108 THE SEA. 



was so terrific that it is stated to have been heard a hundred miles off, and for this extra- 

 ordinary defence. Peter d'Aubusson, Grand Master, was made a cardinal by the Pope. 

 At the second siege, I/Isle Adam, with 600 Knights of St. John, and 4,500 troops, 

 resisted and long repelled a force of 200,000 infidels. But the odds were too great against 

 him, and after a brave but hopeless defence, which won admiration even from the enemy, 

 I/Isle Adam capitulated. After personal visits to the Pope, and to the Courts of Madrid, 

 Paris, and London, the then almost valueless Rock of Malta was bestowed on the knights 

 in 1530. Its noble harbours, and deep and sheltered inlets were then as now, but there 

 was only one little town, called Burgo Valetta as yet was not. 



In London, L'Isle Adam lodged at the provincial hostelry of the order, St. John's 

 Clerkenwell, still a house of entertainment, though of a very different kind. Henry VIII. 

 received him with apparent cordiality, and shortly afterwards confiscated all the English 

 possessions of the knights ! This was but a trifle among their troubles, for in 1565 they 

 were again besieged in Malta. Their military knowledge, and especially that of their 

 leader, the great La Valette, had enabled them to already strongly fortify the place. La 

 Valette had 500 knights and 9,000 soldiers, while the Turks had 30,000 fighting men, 

 conveyed thither in 200 galleys, and were afterwards reinforced by the Algerine corsair, 

 Drugot, and his men. A desperate resistance was made : 2,000 Turks were killed in u 

 single day. The latter took the fortress of St. Elmo, with the loss of Drugot just before 

 the terror of the Mediterranean who was killed by a splinter of rock, knocked off by a 

 cannon-ball in its flight. The garrison was at length reduced to sixty men, who attended 

 their devotions in the chapel for the last time. Many of these were fearfully wounded, 

 but even then the old spirit asserted itself, and they desired to be carried to the ramparts 

 in chairs to lay down their lives in obedience to the vows of their order. Next day few of 

 that devoted sixty were alive, a very small number escaping by swimming. The attempts 

 on the other forts, St. Michael and St. Angelo, were foiled. Into the Eastern Harbour 

 (now the Grand), Mustapha ordered the dead bodies of the Christian knights and soldiers to 

 be cast. They were spread out on boards in the form of a cross, and floated by the tide 

 across to the besieged with La Yalette, where they were sorrowfully taken up and interred. 

 In exasperated retaliation, La Valette fired the heads of the Turkish slain back at their 

 former companions a horrible episode of a fearful struggle. St. Elmo alone cost the lives 

 of 8,000 Turks, 150 Knights of St. John, and 1,300 of their men. After many false 

 promises of assistance, and months of terrible suspense and suffering, an auxiliary force 

 arrived from Sicily, and the Turks retired. Out of the 9,500 soldiers and knights who 

 were originally with La Valette, only 500 were alive at the termination of the great 

 siege. 



This memorable defence was the last of the special exploits of the White Cross 

 Knights, and they rested on their laurels, the order becoming wealthy, luxurious, and not 

 a little demoralised. When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, the confiscation of 

 their property in France naturally followed; for they had been helping Louis XVI. with 

 their revenues just previously. Nine years later, Napoleon managed, by skilful intrigues, 

 to obtain quiet possession of Malta. But he could not keep it, for after two years of 

 blockade it was won by Great Britain, and she has held it ever since. At the Congress of 



