flocked to Candia to save the last Christian outpost in the Levant,
but it was all fruitless, and in 1669 the island, with the exception
of three ports, was surrendered to the Turks--their last important
conquest in Europe, and the final term of their advance.

The seventeenth century saw the gradual displacement of galleys in
favour of sailing ships. The long voyages across the Atlantic and to
the East had given great impetus to the development of the sailing
vessel; its increasing use, and the entrance of England and Holland
into the Mediterranean, had shown the Powers of that sea its
superiority over the galley; finally, slaves were becoming more
difficult to obtain in sufficient quantities, while criminals had
never been a satisfactory source of supply. The Knights were slow in
changing the oar for the sail, and to the end kept a small squadron of
galleys as well as men-of-war. When Napoleon captured the island, in
1798, he found there two men-of-war, one frigate, and four galleys.

The pride and the renown of the Order had always demanded a salute
from the warships of other nations, and even the mighty Louis XIV.
yielded this privilege to the little squadron. There is extant an
interesting correspondence between Charles II. and the Grand Master,
Nicholas Cottoner, on the subject of salutes. A squadron of the
British Fleet, under Admiral Sir John Narborough, had refused to
salute Valetta unless assured of a response from the guns of the
fortress--a mark of respect that the Order was unwilling to pay to the
British flag. The Grand Master had also ventured to doubt Narborough's
rank as Admiral, but the affair was amicably settled to the
satisfaction of all.

Though the decline of the Order was obvious to Europe throughout the