The Story of Malta

by Maturin M. Ballou

When the Knights of St. John accepted the gift of Charles V., and removed to their new island home in October, 1530, they came in small numbers. Their fleet consisted only of three galleys, one galliot, and a brigantine. Malta was then comparatively a barren waste; nothing could appear less inviting. With the picture of verdant, sunny Rhodes still fresh in their minds, these bare rocks must have seemed terribly inhospitable and dreary to the new-comers. The very title of Rhodes is of Greek origin, having its appropriate appellation, and refers to the great number of wild roses which grow spontaneously upon that lovely island. The Knights had lived long and prosperously upon what was and is still known as the "Garden of the Levant," hence the contrast was naturally disheartening. Here the rocky surface was treeless and white with desolation. In Rhodes they had left whole forests of sycamores, planes, and palms, together with groves of olive, almond, and orange trees, while in Malta arboreal ornamentation was literally conspicuous by its absence.

The thirty-fourth parallel of north latitude intersects both of these famous islands, which are, however, separated by six degrees of longitude, the climate being nearly identical. Rhodes was larger than their new island home, its earlier history showing it to have been, like Malta, at one time in the far past, a prosperous Phœnician colony. There was no alternative for the Knights except to make the best of the situation, and so without wasting time in useless regrets, or repining, they set to work energetically to introduce improvements, and to adapt the locality to their most urgent necessities. The present site of Valletta was then sparsely occupied by a few poorly constructed cabins, Città Vecchia, situated two leagues inland, being the capital of the island. The Knights first selected their headquarters at Borgo, on the shore of the present Grand Harbor. After the decisive victory over the Turks in 1565, Borgo was named Città Vittoriosa, that is, the "victorious city," in honor of the gallant defense it made on that memorable occasion, and thus it is known to-day.

As to the Maltese peasantry, who were thus summarily transferred from one mastership to another without being permitted any voice whatever in the matter, they naturally received the new-comers at first with considerable reservation, but were soon on friendly terms with them, and erelong they cordially joined interests. At the first coming of the Knights, it is true, the Maltese were not in a condition to dispute the new authority placed over them, yet they had influence enough to exact from the brotherhood certain satisfactory terms as the price of their yielding ready submission. The Grand Master, in behalf of the order, solemnly swore to "preserve inviolate, for the inhabitants of the group, all of their present rights, customs, and privileges." Realizing the importance of retaining the good-will of the people, the fraternity as a body were careful to exercise towards them, in these early days of their settlement here, great consideration and generosity. They did not bear themselves as conquerors, but rather as friends, a community having a common interest, and they demanded no service from the Maltese for which they did not honestly pay. They encouraged them to till the ground by introducing new seeds, and by giving the natives valuable and practical information. They brought fruit and ornamental trees from the mainland, and in many ways stimulated the islanders to adopt progressive and profitable ideas for their own special benefit. The Maltese were a coarse, uncultured race, scarcely amenable to argument, and difficult to reason with. They followed in the footsteps of their forefathers, and ignored all experiments, however promising. But tangible results were convincing, and so steady improvement followed the efforts of the Knights to enlighten the dull native brain.

It was the beginning of a new era for this isolated people. The spirit of neglect which had so long reigned supreme upon the group was now superseded by another instinct with life and enterprise. Though the natives had not sufficient intelligence to originate ideas, yet when placed before their eyes they could appreciate and adopt them. The mass of the people seemed neither to know nor to care about the government under which they lived, provided they did not experience any personal harm or undue restrictions at the hands of those in power. They appeared to be content so long as they were permitted to join in the almost daily church processions and festivals, always remembering and demanding the utmost freedom at recurrence of the annual Carnival. They entertained no spirit of loyalty except towards themselves and their hereditary forms and ceremonies. This was nearly four hundred years ago, but almost precisely the same spirit prevails among the Maltese to-day.

At the time when the Knights first came hither, Malta was hardly fortified at all. True, Fort St. Angelo existed in name, and it mounted a few small guns, but a score of Algerine pirates could have landed and taken possession, so far as any protection was afforded by this apology for a fort.

