distinguish them from the endless succession of mines, sorties,
assaults, and countermines, which had marked the campaign of last year.
The Venetian commanders at length, seeing the Turks preparing to pass
the winter in their trenches, and sensible that (concentrated as the
forces of the two contending powers were now for the attack and defence
of a single fortress) they must eventually be overwhelmed by the
ponderous strength of the Ottoman empire, once more made overtures for
peace, offering an annual tribute for Candia, and the cession of the
rest of the island to the Porte; but the vizir sternly rejected the
proffered compromise; and his reply to the envoy, Molino--"The Sultan is
not a merchant, nor does he need money--he has but one word, and that
is--Candia,"--showed that the long dispute could only be decided by the
sword. Elated by the hope of speedy triumph, the Turks now ran their
approaches so close to the bastion of St Andrew, which was held by the
Maltese knights and militia, that the muzzles of the muskets almost
touched each other; and the vizir wrote to the Sultan, that they had
only three yards more of ground to win, when, at this critical moment,
the spirits of the besieged were revived by the arrival, early in
December, of the Duc de la Feuillade and the Count de St Pol, with a
gallant band of 600 volunteers, many of them of the best families of
France. But the boiling valour of these fiery youths was equally
difficult to restrain or direct; and, after losing two-thirds of their
number in desperate, but irregular, sallies against the Turkish lines,
the survivors of this piece of knight-errantry re-embarked for
Christendom in January, leaving the heads of their fallen comrades
ranged on pikes before the tent of Kiuprili. A stancher reinforcement
was received in the spring of 1669, by the arrival of 3000
Lunenburghers, whose commander, Count Waldeck, fell a few days after, in
repulsing an assault on the breach of St Andrew, as did also the former
governor, Di Villa, whose thirst for glory had brought him back, as