Note 299 — Chapter IX · WAR WITH THE TURKS.

"De las mejores que jamas se han visto,"—"among the best galleys that were ever seen,"—says Don John in a letter, from Messina, to Don Garcia de Toledo.—Documentos Inéditos, tom. iii. p. 15.

The earlier part of the third volume of the Documentos Inéditos is taken up with the correspondence between John of Austria and Garcia de Toledo, in which the former asks information and advice in respect to the best mode of conducting the war. Don Garcia de Toledo, fourth marquis of Villafranca, was a man of high family, and of great sagacity and experience. He had filled some of the highest posts in the government, and, as the reader may remember, was viceroy of Sicily at the time when Malta was besieged by the Turks. The coldness which on that occasion he appeared to show to the besieged, excited general indignation; and I ventured to state, on an authority which I did not profess to esteem the best, that in consequence of this he fell into disgrace, and was suffered to pass the remainder of his years in obscurity. (Ante, vol. ii. circ. fin.) An investigation of documents which I had not then seen shows this to have been an error. The ample correspondence which both Philip the Second and Don John carried on with him, gives undeniable proofs of the confidence which he continued to enjoy at court, and the high deference which was paid to his opinion.