Three generations after the taking of Cyprus the long-coveted island of Crete, or Candia, was annexed to the Ottoman Empire. Hostilities began between Venice and Sultan Ibrahim I, because of the seizure by the Knights of Malta of a Turkish vessel carrying high officials of the court to Egypt. The Maltese ships were received in the friendly harbors of Crete, where they took refuge. In April, 1645, a great fleet of 302 ships, and a large army of over 100,000 men, commanded by a Dalmatian, Pasha Joseph Markovitch, set sail for Crete. In June, one of the two chief fortresses of the island, Canea, was invested. After two months’ siege it surrendered. In 1648 began the first siege of Candia, but this stronghold proved as hard to capture as Rhodes. During the course of twenty-one years it was the objective of repeated attacks on the part of the Turks, and only fell into their hands in 1669. As has been seen, the Ottoman Empire began to decay from the top. The Sultan finally became the mere figurehead of palace intrigues, and the effect of the rottenness in the supreme head of a centralized military despotism was widespread. Taxation became extravagantly burdensome; the royal domains were alienated, the coinage was debased, offices were sold to the highest bidder, and this general venality caused the disappearance of the military fiefs from which the armies of the empire had been recruited. The Janitschars lost their characteristic qualities as warriors when the custom of recruiting them from the Christian population was abandoned. They finally degenerated into a mere rabble of turbulent blackguards, composed of the worst elements of all nationalities, Christian and Moslem, who disappeared from the ranks during a war, or fled from the battlefield and lived normally by blackmail or by illicit trading. The abandonment of this living tithe was due probably to the jealousy of the Moslem families, who objected to the monopolizing by men of Christian birth of the lucrative privileges attached to an élite corps. The last time the tithe was collected was in 1676, when 3000 youths were brought in as recruits. With the abolition of the Janitschars dates the rise of the bands of brigands among both the Slavic and Hellenic populations. The able-bodied members of the conquered races found in this sphere of activity a chance for developing their capacities in guerrilla warfare; with the training and traditions so acquired they were able in later years to act as the leaders in the national movements which, during the course of the nineteenth century, ended in the dismemberment of the Ottoman provinces in Europe. * * * * * SPANISH CONQUERORS I THE SPANIARD AND THE NEW WORLD