The emperor Frederick, on his part, made all the requisite preparations for an expedition which he was to lead in person; he ordered vessels to be constructed in all the ports of Sicily for transporting the Crusaders. “Heaven and earth,” wrote he to the pope, “are witnesses that I desire the success of the Christian arms with my whole soul, and that I will neglect nothing that can assist in securing the success of the holy enterprise.” In all his letters Frederick exhorted the sovereign pontiff to employ every means to augment the numbers of the soldiers of Christ. Become, all at once, more zealous for the crusade than the pope himself, he reproached the court of Rome with being sparing in indulgences, and with confiding the preaching of the crusade to vulgar orators; he advised the pope to redouble his efforts to appease the quarrels of Christian princes, and to compel the kings of France and England to sign a peace, in order that the nobles and people of these two kingdoms might take part in the crusade. Frederick not being able to go into Germany, sent thither the grand master of the Teutonic order, with directions to exhort the landgrave of Thuringia, the duke of Austria, the king of Hungary, and the other princes of the empire, to take the oath to fight against the infidels. He undertook to furnish the Crusaders with vessels, provisions, arms, and everything necessary for the expedition beyond the sea; in short, he displayed so much activity, and showed so much ardour and zeal, that all the attention of the Christians was directed towards him, and he was considered as the soul, the moving principle, and the head of the holy enterprise. The Christians of Palestine placed all their hopes in him; the patriarch of Alexandria, in a letter to the pope, said that they looked for the emperor of Germany on the banks of the Nile and the Jordan, _as formerly the saints had looked for the coming of the Messiah or Saviour of the world_. The patriarch spoke with grief of the oppression and servitude that had been inflicted upon the Christians established in Egypt since the last invasion of the Crusaders. The unfortunate disciples of Christ were not allowed to keep in their dwellings either arms or horses, nor even to bear a crucifix at the funeral processions of their relations; a hundred and fifteen of their churches had been destroyed since the conquest of Damietta. Oppressed by tributes,[232] condemned to disgraceful labours, banished from their homes, wandering around their temples and their altars, they invoked the mercy of Heaven and the valour of the warriors of the West for their deliverance.