the mole, and only did not take the city by giving themselves up to every species of violence against property, and life, and honour. Booty to an immense value was carried away to Malta, and while the men, who never injured them, were slaughtered with savage fury, their wives and daughters, to the number of eight hundred, were torn from their homes, and in all this, the knights themselves, "sworn to chastity, obedience, and poverty, as servants of the poor and of Christ," were the chief spoilers. These are the fruits of chivalry. Thus was the banner of the white cross knights tainted again and again. The pope having refused to countenance the divorce of Catharine of Arragon from her husband, Henry the Eighth of England, the latter sequestered the possessions of all of his subjects who adhered to the see of Rome. Under these circumstances some of the English knights of St. John adjured their order; others, named Ingley, Adrian Forrest, Adrian Fortescu, and Marinaduke Bohus, perished on the scaffold; others died in prison, and the remainder sought an asylum at Malta. The act of the English legislature, by which the order was abolished in our own country, and the property helonging to it confiscated, was dated in the year 1534. L'Isle Adam, the grand-master, received our countrymen, the refugees, with considerable kindness. He was the most illustrious head that ever ruled the knights, and dying in the same year, worn out with care, they wrote upon his grave, "Here lies virtue triumphant over misfortune." After various predatory attacks upon Greece and the northern shore of Africa, the history of which belongs to that of the order of St. John, rather than to the history of Malta, but all of which were marked with the same atrocious acts as those they did at Modon,-now the Turks were victims, and if these were too powerful, the Jews were devoted to pillage, and now from the Moorish coast maidens of the most illustrious families were reduced to the basest bondage by the Spanish and German soldiers, hired by the order to carry out their ambitious designs, and paid, let it never be forgotten by the reluctant lovers of chivalry, by the property, by the freedom, and the honour of innocent and defenceless females, bought with the blood of their natural protectors. "It would, indeed," says an historian of the order of St. John, "be a breach of historical candour not to state, that the warfare was characterized on both sides by sauguinary ferocity. If the Turk and the Moor were cruel and merciless, so was the Christian knight. It was a war of reckless bloodshed and brutal spoliationa series of legal outrages, which humanity chronicles with regret." After a series of these attacks, and to revenge them, a Turkish fleet arrived off Port Musceit, now called Marsamuscetta, or the Quarantine Harbour, in July 1551. The rocky tongue of land which bounds this port towards the east, and upon which we said the present capital stands, was then called Mount Sceberras. Besides the old capital in the interior of the island, the bourg, or town, was the only place of shelter, capable of holding out any length of time against the invaders. This bourg was protected by the castle of St. Angelo, and after inspecting its capabili ties from Mount Sceberras, Sinam Pasha, the general of the Turkish army, preferred, as an easier task, attacking the Citta Notabile in the interior, which was badly garrisoned, and would probably have at once fallen into the hands of the Turks, had they not listened to a false rumour that a Christian armament, under Andrew Doria, the great Genoese captain of his age, was on its way to succour the knights. Sinam immediately raised the siege, and left the island, making, however, a descent upon Gozo, carrying off considerable booty, and sweeping its inhabitants into slavery. Sailing from Gozo to Tripoli, the Turkish expedition took that place, which thenceforth ceased to be one of the dependencies of Malta. 5. COMMENCEMENT OF THE GRAnd siege of MALTA BY THE TURKS. low, the knights contented themselves with erecting a castle at the extremity of that promontory, and another on Mount St. Julian. The first, then called Fort St. Elmo, and the other Fort St. Michael, thus named after similar towers at Rhodes. The next grand-master, Claude de la Sangle, made very considerable additions to Fort St. Elmo at his own expense, and so completely fortified the peninsula of St. Michael, which, like that of the Bourg, juts out into the Grand Port, that, in honour of him, it was designated the Isle de la Sangle, and has ever since borne that name. While these works were in progress, Malta was devastated by one of the most terrible hurricanes that ever burst over that port. The waves, heaped into mountains by conflicting blasts, rolled with irresistible fury into the harbour; four galleys were sucked into the vortex of a whirlpool; the houses near the shore were thrown down, and even the Castle of St. Angelo tottered to its foundations. In half an hour the wind subsided as suddenly as it had risen, but in that short space of time six hundred persons perished. The grand-master La Sangle died in 1557, and was succeeded by John de la Valette, one of the most illustrious commanders the order ever possessed. Shortly after the commencement of his reign, five Maltese galleys took a Turkish galleon, which had