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64 Sultan Ibrahim going to Mecca to be circumcised." With this joyful tidings the gallies returned to Malta. The Grand Master and the Knights began to think of proposing an exchange for Rhodes. They gave out that the mother as well as the child was in their hands, and wrote to Constantinople, Smyrna, and other places, to spread intelligence where these prisoners might be found, provided the Porte would come up to their conditions. But to their great surprize they received no application for their ransom."

In 1649 a Persian, returning from Rome, where he had been studying in the college de Propagandá Fide, to his own country, touched at Malta, and the Grand Master employed him as a fit person to go to Constantinople, and ascertain whether their little prisoner was the son of the Sultan or not. This Persian learnt these circumstances, and it is from him that the English author