The thin layer of soil which covered the rocks of the island here and there was hardly sufficient to till, and no extensive effort at agriculture or gardening seems to have been made by the natives before the Knights came to Malta, or at least not for centuries. In any other hands save those of this thrifty and determined semi-military organization, the island would have been but a sorry gift. It is described by a popular writer of that period as being "nothing better than a shelterless rock of soft sandstone called tufa." Subsistence for the dwellers upon the group, with the exception of fish, which were plenty enough, was brought almost entirely from Sicily, or the mainland. Frequent invasions of Saracens and Turks, continued for so many years, had devastated the islands, discouraging and impoverishing the natives, large numbers of whom had been carried away by the invaders and sold into slavery. This was the usual mode of disposing of prisoners of war in those days among people of the East. According to the authority from which we have just quoted, Malta was in 1530 "intensely dry and hot, with not a forest tree, and hardly a green thing to rest the eye upon." This barren waste, however, was destined in the course of a few years to put on a very different aspect, and to become an attractive example of fertility and fruitfulness; in fact, a dépôt of vast importance, by the exercise of energy and engineering skill.

The material improvements thus introduced, together with the protection from foreign enemies which the Maltese gained, was to be considered with many qualifications. Magdalen asylums and foundling hospitals, to which priests and Knights could recommend their favorites for shelter, became most suspiciously numerous. The inference is only too plain. The native population, as usual, emulated not the virtues, but the vices of the new-comers. That the group must have flourished greatly under the Phœnicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, and Romans, there are plenty of monuments still extant to prove; but under the Arabs and Sicilians it had gradually declined, until the period when it came into possession of the Knights of St. John, who began promptly to restore its fallen fortunes, though, as has been intimated, at the expense of the morals of the people.

The galleys of the order did not lie idle after the fraternity had become fairly settled at Malta. They were promptly put in fighting condition, and constantly swept the neighboring seas, capturing prizes in all directions, even seeking the Turkish craft at the very mouth of the Dardanelles, and the Algerines on their own coast. The Knights filled the fighting ranks of the crews in their ships with Maltese, who were admirable sailors, and reliable for all sorts of sea-service. A score of Knights were quite sufficient to man each galleon, aided by a hundred or thereabouts of the trained seamen of the island. The slaves at the oars were not depended upon to act as belligerents, nor were the few hands who managed the sails and the running gear of the vessels. The Maltese had long before signalized themselves for valor and skillful seamanship under their own commanders, by capturing the entire Venetian fleet, together with Andrea Dandolo, the admiral who commanded it. At another time they destroyed the large flotilla of the Republic of Pisa, and thus raised the siege and blockade of Syracuse. Though the protection afforded the inhabitants of the group by the Order of St. John was ample, and freed the people from all fear of predatory invasions, still the influence of the Knights was less for peace than for war, and, as has been shown, was not calculated to permanently improve the material condition of the common people of Malta.

The renowned Dragut, daring and reckless pirate as he was, shunned a meeting with the red galleys of the Knights. "Fate is with them," said this dreaded corsair, referring to the armor-clad Knights, whom he had so often met in battle. "Our swords will not wound, nor our spears pierce them."

La Vallette, who was at this time "General" of the galleys, proved himself as successful at sea as he did afterwards upon the land, when, as Grand Master, he conducted the famous and successful defense of Malta. His career was a remarkable one. He became a Knight before he was of age, and was conscientiously devoted to the order, body and soul, to the very last of his life. A predatory warfare both on land and sea was carried on incessantly by the Knights against the Turks, in which they were almost always successful. The historians tell us that during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Valletta became a vast slave mart, supplied with human merchandise by means of the invasions and sea-captures of the order. On one occasion a thoroughly organized and well-equipped force engaged in an expedition by which the Knights surprised and captured the city of Mondon, in Morea, whence they brought away a large amount of riches. We find enumerated in the list of their booty, eight hundred Turkish women and girls, whom they enslaved! The reader will please remember that we are writing of a fraternity,—a so-called religious brotherhood,—whose solemn vows bound them to charity, poverty, humility, and chastity. One feels not a little inclined to moralize, in this connection, upon the contrast between profession and practice, and on the weakness of human nature in general. These Knights of the cross reveled in cruel warfare; it was recreation to them. They displayed no want of valor, but they did exhibit "a plentiful lack" of Christian charity.