on board some females belonging to the household of the emperor Solyman. This was the greatest insult that could be offered to a Turk. The Kislar Aga and the Odalichi urged vengeance; the Iman of the Grand Mosque publicly invoked him to redeem the slaves; the people lifted up their voice, and Solyman, fanned into wrath, solemnly swore by his beard to extirpate the order. * The forces of the island consisted of 700 knights, besides serving brothers, and about 8500 soldiers. In anticipation of an attack, a great iron chain, supported on casks and. beams of timber, was carried across the mouth of the harbour of the galleys, and John de la Valette was at his post. He fulfilled, at one and the same time, the duties of the hospitaller, the private soldier, the engineer, the artillerist, and the captain of the host. One hour he was busied in the hospital, the next superintending the pioneers, and frequently grasped the mattock and the spade by way of example. "A formidable enemy," said he, speaking to a full conclave of his knights, "are coming like a thundercloud upon us; and, if the banner of the cross must quail to the unbeliever, let us remember that it is a signal that Heaven demands from us the lives which we have solemnly devoted to its service. He who dies in this cause dies a happy death; and, to render us worthy to meet it, let us renew at the altar those vows which ought to make us not only fearless but invincible in the fight." The solemn ceremonial followed,-the eucharist was partaken of,-tem poral pursuits and gratifications were for the time renounced, private animosities were abandoned, and bending in devoted brotherhood before the symbol of their faith, they vowed to perish rather than let that be profaned, forgetful that their own bad passions had polluted it at Modon and at Coron, at Goletta and at Tunis. The mistake was in turning against the unbeliever the zeal that should have burnt within and purified themselves; but it was no false alarm which had driven them to their altar. The Turkish fleet, consisting of 159 oared vessels, having on board 30,000 soldiers, under the command of the pashas Mustapha and Piali, arrived May the 18th, 1565. A squadron of store-ships, carrying the heavy artillery, horses and munition, accompanied the fleet. In the course of that and the following night, the whole of the Turkish army disembarked, and Fort St. Elmo was the point at which the attack was first commenced. Ramparts were raised by means of wooden platforms, and on the 24th of May, a battery of ten guns, each of which carried a ball weighing eighty pounds, two sixty pound culverins, and a basilisk of enormous dimensions, which threw stone bullets that weighed one hundred and sixty pounds, were brought to bear upon the fort. Every shot told, but the fort still held out. In a single attack the Turks lost 3000 chosen men, and the COMMISSIONERS were about this time (A.D. 1551) ap-order a third of that number and twenty knights. One of the means of defence is a curious instance of the barbarous warfare of the age. Large hoops, made of light wood, after being dipped in brandy, were rubbed over with boiling oil, and then covered with cotton, soaked in a combustible preparation, two ingredients of which were gunpowder and saltpetre. This operation was repeated three times, allowing each layer of cotton to cool before it was covered by another; and when the hour of battle came, these hoops were set on fire, and thrown into the midst of the enemy. Hooped into clusters of unquenchable flame, the Turkish soldiers often lost all discipline; and to prevent the flesh being burnt off their bones, flung themselves into the sea. At daybreak of June the 16th, a fresh attack was made upon the same fort, and at the end of six hours a retreat was sounded by the Turks, who left two thousand of their dead behind them. Hitherto Fort St. Elmo had been reinforced by fresh troops from the bourg, but now the enemy effected a lodgment on Cape Gibbet, at the entrance of the Grand Post, and completely invested the fort, and on the 21st of June attacked it again with all the chosen battalions of their army. Thrice did the janizaries rush into a breach in the walls, and as often were they repulsed with immense slaughter, till night separated the combatants. The knights without the besieged fort vainly attempted to throw themselves in for the rescue; those within, anticipating their fate with a stern and tranquil fortitude, partook of the most holy sacrament of their religion. At sunrise on the 23rd of June, thirty-two pieces of cannon opened the battle of the day with their terrible voice. In four hours only sixty souls remained in the fort, to defend the breach against those without. At length the breach was cleared; not a knight nor soldier remained alive, and after the loss, if the Maltese chronicles be true, of 8000 men on the part of the Turks, and of 300 of their own knights, besides 1300 hired soldiers, Fort St. Elmo was lost and won. When entered by Mustapha Pasha, the Turkish leader was so astonished at the insignificance of its fortifications, that he exclaimed, in reference to the Bourg, "What resistance may we not look for from the parent when it has cost us the bravest of our army to humble the child?" Mustapha ordered the breasts of the slain knights to be gashed in the form of a cross, and