Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/81

RESOLUTION OF THE SPANIARDS. 55 followed by the welcome intelligence of the total chapter discomfiture of the French fleet under M. de Prejan '■ — by the Spanish admiral Lezcano, in an action off Otranto, Avhich consequently left the seas open for the supplies daily expected from Sicily. Fortune seemed now in the giving vein ; for in a few days a convoy of seven transports from that island, laden with grain, meat, and other stores, came safe into Barleta, and supplied abundant means for recruiting the health and spirits of its famished inmates. ^^ Thus restored, the Spaniards began to look for- ward with eager confidence to the achievement of some new enterprise. The temerity of the viceroy soon afforded an opportunity. The people of Cas- tellaneta, a town near Tarento, were driven by the insolent and licentious behaviour of the French garrison to betray the place into the hands of the Spaniards. The duke of Nemours, enraged at this defection, prepared to march at once with his whole force, and take signal vengeance on the devoted little town ; and this, notwithstanding the remon- strances of his officers against a step, which must inevitably expose the unprotected garrisons in the neighbourhood to the assault of their vigilant ene- my in Barleta. The event justified these appre- hensions. ^^ No sooner had Gonsalvo learned the departure of ^^s'gn on Nemours on a distant expedition, than he resolved at 28 D'Auton, Hist, de Louys 29 Guicciardini, Istoria, lib. 5, Xn., part. 1, chap. 72. — Peter p. 296.— D'Auton, Hist, de Louys Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 254. — XII., part. 2, chap. 31. Giovio, Vitae Illust. Virorum, p. 242.