ot 
3 
HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
in the first instance may be attended 
with temporary disadvantage, the 
good resulting from the latter must 
be eternal. 
In the view which we have taken 
ip our last volume of the definitive 
reaty of peace,* we have endea- 
vont to point out the utter impos- 
sibility of carrying into effect its 
10th article, which relates to the 
future situation of Malta, under a 
circumstance, at its conclusion, of 
sufficient notoriety; namely, the 
contiscation of the property of the 
order of St. John of Jerusalem; (to 
whose dontinion the island was to 
be restored) in Spain, in Lombardy, 
in Piedmont, and in France; a 
measure undoubtedly originating 
in the policy of the first consul, 
who, by thus destroying the only 
means by which the old govern- 
~ ment could protect itself, placed it 
under the necessity of receiving a 
Neapolitan garrison—a species of 
protection, which he well knew he 
could, in his new situation of chief 
of the Italian republic, sufliciently 
eontroul, to suit his future views 
on the island. “Other obstacles 
however, existed, in the disposition 
of the Maltese themselves, of which 
we had not at that moment a sus- 
picion, but of which subsequent 
means of information have put us 
in possession, that would, if no 
other existed, have imposed an in- 
superable barricr to the execution 
of this part of the treaty. 
No sooner were the preliminary 
articles of peace, by which the con- 
tracting parties agreed, among other 
‘things, to restore the island of 
Malta to the knights of St. John, 
become known to the inhabitants, 
239 
than they immediately determined 
to resist the stipulation respecting 
them, to the uttermost. Accord- 
ingly they dispatched a deputation, 
consisting of some of the most po- 
pular and respectable of their num- 
ber, to England, for the purpose of 
presenting a most forcible, but re- 
spectful and temperate remon- 
strance to the English government, 
against the injustice and cruelty of 
disposing of their rights and privi- 
leges, as well as of themselves and 
country, without their previous 
knowledge and consent; and by 
which means they should be thrown 
hack, atter their glorious struggles 
for liberty, upon ‘the good faith of 
a body, whose “ insufferable op= 
pression” and “ sacrilegious ty- 
ranny” had rendered them odious 
and insupportable to their subjects, 
They grounded their right to bes 
come a party in whatever concerned 
their future destiny, on their hav- 
ing by force of arms conquered 
their island from France, as that 
power had previously done from 
the knights of the order; that the 
base desertion and treachery of the 
latter, in surrendering the island 
without a blow to Bonaparte, was an 
actual dissolution of the ties which 
should reciprocally bind prince and 
subject; that the king of Great 
Britain having repeatedly refused, 
what they had as pene iy ten- 
dered, the sovereignty of their state, 
no right did exist in him, or in any 
other power on earth, to make an 
arbitrary transfer of’ their alle- 
giance: and they concluded by 
declaring their resolution firmly to 
maintain these principles to the last 
extremity; and that in the event of 
* Anaual Re iter for 1802, vid, page 164, 
the 