their hearts torn out, and their lacerated and headless bodies, clothed in their battle-vests, to be tied to planks and flung into the sea, in order that they might be drifted down the harbour, and meet the eye of the grand-master. After a burst of tears at the sight of his mutilated knights, La Valette ordered all the Turkish prisoners in the city to be massacred, and the Maltese artillerymen, loading their guns with the bleeding heads of the victims, fired them, instead of balls, into the Turkish camp. These revolting acts must be recorded if we would teach or learn the fruits of that savage fanaticism which tempered the Crusades, as well as the military orders to which these gave birth. Only a month had passed since the very men who committed these acts, at which the savage would recoil, had rushed to the altar of their religion, which they called Christian, and there had vowed, upon the eucharist of their faith, to die for the sake of what? Let the spirit that impelled them answer that, and though verily the men themselves knew not what spirit they were of, shall we, who are far removed from the dark shadows which obscured the age in which they lived, and which at once account for, and in part palliate their barbarities-shall we suffer our judgment to be dazzled by the light of poetry, which time and fancy fling over the chivalry of the past, and shut our eyes to the sickening, but stern realities of the history before us? It is not safe to look upon the glory of their military state, without closely searching for the nature of the means, whether good or bad, that supported that magnificent array; nor must we receive their own details of their motives, without consulting the written records of what they did after they had obtained the means of carrying out the apparent objects of their enthusiasm. 6. TERMINATION OF THE TURKISH SIEGE. THE Turks proceeded, in the next place, to invest the entire peninsulas of La Sangle and the Bourg; seventy cannon began the battering, and on the 5th of July the Pasha ordered all his guns to open simultaneously upon the two towns. The whole island trembled with the incessant roar of the artillery, and considerable breaches were made in the advanced works. The arrival of the vicerov of Algiers, with 2000 chosen soldiers, appeared to seal the fate of the order of St. John. Candalissi, the lieutenant of the viceroy, backed with 4000 men, made good his landing upon an uncovered part of the beach, at the extremity of La Sangle, and for a time had indeed planted the Moslem flag upon an outwork; but after several hours of hard fighting, the Turks were driven back, leaving about 3500 dead upon the rock. At the same time, young Hassan, the viceroy, stormed the castle of St. Michael, and he | too, after a conflict which lasted five hours, was compelled to retreat, leaving the flower of his Algerines lifeless at the foot of the ramparts. And, now, having as he thought worn out the physical energies of the knights, it being midday, the Turkish general ordered the janizaries, the pride of his army, to rush into the deadly gaps which Hassan had abandoned. After a fatal volley of musketry from the Maltese, man closed with man, and the battle became a series of single combats. Warrior grappled warrior in desperate strife, and separated only when one or both fell mortally wounded to the earth. Stones, fireworks, and boiling oil were poured upon the enemy at the foot of the rampart, but the darkness of the night alone dislodged the Turks from their position. The Turkish batteries once more opened upon the towns with redoubled activity, and the contest daily grew more desperate. The Christians, though almost always victorious, saw their numbers decrease with fearful rapidity. For four succeeding days the best of Turkish blood was lavished upon the walls of La Sangle, and on August 7th, after four hours of incessant fighting, the fort of St. Michael was nearly won. The Christians, few in number, and exhausted by unnatural efforts, were losing heart, when, to their astonishment and joy, a retreat was suddenly sounded along the Turkish line. A false alarm that succours had arrived from Christendom had robbed the pasha of the victory which was almost within his grasp. If the indomitable valour of the knights should weary the patience of the reader, what must have been its effect upon the Ottoman general? To put an end to the siege, a simultaneous attack was made on August 18th, upon the castle of St. Michael and the bastion of Castile, with the resolution of continuing it night and day, by means of fresh troops, till the towns were taken. The attacks, though interrupted, were frequent, but the month of September commenced without any impression having been made upon the Christians. They indeed had almost won the battle, for the Turkish general became convinced that famine alone could reduce the city, and famine threatened to reduce his camp first. And now arrived the long looked for allies from Europe 6000 troops from Sicily were landed at Melleha Bay upon the north-west shore of Malta, and without waiting to ascertain their real strength, the pasha at once retreated on board his fleet. When, however, he learned their number, ashamed of his precipitancy, he relanded his troops, and advanced into the interior of the island in search of the allied army. He