The embarkation of so large a number of Janissaries was the measure of the serious purpose of the expedition, as the Sultan did not readily part with the men of this corps d’elite unless he was in person taking the command.  It may be as well to explain here exactly what the Janissaries were, and it cannot be better done than by an extract from the famous historian Prescott: 

“The most remarkable of the Turkish institutions, the one which may be said to have formed the keystone of the system, was that relating to the Christian population of the Empire.  Once in five years a general conscription was made by means of which all the children of Christian parents who had reached the age of seven and gave promise of excellence in mind or body were taken from their homes and brought to the capital.  They were then removed to different quarters and placed in seminaries where they might receive such instruction as would fit them for the duties of life.  Those giving greatest promise of strength and endurance were sent to places prepared for them in Asia Minor.  Here they were subjected to a severe training, to abstinence, to privations of every kind, and to the strict discipline which should fit them for the profession of a soldier.  From this body was formed the famous corps of the Janissaries....  Their whole life may be said to have been passed in war or in preparation for it.  Forbidden to marry, they had no families to engage their affections, which, as with the monks and friars of Christian countries, were concentrated in their own order, whose prosperity was inseparably connected with that of the State.  Proud of the privileges which distinguished them from the rest of the army, they seemed desirous to prove their title to them by their thorough discipline and by their promptness to execute the most dangerous and difficult services.  Clad in their flowing robes, so little suited to war, armed with the arquebus and the scimitar—­in their hands more than a match for the pike or sword of the European—­with the heron’s plume waving above their head, their dense array might ever be seen bearing down in the thickest of the fight; and more than once when the fate of the Empire trembled in the balance it was this invincible corps which turned the scale, and by their intrepid conduct decided the fortune of the day.  Gathering fresh reputation with age, so long as their discipline remained unimpaired they were a match for the best soldiers in Europe.  But in time this admirable organisation experienced a change.  One Sultan allowed them to marry; another to bring their sons into the corps; a third opened the ranks to Turks as well as Christians; until, forfeiting their peculiar character, the Janissaries became confounded with the militia of the Empire.  These changes occurred in the time of Philip the Second.”

But to resume:  just before the sailing of the galleys of “the Religion” from Malta there had arrived in that island from France the famous