since a termination was assigned to it.
Richard's reason for this course.
The treaty.
Richard preferred to make a truce rather than a peace for the sake of appearances at home. He did not wish that it should be understood that, in leaving the Holy Land and returning home, he abandoned all design of recovering the Holy Sepulchre. He allowed three years, on the supposition that that would be time enough for him to return home, to set every thing in order in his dominions, to organize a new crusade on a larger scale, and to come back again. In the mean time, he reserved, by a stipulation of the treaty, the right to occupy, by such portion of his army as he should leave behind, the portion of territory on the coast which he had conquered, and which he then held, with the exception of one of the cities, which one he was to give up. The terms of the treaty, in detail, were as follows:
STIPULATIONS OF THE TREATY.
The coast.