“I have been to His Holiness, who had requested that your Lordships should provide him not with one ship, as Cardinal Rusticucci had said, but with many, so that he may transport his troops on them. I replied that on the previous evening Cardinal Rusticucci had spoken to me in his name, and added that I had written to your Lordships ... and that you hoped that as His Holiness had liberated you from so many troubles in the past, he would take care that you are preserved, nor will he permit that his many benefits to you be turned to your ruin. I informed him how, after the Maltese war, Piali had come with his fleet to Ragusa and threatened your Lordships because some of your vessels had been with the Spanish fleet, and swore that if a similar offence were again committed he would come to your destruction.” The Pope was convinced by these arguments and withdrew his demand for a Ragusan contingent, and made the other allied Powers realise the Republic’s danger. Venice alone remained obdurate, and continued to repeat “ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.” She believed that the only way of saving Ragusa from all danger on the part of the Turks was to occupy the town herself. On June 28 Gondola suggested that the Senate should send an ambassador to the King of Spain requesting him, in memory of their ancient fidelity to his predecessors, to place the Republic officially under his own protection, because although the Pope was friendly, he was old and in bad health, and if he were to die the Venetians might seize the opportunity to molest the city. This advice was followed, and in the treaty of alliance the little Republic received the joint protection of Christendom, a clause being inserted in it to the effect that “no acts of hostility are to be committed against Ragusa and its territory, the Pope for weighty reasons having so decreed.” Thus by her successful diplomacy Ragusa was under the ægis of seven different Powers—Spain, the Papacy, the Empire, Venice, Hungary, the Turks, and the Barbary Deys—whence its citizens earned the sobriquet of “Le Sette Bandiere” (the Seven Standards); and although subsequently they often were in difficulties with some of their protectors, they could always play the one off against the other. This was the secret of their long-continued independence. [Illustration: FORTE SAN LORENZO]