found them intrenched on a hill, flanked by narrow defiles, and consequently difficult of access. Della Corna, their generalissimo, contrary to his own wishes, was induced to move down the hill and meet the enemy. The conflict that ensued was short and decisive; for at the first onset the Turkish line began to waver, and a charge in their flank by Vincent Vitelli, a valiant Italian captain, completed their discomfiture, and the pasha himself fled. As the Christians were chasing the fugitives to the beach, transfixing with their short spears every panting Turk that dropt exhausted in their path, Hassan of Algiers, who lay in ambush among the rocks, dashed headlong into the battle, and for a time balanced the chances of victory, till Maltese succour compelled all the Turks to re-embark. In the same hour that the remnant of his once formidable army retreated on board their galleys, the Turkish leader ordered the anchor to be weighed for Constantinople. In this memorable siege 25,000 Turkish soldiers perished, and, at the last, the Maltese garrison barely numbered 600 effective men. History scarcely offers a parallel of such successful suffering as was displayed on the part of the be sieged. Solyman, whose pride was wounded by the issue of this war, declared that in the following spring he would appear in person before the walls of Malta, and at once raze its fortifications, and depopulate the island, or die in the undertaking. At the instigation of La Valette, however, the arsenal at Constantinople was set on fire by hired incendiaries, and a vast number of galleys that were being built for the expedition against Malta were destroyed. This compelled Solyman to postpone his attack, and, before he could equip another fleet, war called him to his Hungarian frontier, where he died, A.D. 1566. 7. FOUNDATION OF VALETTA, AND OF OTHER PUBLIC WORKS. THE death of the emperor of the Turks, the enemy of Malta and of Christendom, left the grand-master leisure to repair his ruined towns. To perpetuate the late victory, the name of the Bourg was changed to that of Citta Vittoriosa, or the Victorious City. The Fort St. Elmo was to be extended and a new town founded upon Mount Sceberras, and to carry on these works upon a magnificent scale, the Christian world was successfully appealed to for funds, and engineers and artificers were invited from every part of Italy, to carry out the plans of the grand-master, who laid, on the 28th of March, 1566, the first stone of the new city. Upon this stone was an inscription in the Latin language, to the effect that the grand-master, La Valette, taking into consideration the perilous siege which had lately terminated, had determined to build a town on Mount Sceberras, the better to check any future descents of the barbarians. The new city was named, by universal consent, the city of La Valette; to which the epithet "Umilissima," or the most humble, was added as indicative of the humility of the order. For nearly two years the grand-master spent almost the whole of his time with the masons and artificers on Mount Sceberras, and upon a scarcity of money occurring, had the boldness to issue a brass coinage of nominal value on which was inscribed, "non æs, sed fides," that is, not money, but credit. The punctuality however with which this spurious currency was withdrawn, as often as remittances arrived from Europe, never allowed public confidence to give way. In 1568 John de la Valette died from the effects of a coup-de-soleil, and was succeeded in the grand-mastership by Peter de Monte. In 1571, the new city was so far finished as to be made the seat of government, and in the same year, the order of St. John took part in the memorable sea-fight off Lepanto in Greece," the first great action," says Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote, "in which the naval supremacy of the Ottoman empire was successfully disputed by Christian arms." Passing over a period of thirty years, we come to the accession of Alof de Vignacourt, of whom we give a copy of a full length portrait taken by Caravaggio, the celebrated Italian painter. Alof de Vignacourt was a man of great talent, and enjoyed a long and brilliant reign, during which he completed the greatest public work that man could raise at Malta. We have stated in our introduction that there are few springs and no streams upon the island; the climate at the same time is one of the hottest on earth, either within or without the tropics, at least this is the opinion of sailors from whatever part of the globe they visit it; water, then, in this burning climate is the first essential of animal existence, and of this there was no general supply except that afforded by the rainy season. Choosing the largest spring in the southern part of the island where these are most abundant, Vignacourt raised upon arches an aqueduct, nine and a half English miles in length, in order to carry water into the city of Valetta. He erected public fountains and connected these, both with the aqueduct itself, and with subterranean cisterns, in which the natives until to-day preserve the rains of winter, which, when dry, could now be fed by the artificial supply. He has quenched the thirst of man and beast from that time until now; and honour to the name of Vignacourt, far above those whose names are written in the blood they