_ 45 _ This was established, and last year, 1571, a great fleet was assembled under the general ship of Don Juan of Austria, the brother of my uncle the King of Spain. This fleet fought a battle with that of the Turk, and Our Lord gave victory to the fleet of the League, which defeated the Turkish fleet on 7 October of that year, capturing over one hundred and eighty of his galleys and burning and sinking as many again. Over twenty thousand men were killed in them, including the Turk’s principal pashas and officers. Then others of his ships were wrecked at sea in a storm, with ten or twelve thousand janissaries and soldiers. The fleet of the League is ready with more ships and great numbers of men and artillery to exploit this victory, and in this certainty all Christian kings and princes intend to make war on the Turk wherever any of their lands lies next to his territory, in the first place the Emperor of Germany in Hungary. As this is for the universal good of all, I am bound to assist and to play my part in the League, both for the sake of Christianity and for the State of India, and I am ordering my captains to make war and sending a fleet to the Red Sea Strait and to the kingdom of Ormuz. They are to fight whenever possible, and I have written to command my Viceroy in India to do this at once.
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