at once declared him disgraced and incapable of sitting, but the majority decided that as a reward for his great services in this time of danger he should be forgiven; he was thereupon readmitted to all his privileges. It was this same man who now offered to risk his life for his city once more. On their departure he and his companions bade farewell to their friends as though they were going to certain death. Caboga and Bucchia reached Constantinople on August 8, 1667. The former showed so much diplomatic skill in the negotiations that Kara Mustafa had him and his colleague cast into prison on December 13, in a building that served as a lazaret for plague patients. But even then they refused to advise the Republic to consent to the Turkish demands. When asked if he would advise the Senate to agree to annexation by the Porte, Caboga replied that “he was sent to serve, not to betray his country”; and he succeeded in sending a message to the Senate encouraging them to hold out to the last regardless of his own fate, and only showing anxiety that his children should receive a sound religious education. The ambassadors were transferred from one dungeon to another, and threatened with all manner of punishments, but in vain. Worse befell the envoys to Bosnia. When the Pasha heard that they had not brought the money demanded he threw them into an unhealthy dungeon, and after a few months transferred them to Silistria at the mouth of the Danube, where the Sultan Mohammed IV. was residing, and here they were kept in still severer detention. But they too held firm, and advised the Senate not to give way. In 1678 Bona fell ill, and, being utterly untended, died. The Republic meanwhile applied to the King of Naples for arms and troops, expecting a Turkish attack, raised a loan for defensive purposes at Genoa,[490] and negotiated with the Emperor Leopold. Kara Mustafa, on being informed of this action, vowed vengeance, determined to capture the city, and only delayed the operation until he should return from the siege of Vienna. But fortunately his armies were defeated by John Sobieski, King of Poland, and this Christian victory saved Europe, shaking the Ottoman power to its very foundations. The ferocious vizir was disgraced and beheaded in consequence, and the projects against Ragusa abandoned. Caboga, Bucchia, and Gozze were then liberated and allowed to return home. “As he (Caboga) approached the city every knoll, villa, and house-top was covered with an admiring, almost adoring, people; every bell in Ragusa rang a merry peal, and the Rector and Senate, in full robes, went out of the city to give a cordial welcome to the wonderful Marino Caboga.”[491] He had indeed deserved well of his country, for never had the Republic been in more imminent danger, from which she was saved by this respite.