spilt! Bartholomew, St. Martin, and St. Croix, for the fee simple of 50007. sterling, which included all the plantations, slaves, and stores, and debts,-and the annalist says the same was a most unprofitable speculation for the order. Twelve years afterwards these islands were sold to some French merchants, and a little more than a century from the date of these transactions English proprietors were to be found in the same islands, who, from one year's revenue of a single plantation, could have paid the whole purchase-money which the Maltese knights had given for them. The grand-master Redin, who died in 1660, erected a chain of watch towers, for the defence of the coast, and Nicholas Cotoner, anticipating an attack from the Turks, invited an eminent Italian engineer, named Valperga, to visit the island, and under his superintendence, an enclosure called the Cotonera was added to the fortifications. It is an immense work, little short of three miles long, and consists of nine bastions and two demi-bastions, connecting the Isle de la Sangle with the Bourg, or Citta Vittoriosa, and embracing all the heights which commanded the ancient defences of both places. The area within was sufficiently extensive to contain the whole population of the island, with their cattle and effects. The grand-master was blamed for the magnitude of the work, as beyond the means of the order, but he boldly commenced in 1670, and carried it on unremittingly for a period of ten years, when the treasury was exhausted, and thirty years elapsed before any further measures were adopted for its completion. La Floriana, which Lascaris built to defend Valetta, was enlarged by Cotoner; and a new fort, called Ricasoli, was erected on the headland which commands the entrance of the Grand Port. At the same time, a lazzaretto was built on what was then an islet in Port Musceit, but which has since been changed by art into a peninsula. As we have spoken freely of the dark morality of the order of St. John, we are only the more relieved by the contrast of an occasional brighter spot. Sanguinary conflicts in Greece against the Turks, in which the order had been allies of the Venetians, had been so fatal to the Christians about the year 1690, that a large portion of the male population of the Maltese islands had been swept off, and mostly widows only, and orphans, remained to suffer the miseries of destitution. Through the instrumentality of the grand-master, Adrian de Viguacourt, a kinsman of Alof de Vignacourt, a fund was raised for the support of the sufferers," an incident," says the historian, “more honourable to his memory than if he had died the victor of an hundred fights." Malta, too, was violently shaken by an earthquake on January 11th, 1693, which continued for three days, and laid several buildings in ruins, and the same shocks extended to Sicily with greater violence, and the town of Augusta was almost wholly destroyed, but no sooner was this disaster known at Malta than a squadron was despatched with supplies to the houseless inhabitants. 8. DECLINE OF THE KNIGHTS. FOR near a century the Maltese navy had been on the decline, and the grand-master, Perillos, who succeeded Adrian de Vignacourt in 1697, built a squadron of decked various useful public works, as monuments of his tranquil and honourable reign. A few years after this, Manuel de Villena built a considerable fort on the islet in Port Musceit, which was called Fort Manuel, after the founder, and added a series of magnificent works to the landward defences of the new city, completing the Floriana, which was commenced by Lascaris and enlarged by Cotoner. The good effects of these precautions were soon obvious, for a Turkish fleet of ten ships, which appeared off the port, was so intimidated by the impregnable aspect of the whole island, that, after firing a few guns, its commander held it prudent to retire. The same grand-master also added to the defences of the island, by erecting strong works at the different harbours, as well as upon the little island of Cumino. His reign, how-war-ships, of a much larger size than the galleys, and erected ever, was not one of unbroken peace, for not only were his knights engaged in frequent contests with the Turks at sea, but the latter sent sixty galleys against Malta, in 1615, and landed 5000 men with the intention of carrying off the inhabitants into slavery; but the Maltese, having had timely notice of their approach, retreated with their property into various strongholds, and the Ottomans, unable to attempt a siege, had to re-embark without capturing a single man. This insecurity of the open country might have led us to suppose that the welfare of the lower classes of the Maltese was but ill looked after by the order, had not the popula tion, which is, within a certain limit, a test of the physical condition of a people, rapidly increased since the great siege. When the Turks raised the famous siege, and left the island in 1565, the population of Malta did not greatly exceed 10,000, but in 1632, after a period of sixty-seven years, it amounted to upwards of 51,000 souls, exclusive of the members of the order, and familiars of the inquisition, who had settled there. In 1636 Paul Lascaris Castelard was elected grand-master, and founded a library in 1650, for the benefit however of the knights only, but which is now