"Relying on the courage of his Lordship, and many about him of not less honourable pretensions, that these so reasonable proposals will be received with pleasure, I shall await your return, promptly to prepare for whatever alternative he may accede to. I limit the answer to three days; adding that, if he prefer fighting in considerable numbers, he may do so with three hundred picked men of the light cavalry, armed with lance, sword poignard, and mace. Or, if none of the aforesaid conditions please him, which I cannot believe possible, remember to offer that, if he will engage with these three hundred light horse, and all my infantry, he may have the advantage of five hundred or a thousand foot beyond what I can bring into the field, equally armed. And the present memorandum you will deliver into his Lordship's hands."[271] [Footnote *270: It was against Venice that Leo had first, in March, 1517, tried to get help.] [Footnote 271: Vat. Urb. MSS. No. 1023, f. 141. It has been printed by Leone, p. 222.] This step, natural to a gallant soldier of almost desperate fortunes, with neither means nor inducement for a prolonged struggle, could have no recommendation for his opponent, now at the head of an overwhelming force, backed by the papal treasury and the united arms of most European powers. Lorenzo felt nettled at a proposal which it would have been folly to accept, but which could scarcely be declined without incurring a slur; and, after answering that he could entertain no such cartel until his challenger had evacuated those places which he had forcibly seized, his temper showed itself by arresting its bearers, notwithstanding their safe-conduct. The Spaniard was speedily released; but the secretary was sent to Volterra or Rome, to be disposed of by the Pope, where, with revolting treachery and meanness, he was subjected to imprisonment and torture, in the hope of drawing from him the secrets of his master, whose vigorous resistance Leo strongly suspected to be backed by the French monarch.