DON QUIXOTE

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make a stand or maintain the defence.

It was a common opinion that our men should not have shut themselves up
in the Goletta, but should have waited in the open at the landing-place;
but those who say so talk at random and with little knowledge of such
matters; for if in the Goletta and in the fort there were barely seven
thousand soldiers, how could such a small number, however resolute, sally
out and hold their own against numbers like those of the enemy? And how
is it possible to help losing a stronghold that is not relieved, above
all when surrounded by a host of determined enemies in their own country?
But many thought, and I thought so too, that it was special favour and
mercy which Heaven showed to Spain in permitting the destruction of that
source and hiding place of mischief, that devourer, sponge, and moth of
countless money, fruitlessly wasted there to no other purpose save
preserving the memory of its capture by the invincible Charles V; as if
to make that eternal, as it is and will be, these stones were needed to
support it. The fort also fell; but the Turks had to win it inch by inch,