in existence as the property of the present government of the island. The same person bought, about the same time, the West India Islands, named St. Christopher, St. In 1736, we find that Emanuel Pinto de Fonseca succeeded to the grand-mastership, and it is recorded that the merciful tenor of his reign rendered him a blessing to all his subjects, even to the Mohammedan slaves, which, at that time, amounted to about four thousand. By far the greater portion of these enjoyed perfect liberty, as confidential domestics in the households of the knights; but an incident occurred which encouraged them to throw off the yoke of slavery, although, in this case, it was a merciful bondage. It happened that a Turkish galley was brought into Malta by the Christian slaves who had manned her, who had risen upon their Moslem officers while at sea, and subverted their authority. Among the Turks thus captured was the pasha of Rhodes, a man of eminence; and the grand-master, anxious to propitiate the French, who were allies of the sultan of Constantinople, immediately gave up this distinguished prisoner to the French minister at Malta, who lodged him in a palace, made him a princely allowance, and surrounded him with Turkish slaves. Among these slaves was a negro, the very man whose treachery had sold the pasha into the hands of the Christians while at sea. This wretch, conceiving that he was ill rewarded for his treason, formed the daring project of subverting the government of the knights, and of rendering the Sultan for ever his debtor, by putting him in possession of Malta. The pasha eagerly agreed to promote the scheme; the Turkish slaves were soon involved in the conspiracy; a fleet from Barbary, aware of the project, was to appear off the harbour on the festival of St. Peter and St. Paul, which was held at Citta Notabile, in the interior of the island, and at the hour of the mid-day siesta, those who remained in the city of Valetta were to be massacred. A slave, who held a confidential situation near the grand-master's person, was instructed to enter Pinto's chamber at the hour when the intense heat overpowers all ranks alike with sleep, and decapitate him, and then instantly to exhibit the bleeding head in the grand balcony of the palace, as a signal for the slaves of the other knights to follow his example. All these arrangements were carried on in so secret a manner that no Christian on the island had even a suspicion of their existence; but just before the appointed day, in a moment of passion, aggravated by the effects of wine and opium, the negro quarrelled with a young Persian, a soldier in the grand-master's guard, who was in his confidence, and attempted to stab him; but the youth escaped, and, either through fear or vengeance, at once divulged the for- | midable conspiracy. The pasha, being under the protection of France, escaped punishment; but about a hundred of those implicated in the plan suffered death. Some were burned alive, some were broken on the wheel, and others were torn to pieces by four galleys rowing different ways. The struggle between the Christian and the Turk had dwindled into insignificant and piratical contests. The only warlike exploit of Pinto's reign was to bombard several piratical ports, but to small purpose; and, from this date, the cruising of a few privateers constituted the naval demonstration of the knights. "The galleys," says Sonnini, "were armed, or rather embarrassed, with an incredible number of hands; the general alone had 800 men on board. They were superbly ornamented; gold blazed on the numerous basso-relievos and sculptures on the stern; enor mous sails, striped with blue and white, carried on their middle a great cross of Malta, painted red. Their elegant flags floated majestically. In a word, everything concurred, when they were under sail, to render it a magnificent spectacle; but their construction was little adapted either for fighting or for standing foul weather. The order kept them up rather as an image of its ancient splendour, than for their utility. It was one of those ancient institutions which had once served to render the brotherhood illustrious; but now only attested its selfishness and decay. The caravans, or cruises of the galleys, were now nothing but parties of pleasure to and from the delicious havens of Sicily; the defence of those superb ramparts, the monuments of the glory of the order, was confided to foreign and mercenary soldiers; and that social energy, which had made one of the greatest empires of the universe to tremble, was now no longer exemplified, except in the sparks of courage struck from a few individuals." We must not omit perhaps the last worthy action these galleys performed. In the year 1783 a frightful earthquake ravaged Sicily and the southern part of Italy, and in particular the towns of Messina and Reggio; and those inhabitants that escaped alive were exposed, without food or shelter, in the open country. The Maltese galleys were laid up in ordinary at the time intelligence of this disaster reached the island; but they were made ready for sea, notwithstanding, in a single night, and instantly set sail for the scene of desolation, carrying with them medicines, beds, and tents for the relief of the sufferers. LONDON: Published by JOHN WILLIAM PARKER, WEST STRAND; and sold by all Booksellers. |