Note 15 — Chapter IV

Von Hammer questions this fact, as resting on no authority; but, however this may be, it is remarkable how many of the ablest leaders of the Ottoman forces, and of course the most inveterate foes of the Christian name, were apostates. Their malice seemed insatiable; and many of the worst atrocities recorded in Turkish warfare were perpetrated by them. It was at the instigation of three renegades from the order that Mahomet undertook this very expedition against Rhodes; and the reader of history will not fail to notice, that in almost every renewed enterprise against Christendom, an apostate from the faith was its contriver or its conductor. “If we look,” says Professor Creasy, “to the period when the Turkish power was at its height,—the period of the reign of Solyman I. and Selim II.,—we shall find that out of ten viziers of this epoch eight were renegades. Of the other high dignitaries of the Porte during the same period, we shall find that at least twelve of her best generals, and four of her most renowned admirals, were supplied to her by Christian countries.”