The action of 28 September 1644 was a naval battle which was fought in the Eastern Mediterranean when six Hospitaller galleys under Gabriel de Chambres Boisbaudran attacked a convoy of ten Ottoman sailing ships including a galleon commanded by Ibrahim Çelebi. Both sides suffered considerable casualties including the deaths of both commanders, and the battle ended when the Hospitallers captured the richly-laden galleon after hours of fighting.
Three hundred eighty (380) people on board the Ottoman galleon were captured by the Hospitallers, including a woman from the imperial harem and a young boy who were claimed to be the favourite and firstborn son of sultan Ibrahim. The Hospitallers took the captives and loot to Malta but stopped at the Venetian Kingdom of Candia on the way; this was used as a pretext for the decades-long Cretan War which broke out between the Ottomans and Venice in 1645.
Background and prelude
During the mid-17th century, the Knights Hospitaller who were based in Malta were in a state of perpetual religious war against Islam, and their galley squadron set out on annual corsairing expeditions during which they attacked Muslim shipping in the Mediterranean Sea. When a vessel was seized, its crew and passengers were taken as slaves and its cargo was plundered. At the time these corsair raids formed a significant part of Malta's economy.
On 16 April 1644, two Hospitaller galleys under the command of Captain General Gabriel de Chambres Boisbaudran left Malta for the Eastern Mediterranean. They returned to the island on 1 July, and Boisbaudran departed again with a squadron of six galleys on 27 August. Their search for enemy shipping was initially unsuccessful, and by late September the squadron was preparing to head back to Malta.
Battle
On the morning of 28 September 1644, the Hospitaller squadron was between south of Rhodes when they encountered a convoy of ten Ottoman ships. Zafire Hatun (a woman from the harem) and her young son Osman. The other ships in the convoy were pinks and saiques.
One of the Hospitaller galleys, the Santa Maria, initially engaged the galleon on its own, and two other galleys, San Lorenzo and Vittoria, soon joined the fight and overhauled and attacked the Ottoman flagship. Meanwhile, San Giuseppe and San Giovanni captured one of the saiques and the Capitana chased a vessel which turned out to be Greek. The remaining 380 people on board the galleon – 350 men and 30 women The ship's cargo – which included jewels, gold and silver objects, and tapestries – had a value of 200,000 scudi and Hospitaller historian Bartolomeo dal Pozzo claimed that the loot enriched half of Malta.
Fate of captives
Apart from the 50 Greek sailors who were released and the Turkish crewmembers who escaped while on Crete,