Hunyadi was planning to organize a new crusade against the Ottoman Empire. For this purpose, he barraged the Pope and other Western monarchs with letters in 1445. In September he had a meeting, at Nicopolis, with Waleran de Wavrin (nephew of the chronicler Jean de Wavrin), the captain of eight Burgundian galleys, and Vlad Dracul of Wallachia, who had seized small fortresses along the Lower Danube from the Ottomans. However, he did not risk a clash with the Ottoman garrisons stationed on the south bank of the river, and returned to Hungary before winter. Vlad Dracul soon concluded a peace treaty with the Ottomans.