Be kind to your slaves, but be ever watchful; yet this I need not tell you.

Maintain a strict but not over severe discipline.

You are all knights and comrades of the Order, and equals when on shore, but on board you are the captain and they are your soldiers.

I have this afternoon had a meeting of your knights, and have urged upon them very strongly that, having volunteered to serve under you, they must obey your orders as promptly and willingly as if you were the senior knight of the Order, and that it behooves them specially upon the present occasion, when the crew is composed entirely of young knights, to show themselves worthy of the honour that has been done to them by entrusting a galley of the Order to their charge.

I told them I should regard your report of their individual conduct with the same attention and respect with which I should that of any other commander, and that they might greatly make or mar their future prospects in the Order by their conduct during the cruise.