The latter policy prevailed for nearly three-quarters of a century after the peace between Venice and the Porte in 1573, and during that period we hear little of Crete. The quaint traveller Lithgow[194], who visited it in the first decade of the seventeenth century, alludes to a descent of the Turks upon Rethymno in 1597, when that town was again sacked and burned; and he remarks, as Plato had done in _The Laws_, that he never saw a Cretan come out of his house unarmed. He found a Venetian garrison of 12,000 men in the island, and reiterates the preference of the Cretans for Turkish rule, on the ground that they would have “more liberty and less taxes.” But while he was disappointed to find no more than four cities in an island which in Homer’s day had contained ninety, he tells us that Canea had “ninety-seven palaces,” and he waxes eloquent over the great fertility of the country near Suda. It is curious to find, nearly three centuries ago, that Suda bay was eagerly coveted by a foreign potentate, the King of Spain, of whose designs the astute Venetians were fully aware, and whose overtures they steadily declined. The time had now arrived when the Cretans were to realise their desires, and exchange the Venetian for the Turkish rule. The Ottoman sultans had long meditated the conquest of the island, and two recent events had infuriated Ibrahim I against the Venetians. The Near East was at that time cursed with a severe outbreak of piracy, in which there was little to choose between Christians and Mussulmans. While the Venetians had chased some Barbary corsairs into the Turkish harbour of Valona, on the coast of Albania, and had injured a minaret with their shots, they had allowed a Maltese squadron, which had captured the nurse of the Sultan’s son, to sail into a Cretan harbour with its booty. The fury of the Sultan, whose affection for his son’s nurse was well known, was not appeased by the apologies of the Venetian representative. Great preparations were made for an expedition against Crete, and Ibrahim constantly went down to the arsenals to urge on the workmen. All over the Turkish empire the word went forth to make ready. The forests of the Morea were felled to furnish palisades, the naval stores of Chalkis were emptied to supply provisions for the troops. All the time the Grand Vizier kept assuring the Venetian bailie that these gigantic efforts were directed not against the Republic, but against the knights of Malta. In vain the Mufti protested against this act of deception, and pleaded that, if war there must be against Venice, at least it might be open. The Capitan-Pasha and the war party silenced any religious scruples of the Sultan, and the Mufti was told to mind his own business. As soon as the truth dawned upon the Venetians they lost no time in preparing to meet the Turks. Andrea Cornaro, the new Governor of Crete, hastily strengthened the fortifications of Candia and of the island at the mouth