Α.υ. 1219.] CAPTURE OF DAMIETTA. terms ought to be accepted, and would be advantageous to Christianity; nor is it to be wondered at, as the Christians would have been contented with much less advantageous terms of peace, which had been offered them before this, il they had not been prevented by wise counsel. The legate, however, in his desire of gaining possession of Damietta. and owing to him, the patriarch and all the clergy, opposed these terms, constantly asserting that Damietta above all other places ought to be taken possession of ; this difference of opinion caused disagreement, at which the sohlan's messengers departed much pleased. When the soldait was told of this, he secretly sent a large force of foot soldiers through the marshes to Dainietta ; two hundred and forty of these, when the Christians were steeping on the Sunday night after All Saints' day, attacked their camp, but by the shouts of the sentries the army was roused, and they were taken prisoners or slain, and the captives amounted to a hundred or more. Of (he miraculous capture of the city of Damiella. After these events, the Christian army having made fierce assaults on the city of Dani ietta, they at length saw that the ramparts were destitute of defenders, on which the crusaders with all haste applied their scaling-ladders to the walls and eagerly entered the city ; and thus by the interposition of tho Saviour of the world, on the fifth of November the city of Dainietta was taken without opposition, without noise, and without pillage; so that the victory is to be ascribed to the Son of Cod alone ; and although the city was taken in sight of the king of Babylon, he did not dare as usual to attack the Christians, but fled in confusion and burnt his own camp. Cnder the guidance of Christ then his soldiers entered Damietta, and found the streets strewed with the corpses of the. dead, and were met by an intolerable stench troni them and the most squalid-looking human beings. The dead had killed the living; husband and wife, father and son. master and servant, had perished from the stench of one another. And it was not only the streets which were full of the dead, for corpses were King about in houses and bedchambers; boys and children had asked for bread, ami there was no one to break it for them ; infants hanging at the