classic name of [Greek: Kraetae].--See PASHLEY'S _Travels in
Crete_, i. chap. 11.

[12] A notable retort is on record from the vizir to the
Venetian envoy, who, on repairing to Constantinople after the
battle, expressed his astonishment at the progress already made
in the equipment of a new fleet. "Know," (said the haughty
Osmanli,) "that the loss of a fleet to the Padishah is as the
shaving of his beard, which will grow again all the thicker;
whereas the loss of Cyprus is to Venice as the amputation of an
arm from the body, which will never be reproduced."

[13] "Thus were they annihilated, and all men who were faithful
and devoted to God and their prince, were solaced and
consoled."--_MS. Chronicle by the notary Trivan, quoted by_
PASHLEY, chap. 33. These atrocities were perpetrated in the
early part of the 16th century.

Though the coasts had often been ravaged in former wars by the Turkish
fleet, particularly under Barbarossa in 1538, no attempt appears ever to
have been made to effect the conquest of the island by the reduction of
the fortified cities of the coast, in which the main strength of the
Venetians lay: and since the treaty of 1573, Venice had remained more
than seventy years at peace with the Porte. In 1645, however, a fresh
rupture arose from the capture of a richly-laden Turkish vessel by the
Maltese cruisers,[14] who were allowed, contrary to the existing
conventions between the Porte and the Republic, to sell the horses which
were on board their prize in one of the remote havens of Crete, beyond
the surveillance of the Venetian authorities. Slight as was the ground
of offence, it produced an instantaneous ferment at Constantinople: the