Immediately after the capture of Damietta, the Grand Master of the Temple returned with the king of Jerusalem to Palestine, to oppose a fresh army of Moslems who, under the command of Coradin, a famous chieftain, had invaded the country, blockaded the city of Acre, and laid siege to the Pilgrim’s Castle. In their intrenched camp at this castle, the Templars mustered a force of upwards of four thousand men, who valiantly and successfully defended the important position against the obstinate and persevering attacks of the infidels. During the different assaults upon the place, Coradin lost six emirs, two hundred Mamlooks, and a number of archers; and on one day alone he had a hundred and twenty valuable horses slain, one of which cost fourteen thousand marks.[104] The Templars sent urgent letters to the pope for succour. They exhorted his holiness to compel the emperor Frederick to perform his vow, and no longer to permit the crusaders to compound with money for the non-fulfilment of their engagements, declaring that such compositions had been most injurious to the cause of the cross. The Grand Master also wrote to the pope, complaining to his holiness of the misapplication by the clergy of the money collected from their flocks, towards the expenses of the holy war, declaring that not a twentieth part of it ever reached the empty treasury of the Latin kingdom. The holy pontiff, in his reply, protests that he has not himself fingered a farthing of the money. “If you have not received it,” says he, “it is not our fault, it is because we have not been obeyed.”