[1305] Ibid., fol. 23.
[1306] Ibid., fol. 21.—Vertot says, of a hundred and sixty pounds'weight. (Knights of Malta, vol. II. p. 202.) Yet even this was far surpassed by the mammoth cannon employed by Mahomet at the siege of Constantinople, in the preceding century, which, according to Gibbon, threw stone bullets of six hundred pounds.
Since the above lines were written, even this achievement has been distanced by British enterprise. The "Times" informs us of some "monster guns," intended to be used in the Baltic, the minimum weight of whose shot is to be three cwt., and the maximum ten.
[1307] Balbi, Verdadera Relacion, fol. 26.—The old soldier goes into the composition of the Turkish force, in the general estimate of which he does not differ widely from Vertot.
[1308] Balbi, Verdadera Relacion, fol. 84.
[1309] Ibid., ubi supra.
[1310] Balbi, Verdadera Relacion, fol. 37 et seq.—Vertot, Knights of Malta, vol. II. pp. 200-202.—- Calderon, Gloriosa Defensa de Malta, p. 42.—Cabrera, Filipe Segundo, lib. VI. cap. 24.
[1311] In Vertot's account of this affair, much is said of a nondescript outwork, termed a cavalier,—conveying a different idea from what is understood by that word in modern fortifications. It stood without the walls, and was connected with the ravelin by a bridge, the possession of which was hotly contested by the combatants. Balbi, the Spanish soldier, so often quoted,—one of the actors in the siege, though stationed at the fort of St. Michael,—speaks of the fight as being carried on in the ditch. His account has the merit of being at once the briefest and the most intelligible.
[1312] Balbi, Verdadera Relacion, fol. 40, 41.—Vertot, Knights of Malta, vol. II. pp. 203-205.—Calderon, Gloriosa Defensa de Malta, p. 48 et seq.—Segrado, Monarcas Othomanos, p. 245.—Cabrera, Filipe Segundo, lib. VI. cap. 24.—Herrera, Historia General, lib. XII. cap. 4.
[1313] Balbi, Verdadera Relacion, fol. 39