Alfonso then advanced to the castle of Santa Agueda, and made preparations for a siege; but the Almojarife saw that all hope was gone, and sent four of his principal ministers to ask for the acceptance of the terms he offered. They were that he would surrender the castle and the whole island if he and his people were provided with shipping to proceed to Barbary, paying 7-1/2 _doblas_ a head for every Moorish man or woman that embarked. The Almojarife also asked to be allowed to take his books, clothes, and fifty swords. The ship was to take him to Ceuta or some other port in Africa. The King consented to the terms, and his favourite, Blasco Jimenes de Ayerba, was instructed to make the necessary arrangement. There was a Genoese vessel at Port Mahon, which was hired and supplied with provisions, and the unfortunate chief, with his family and about a hundred other people who were able to pay the ransom, embarked. Whether the ship went down in a gale of wind, or whether there was foul play, no one will ever know. It is certain that she never was heard of again. The story of Carbonell that the unfortunate fugitives were thrown overboard by order of the King, after paying their ransoms, need not be believed. The rest of the population was at the mercy of the conquerors, to the number of about twenty thousand. They were either forced to work at the new buildings ordered to be erected, or sent to Sicily and Barcelona to be sold as slaves. The date of the capitulation was January 17, 1288, St. Anthony’s Day, which was ever afterwards kept as a holiday, with processions and other festivities. Alfonso remained in Minorca until the following March, leaving orders for a town to be built, with a fortified wall, at Port Mahon. He died three years afterwards at Barcelona, aged twenty-seven. Don Juan Ramis y Ramis, the chronicler of Minorca, recorded the prowess of the young King and the conquest of the island in a poem entitled ‘Alonsiada.’ Pedro de Lesbia, a native of Valencia, was left as the first Christian Procurator-General of Minorca. The whole Moorish population appears to have been rooted out of the island and replaced by Catalan settlers. Ciudadela, at the western end, became the capital, as it was in Moorish times; while Port Mahon was the principal commercial port.