Eight thousand janissaries, 14,000 spahis, and upwards of 50,000 _timariots_ or feudal militia, were embarked on board the fleet, which consisted of eighty galleys, and more than 300 transports, besides the auxiliary squadrons of the Barbary regencies, which joined the armada, May 7, at the general rendezvous at Scio. [14] Among the captives was the ex-nurse of the heir-apparent, afterwards Mohammed IV., with her son, who was mistaken for a prince of the Imperial family; and being carried to Malta, was brought up there as a monk under the name of Padre Ottomanno! During the siege of Candia he was brought to the beleaguered fortress, in the hope that the presence of this supposed Turkish prince of the blood would shake the allegiance of the janissaries--but this notable scheme, as might have been foreseen, was wholly without success. From Scio the united fleet sailed to Navarino--a course purposely adopted to spread the belief that Malta was the point of attack; but no sooner were they again at sea, than the capitan-pasha, summoning the principal officers on board his galley, read the _khatt sheeref_ of the sultan, announcing that he had taken up arms for the conquest of Candia. War had, in the mean time, been formally declared against the Republic at Constantinople, and the Venetian envoy, Soranzo, imprisoned in the Seven Towers: but he had previously contrived to communicate to the Signory his suspicions of the impending storm; and supplies and reinforcements had been hastily dispatched from Venice to Andrea Cornaro, the _inquisitore_, or governor of Crete, in the event of its bursting in that quarter. Little serious apprehension seems, however, to have been entertained; and great was the consternation of the Candiote population, when, on the morning of June 24, the vast armament of the Ottomans was seen rounding Cape Spada, and disembarking the troops near Canea, on the same spot where, according to tradition, the standards of Islam had first been displayed, 820 years before, by the Saracens of Spain.