The Turks make a descent, with a great army, on Cyprus; they invest Famagousta, the capital; the garrison defends it with the most obstinate bravery; the Turks are repulsed in repeated assaults; many thousands of them are slain; but the ranks are constantly supplied by reinforcements. Antonio Bragadino, the commander, having displayed proofs of the highest military skill, and the most heroic courage, his garrison being quite exhausted with fatigue, and greatly reduced in point of numbers, is obliged to capitulate.
The terms were, that the garrison should march out with their arms, baggage, and three pieces of cannon, and should be transported to Candia in Turkish vessels; that the citizens should not be pillaged, but allowed to retire with their effects.
Mustapha, the Turkish Bashaw, no sooner had possession of the place, than he delivered it up to be pillaged by the Janissaries; the garrison were put in chains, and made slaves on board the Turkish gallies. The principal officers were beheaded, and the gallant Bragadino was tied to a pillar, and, in the Bashaw’s presence, flayed alive.
We meet with events in the annals of mankind, that make us doubt the truth of the most authentic history. We cannot believe that such actions have ever been committed by the inhabitants of this globe, and by creatures of the same species with ourselves. We are tempted to think we are perusing the records of hell, whose inhabitants, according to the most authentic accounts, derive a constant pleasure from the tortures of each other, as well as of all foreigners.
The conquest of the island of Cyprus is said to have cost the Turks fifty thousand lives. At this time, not Venice only, but all Christendom, had reason to dread the progress of the Turkish arms. The State of Venice solicited assistance from all the Catholic States; but France was, at that time, in alliance with the Turks; Maximilian dreaded their power; the Crown of Portugal was possessed by a child, and Poland was exhausted by her wars with Russia. The Venetians, on this pressing occasion, received assistance from Rome, whose power they had so often resisted, and from Spain, their late enemy.
Pope Pius the Fifth, and Philip the Second, joined their fleets with that of the republic. The confederate fleet assembled at Messina. The celebrated Don John of Austria, natural son to Charles the Fifth, was Generalissimo; Mark Antonio Colonna commanded the Pope’s division, and Sebastian Veniero the Venetian. The Turkish fleet was greatly superior in the number of vessels.
The two fleets meet in the Gulph of Lapanta: it is said, that the Turkish gallies were entirely worked by Christian slaves, and the gallies of the Christians by Turkish; a shocking proof of the barbarous manner in which prisoners of war were treated in that age; and, in this instance, as absurd as it was barbarous; for a cartel for an exchange of prisoners would have given freedom to the greater number of those unhappy men, without diminishing the strength of either navy. The fleets engage, and the Turks are entirely defeated. Historians assert, that twenty thousand Turks were killed in the engagement, and one half of their fleet destroyed. This is a prodigious number to be killed on one side, and in a sea fight; it ought to be remembered, that there is no Turkish writer on the subject.
Pius the Fifth died soon after the battle of Lapanta. Upon his death the war languished on the side of the Allies; Philip became tired of the expence, and the Venetians were obliged to purchase a peace, by yielding the island of Cyprus to the Turks, and agreeing to pay them, for three years, an annual tribute of one hundred thousand ducats. Those circumstances have no tendency to confirm the accounts which Christian writers have given, of the immense loss which the Turks met with at the battle of Lapanta.
In the beginning of the seventeenth century, the republic had a dispute with the Pope, which, in that age, was thought a matter of importance, and engaged the attention of all Christendom.
Paul the Fifth shewed as eager a disposition as any of his predecessors, to extend the Papal authority. He had an inveterate prejudice against the Venetian republic, on account of her having, on every occasion, resisted all ecclesiastical encroachments.