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Francisco Balbi di Correggio

Balbi di Correggio's Diary - 8th of June - The enemy strikes back

Friday, 8 June

All knights or most of them wrote to the Grand Master that to stay in St Elmo meant certain death, and they implored His Lordship to allow them to go out and fight in the open…

On this day, the Ottomans came from all directions, either to reconnoitre or to attack. They came so well equipped and with such determination that it can be reckoned as an attack. They detailed their bravest and best trained men for the bridge; at the start they came with much spirit, like men full of afion[1] (which is a very powerful drug, after eating a small quantity of which, men are deprived of their reasons, become frantic and are heedless of danger).

The Grand Master sent boats at once to St Elmo to transfer the wounded to the Birgu.

 

[1] Afion was most certainly Haxix (marijuana)


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